under the name Joplin; and in 1888 Joplin was chartered as a city of the third class. The city derives its name from the creek, which was named in honour of the Rev. Harris G. Joplin (c. 1810–1847), a native of Tennessee.
JOPPA, less correctly Jaffa (Arab. Yāfā), a seaport on the
coast of Palestine. It is of great antiquity, being mentioned
in the tribute lists of Tethmosis (Thothmes) III.; but as it never
was in the territory of the pre-exilic Israelites it was to them a
place of no importance. Its ascription to the tribe of Dan
(Josh. xix. 46) is purely theoretical. According to the authors
of Chronicles (2 Chron. ii. 16), Ezra (iii. 7) and Jonah (i. 3) it
was a seaport for importation of the Lebanon timber floated
down the coasts or for ships plying even to distant Tarshish.
About 148 B.C. it was captured from the Syrians by Jonathan
Maccabaeus (1 Macc. x. 75) and later it was retaken and garrisoned
by Simon his brother (xii. 33, xiii. 11). It was restored
to the Syrians by Pompey (Jos., Ant. xiv. 4, 4) but again given
back to the Jews (ib. xiv. 10, 6) with an exemption from tax.
St Peter for a while lodged at Joppa, where he restored the
benevolent widow Tabitha to life, and had the vision which
taught him the universality of the plan of Christianity.
According to Strabo (xvi. ii.), who makes the strange mistake of saying that Jerusalem is visible from Joppa, the place was a resort of pirates. It was destroyed by Vespasian in the Jewish War (68). Tradition connects the story of Andromeda and the sea-monster with the sea-coast of Joppa, and in early times her chains were shown as well as the skeleton of the monster itself (Jos. Wars, iii. 9, 3). The site seems to have been shown even to some medieval pilgrims, and curious traces of it have been detected in modern Moslem legends.
In the 5th and 11th centuries we hear from time to time of bishops of Joppa, under the metropolitan of Jerusalem. In 1126 the district was captured by the knights of St John, but lost to Saladin in 1187. Richard Cœur de Lion retook it in 1191, but it was finally retaken by Malek el ʽAdil in 1196. It languished for a time; in the 16th century it was an almost uninhabited ruin; but towards the end of the 17th century it began anew to develop as a seaport. In 1799 it was stormed by Napoleon; the fortifications were repaired and strengthened by the British.
The modern town of Joppa derives its importance, first, as a seaport for Jerusalem and the whole of southern Palestine, and secondly as a centre of the fruit-growing industry. During the latter part of the 19th century it greatly increased in size. The old city walls have been entirely removed. Its population is about 35,000 (Moslems 23,000, Christians 5000, Jews 7000; with the Christians are included the “Templars,” a semi-religious, semi-agricultural German colony of about 320 souls). The town, which rises over a rounded hillock on the coast, about 100 ft. high, has a very picturesque appearance from the sea. The harbour (so-called) is one of the worst existing, being simply a natural breakwater formed by a ledge of reefs, safe enough for small Oriental craft, but very dangerous for large vessels, which can only make use of the seaport in calm weather; these never come nearer than about a mile from the shore. A railway and a bad carriage-road connect Joppa with Jerusalem. The water of the town is derived from wells, many of which have a brackish taste. The export trade of the town consists of soap of olive oil, sesame, barley, water melons, wine and especially oranges (commonly known as Jaffa oranges), grown in the famous and ever-increasing gardens that lie north and east of the town. The chief imports are timber, cotton and other textile goods, tiles, iron, rice, coffee, sugar and petroleum. The value of the exports in 1900 was estimated at £264,950, the imports £382,405. Over 10,000 pilgrims, chiefly Russians, and some three or four thousand tourists land annually at Joppa. The town is the seat of a kaimakam or lieutenant-governor, subordinate to the governor of Jerusalem, and contains vice-consulates of Great Britain, France, Germany, America and other powers. There are Latin, Greek, Armenian and Coptic monasteries; and hospitals and schools under British, French and German auspices. (R. A. S. M.)
JORDAENS, JACOB (1593–1678), Flemish painter, was born
and died at Antwerp. He studied, like Rubens, under Adam
van Noort, and his marriage with his master’s daughter in 1616,
the year after his admission to the gild of painters, prevented
him from visiting Rome. He was forced to content himself
with studying such examples of the Italian masters as he found
at home; but a far more potent influence was exerted upon his
style by Rubens, who employed him sometimes to reproduce
small sketches in large. Jordaens is second to Rubens alone
in their special department of the Flemish school. In both
there is the same warmth of colour, truth to nature, mastery of
chiaroscuro and energy of expression; but Jordaens is wanting
in dignity of conception, and is inferior in choice of forms, in
the character of his heads, and in correctness of drawing. Not
seldom he sins against good taste, and in some of his humorous
pieces the coarseness is only atoned for by the animation. Of
these last he seems in some cases to have painted several replicas.
He employed his pencil also in biblical, mythological, historical
and allegorical subjects, and is well-known as a portrait painter.
He also etched some plates.
See the elaborate work on the painter, by Max Rooses (1908).
JORDAN, CAMILLE (1771–1821), French politician, was born
in Lyons on the 11th of January 1771 of a well-to-do mercantile
family. He was educated in Lyons, and from an early age was
imbued with royalist principles. He actively supported by
voice, pen and musket his native town in its resistance to the
Convention; and when Lyons fell, in October 1793, Jordan fled.
From Switzerland he passed in six months to England, where he
formed acquaintances with other French exiles and with prominent
British statesmen, and imbibed a lasting admiration for
the English Constitution. In 1796 he returned to France, and
next year he was sent by Lyons as a deputy to the Council of
Five Hundred. There his eloquence won him consideration.
He earnestly supported what he felt to be true freedom, especially
in matters of religious worship, though the energetic appeal on
behalf of church bells in his Rapport sur la liberté des cultes
procured him the sobriquet of Jordan-Cloche. Proscribed at
the coup d’état of the 18th Fructidor (4th of September 1797) he
escaped to Basel. Thence he went to Germany, where he met
Goethe. Back again in France by 1800, he boldly published in
1802 his Vrai sens du vote national pour le consulat à vie, in which
he exposed the ambitious schemes of Bonaparte. He was unmolested,
however, and during the First Empire lived in literary
retirement at Lyons with his wife and family, producing for the
Lyons academy occasional papers on the Influence réciproque de
l’éloquence sur la Révolution et de la Révolution sur l’éloquence;
Études sur Klopstock, &c. At the restoration in 1814 he again
emerged into public life. By Louis XVIII. he was ennobled
and named a councillor of state; and from 1816 he sat in the
chamber of deputies as representative of Ain. At first he supported
the ministry, but when they began to show signs of reaction
he separated from them, and gradually came to be at
the head of the constitutional opposition. His speeches in the
chamber were always eloquent and powerful. Though warned
by failing health to resign, Camille Jordan remained at his post
till his death at Paris, on the 19th of May 1821.
To his pen we owe Lettre à M. Lamourette (1791); Histoire de la conversion d’une dame Parisienne (1792); La Loi et la religion vengées (1792); Adresse à ses commettants sur la révolution du 4 Septembre 1797 (1797); Sur les troubles de Lyon (1818); La Session de 1817 (1818). His Discours were collected in 1818. The “Fragments choisis,” and translations from the German, were published in L’Abeille française. Besides the various histories of the time, see further details vol. x. of the Revue encyclopédique; a paper on Jordan and Madame de Staël, by C. A. Sainte-Beuve, in the Revue des deux mondes for March 1868 and R. Boubée, “Camille Jordan à Weimar,” in the Correspondant (1901), ccv. 718–738 and 948–970.
JORDAN, DOROTHEA (1762–1816), Irish actress, was born near Waterford, Ireland, in 1762. Her mother, Grace Phillips, at one time known as Mrs Frances, was a Dublin actress. Her father, whose name was Bland, was according to one account an army captain, but more probably a stage hand. Dorothy Jordan made her first appearance on the stage in 1777 in Dublin
