“New Oscillographs,” L’Éclairage électrique (May 1902); Id., “Theory of Oscillographs,” L’Éclairage électrique (October 28th, 1902). “Hot Wire Wattmeters and Oscillographs,” J. T. Irwin,
Jour. Inst. Elec. Eng. (1907), 39. 617. (J. A. F.)
OSH, a town of Russian Turkestan, in the government of
Ferghana, 31 m. S.E. of Andijan railway terminus, at an altitude
of 4030 ft. Pop. (1900) 37,397. It consists of two parts, native
and Russian. Here begins a good road up to the Pamirs, practicable
for artillery. The trade with China is considerable.
O’SHANASSY, SIR JOHN (1818–1883), British colonial statesman, was born in 1818 at Holycross Abbey, near Thurles, Tipperary, his father being a land surveyor. He married in
1839, and the same year emigrated to the Port Phillip district
of New South Wales, where he was for some time engaged in
farming, and subsequently commenced business in Melbourne.
Dr Geoghegan, afterwards Roman Catholic bishop of Adelaide,
induced him to take part in public affairs. He was one of the
founders, and later the president, of the St Patrick’s Society of
Melbourne, and represented the Roman Catholic body on the
denominational board of education. When Port Phillip was
separated from New South Wales in 1851 and became the
colony of Victoria, O’Shanassy was returned to the Legislative
Council as one of the members for Melbourne. A few weeks after
the new colony began its independent existence gold was discovered,
and the local government had to solve a number of
difficult problems. The legislature was composed partly of
elected representatives, and partly of nominees appointed by
the governor in council. The great natural ability of O’Shanassy
forced him to the front, and for some time the policy of the
country was virtually shaped by him and by Mr (afterwards Sir)
W. F. Stawell, the attorney-general. It was very much owing
to the strong position taken by O’Shanassy that the Legislative
Council was allowed to control not only the ordinary revenue
raised by taxation, but also the territorial revenue derived from
the sale and occupation of crown lands. From that date the
Legislative Council, led by O’Shanassy, became virtually
supreme. After the Ballarat riots in 1854, O’Shanassy was one
of the members of a commission appointed to inquire into the condition
of the gold-fields. The commission’s report was the foundation
of the mining legislation which, initiated in Victoria, was
gradually followed by all the Australasian colonies. O’Shanassy,
together with Sir Andrew Clarke, was one of the framers of the
responsible government constitution. Under this constitution
O’Shanassy was returned in 1856 to the Legislative Assembly for
Melbourne and Kilmore, but took his seat for the latter constituency.
Early in 1857 the Haines ministry, the first formed
after the concession of responsible government, was defeated, and
O’Shanassy formed a ministry of which he became the premier.
But he was defeated after holding office for little more than six weeks.
He returned to power in 1858 as chief secretary and
premier. One of the first duties of the new ministry was to
inaugurate the system of railways, and to raise the necessary
funds for their construction. O’Shanassy decided to float a loan
of eight millions sterling through the instrumentality of six of
the Melbourne banks, and he began the series of borrowings by
the Australian governments which subsequently attained such
large proportions. In 1859 the ministry resigned, but in August
1861 O’Shanassy formed his third administration. During
the two years that it held office the government passed an
Education, a Local government, a Civil Service and a Land Act.
The object of this last act was to abolish the system of selling the
crown lands by auction, and to substitute another which insisted
rather upon residence and cultivation than upon obtaining the
highest possible price. The act did not carry out all the intentions
of its framers, but it was a step in the right direction.
The O’Shanassy government was defeated in June 1863, and its
chief never again succeeded in regaining office. He did not stand
at the general election of 1866, and paid a visit to Europe. In
1867 he returned to Victoria, and was elected to the Legislative
Council. In 1870 he was created C.M.G., and in 1874 K.C.M.G.
In the latter year he resigned his seat in the council, and did not
re-enter public life until 1877, when he was returned to the
Assembly for Belfast. His strongly expressed Conservative
opinions and his devotion to the interests of the Roman Catholic
church impaired his influence in the legislature, which had become
extremely democratic during the eleven years that he had been
absent from it; and although Sir John was a fearless critic of the
policy of the government, he never succeeded in defeating it.
He had a singularly comprehensive grasp of all constitutional
questions, was an eloquent speaker and an ardent free-trader.
He retired from parliament in 1880, and died in 1883.
O’SHAUGHNESSY, ARTHUR WILLIAM EDGAR (1844–1881),
English poet, was born in London on the 14th of March
1844, and at the age of seventeen obtained through the first
Lord Lytton, who took a peculiar interest in him, the post
of transcriber in the library of the British Museum. Two
years later he was appointed to be an assistant in the natural
history department, where he specialized in ichthyology.
But his natural bent was towards literature. He published
his Epic of Women in 1870, Lays of France, a free version of the
Lais of Marie de France, in 1872, and Music and Moonlight
in 1874. In his thirtieth year he married a daughter of John
Westland Marston, and during the last seven years of his life
printed no volume of poetry. Songs of a Worker was published
posthumously in 1881, O’Shaughnessy dying on the 30th of
January in that year from the effects of a chill upon a delicate
constitution. O’Shaughnessy was a true singer; but his poems
lack importance in theme and dignity in thought. His melodies
are often magnificent; and, as in The Fountain of Tears, the
richness of his imagery conceals a certain vagueness and indecision
of the creative faculty. He was very felicitous in bold uses of
repetition and echo, by which he secured effects which for
haunting melody are almost inimitable. His spirit is that of a
mild melancholy, drifting helplessly through the realities of
life and spending itself in song. By some critics he has been
disparaged, but reparation was done to his memory by Francis
Turner Palgrave, who, in the second series of the Golden Treasury,
said with some exaggeration that his metrical gift was the finest,
after Tennyson, of any of the later poets, and that he had “a
haunting music all his own.”
OSHAWA, a manufacturing town and port of entry of Ontario
county, Ontario, Canada, on Lake Ontario and the Grand
Trunk railway, 30 m. E.N.E. of Toronto. Pop. (1901) 4394.
It contains flour, woollen and grist-mills, piano, farm implement
and carriage factories, foundries, tanneries, canning factories, &c.
There are a ladies’ college and good schools.
OSHIMA, a group of three small islands belonging to Japan, lying southwards of Kiushiu, in 30° 50′ N. and 130° E. Their names, from west to east, are Kuroshima, Iwo-shima and Takashima. Kuro-shima rises to a height of 2475 ft., and Iwo-shima has an active volcano 2480 ft. high. These islands are not to be confounded with Oshima, the most northerly island of the Izu-noshichito, or with the northern group of the Luchu Islands. There are several other islands of the same name in Japan,
Oshima signifying “big island.” One of the best known lies off the Kii promontory, and has been the scene of many maritime disasters.
OSHKOSH, a city and the county-seat of Winnebago county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., about 75 m. N.N.W. of Milwaukee, on the W. shore of Lake Winnebago at the mouth of the Upper Fox river. Pop. (1900) 28,284, of whom 7356 were foreign-born (including 4500 from Germany), and 16,942 of foreign parentage (including 10,655 of German and 1015 of Bohemian parentage); (1910 census) 33,062. Oshkosh is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, the Chicago & Northwestern and the Minneapolis, St Paul & Sault Ste. Marie railways, by river steamboat lines connecting with other Fox River Valley cities, with the Wisconsin river at Portage, and with the Great Lakes at Green Bay, and by interurban electric lines connecting with Fond du Lac on the S., Green Bay on the N. and Omro on the W. The city lies on both sides of the Fox river, here spanned by six steel bridges, and stretches back to Lake Butte des Morts, an expansion of the Fox. North Park (60 acres), on the lake front,
