PEOPLE, a collective term for persons in general, especially as forming the body of persons in a community or nation, the “folk” (the O.E. and Teut. word, cf. Ger. Volk). The earlier forms of the word were peple, poeple, puple, &c.; the present form is found as early as the 15th century, but was not established till the beginning of the 16th. Old French, from which it was adapted, had many of these forms as well as the mod. Fr. peuple. The Lat. populus is generally taken to be a reduplication from the root ple,—fill, seen in plenus, full; plebs, the commons; Gr. πλῆθος, multitude.
PEORIA, a city, port of entry, and the county-seat of Peoria county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the north central part of the state, on the lower end of Lake Peoria, an expansion of the Illinois river, and about 150 m. S.W. of Chicago Pop. (1900) 56,100, (1910) 66,950. It is served by 13 railways, of which the most important are the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Chicago & Alton, the Illinois Central, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, and the Chicago & North-Western. The Illinois river is navigable to its mouth, and at La Salle, above Peoria, connects with the Illinois & Michigan Canal extending to Chicago. The river is spanned at Peoria by two railway bridges and a wagon bridge. The residential portion of the city is situated on bluffs overlooking Lake Peoria, and the business streets lie on the plain between these elevations and the water front. The park system includes more than 400 acres; Bradley Park (140 acres), the largest, was given to the city by Mrs Lydia Moss Bradley (1816–1908) and was named in her honour. On a bluff north-east of the city is Glen Oak Park (103 acres), modelled after Forest Park, St Louis, Missouri; in the south-western part of the city is Madison Park (88 acres); and in the lower part of the city is South Park (10 acres). In the Court House Square there are two monuments in honour of the Federal soldiers and sailors of Peoria county who perished in the Civil War, in Springdale Cemetery there are two similar memorials, one of which (a large granite boulder) is in memory of the unknown dead; and in the same cemetery there is a monument erected by the state (1906) to mark the grave of Thomas Ford (d. 1851), governor of Illinois in 1842–1846. Among the principal public buildings and institutions are the Peoria Public Library founded in 1855, the City Hall, the Court House, the Federal building, St Mary’s Cathedral, the Bradley Polytechnic Institute (affiliated with the university of Chicago), founded in 1896 by Mrs Lydia Moss Bradley, who gave it an endowment of $2,000,000; Spalding Institute, founded through the efforts of John L. Spalding (b. 1840), who was Bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Peoria in 1877–1908, an Evangelical Lutheran Orphans’ Home (1902), an Industrial School for girls (1892), Cottage Hospital (1876), St Francis Hospital (1875), a Florence Crittenton Home (1902), a Home for the Friendless (1876), and a House of the Good Shepherd (1891), and the Guyer Memorial (1889), St Joseph’s (1892), and John C. Proctor homes for the aged and infirm (1907). At Bartonville, a suburb, there is a state hospital for the incurable insane.
In 1900 and in 1905 Peoria ranked second among the cities of Illinois in the value of its manufactures. The invested capital amounted in 1905 to $22,243,821, and the factory products were valued at $60,920,411. The principal industry is the manufacture of distilled liquors, which were valued in 1905 at $42,170,815. Other important manufactures are agricultural implements ($2,309,962), slaughter-house and meat-packing products ($1,480,398), glucose, cooperage ($1,287,742), malt liquors ($887,570), foundry and machine-shop products, strawboard, automobiles, brick and stone, and flour and grist mill products. Peoria is also an important shipping point for grain and coal.
Peoria was named from one of the five tribes of the Illinois Indians. In 1680 La Salle, the explorer, built Fort Crèvecœur, on the lake shore bluffs, opposite the present city; this fort, however, was destroyed and deserted in the same year by La Salle’s followers after he had set out to return to Fort Frontenac. There is evidence that a French mission was established on or near the site of Peoria as early as 1711; and certainly by 1725 a settlement, known as Peoria, and composed of French and “breed” traders, trappers and farmers, had been established about 112 m. above the foot of the lake, on its west shore. This village was practically deserted during the later years (1781–1783) of the War of Independence, and when its inhabitants returned after the peace they settled in a village which had been established about 1778, on the present site of Peoria, by Jean Baptiste Maillet (d. 1801), and was at first called La Ville de Maillet. It is probable that Jean Baptiste Point de Saible, believed to have been a Santo Domingan negro, and jocularly spoken of “as the first white settler in Chicago,” lived in the “old village” of Peoria as early as 1773—or six years before he settled on the present site of Chicago—and again about 1783. In November 1812 about half of the town was burned by a company of Illinois militia who had been sent thither to build a fort, and whose captain asserted that his boats had been fired upon at night by the villagers. In the following year a fort, named Fort Clark in honour of George Rogers Clark, was erected on the site of the old village; it was evacuated in 1818, and soon afterwards was burned by the Indians. After the town was burned there was no serious attempt to rebuild until 1819. Peoria was incorporated as a town in 1835 and was chartered as a city in 1845. In 1900 North Peoria was annexed.
See David McCulloch, Early Days of Peoria and Chicago, an address read before the Chicago Historical Society in 1904, and published by that society, (n.d.), and “Old Peoria,” by the same author, in publication No. 6 of the Illinois State Historical Society Transactions (Springfield, Ill. 1901); also Historical Encyclopaedia of Illinois (Chicago, 1900), ed. by Newton Bateman and Paul Selby; History of Peoria County, Ill. (Chicago, 1880); and C. Ballance, History of Peoria (Peoria, 1870).
PEPE, GUGLIELMO (1783–1855), Neapolitan general, was
born at Squillace in Calabria. He entered the army at an early
age, but in 1799 he took part in the republican movement at
Naples inspired by the French Revolution; he fought against
the Bourbon troops under Cardinal Ruffo, was captured and
exiled to France. He entered Napoleon’s army and served with
distinction in several campaigns, including those in the Neapolitan
kingdom, first under Joseph Bonaparte and later under
Joachim Murat. After commanding a Neapolitan brigade in the
Peninsular campaign, Pepe returned to Italy in 1813, with the
rank of general, to help to reorganize the Neapolitan army.
When the news of the fall of Napoleon (1814) reached Italy
Pepe and several other generals tried without success to force
Murat to grant a constitution as the only means of saving the
kingdom from foreign invasion and the return of the Bourbons.
On Napoleon’s escape from Elba (1815) Murat, after some
hesitation, placed himself on the emperor’s side and waged war
against the Austrians, with Pepe on his staff. After several
engagements the Neapolitans were forced to retire, and eventually
agreed to the treaty of Casalanza by which Murat was to abandon
the kingdom; but the Neapolitan officers retained their rank
under Ferdinand IV. who now regained the throne of Naples.
While engaged in suppressing brigandage in the Capitanata,
Pepe organized the carbonari (q.v.) into a national militia, and
was preparing to use them for political purposes. He had hoped
that the king would end by granting a constitution, but when
that hope failed he meditated seizing Ferdinand, the emperor
of Austria, and Metternich, who were expected at Avellino, and
thus compelling them to liberate Italy (1819). The scheme broke
down through an accident, but in the following year a military
rising broke out, the mutineers cheering for the king and the
constitution. Pepe himself was sent against them, but while
he was hesitating as to what course he should follow Ferdinand
promised a constitution (July 1820). A revolt in Sicily having
been repressed, Pepe was appointed inspector-general of the
army. In the meanwhile the king, who had no intention of
respecting the constitution, went to Laibach to confer with the
sovereigns of the holy alliance assembled there, leaving his son
as regent. He obtained the loan of an Austrian army with
which to restore absolute power, while the regent dallied with the
Liberals. Pepe, who in parliament had declared in favour of
deposing the king, now took command of the army and marched
against the Austrians. He attacked them at Rieti (March 7,
