plumb-bob is combined with a parallel straight-edge the term plumb rule is applied. It tests the truth of vertical surface more accurately than a spirit-level. (J. G. H.)
TOOLE, JOHN LAWRENCE (1832–1906), English actor, son
of an employé of the East India Company who for many years
acted as toast-master in the City of London, was born in London
on the 12th of March 1832. He was educated at the City of
London School, and started life in a wine merchant’s office; but
his natural propensity for comic acting was not to be denied, and
after some practice as an amateur with the City Histrionic Club,
he definitely took to the stage in 1852, appearing in Dublin as
Simmons in The Spitalfields Weaver. He gained experience in
the provinces, and in 1854 made his first professional appearance
in London at the St James’s theatre, acting as Samuel Pepys in
The King’s Rival and Weazel in My Friend the Major. In 1857,
having had a great success in London as Paul Pry, he met Henry
Irving in Edinburgh, and recommended him to go to London;
and their friendship remained thenceforth of the closest kind.
In 1858 Toole joined Webster at the Adelphi, and established
his popularity as a comedian, among other parts creating Joe
Spriggins in Ici on parle français. In 1868 he was engaged at
the Gaiety, appearing among many pieces there in Thespis, the first
Gilbert and Sullivan collaboration. His fame was at its height
in 1874, when he went on tour to the United States, but he failed
to reproduce there the success he had in England. In 1879, he
took the “Folly” theatre in London, which he renamed “Toole’s”
in 1882. He was constantly away in the provinces, but he produced
here a number of plays: H. J. Byron’s Upper Crust and
Auntie; Pinero’s Hester’s Mystery and Girls and Boys; burlesques
such as Paw Claudian, and, later, J. M. Barrie’s Walker, London. But his appearances gradually became fewer, and after 1893 he
was seen no more on the London stage, while his theatre was
pulled down shortly afterwards for an extension of Charing Cross
Hospital. He published his reminiscences in 1888. Toole
married in 1854; and the death of his only son in 1879, and later
of his wife and daughter, had distressing effects on his health;
attacks of gout, from 1886 onwards, crippled him, and ultimately
he retired to Brighton, where after a long illness he died on the
30th of July 1906. In his prime he was immensely popular,
and also immensely funny in a way which depended a good deal
on his tricks and delivery of words. He excelled in what may
be called Dickens parts—combining humour and pathos. He
was a good man of business and left a considerable fortune,
out of which he made a number of bequests to charity and to
his friends. His genial and sympathetic nature was no less
conspicuous off the stage than on it.
TOOMBS, ROBERT (1810–1885), American political leader, was born near Washington, Wilkes county, Georgia, on the 2nd of July 1810. He was educated at Franklin College (University of Georgia), at Union College, Schenectady, New York, from which he graduated in 1828, and at the law school of the University of Virginia. He was admitted to the bar in 1830, and served in the Georgia House of Representatives (1838, 1840–1841 and 1843–1844), in the Federal House of Representatives (1845–1853), and in the United States Senate (1853–1861). He opposed the annexation of Texas, the Mexican War, President Polk’s Oregon policy, and the Walker Tariff of 1846. In common with Alexander H. Stephens and Howell Cobb, he supported the Compromise Measures of 1850, denounced the Nashville Convention, opposed the secessionists in Georgia, and helped to frame the famous Georgia platform (1850). His position and that of Southern Unionists during the decade 1850–1860 has often been misunderstood. They disapproved of secession, not because they considered it wrong in principle, but because they considered it inexpedient. On the dissolution of the Whig party Toombs went over to the Democrats. He favoured the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution, and the English Bill (1858), and on the 24th of June 1856 introduced in the Senate the Toombs Bill, which proposed a constitutional convention in Kansas under conditions which were acknowledged by various anti-slavery leaders as fair, and which mark the greatest concessions made by the pro-slavery senators during the Kansas struggle. The bill did not provide for the submission of the constitution to popular vote, and the silence on this point of the territorial law under which the Lecompton Constitution of Kansas was framed in 1857 was the crux of the Lecompton struggle (see Kansas). In the presidential campaign of 1860 he supported John C. Breckinridge, and on the 22nd of December, soon after the election of Lincoln, sent a telegram to Georgia which asserted that “secession by the 4th of March next should be thundered forth from the ballot-box by the united voice of Georgia.” He delivered a farewell address in the Senate (Jan. 7, 1861), returned to Georgia, and with Governor Joseph E. Brown led the fight for secession against Stephens and Herschel V. Johnson (1812–1880). His influence was a most powerful factor in inducing the “old-line Whigs” to support immediate secession. After a short term as secretary of state in President Davis’s cabinet, he entered the army (July 21, 1861); and served first as a brigadier-general in the Army of Northern Virginia and after 1863 as adjutant and inspector-general of General G. W. Smith’s division of Georgia militia. He then spent two years in exile in Cuba, France and England, but returned to Georgia in 1867, and resumed the practice of law. Owing to his refusal to take the oath of allegiance, he was never restored to the full rights of citizenship. He died at his home in Washington, Georgia, on the 15th of December 1885.
See Pleasant A. Stovall, Robert Toombs, Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage (New York, 1892).
TOOTHWORT, the popular name for a small British plant of
curious form and growth, known botanically as Lathraea squamaria.
It grows parasitically on roots, chiefly of hazel, in shady
places such as hedge sides. It consists of a branched whitish
underground stem closely covered with thick fleshy colorless
leaves, which are bent over so as to hide the under surface;
irregular cavities communicating with the exterior are formed
in the thickness of the leaf. On the inner wall of these chambers
are stalked hairs, which when stimulated by the touch of an
insect send out delicate filaments by means of which the insect
is killed and digested. The only portions that appear above
ground are the short flower-bearing shoots, which bear a spike of
two-lipped dull purple flowers. The scales which represent the
leaves also secrete water, which escapes and softens the ground
around the plant. Lathraea is closely allied to another British
parasitic plant, broom rape (0robanche).
TOOWOOMBA, a town of Aubigny county, Queensland,
Australia, 76 m. by rail W. by N. of Ipswich, and 101 m. from
Brisbane. It is situated on the summit of the Great Dividing
Range, and is the centre of the rich pastoral and agricultural
district of Darling Downs. The chief buildings are the town-hall,
a large theatre, a school of arts and a library; the Christian
Brothers College and several handsome churches. The industries
are brewing, tanning, soap-boiling, flour-milling, malting, iron founding,
saw-milling and jam-making. Vineyards are cultivated
by a German colony and large quantities of wine are made.
The town received a municipal charter in 1860, and during the
governorship of Lord Lamington (1896–1897) became the summer
residence of the governor and his staff. Pop. (1901), 9137;
within the five-mile radius, 14,087.
TOP (cf. Dan. top, Ger. Topf, also meaning pot), a toy consisting
of a body of conical, circular or oval shape with a point or
peg on which it turns or is made to whirl. The twisting or whirling
motion is applied by whipping or lashing when it is a “whipping
top” or “peg-top,” or by the rapid unwinding of a string
tightly wound round a head or handle. When the body is
hollow this results in a whirring noise, whence the name “humming
top.” Other kinds of tops are made as supports for coloured
disks which on revolving show a kaleidoscopic variation of
patterns. The top is also used in certain games of chance, when
it is generally known as a “teetotum.” There are many references
to it in ancient classical literature. The Greek terms for the
toy are βέμβιξ, which was evidently the whipping or peg top
(Arist. Birds, 1461), and στὁβιλος, a humming top, spun by a
string (Plato, Rep. iv. 436 E.). In Homer (Il. xiv. 413) the word
