generally level or slightly undulating plain, and has unusually broad, straight and well-shaded streets. The borough maintains a public library, a public park of 40 acres, artesian waterworks, a sewerage system and an electric lighting plant. It is the seat of the New Jersey Training School for Feeble-Minded Girls and Boys (1888), the State Home for the Care and Training of Feeble-Minded Women (1888), and the State Home for Disabled Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and their Wives. The Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society (organized in 1864) has a library (8000 volumes in 1909) housed in the Society’s building, and it maintains a free lecture course. Saloons for the sale of intoxicating liquors have never been allowed in Vineland. The surrounding country is largely devoted to the growing of small fruits, grapes, peaches, pears and apples, and the raising of sweet potatoes; and within the borough are manufactured unfermented grape juice wine, boots and shoes, clothing, carpets, rugs, chenille curtains, pearl buttons, flint-glass tubes and bottles, and iron castings.
Vineland was founded in 1861 by Charles K. Landis (1835–1900), who conceived the idea of creating a settlement in the almost uninhabited "Pines" of Southern New Jersey; and after purchasing a large tract he laid out a village with small farms adjoining. The settlers, largely from New England and the Middle States, received the land at moderate prices on agreeing to make certain stipulated improvements. The township of Landis (pop. in 1910, 6435), named in honour of the founder of the settlement, was incorporated in 1864, having formerly been a part of Millville; from it Vineland was separated and was incorporated as a borough in 1880.
See The Founder’s Own Story of the Founding of Vineland (Vineland, 1903), a pamphlet published by the Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society.
VINER, SIR ROBERT (1631–1688), lord mayor of London, was born in Warwick, but migrated in early life to London, where he was apprenticed to his uncle, Sir Thomas Viner (1558–1665), a goldsmith, who was lord mayor of London in 1653–54, and who was created a baronet in 1661. Soon Robert became a partner in his kinsman’s business, and in 1666 an alderman of the city of London; in 1665 he was made a knight, and in the following year a baronet. He was sheriff during the year of the great fire in London, and was chosen lord mayor in 1674. Combining like his uncle the business of a banker with that of a goldsmith, Viner was brought much into contact with Charles II. and with the court. The king attended his mayoral banquet, and the lord mayor erected an equestrian statue in his honour on a spot now covered by the Mansion House. Having been appointed the king’s goldsmith in 1661, Sir Robert was one of those who lent large sums of money for the expenses of the state and the extravagances of the court; over £400,000 was owing to him when the national exchequer suspended payment in 1672, and he was reduced to the necessity of compounding with his creditors. He obtained from the state an annuity of £25,000. Viner died at Windsor on the 2nd of September 1688.
See Viner: a Family History, published anonymously (1885).
VINET, ALEXANDRE RODOLPHE (1797–1847), French critic and theologian, of Swiss birth, was born near Lausanne on the 17th of June 1797. He was educated for the Protestant ministry, being ordained in 1819, when already teacher of the French language and literature in the gymnasium at Basel; and during the whole of his life he was as much a critic as a theologian. His literary criticism brought him into contact with Sainte-Beuve, for whom he procured an invitation to lecture at Lausanne, which led to his famous work on Port-Royal. Vinet’s Chrestomathie française (1829), his Études sur la littérature française au XIX me siècle (1849–51), and his Histoire de la littérature française au XVIII me siècle, together with his Études sur Pascal, Études sur les moralistes aux XVI me et XVII me siècles, Histoire de la prédication parmi les Réformés de France and other kindred works, gave evidence of a wide knowledge of literature, a sober and acute literary judgment and a distinguished faculty of appreciation. He adjusted his theories to the work under review, and condemned nothing so long as it was good work according to the writer’s own standard. His criticism had the singular advantage of being in some sort foreign, without the disadvantage which attaches in French eyes to all criticism of things French written in a foreign language. As theologian he gave a fresh impulse to Protestant theology, especially in French-speaking lands, but also in England and elsewhere. Lord Acton classed him with Rothe. He built all on conscience, as that wherein man stands in direct personal relation with God as moral sovereign, and the seat of a moral individuality which nothing can rightly infringe. Hence he advocated complete freedom of religious belief, and to this end the formal separation of church and state (Mémoire en faveur de la liberté des cultes (1826), Essai sur la conscience (1829), Essai sur la manifestation des convictions religieuses (1842). Accordingly, when in 1845 the civil power in the canton of Vaud interfered with the church’s autonomy, he led a secession which took the name of L’Église libre. But already from 1831, when he published his Discours sur quelques sujets religieux (Nouveaux discours, 1841), he had begun to exert a liberalizing and deepening influence on religious thought far beyond his own canton, by bringing traditional doctrine to the test of a living personal experience (see also Frommel, Gaston). In this he resembled F. W. Robertson, as also in the change which he introduced into pulpit style and in the permanence of his influence. Vinet died on the 4th of May 1847 at Clarens (Vaud). A considerable part of his works was not printed till after his death.
His life was written in 1875 by Eugène Rambert, who re-edited the Chrestomathie in 1876. See also L. M. Lane, Life and Writings of A. Vinet (1890); L. Molines, Étude sur Alexandre Vinet (Paris, 1890); V. Rossel, Hist. de la litt. française hors de France (Lausanne, 1895); V. Rivet, Études sur les origines de la pensée religieuse de Vinet (Paris, 1896); A. Schumann, Alex. Vinet (1907). A uniform edition of his works was begun in 1908, see Revue de théologie et philosophie (Lausanne, 1908, 234 sqq.). (J. V. B.)
VINGT-ET-UN (colloquially, “Van John”), a round game of cards, at which any number of persons may play, though five or six are enough. The right to deal having been decided, the dealer gives one card face downwards to each person, including himself. The others thereupon look at their cards and declare their stakes—one, two, three or more counters or chips—according to the value of their cards. When all have staked, the dealer looks at his own card and can double all stakes if he chooses. The amount of the original stake should be set by each player opposite his card. Another card is then dealt, face downwards, all round; each player looking at his own. The object of the game is to make 21, by the pips or the cards, an ace counting as 1 or 11, and the court cards as 10 each. Hence a player who receives an ace and a ten-card scores 21 at once. This is called a “natural”; the holder receives twice—sometimes thrice—the stake or the doubled stake. If the dealer has a natural too, the usual rule is that the other natural pays nothing, in spite of the rule of "ties pay the dealer." The deal passes to the player who turns up the natural, unless it occurs in the first round of a deal or the dealer has a natural too. If the dealer has not a natural, he asks each player in turn, beginning with the player on his left, if he wishes for another card or cards, the object still being to get to 21, or as near up to it as possible. The additional cards are given him one by one, face upwards, though the original cards are not exposed. If he requires no additional card, or when he has drawn sufficient, he says, “Content,” or “I stand.” If a player overdraws, i.e. if his cards count more than 21, he pays the dealer at once. When all are either overdrawn or content, the dealer may “stand” on his own hand, or draw cards, till he is overdrawn or stands. All the hands are then shown, the dealer paying those players whose cards are nearer to 21 than his own, and receiving from all the others, as “ties pay the dealer.” If the dealer’s cards, with the additions, make exactly 21, he receives double the stake, or doubled stake; if a player holds 21, he receives double likewise, but ties still pay the dealer. If a player receives two
