REDRUTH (10), a town of Cornwall, on a hilly site nearly 10 m.  SW. of Truro, in the midst of a tin and copper mining district.

RED-TAPE, name given to official formality, from the red-tape employed in tying official documents, whence “red-tapism.”

REES, ABRAHAM, compiler of “Rees’ Cyclopedia” (45 vols.), born in Montgomeryshire; became a tutor at Hoxton Academy, and subsequently ministered in the Unitarian Chapel at Old Jewry for some 40 years (1743-1825).

REEVE, name given to magistrates of various classes in early English times, the most important of whom was the SHIRE-REEVE or sheriff, who represented the king in his shire; others were BOROUGH-REEVES, PORT-REEVES, &c.

REEVE, CLARA, an English novelist, born, the daughter of a rector, at Ipswich; the best known of her novels is “The Champion of Virtue,” afterwards called “The Old English Baron,” a work of the school of Mrs. Radcliffe and of Walpole (1725-1803).

REEVES, JOHN SIMS, distinguished singer, born at Shooter’s Hill, Kent; made his first appearance at the age of 18 as a baritone at Newcastle, and then as a tenor, and the foremost in England at the time; performed first in opera and then as a ballad singer at concerts, and took his farewell of the public on May 11, 1891, though he has frequently appeared since; b. 1822.

REFERENDUM, a practice which prevails in Switzerland of referring every new legislative measure to the electorate in the several electoral bodies for their approval before it can become law.

REFORM, the name given in England to successive attempts and measures towards the due extension of the franchise in the election of the members of the House of Commons.

REFORMATION, the great event in the history of Europe in the 16th century, characterised as a revolt of light against darkness, on the acceptance or the rejection of which has since depended the destiny for good or evil of the several States composing it, the challenge to each of them being the crucial one, whether they deserved and were fated to continue or perish, and the crucial character of which is visible to-day in the actual conditions of the nations as they said “nay” to it or “yea,” the challenge to each at bottom being, is there any truth in you or is there none?  Austria, according to Carlyle, henceforth “preferring steady darkness to uncertain new light”; Spain, “people stumbling in steep places in the darkness of midnight”; Italy, “shrugging its shoulders and preferring going into Dilettantism and the Fine Arts”; and France, “with accounts run up on compound interest,” had to answer the “writ of summons” with an all too indiscriminate “Protestantism” of its own.

REFORMATION, MORNING STAR OF THE, the title given to
JOHN WYCLIFFE (q. v.).

REFORMATORIES, schools for the education and reformation of convicted juvenile criminals (under 16).  Under an order of court offenders may be placed in one of these institutions for from 2 to 5 years after serving a short period of imprisonment.  They are supported by the State, the local authorities, and by private subscriptions and sums exacted from parents and guardians.  Rules and regulations are supervised by the State.  The first one was established in 1838.  There are now 62 in Great Britain and Ireland; but the numbers admitted are diminishing at a remarkable rate.