WHEEL, BREAKING ON THE, a very barbarous mode of inflicting death at one time, in which the limbs of the victim were stretched along the spokes of a wheel, and the wheel being turned rapidly round, the limbs were broken by repeated blows from an iron bar; this is what the French roue means, applied figuratively to a person broken with dissipation, or what we call a rake.

WHEELING (39), largest city in West Virginia, U.S., on the Ohio River, 67 m.  SW. of Pittsburg; contains some fine buildings; is a country rich in bituminous coal; has extensive manufactures; is a great railway centre, and carries on an extensive trade.

WHEWELL, WILLIAM, professor of the “science of things in general,” born at Lancaster, son of a joiner; studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became successively fellow, tutor, professor, and master; was a man of varied attainments, of great intellectual and even physical power, and it was of him Sydney Smith said, “Science was his forte and omniscience his foible”; wrote “Astronomy and General Physics in reference to Natural Theology,” the “Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,” the “History of Moral Philosophy,” an essay on the “Plurality of Worlds,” &c. (1794-1866).

WHICHCOTE, BENJAMIN, Cambridge Platonist, born in Shropshire; was a Fellow and Tutor of Emmanuel College; was distinguished for his personal influence over his pupils, many of them eminent men; he gave a philosophical turn to their theological opinions (1609-1683).

WHIGS, name given at the end of the 17th century to the Covenanters of Scotland, and afterwards extended to the Liberal party in England from the leniency with which they were disposed to treat the whole Nonconformist body, to which the persecuted Scottish zealots were of kin; they respected the constitution, and sought only to reform abuses.

WHISTLER, JAMES ABBOT M’NEILL, painter and etcher, born at Lowell, Massachusetts; studied military engineering at WEST POINT (q. v.), and art at Paris, and settled at length as an artist in London, where he has exhibited his paintings frequently; has executed some famous portraits, in especial one of his mother, and a remarkable one of Thomas Carlyle, now the property of Glasgow Corporation; paintings of his exhibited in the Grosvenor Gallery, London, provoked a criticism from Ruskin, which was accounted libellous, and as plaintiff he got a farthing damages, without costs; very much, it is understood, to his critic’s disgust, and little to his own satisfaction, as is evident from the character of the pamphlet he wrote afterwards in retaliation, entitled “Whistler versus Ruskin:  Art and Art Critics”; b. 1834.

WHISTON, WILLIAM, divine and mathematician, born in Leicestershire; educated at Clare College, Cambridge, of which he became a Fellow; gained reputation from his “Theory of the Earth”; succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as Lucasian professor, but was discharged from the office and expelled from the university for Arianism; removed to London, where he lived a separatist from the Church, and died a Baptist; wrote “Primitive Christianity,” and translated “Josephus”; he was a crotchety but a conscientious man (1667-1752).