LORIS  , a name of uncertain origin applied to the Indo-

Malay representatives of the lemurs, which, together with the African pottos, constitute the section Nycticebinae of the family Nycticebidae (see PRIMATES) . From their extremely slow movements and lethargic habits in the daytime these weird little creatures are commonly called sloths by Anglo-Indians . Their soft fur, huge staring eyes, rudimentary tails and imperfectly developed index-fingers render lorises easy of recognition . The smallest is the slender loris (Loris gracilis) of the forests of Madras and Ceylon, a creature smaller than a squirrel . It is of such exceeding strangeness and beauty that it might have been thought it would be protected by the natives; but they hold it alive before a fire till its beautiful eyes burst in order to afford a supposed remedy for ophthalmia ! The mainland and Cingalese animals form distinct races . Both in this species and the slow loris there is a pair of rudimentary abdominal teats in addition to the normal pectoral pair . The slow loris (Nycticebus lardigradus) is a heavier built and larger animal, ranging from eastern Bengal to Cochin China, Siam, the Malay Peninsula, Java and Sumatra . There are several races, mostly grey in colour, but the Sumatran N. t. hilleri is reddish . (R . L.*) LORIS-MELIKOV, MICHAEL TARIELOVICH, COUNT (1825?-1888), Russian statesman, son of an Armenian merchant, was born at Tiflis in 1825 or 1826, and educated in St Petersburg, first in the Lazarev School of Oriental Languages, and afterwards in the Guards' Cadet Institute . He joined a hussar regiment, and four years afterwards (1847) he was sent to the Caucasus, where he remained for more than twenty years, and made for himself during troublous times the reputation of a distinguished cavalry officer and an able administrator .

In the latter capacity, though a keen soldier, he aimed always at preparing the warlike and turbulent

population committed to his charge for the transition from military to normal civil administration, and in this work his favourite instrument was the schoolmaster . In the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 he commanded a separate corps d'armee on , the Turkish frontier in Asia Minor . After taking the fortress of Ardahan, he was repulsed by Mukhtar Pasha at Zevin, but subsequently defeated his opponent at Aladja Dagh, took Kars by storm, and laid siege to Erzerum . For these services he received the title of Count . In the following year he was appointed temporary governor-general of the region of the Lower Volga, to combat an outbreak of the plague . The measures he adopted proved so effectual that he was transferred to the provinces of Central Russia to combat the Nihilists and Anarchists, who had adopted a policy of terrorism, and had succeeded in assassinating the governor of Kharkov . His and the Meuse, together with the dioceses of Cologne, Trier, Metz, Toul, Verdun, Liege and Cambrai, Basel, Strassburg and Besancon, and corresponded to what is now Holland and Belgium, parts of Rhenish Prussia, of Switzerland, and of the old province of Franche-Comte, and to the district known later as Upper Lorraine, or simply Lorraine . Though apparently of an absolutely artificial character, this kingdom corresponded essentially to the ancient Francia, the cradle of the Carolingian house, and long retained a certain unity . It was to the in-habitants of this region that the name of Lotharienses or Lotharingi was primitively applied, although the word Lotharingia, as the designation of the country, only appears in the middle of the loth century . The reign of King Lothair (q.v.), which was continually disturbed by quarrels with his uncles, Charles the Bald and Louis the German, and by the difficulties caused by the divorce of his queen Teutberga, whom he had forsaken for a concubine called Waldrada, ended on the 8th of August 869 . His inheritance was disputed by his uncles, and was divided by the treaty of Meersen (8th of August 87o), by which Charles the Bald received part of the province of Besancon and some land between the Moselle and the Meuse . Then for a time the emperor Charles the Fat united under his authority the whole of the kingdom IA Lorraine with the rest of the Carolingian empire .

After the deposition of Charles in 888

Rudolph, king of Burgundy, got himself recognized in Lorraine . He was unable to maintain himself there, and succeeded in detaching definitively no more than the province of Besancon . Lorraine remained in the power of the emperor Arnulf, who in 895 constituted it a distinct kingdom in favour of his son Zwentibold . Zwentibold quickly became embroiled with the nobles and the bishops, and especially with Bishop Radbod of Trier . Among the lay lords the most important was Regnier (incorrectly called Long-neck), count of Hesbaye and Hainault, who is styled duke by the Lotharingian chronicler Reginon, though he does not appear ever to have borne the title . In 898 Zwentibold stripped Regnier of his fiefs, whereupon the latter appealed to the king of France, Charles the Simple, whose intervention, however, had no enduring effect . After the death of Arnulf in 899, the Lotharingians appealed to his successor, Louis the Child, to replace Zwentibold, who, on the 13th of August 900, was killed in battle . In spite of the dissensions which immediately arose between him and the Lotharingian lords, Louis retained the kingdom till his death . The Lotharingians, however, refused to recognize the new German king, Conrad I., and testified their attachment to the Carolingian house by electing as sovereign the king of the West Franks, Charles the Simple . Charles was at first supported by Giselbert, son and successor of Regnier, but was abandoned by his ally, who in 919 appealed to the German king, Henry I . The struggle ended in the treaty of Bonn (921), by which apparently the rights of Charles over Lorraine were recognized . The revolt of the Frankish lords in 922 and the captivity of Charles finally settled the question .

After an unsuccessful attack by Rudolph or Raoul, king of France, Henry became

master of Lorraine in 925, thanks to the support of Giselbert, whom he rewarded with the hand of his daughter Gerberga and the title of duke of Lorraine . Giselbert at first remained faithful to Henry's son, Otto the Great, but in 938 he appears to have joined the revolt directed against Otto by Eberhard, duke of Franconia . In 939, in concert with Eberhard and Otto's brother, Henry of Saxony, he declared open war against Otto and appealed to Louis d'Outremer, who penetrated into Lorraine and Alsace, but was soon called back to France by the revolt of the count of Vermandois . In the same year Giselbert and Eberhard were defeated and killed near Andernach, and Otto at once made himself recognized in the whole of Lorraine, securing it by a treaty with Louis d'Outremer, who married Giselbert's widow Gerberga, and entrusting the government of it to Count Otto, son of Ricuin, until Giselbert's son Henry should have attained his majority . After the deaths of the young Henry and Count Otto in 944, Otto the Great gave Lorraine to Conrad the Red, duke of success in this struggle led to his being appointed chief of the Supreme Executive Commission which had been created in St Petersburg to deal with the revolutionary agitation in general . Here, as in the Caucasus, he showed a decided preference for the employment of ordinary legal methods rather than exceptional extra-legal measures, and an attempt on his own life soon after he assumed office did not shake his convictions . In his opinion the best policy was to strike at the root of the evil by removing the causes of popular discontent, and for this purpose he recommended to the emperor a large scheme of administrative and economic reforms . Alexander II., who was beginning to lose faith in the efficacy of the simple method of police repression hitherto employed, lent a willing ear to the suggestion; and when the Supreme Commission was dissolved in August 188o, he appointed Count Loris-Melikov Minister of the Interior with exceptional powers . The proposed scheme of reforms was at once taken in hand, but it was never carried out . On the very day in March 1881 that the emperor signed a ukaz creating several commissions, composed of officials and eminent private individuals, who should prepare reforms in various branches of the administration, he was assassinated by Nihilist conspirators; and his successor, Alexander III., at once adopted a strongly reactionary policy . Count Loris-Melikov immediately resigned, and lived in retirement until his death, which took place at Nice on the 22nd of December 1888 . (D .

M .