STRAUSS, JOHANN, musical composer, born at Vienna; was a musical conductor and composer, chiefly of waltz music.

STREATHAM (48), a Surrey suburb of London, 61/2 m.  SW. of St. Paul’s.

STREET, GEORGE EDMUND, architect, born in Essex; was the architect of the New Law Courts in London; had been trained under Gilbert Scott (1824-1881).

STRELITZES, the name given to the life-guards of the czar, which at one time numbered 40,000; became so unruly and dangerous to the State that they were dissolved by Peter the Great, and dispersed in 1705.

STRETTON, HESBA, the nom de plume of Sarah Smith, daughter of a Shropshire bookseller, whose semi-religious stories, chiefly for the young, have won wide acceptance in English homes since the publication of “Jessica’s First Prayer” in 1867; was a regular contributor to Household Words and All the Year Round during Dickens’s editorship; has written upwards of 40 volumes.

STRICKLAND, AGNES, biographer of the queens of England, born at Roydon Hall, near Southwold, Suffolk; had already published poems and some minor works before she conceived the plan of writing a series of biographies of the queens of England; these appeared in 12 vols. during 1840-1848, and such was their popularity that a similar work dealing with the queens of Scotland was immediately undertaken; was aided in these by her sister Elizabeth (1794-1875); was the author of various other works, “Lives of the Seven Bishops,” “Bachelor Kings of England,” &c.; her writings are of no value as history, but are full of entertaining details (1806-1874).

STRINDBERG, AUGUST, the most noted of modern Swedish writers, born at Stockholm; accumulated stores of valuable experience during various early employments, which he utilised in his first successful work, “The Red Room” (1879), a satire on social life in Sweden, “The New Kingdom” (1882), equally bitter in its attack on social conventions, got him into trouble, and since then his life has been spent abroad; “Married Life,” a collection of short stories, brought upon him a charge of “outraging Christianity,” but after trial at Stockholm, in which he eloquently defended himself, he was acquitted; a prolific writer in all kinds of literature, and imbued with modern scientific and socialistic ideas, his writings lack the repose necessary to the highest literary achievement; b. 1849.

STROMBOLI, one of the Lipari Islands; has an active volcano, the cone 3022 ft., which erupts every five minutes what happens to be little else than steam; it is 12 m. in circuit, and contains about 1000 inhabitants.

STROMKARL, a Norwegian spirit who has 11 different music strains, to 10 of which people may dance, the 11th being his night strain, to the tune of which every one and everything begins to dance.

STROMNESS, a seaport on the Orkney island of Pomona.

STROUD (10), a busy manufacturing town of Gloucestershire; stands on rising ground overlooking the confluence of the Frome and Slade, which unite to form the Frome or Stroud Water, 10 m.  SE. of Gloucester; numerous cloth and dye works are built along the banks of the river; in the town are several woollen factories.