HIGGINS, MATTHEW JAMES (1810-1868), British writer over the nom-de-plume "Jacob Omnium," which was the title of his first magazine article, was born in County Meath, Ireland, on the 4th of December 1810. His letters in _The Times_ were instrumental in exposing many abuses. He was a frequent contributor to the _Cornhill_, and was a friend of Thackeray, who dedicated to him _The Adventures of Philip_, and one of his ballads, "Jacob Omnium's Hoss," deals with an incident in Higgins's career. He died on the 14th of August 1868. Some of his articles were published in 1875 as _Essays on Social Subjects_.
HIGGINSON, THOMAS WENTWORTH (1823-1911), American author and soldier, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 22nd of December 1823. He was a descendant of Francis Higginson (1588-1630), who emigrated from Leicestershire to the colony of Massachusetts Bay and was a minister of the church of Salem, Mass., in 1629-1630; and a grandson of Stephen Higginson (1743-1828), a Boston merchant, who was a member of the Continental Congress in 1783, took an active part in suppressing Shay's Rebellion, was the author of the "Laco" letters (1789), and rendered valuable services to the United States government as navy agent from the 11th of May to the 22nd of June 1798. Graduating from Harvard in 1841, he was a schoolmaster for two years, studied theology at the Harvard Divinity School, and was pastor in 1847-1850 of the First Religious Society (Unitarian) of Newburyport, Massachusetts, and of the Free Church at Worcester in 1852-1858. He was a Free Soil candidate for Congress (1850), but was defeated; was indicted with Wendell Phillips and Theodore Parker for participation in the attempt to release the fugitive slave, Anthony Burns, in Boston (1853); was engaged in the effort to make Kansas a free state after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854; and during the Civil War was captain in the 51st Massachusetts Volunteers, and from November 1862 to October 1864, when he was retired because of a wound received in the preceding August, was colonel of the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first regiment recruited from former slaves for the Federal service. He described his experiences in _Army Life in a Black Regiment_ (1870). In politics Higginson was successively a Republican, an Independent and a Democrat. His writings show a deep love of nature, art and humanity, and are marked by vigour of thought, sincerity of feeling, and grace and finish of style. In his _Common Sense About Women_ (1881) and his _Women and Men_ (1888) he advocated equality of opportunity and equality of rights for the two sexes.