nature. At the age of twenty he went to London, drew for a while in
the British Museum, and was admitted as a student of the Royal Academy.
He then returned to Canterbury, where he was able to earn a living as a
drawing-master and by the sale of sketches and drawings. In 1827 he
settled in Brussels; but four years later he returned to London to live,
and by showing his first picture at the Royal Academy (1833) began an
unprecedentedly prolonged career as an exhibitor. Cooper's name is
mainly associated with pictures of cattle or sheep, and the most notable
of the many hundred he produced are: "A Summer's Noon" (1836), "A
Drover's Halt on the Fells" (1838), "A Group in the Meadows" (1845),
"The Half-past One o'Clock Charge at Waterloo" (1847), "The Shepherd's
Sabbath" (1866), "The Monarch of the Meadows" (1873), "Separated but not
Divorced" (1874), "Isaac's Substitute" (1880), "Pushing off for Tilbury
Fort" (1884), "On a Farm in East Kent" (1889), "Return to the Farm,
Milking Time" (1897). He was elected A.R.A. in 1845 and R.A. in 1867. He
presented to his native place, in 1882, the Sidney Cooper Art Gallery,
built on the site of the house in which he was born. He wrote his
reminiscences, under the title of _My Life_, in 1890; and died on the
7th of February 1902.

COOPERAGE, or COPERAGE (Flemish and Dutch _kooper_, a trader, dealer), a
system of traffic in spirituous liquors, tobacco and other articles
amongst the fishermen in the North Sea. The practice began in the middle
of the 19th century, when Flemish and Dutch _koopers_ frequented the
fishing fleets for the purpose of barter. Trading first in tobacco, they
extended their operations, and soon became practically floating
grog-shops.

The demoralizing nature of the traffic was brought to the public notice
in 1881, and a convention was held at the Hague in 1882 to consider
means of remedying the abuses. In 1887 Great Britain, Germany, Belgium,
Denmark, France and the Netherlands signed an agreement to prevent the
sale or purchase of spirituous liquors among fishermen at sea. In Great
Britain an act (the North Sea Fisheries Act 1888) was passed to carry
into effect the terms of the convention. The act (now repealed and
replaced by the North Sea Fisheries Act 1893, with which it is identical
but for some slight verbal modifications) imposes a fine not exceeding
L50 or a term of imprisonment not exceeding three months for supplying,
exchanging or otherwise selli