Part 15

MANBHUM, a district of British India, in the Chota Nagpur division of Bengal. The administrative headquarters are at Purulia. Area, 4147 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 1,301,364, showing an increase of 9.1% since 1891. Manbhum district forms the first step of a gradual descent from the table-land of Chota Nagpur to the delta of lower Bengal. In the northern and eastern portions the country is open, and consists of a series of rolling downs dotted here and there with isolated conical hills. In the western and southern tracts the country is more broken and the scenery much more picturesque. The principal hills are Dalma (3407 ft.), the crowning peak of a range of the same name; Gangabari or Gajboro (2220 ft.), the highest peak of the Baghmundi range, about 20 m. south-west of Purulia; and Panchkot or Panchet (1600 ft.), on which stands the old fort of the rajas of Panchet. The hills are covered with dense jungle. The chief river is the Kasai, which flows through the district from north-west to south-east into Midnapore, and on which a considerable floating trade in _sal_ timber is carried on. The most numerous aboriginal tribe are the Sontals; but the Bhumij Kols are the characteristic race. In Manbhum they inhabit the country lying on both sides of the Subanrekha. They are pure Mundas, but their compatriots to the east have dropped the title of Munda and the use of their distinctive language, have adopted Hindu customs, and are fast becoming Hindus in religion. The Bhumij Kols of the Jungle Mahals were once the terror of the surrounding districts; they are now more peaceful.

Three principal crops of rice are grown, one sown broadcast early in May on table-lands and the tops of ridges, an autumn crop, and a winter crop, the last forming the chief harvest of the district. Other crops are wheat, barley, Indian corn, pulses, oilseeds, linseeds, jute, hemp, sugar-cane, indigo, pan and tobacco. Owing to the completeness of the natural drainage, floods are unknown, but the country is liable to droughts caused by deficient rainfall. The principal articles of export are oilseeds, pulses, _ghi_, lac, indigo, tussur silk (manufactured near Raghunathpur), timber, resin, coal, and (in good seasons) rice. The chief imports are salt, piece goods, brass utensils and unwrought iron. Cotton hand-loom weaving is carried on all over the district. Manbhum contains the Jherria coalfield, in the Damodar valley, where a large number of mines have been opened since 1894. The United Free Church of Scotland has a mission at Pakheria, with a printing press that issues a monthly journal in Sonthali; and a German Lutheran mission has been established since 1864. The district is traversed by the Bengal-Nagpur railway, while two branches of the East Indian railway serve the coalfield.

MANCHA, LA (Arabic, _Al Mansha_, "the dry land" or "wilderness"), a name which when employed in its widest sense denotes the bare and monotonous elevated plateau of central Spain that stretches between the mountains of Toledo and the western spurs of the hills of Cuenca, being bounded on the S. by the Sierra Morena and on the N. by the Alcarria region. It thus comprises portions of the modern provinces of Toledo, Albacete and Cuenca, and the greater part of Ciudad Real. Down to the 16th century the eastern portion was known as La Mancha de Montearagon or de Aragon, and the western simply as La Mancha; afterwards the north-eastern and south-western sections respectively were distinguished by the epithets _Alta_ and _Baja_ (upper and lower). La Mancha is famous as the scene of Cervantes' novel _Don Quixote_; in appearance, with its multitude of windmills and vast tracts of arid land, it remains almost exactly as Cervantes described it. Many villages, such as El Toboso and Argamasilla de Alba, both near Alcázar de San Juan, are connected by tradition with episodes in _Don Quixote_.

MANCHE, a department of north-western France, made up chiefly of the Cotentin and the Avranchin districts of Normandy, and bounded W., N. and N.E. by the English Channel (Fr. _La Manche_), from which it derives its name, E. by the department of Calvados, S.E. by Orne, S. by Mayenne and Ille-et-Vilaine. Pop. (1906), 487,443. Area, 2475 sq. m.

The department is traversed from south to north by a range of hills, in many parts picturesque, and connected in the south with those of Maine and Brittany. In the country round Mortain, which has been called the Switzerland of Normandy, they rise to a height of 1200 ft. The coast-line, running northward along the bay of the Seine from the rocks of Grand Camp to Cape Barfleur, thence westward to Cape la Hague, and finally southward to the Bay of Mont St Michel, has a length of 200 miles. The Vire and the Taute (which near the small port of Carentan receives the Ouve as a tributary on the left) fall into the sea at the Calvados border, and are united by a canal some miles above their mouths. From the mouth of the Taute a low beach runs to the port of St Vaast-la-Hougue, where the coast becomes rocky, with sandbanks. Off St Vaast lies the fortified island of Tatihow, with the laboratory of marine zoology of the Natural History Museum of Paris. Between Cape Barfleur and Cape la Hague lie the roads of Cherbourg, protected by the famous breakwater. The whole western coast is inhospitable; its small havens, lying behind formidable barriers and reefs, are almost dry at low tide. Great cliffs, such as the points of Jobourg (420 ft. high) and Flamanville, alternate with long strands, such as that which extends for 30 m. from Cape Carteret to Granville. Between this coast and the Channel Islands the tide, pent up between numerous sandbanks, flows with a terrific force that has given these passages such ill-omened names as _Passage de la Déroute_ and the like. The only important harbours are Granville and the haven of refuge of Diélette between Granville and Cherbourg. Carteret carries on a passenger traffic with the Channel Islands. The chief stream is the Sienne, with its tributary the Soulle flowing by Coutances. South of Granville the sands of St Pair are the commencement of the great bay of Mont Saint Michel, whose area of 60,000 acres was covered with forest till the terrible tide of the year 709. The equinoctial tides reach a vertical height of nearly 50 ft. In the bay the picturesque walls of the abbey rise from the summit of a rock 400 ft. high. The Sée, which waters Avranches, and the Couesnon (separating Manche from Ille-et-Vilaine) disembogue in the bay.

The climate of Manche is mild and humid, from its propinquity to the sea. Frosts are never severe; myrtles and fuchsias flourish in the open air. Excessive heat is also unusual; the predominant winds are south-west.

The characteristic industry of the department is the rearing of horses and cattle, carried on especially in the rich meadow of the eastern Cotentin; sheep are raised in the western arrondissement of Coutances. Wheat, buckwheat, barley and oats are the chief cereals cultivated. Manche is one of the foremost departments for the production of cider-apples and pears; plums and figs are also largely grown. Butter is an important source of profit, as also are poultry and eggs. Flourishing market-gardens are found in the west. The department contains valuable granite quarries in the Cherbourg arrondissement and the Chausey islands; building and other stone is quarried.

Villedieu manufactures copper-ware and Sourdeval iron and other metal-ware; and there are wool-spinning mills, paper-works and leather-works, but the department as a whole is industrially unimportant. There are oyster-beds on the coast (St Vaast, &c.), and the maritime population, besides fishing for herring, mackerel, lobsters or sole, collect seaweed for agricultural use. Coutances is the seat of a bishopric of the province of Rouen. The department forms part of the region of the X. army corps and of the circumscriptions of the académie (educational division) and appeal-court of Caen. Cherbourg (q.v.), with its important port, arsenal and shipbuilding yards, is the chief centre of population. St Lô (q.v.) is the capital; there are six arrondissements (St Lô, Avranches, Cherbourg, Coutances, Mortain, Valognes), with 48 cantons and 647 communes. Avranches, Mortain, Coutances, Granville and Mont Saint Michel receive separate treatment. At Lessay and St Sauveur-le-Vicomte there are the remains of ancient Benedictine abbeys, and Torigni-sur-Vire and Tourlaville (close to Cherbourg) have interesting châteaux of the 16th century. Valognes, which in the 17th and 18th centuries posed as a provincial centre of culture, has a church (15th, 16th and 17th centuries) remarkable for its dome, the only one of Gothic architecture in France.

MANCHESTER, EARLS AND DUKES OF. The Manchester title, in the English peerage, belongs to a branch of the family of Montagu (q.v.). The first earl was SIR HENRY MONTAGU (c. 1563-1642), grandson of Sir Edward Montagu, chief justice of the king's bench 1539-1545, who was named by King Henry VIII. one of the executors of his will, and governor to his son, Edward VI. Sir Henry Montagu, who was born at Boughton, Northamptonshire, about 1563, was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, and, having been called to the bar, was elected recorder of London in 1603, and in 1616 was made chief justice of the king's bench, in which office it fell to him to pass sentence on Sir Walter Raleigh in October 1618. In 1620 he was appointed lord high treasurer, being raised to the peerage as Baron Montagu of Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire, and Viscount Mandeville. He became president of the council in 1621, in which office he was continued by Charles I., who created him earl of Manchester[1] in 1626. In 1628 he became lord privy seal, and in 1635 a commissioner of the treasury. Although from the beginning of his public life in 1601, when he first entered parliament, Manchester had inclined to the popular side in politics, he managed to retain to the end the favour of the king. He was a judge of the Star Chamber, and one of the most trusted councillors of Charles I. His loyalty, ability and honesty were warmly praised by Clarendon. In conjunction with Coventry, the lord keeper, he pronounced an opinion in favour of the legality of ship-money in 1634. He died on the 7th of November 1642. Manchester was married three times. One of his sons by his third wife was father of Charles Montagu, created earl of Halifax in 1699.

EDWARD MONTAGU, 2nd earl of Manchester (1602-1671), eldest son of the 1st earl by his first wife, Catherine Spencer, granddaughter of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe, was born in 1602, and was educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He was member of parliament for Huntingdonshire 1623-1626, and in the latter year was raised to the peerage in his father's lifetime as Baron Montagu of Kimbolton, but was known generally by his courtesy title of Viscount Mandeville. His first wife, who was related to the duke of Buckingham, having died in 1625 after two years of marriage, Mandeville married in 1626 Anne, daughter of the 2nd earl of Warwick. The influence of his father-in-law, who was afterwards admiral on the side of the parliament, drew Mandeville to the popular side in the questions in dispute with the crown, and at the beginning of the Long Parliament he was one of the recognized leaders of the popular party in the upper House, his name being joined with those of the five members of the House of Commons impeached by the king in 1642. At the outbreak of the Civil War, having succeeded his father in the earldom in November 1642, Manchester commanded a regiment in the army of the earl of Essex, and in August 1643 he was appointed major-general of the parliamentary forces in the eastern counties, with Cromwell as his second in command. Having become a member of the "committee of both kingdoms" in 1644, he was in supreme command at Marston Moor (July 1, 1644); but in the subsequent operations his lack of energy brought him into disagreement with Cromwell, and in November 1644 he strongly expressed his disapproval of continuing the war (see CROMWELL, OLIVER). Cromwell brought the shortcomings of Manchester before parliament in the autumn of 1644; and early in the following year, anticipating the self-denying ordinance, Manchester resigned his command. He took a leading part in the frequent negotiations for an arrangement with Charles, was custodian with Lenthall of the great seal 1646-1648, and frequently presided in the House of Lords. He opposed the trial of the king, and retired from public life during the Commonwealth; but after the Restoration, which he actively assisted, he was loaded with honours by Charles II. In 1667 he was made a general, and he died on the 5th of May 1671. Manchester was made a K.G. in 1661, and became F.R.S. in 1667. Men of such divergent sympathies as Baxter, Burnet and Clarendon agreed in describing Manchester as a lovable and virtuous man, who loved peace and moderation both in politics and religion. He was five times married, leaving children by two of his wives, and was succeeded in the title by his eldest son, Robert, 3rd earl of Manchester (1634-1683).

See Lord Clarendon, _History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England_ (7 vols., Oxford, 1839) and _Life of Clarendon_ (Oxford, 1827); S. R. Gardiner, _History of the Great Civil War_, 1642-1649. (4 vols., London, 1886-1891); _The Quarrel between Manchester and Cromwell_, Camden Soc., N.S. 12 (London, 1875); Sir Philip Warwick, _Memoirs of the Reign of Charles I._ (London, 1701).

CHARLES MONTAGU, 1st duke of Manchester (c. 1656-1722), son of Robert, 3rd earl of Manchester, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and succeeded to his father's earldom in 1683. Warmly sympathizing with the Whig revolution of 1688, he attended William and Mary at their coronation, fought under William at the Boyne, became a privy councillor in 1698, and held various important diplomatic posts between that date and 1714, when he received an appointment in the household of George I., by whom on the 28th of April 1719 he was created duke of Manchester. He died on the 20th of January 1722, and was succeeded successively in the dukedom by his two sons, William 2nd duke of Manchester (1700-1739), and Robert 3rd duke (c. 1710-1762), who was vice-chamberlain to Queen Caroline, wife of George II.

GEORGE MONTAGU, 4th duke of Manchester (1737-1788), was the son of Robert, the 3rd duke. He was a supporter of Lord Rockingham, and an active opponent in the House of Lords of Lord North's American policy. In the Rockingham ministry of 1782 Manchester became lord chamberlain. He died in September 1788.

WILLIAM MONTAGU, 5th duke of Manchester (1768-1843), second son of the preceding, was educated at Harrow, and having become a colonel in the army in 1794, was appointed governor of Jamaica in 1808. Here he remained, except for a visit to England (1811-1813) till 1827, administering the colony with ability in a period of considerable difficulty, and doing much to prepare the way for emancipation of the slaves. From 1827 to 1830 he was postmaster-general in the cabinet of the duke of Wellington, and died in Rome on the 18th of March 1843. His wife was Susan, daughter of the 4th duke of Gordon. He was succeeded by his son George, 6th duke (1799-1855), a captain in the navy; whose son William Drogo, 7th duke (1823-1890), married Louise, daughter of the Comte d'Alten of Hanover, who after his death married Spencer Cavendish, 8th duke of Devonshire. William was succeeded by his son George Victor Drogo, 8th duke of Manchester (1853-1892), on whose death the title devolved on his son, William Angus Drogo, 9th duke of Manchester (b. 1877). (R. J. M.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The title was derived, not from Manchester in Lancashire, but from Manchester (or Godmanchester) in Huntingdonshire, where the Montagu family estates were.

MANCHESTER, a township of Hartford county, Connecticut, U.S.A., about 9 m. E. of Hartford. Pop.(1890), 8222; (1900), 10,601, of whom 3771 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 13,641. Manchester is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway and by electric line connecting with Hartford, Rockville and Stafford Springs. The township covers an area of about 28 sq. m., and includes the villages of Manchester, South Manchester, Buckland, Manchester Green and Highland Park. The Hockanum River provides a good water power, and Manchester has various manufactures. At South Manchester, an attractive industrial village, a silk mill was built in 1838; the silk mills of one firm (Cheney Brothers) here cover about 12 acres; the company has done much for its employees, whose homes are almost all detached cottages in attractive grounds. Manchester was originally a part of the township of Hartford, and later a part of the township of East Hartford. The first settlement within its present limits was made about 1672; the land was bought from the Indians in 1676; and the township was separated from East Hartford and incorporated in 1823.

See also Meakin's _Model Factories and Villages_ (1905).

MANCHESTER, a city and county of a city, municipal, county and parliamentary borough of Lancashire, England, 189 m. N.W. by N. of London, and 31 m. E. by N. of Liverpool. It stands for the most part on a level plain, the rising ground being chiefly on the north side. The rivers are the Irwell, the Medlock, the Irk, and the Tib, the last entirely overarched and covered by streets and warehouses. The Irwell, which separates Manchester from Salford, is crossed by a series of bridges and discharges itself into the Mersey, which is about 10 m. distant. The chief part of the district, before it was covered with the superficial drift of sand, gravel and clay, consisted of upper New Red Sandstone with slight portions of lower New Red Sandstone, magnesian marls and upper red marls, hard sandstone and limestone rock, and cold clays and shales of contiguous coal-fields. The city, as its thousands of brick-built houses show, has been for the most part dug out of its own clay-fields. The parliamentary and municipal boroughs of Manchester are not conterminous. The city boundaries, which in 1841 enclosed 4293 acres, have been successively enlarged and now enclose 19,914 acres.

There are four large stations for the Lancashire & Yorkshire, London & North-Western, the Midland, Cheshire lines, Great Northern, and Great Central railways, and many subsidiary stations for local traffic. Tramways, as well as railways, run from Manchester to Oldham, Ashton, Eccles, Stockport, &c., with which places the city is connected by continuous lines of street. The length of the streets in the city of Manchester is 758 m. (exclusive of those in the district of Withington, which joined the city in 1905). The tramway lines within the city boundaries extend to 111 m., and in addition there are 58 m. leased to the corporation by adjacent local authorities. As a matter of fact, the whole of south-east Lancashire and some portions of Cheshire are linked to Manchester by railways and tramways so as to form one great urban area, and the traveller passes from one town to another by lines of street which, for the most part, are continuous. Facility of communication is essential to the commercial prosperity of Manchester, and its need was recognized by the duke of Bridgewater, whose canal, constructed in 1761, has now been absorbed by the Manchester Ship Canal (q.v.). The making of this early waterway was an event only less important than the opening of the Manchester & Liverpool railway in 1830.

The township of Manchester, which forms the nucleus of the city, is comparatively small, and outlying hamlets having been added, its size has increased without regularity of plan. Roughly speaking, the city forms a square, with Market Street as its central thoroughfare. The tendency of recent development is to reduce the irregularities so that the other main streets may either run parallel to or intersect Market Street. Deansgate, which formerly ended in a narrow tangle of buildings, is now a broad road with many handsome buildings, and the same process of widening, enlarging and rebuilding is going on, more or less, all over Manchester. Market Street, which has not been widened since 1820, has been termed, and with some reason, "the most congested street in Europe"; but relief is anticipated from some of the other street improvements. The centre of the city is occupied by business premises; the factories and workshops are mainly on the eastern side. The most important of the public buildings are in the centre and the south. The latter is also the most favoured residential district, and at its extremity is semi-rural in character. Large masses of the population live beyond the city boundary and come to their daily avocations by train and tram. Such a population is rarely homogeneous and Manchester attracts citizens from every part of the globe; there are considerable numbers of German, Armenian and Jewish residents. The houses are for the most part of brick, the public buildings of stone, which is speedily blackened by the smoky atmosphere. Many of the warehouses are of considerable architectural merit, and in recent years the use of terra-cotta has become more common. It is only in the suburbs that gardens are possible; the air is laden with black dust, and the rivers, in spite of all efforts, are in the central part of the city mere dirty ditches. It is impossible to describe Manchester in general terms, for within the city boundaries the conditions vary from the most squalid of slums to suburban and almost rural beauty.