Part 19

_Products and Industries._--In minerals Manchuria is very rich: coal, gold, iron (as well as magnetic iron ore), and precious stones are found in large quantities. Gold mines are worked at several places in the northern part of Manchuria, of which the principal are on the Muho river, an affluent of the Amur, and near the Russian frontier. Mines are also worked at Kwanyin-shan, opposite the Russian frontier town of Radevska, and at Chia-pi-kou, on an affluent of the upper Sungari. Indigo and opium are the most lucrative crops. The indigo plant is grown in large quantities in the plain country to the north of Mukden, and is transported thence to the coast in carts, each of which carries rather more than a ton weight of the dye. The poppy is cultivated wherever it will grow, the crop being far more profitable than that of any other product. Cotton, tobacco, pulse, millet, wheat and barley are also grown.

_Population._--The population is estimated as follows for each of the three divisions:--

Province of Sheng-king (Feng T'ien) 4,000,000 " " Kirin 6,500,000 " " Hei-lung-kiang 2,000,000 ---------- Total 12,500,000

_Communications._--Four principal highways traverse Manchuria. The first runs from Peking to Kirin via Mukden, where it sends off a branch to Korea. At Kirin it bifurcates, one branch going to San-sing, the extreme north-eastern town of the province of Kirin, and the other to Possiet Bay on the coast via Ninguta. The second road runs from the treaty port of Niu-chwang through Mukden to Petuna in the north-western corner of the Kirin province, and thence to Tsitsihar, Mergen and the Amur. The third also starts from Niu-chwang, and strikes southward to Kin-chow at the extremity of the Liao-tung peninsula. The fourth connects Niu-chwang with the Gate of Korea.

[Illustration: Map of Manchuria.]

Manchurian Railways.

The original Manchurian railway was constructed under an agreement made in 1896 between the Chinese government and the Russo-Chinese bank, an institution founded in 1895 to develop Russian interests in the East. The Chinese Eastern Railway Company was formed by the bank under this agreement, to construct and work the line, and surveys were made in 1897, the town of Harbin being founded as headquarters for the work. The line, which affords through communication from Europe by way of the Trans-Siberian system, enters Manchuria near a station of that name in the north-west corner of the country, passes Khailar, and runs south-east, near Tsitsihar, to Harbin. Thence the main line continues in the same general direction to the eastern frontier of Manchuria, and so to Vladivostok. In 1898 Russia obtained a lease of the Liao-tung peninsula, and a clause of this contract empowered her to connect Port Arthur and Dalny (now Tairen) with the main Manchurian railway by a branch southward from Harbin. In spite of interruption caused by the Boxer outbreak, through communication was established in 1901. Under the Russo-Japanese treaty of August 1905, after the war, supplemented by a convention between Japan and China concluded in December of the same year, Japan took over the line from Port Arthur as far as Kwang-cheng-tsze, now known as the Southern Manchurian railway (508 m.). Branches were promoted (a) from Mukden to Antung on the Ya-lu, to connect with the Korean system, and (b) from Kwang-cheng-tsze to Kirin. The rest of the original Manchurian system (1088 miles) remains under Russian control. In the south-west of Manchuria a line of the imperial railways of Northern China gives connexion from Peking, and Branches at Kou-pang-tsze to Sin-min-ting and to Niu-chwang, and the link between Sin-min-ting and Mukden is also under Chinese control. The lines now under Russian control were laid down, and remain, on the 5 ft. gauge which is the Russian standard; but after the Russian control of the southern lines was lost the gauge was altered from that standard.

_History._--Manchu, as has been said, is not the name of the country but of the people who inhabit it. The name was adopted by a ruler who rose to power in the beginning of the 13th century. Before that time the Manchus were more or less a shifting population, and, being broken up into a number of tribes, they went mainly under the distinctive name of those clans which exercised lordship over them. Thus under the Cbow dynasty (1122-225 B.C.) they were known as Sewshin, and at subsequent periods as Yih-low, Wuh-keih, Moh-hoh, Pohai, Nüchih and according to the Chinese historians also as Khitan. Throughout their history they appear as a rude people, the tribute they brought to the Chinese court consisting of stone arrow-heads, hawks, gold, and latterly ginseng. Assuming that, as the Chinese say, the Khitans were Manchus, the first appearance of the Manchus, as a people, in China dates from the beginning of the 10th century, when the Khitans, having first conquered the kingdom of Pohai, crossed the frontier into China and established the Liao or Iron dynasty in the northern portion of the empire. These invaders were in their turn overthrown two centuries later by another invasion from Manchuria. These new conquerors were Nüchihs, and therefore direct ancestors of the Manchus. On assuming the imperial yellow in China their chief adopted the title of Kin or "Golden" for his dynasty. "Iron" (Liao), he said, "rusts, but gold always keeps its purity and colour, therefore my dynasty shall be called Kin." In a little more than a century, however, the Kins were driven out of China by the Mongols under Jenghiz Khan. But before the close of their rule a miraculous event occurred on the Chang-pai-Shan mountains which is popularly believed to have laid the seeds of the greatness of the present rulers of the empire. Three heaven-born maidens, so runs the legend, were bathing one day in a lake under the Chang-pai-Shan mountains when a passing magpie dropped a ripe red fruit into the lap of one of them. The maiden ate the fruit, and in due course a child was born to her, whom she named Aisin Gioro, or the Golden. When quite a lad Aisin Gioro was elected chief over three contending clans, and established his capital at Otoli near the Chang-pai-Shan mountains. His reign, however, was brief, for his subjects rose and murdered him, with all his sons except the youngest, Fancha, who, like the infant Haitu in Mongolian history, was miraculously saved. Nothing is recorded of the facts of Aisin Gioro's reign except that he named the people over whom he reigned Manchu, or "Pure." His descendants, through the rescued Fancha, fell into complete obscurity until about the middle of the 16th century, when one of them, Nurhachu by name, a chieftain of a small tribe, rose to power. Nurhachu played with skill and daring the rôle which had been played by Jenghiz Khan more than three centuries before in Mongolia. With even greater success than his Mongolian counterpart, Nurhachu drew tribe after tribe under his sway, and after numerous wars with Korea and Mongolia he established his rule over the whole of Manchuria. Being thus the sovereign of an empire, he, again like Jenghiz Khan, adopted for himself the title of Ying-ming, "Brave and Illustrious," and took for his reign the title of T'ien-ming. Thirteen years later, in 1617, after numerous border fights with the Chinese, Nurhachu drew up a list of "seven hates," or indictments, against his southern neighbours, and, not getting the satisfaction he demanded, declared war against them. The progress of this war, the peace hastily patched up, the equally hasty alliance and its consequences, being matters of Chinese history, are treated in the article CHINA.

Manchuria was claimed by Russia as her particular sphere of interest towards the close of the 19th century, and in the course of the disturbances of 1900 Russian troops occupied various parts of the country. Eventually a Manchurian convention was arranged between China and Russia, by which Russia was to evacuate the province; but no actual ratification of this convention was made by Russia. The Anglo-German agreement of October 1900, to which Japan also became a party, and by which it was agreed to "maintain undiminished the territorial condition of the Chinese empire," was considered by Great Britain and Japan not to exclude Manchuria; but Germany, on the other hand, declared that Manchuria was of no interest to her. The Anglo-Japanese treaty of 1902, however, was ostensibly directed towards the preservation of Manchuria in Chinese hands. British capital has been invested in the extension of the Chinese Northern railway to Niu-chwang, and the fact was officially recognized by an agreement between Great Britain and Russia in 1899. One result of the Russo-Japanese War was the evacuation of Manchuria by the Russians, which, after the conclusion of peace in 1905, was handed over by Japan to China.

See H. E. M. James, _The Long White Mountain_ (London, 1888); D. Christie, _Ten Years in Manchuria_ (Paisley, 1895); F. E. Younghusband, _The Heart of a Continent: a Narrative of Travels in Manchuria_ (London, 1896); P. H. Kent, _Railway Enterprise in China_ (London, 1907). (R. K. D.)

MANCINI, PASQUALE STANISLAO (1817-1888), Italian jurist and statesman, was born at Castel Baronia, in the province of Avellino, on the 17th of March 1817. At Naples, where he studied law and displayed great literary activity, he rapidly acquired a prominent position, and in 1848 was instrumental in persuading Ferdinand II. to participate in the war against Austria. Twice he declined the offer of a portfolio in the Neapolitan cabinet, and upon the triumph of the reactionary party undertook the defence of the Liberal political prisoners. Threatened with imprisonment in his turn, he fled to Piedmont, where he obtained a university professorship and became preceptor of the crown prince Humbert. In 1860 he prepared the legislative unification of Italy, opposed the idea of an alliance between Piedmont and Naples, and, after the fall of the Bourbons, was sent to Naples as administrator of justice, in which capacity he suppressed the religious orders, revoked the Concordat, proclaimed the right of the state to Church property, and unified civil and commercial jurisprudence. In 1862 he became minister of public instruction in the Rattazzi cabinet, and induced the Chamber to abolish capital punishment. Thereafter, for fourteen years, he devoted himself chiefly to questions of international law and arbitration, but in 1876, upon the advent of the Left to power, became minister of justice in the Depretis cabinet. His Liberalism found expression in the extension of press freedom, the repeal of imprisonment for debt, and the abolition of ecclesiastical tithes. During the Conclave of 1878 he succeeded, by negotiations with Cardinal Pecci (afterwards Leo XIII.), in inducing the Sacred College to remain in Rome, and, after the election of the new pope, arranged for his temporary absence from the Vatican for the purpose of settling private business. Resigning office in March 1878, he resumed the practice of law, and secured the annulment of Garibaldi's marriage. The fall of Cairoli led to Mancini's appointment (1881) to the ministry of foreign affairs in the Depretis administration. The growing desire in Italy for alliance with Austria and Germany did not at first secure his approval; nevertheless he accompanied King Humbert to Vienna and conducted the negotiations which led to the informal acceptance of the Triple Alliance. His desire to retain French confidence was the chief motive of his refusal in July 1882 to share in the British expedition to Egypt, but, finding his efforts fruitless when the existence of the Triple Alliance came to be known, he veered to the English interest and obtained assent in London to the Italian expedition to Massawa. An indiscreet announcement of the limitations of the Triple Alliance contributed to his fall in June 1885, when he was succeeded by Count di Robilant. He died in Rome on the 26th of December 1888.

MANCIPLE, the official title of the caterer at a college, an inn of court, or other institution. Sometimes also the chief cook. The medieval Latin _manceps_, formed from _mancipium_, acquisition by purchase (see ROMAN LAW), meant a purchaser of stores, and _mancipium_ became used of his office. It is from the latter word that the O. Fr. _manciple_ is taken.

MANCUNIUM, the name often (though perhaps incorrectly) given as the Romano-British name of Manchester. Here, close to the Medlock, in the district still called Castlefield near Knott Mill, stood in Roman days a fort garrisoned by a cohort of Roman auxiliary soldiers. The site is now obscured by houses, railways and the Rochdale canal, but vestiges of Roman ramparts can still be seen, and other remains were found in 1907 and previous years. Traces of Romano-British inhabitation have been noted elsewhere in Manchester, especially near the cathedral. But there was no town here; we can trace nothing more than a fort guarding the roads running north through Lancashire and east into Yorkshire, and the dwellings of women-folk and traders which would naturally spring up outside such a fort. The ancient name is unknown. Our Roman authorities give both Mancunium and Mamucium, but it is not clear that either form is correct.

See W. T. Watkin's _Roman Lancashire_; C. Roeder's _Roman Manchester_, and the account edited by F. Bruton of the excavations in 1907. (F. J. H.)

MANDAEANS, also known as Sabians, Nasoraeans, or St John's Christians,[1] an Oriental sect of great antiquity, interesting to the theologian as almost the only surviving example of a religion compounded of Christian, heathen and Jewish elements on a type which is essentially that of ancient Gnosticism.

The Mandaeans are found in the marshy lands of South Babylonia (al-bataih), particularly in the neighbourhood of Basra (or Bussorah), and in Khuzistan (Disful, Shuster).[2] They speak the languages of the localities in which they are settled (Arabic or Persian), but the language of their sacred books is an Aramaic dialect, which has its closest affinities with that of the Babylonian Talmud, written in a peculiar character suggestive of the old Palmyrene.[3] The existence of the Mandaeans has been known since the middle of the 17th century, when the first Christian missionaries, Ignatius a Jesu[4] and Angelus a Sancto, began to labour among them at Basra; further information was gathered at a somewhat later date by Pietro della Valle[5] and Jean de Thévenot[6] (1633-1667), and in the following century by Engelbrecht Kaempfer (1651-1716), Jean Chardin (1643-1713) and Carsten Niebuhr. In recent times they have been visited by A. H. Petermann[7] and Albrecht Socin, and Siouffi[8] published in 1880 a full and accurate account of their manners and customs, taken from the lips of a converted Mandaean. For our knowledge of their doctrinal system, however, we still depend chiefly upon the sacred books already mentioned, consisting of fragments of very various antiquity derived from an older literature.[9] Of these the largest and most important is the _Sidra rabba_ ("Great Book"), known also as _Ginza_ ("Treasure"), consisting of two unequal parts, of which the larger is called _yamina_ (to the right hand) and the smaller _s'mala_ (to the left hand), because of the manner in which they are bound together. The former is intended for the living; the latter consists chiefly of prayers to be read at the burial of priests. As regards doctrine, the work is exhaustive; but it is diffuse, obscure, and occasionally self-contradictory, as might be expected in a work which consists of a number of unconnected paragraphs of various authorship and date. The last section of the "right-hand" part (the "Book of Kings") is one of the older portions, and from its allusion to "the Persian and Arabian kings" may be dated somewhere between A.D. 700 and 900. Many of the doctrinal portions may in substance well be still older, and date from the time of the Sassanids. None of the MSS., however, is older than the 16th century.[10]

The following sketch represents, as far as can be gathered from these heterogeneous sources, the principal features of the Mandaean system. The ground and origin of all things is _Pira_, or more correctly _Pera rabba_ ("the great abyss," or from [Hebrew: paar], "to split," cf. the Gnostic [Greek: buthos], or more probably cf. Heb. _peri_, "the great fruit"), associated with whom, and forming a triad with him, are the primal aeons _Ayar ziva rabba_, "the great shining aether," and _Mana rabba d'ekara_, "the great spirit of glory," usually called simply _Mana rabba_. The last-named, the most prominent of the three, is the king of light properly so called, from whom the development of all things begins. From him emanates _Yard^ena rabba_, "the great Jordan," which, as the higher-world soul, permeates the whole aether, the domain of Ayar. Alongside of _Mana rabba_ frequent mention is made of _D'mutha_, his "image," as a female power; the name "image of the father" arises out of the same conception as that which gives rise to the name of [Greek: ennoia] among the Greek Gnostics. _Mana rabba_ called into being the highest of the aeons properly so called, _Hayye Kadmaye_, "Primal Life," and then withdrew into deepest secrecy, visible indeed to the highest but not to the lowest aeons (cf. [Greek: Sophia] and [Greek: Propatôr]), yet manifesting himself also to the souls of the more pious of the Mandaeans after their separation from the body. Primal Life, who is properly speaking the Mandaean god, has the same predicates as the primal spirit, and every prayer, as well as every section of the sacred books, begins by invoking him.[11] The extremely fantastic delineation of the world of light by which _Hayye Kadmaye_ is surrounded (see for example the beginning of _Sidra rabba_) corresponds very closely with the Manichaean description of the abode of the "king of the paradise of light." The king of light "sits in the far north in might and glory." The Primal Light unfolds himself by five great branches, viz. "the highest purest light, the gentle wind, the harmony of sounds, the voice of all the aeons, and the beauty of their forms," all these being treated as abstractions and personified. Out of the further development and combination of these primary manifestations arise numerous aeons (_'Uthre_, "splendours," from [Hebrew: atar], "is rich"), of which the number is often stated to be three hundred and sixty. They are divided into a number of classes (kings, hypostases, forms, &c.); the proper names by which they are invoked are many, and for the most part obscure, borrowed doubtless, to some extent, from the Parsee angelology. From the First Life proceeds as a principal emanation the "Second Life," _Hayye Tinyane_, generally called _Yoshamin_. This last name is evidently meant to be Hebrew, "Yahweh of the heavens," the God of the Jews being of a secondary rank in the usual Gnostic style. The next emanation after _Yoshamin_ is "the messenger of life" (_Manda d'hayye_, literally [Greek: gnôsis tês zôês]), the most important figure in the entire system, the mediator and redeemer, the [Greek: logos] and the Christ of the Mandaeans, from whom, as already stated, they take their name. He belongs to the heathen Gnosis, and is in his essence the same as the Babylonian Marduk. _Yoshamin_ desired to raise himself above the Primal Light, but failed in the attempt, and was punished by removal out of the pure aetherial world into that of inferior light. Manda, on the other hand, continues with the First Life and _Mana rabba_, and is called his "beloved son," the "first born," "high priest" and "word of life." The "Life" calls into existence in the visible world a series of three great Helpers, Hibil, Shithil and Anosh (late Judaeo-Babylonian transformations of the well-known names of the book of Genesis), the guardians of souls. The last son of the Second Life is _Hayye t'lithaye_, the "Third Life," usually called father of the Uthre (_Aba d' 'Uthre_, _Abathur_). His usual epithet is "the Ancient" (_'Atiqa_), and he is also called "the deeply hidden and guarded." He stands on the borderland between the here and the hereafter, like the mysterious [Greek: preobutês tritos] or _senex tertius_ of Mani, whose becoming visible will betoken the end of the world. Abathur sits on the farthest verge of the world of light that lies towards the lower regions, and weighs in his balance the deeds of the departed spirits who ascend to him. Beneath him was originally nothing but a huge void with muddy black water at the bottom, in which his image was reflected, becoming ultimately solidified into P'tahil, his son, who now partakes of the nature of matter. The demiurge of the Mandaeans, and corresponding to the Ialdabaoth of the Ophites, he at the instance of his father frames the earth and men--according to some passages in conjunction with the seven bad planetary spirits. He created Adam and Eve, but was unable to make them stand upright, whereupon Hibil, Shithil and Anosh were sent by the First Life to infuse into their forms spirit from _Mana rabba_ himself. Hibil, at the instance of the supreme God, also taught men about the world of light and the aeons, and especially gave them to know that not P'tahil but another was their creator and supreme God, who as "the great king of light, without number, without limit," stands far above him. At the same time he enjoined the pair to marry and people the world. P'tahil had now lost his power over men, and was driven by his father out of the world of light into a place beneath it, whence he shall at the day of judgment be raised, and after receiving baptism be made king of the 'Uthre with divine honours.