Part 15

HAMILTON, one of the chief cities of Canada, capital of Wentworth county, Ontario. It occupies a highly picturesque situation upon the shore of a spacious land-locked bay at the western end of Lake Ontario. It covers the plain stretching between the water-front and the escarpment (called "The Mountain"), this latter being a continuation of that over which the Falls of Niagara plunge 40 m. to the west. Founded about 1778 by one Robert Land, the growth of Hamilton has been steady and substantial, and, owing to its remarkable industrial development, it has come to be called "the Birmingham of Canada." This development is largely due to the use of electrical energy generated by water-power, in regard to which Hamilton stands first among Canadian cities. The electricity has not, however, been obtained from Niagara Falls, but from De Cew Falls, 35 m. S.E. of the city. The entire electrical railway system, the lighting of the city, and the majority of the factories are operated by power obtained from this source. The manufacturing interests of Hamilton are varied, and some of the establishments are of vast size, employing many thousands of hands each, such as the International Harvester Co. and the Canadian Westinghouse Co. In addition Hamilton is the centre of one of the finest fruit-growing districts on the continent, and its open-air market is a remarkable sight. The municipal matters are managed by a mayor and board of aldermen. Six steam railroads and three electric radial roads afford Hamilton ample facilities for transport by land, while during the season of navigation a number of steamboat lines supply daily services to Toronto and other lake ports. Entrance into the broad bay is obtained through a short canal intersecting Burlington Beach, which is crossed by two swing bridges, whereof one--that of the Grand Trunk railway--is among the largest of its kind in the world. Burlington Beach is lined with cottages occupied by the city residents during the hot summer months. Hamilton is rich in public institutions. The educational equipment comprises a normal college, collegiate institute, model school and more than a score of public schools, for the most part housed in handsome stone and brick buildings. There are four hospitals, and the asylum for the insane is the largest in Canada. There is an excellent public library, and in the same building with it a good art school. Hamilton boasts of a number of parks, Dundurn Castle Park, containing several interesting relics of the war of 1812, being the finest, and, as it is practically within the city limits, it is a great boon to the people. Gore Park, in the centre of the city, is used for concerts, given by various bands, one of which has gained an international reputation. Since its incorporation in 1833 the history of Hamilton has shown continuous growth. In 1836 the population was 2846; In 1851, 10,248; in 1861, 19,096; in 1871, 26,880; in 1881, 36,661; in 1891, 48,959; and in 1901, 52,634. The Anglican bishop of Niagara has his seat here, and also a Roman Catholic bishop. Hamilton returns two members to the Provincial parliament and two to the Dominion.

HAMILTON, a municipal and police burgh of Lanarkshire, Scotland. Pop. (1891), 24,859; (1901), 32,775. It is situated about 1 m. from the junction of the Avon with the Clyde, 10-3/4 m. S.E. of Glasgow by road, and has stations on the Caledonian and North British railways. The town hall in the Scottish Baronial style has a clock-tower 130 ft. high, and the county buildings are in the Grecian style. Among the subjects of antiquarian interest are Queenzie Neuk, the spot where Queen Mary rested on her journey to Langside, the old steeple and pillory built in the reign of Charles I., the Mote Hill, the old Runic cross, and the carved gateway in the palace park. In the churchyard there is a monument to four covenanters who suffered at Edinburgh, on the 7th of December 1600, whose heads were buried here. Among the industries are manufactures of cotton, lace and embroidered muslins, and carriage-building, and there are also large market gardens, the district being famed especially for its apples, and some dairy-farming; but the prosperity of the town depends chiefly upon the coal and ironstone of the surrounding country, which is the richest mineral field in Scotland. Hamilton originated in the 15th century under the protecting influence of the lords of Hamilton, and became a burgh of barony in 1456 and a royal burgh in 1548. The latter rights were afterwards surrendered and it was made the chief burgh of the regality and dukedom of Hamilton in 1668, the third marquess having been created duke in 1643. It unites with Airdrie, Falkirk, Lanark and Linlithgow to form the Falkirk district of burghs, which returns one member to parliament.

Immediately east of the town is Hamilton palace, the seat of the duke of Hamilton and Brandon, premier peer of Scotland. It occupies most of the site of the original burgh of Netherton. The first mansion was erected at the end of the 16th century and rebuilt about 1710, to be succeeded in 1822-1829 by the present palace, a magnificent building in the classical style. Its front is a specimen of the enriched Corinthian architecture, with a projecting pillared portico after the style of the temple of Jupiter Stator at Rome, 264 ft. in length and 60 ft. in height. Each of the twelve pillars of the portico is a single block of stone, quarried at Dalserf, midway between Hamilton and Lanark, and required thirty horses to draw it to its site. The interior is richly decorated and once contained the finest collection of paintings in Scotland, but most of them, together with the Hamilton and Beckford libraries, were sold in 1882. Within the grounds, which comprise nearly 1500 acres, is the mausoleum erected by the 10th duke, a structure resembling in general design that of the emperor Hadrian at Rome, being a circular building springing from a square basement, and enclosing a decorated octagonal chapel, the door of which is a copy in bronze of Ghiberti's gates at Florence. At Barncluith, 1 m. S.E. of the town, may be seen the Dutch gardens which were laid down in terraces on the steep banks of the Avon. Their quaint shrubbery and old-fashioned setting render them attractive. They were planned in 1583 by John Hamilton, an ancestor of Lord Belhaven, and now belong to Lord Ruthven. About 2 m. S.E. of Hamilton, within the western High Park, on the summit of a precipitous rock 200 ft. in height, the foot of which is washed by the Avon, stand the ruins of Cadzow Castle, the subject of a spirited ballad by Sir Walter Scott. The castle had been a royal residence for at least two centuries before Bannockburn (1314), but immediately after the battle Robert Bruce granted it to Sir Walter FitzGilbert Hamilton, the son of the founder of the family, in return for the fealty. Near it is the noble chase with its ancient oaks, the remains of the Caledonian Forest, where are still preserved some of the aboriginal breed of wild cattle. Opposite Cadzow Castle, in the eastern High Park, on the right bank of the Avon, is Chatelherault, consisting of stables and offices, and imitating in outline the palace of that name in France.

HAMILTON, a village of Madison county, New York, U.S.A., about 29 m. S.W. of Utica. Pop. (1890), 1744; (1900), 1627; (1905) 1522; (1910) 1689. It is served by the New York, Ontario & Western railway. Hamilton is situated in a productive agricultural region, and has a large trade in hops; among its manufactures are canned vegetables, lumber and knit goods. There are several valuable stone quarries in the vicinity. The village owns and operates its water-supply and electric-lighting system. Hamilton is the seat of Colgate University, which was founded in 1819, under the name of the Hamilton Literary and Theological Institution, as a training school for the Baptist ministry, was chartered as Madison University in 1846, and was renamed in 1890 in honour of the Colgate family, several of whom, especially William (1783-1857), the soap manufacturer, and his sons, James Boorman (1818-1904), and Samuel (1822-1897), were its liberal benefactors. In 1908-1909 it had a university faculty of 33 members, 307 students in the college, 60 in the theological department, and 134 in the preparatory department, and a library of 54,000 volumes, including the Baptist Historical collection (about 5000 vols.) given by Samuel Colgate. The township in which the village is situated and which bears the same name (pop. in 1910, 3825) was settled about 1790 and was separated from the township of Paris in 1795. The village was incorporated in 1812.

HAMILTON, a city and the county-seat of Butler county, Ohio, U.S.A., on both sides of the Great Miami river, 25 m. N. of Cincinnati. Pop. (1890), 17,565; (1900), 23,914, of whom 2949 were foreign-born; (1910 census), 35,279. It is served by the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton, and the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis railways, and by interurban electric lines connecting with Cincinnati, Dayton and Toledo. The valley in which Hamilton is situated is noted for its fertility. The city has a fine public square and the Lane free library (1866); the court house is its most prominent public building. A hydraulic canal provides the city with good water power, and in 1905, in the value of its factory products ($13,992,574, being 31.3% more than in 1900), Hamilton ranked tenth among the cities of the state. Its most distinctive manufactures are paper and wood pulp; more valuable are foundry and machine shop products; other manufactures are safes, malt liquors, flour, woollens, Corliss engines, carriages and wagons and agricultural implements. The municipality owns and operates the water-works, electric-lighting plant and gas plant. A stockade fort was built here in 1791 by General Arthur Saint Clair, but it was abandoned in 1796, two years after the place had been laid out as a town and named Fairfield. The town was renamed, in honour of Alexander Hamilton, about 1796. In 1803 Hamilton was made the county-seat; in 1810 it was incorporated as a village; in 1854 it annexed the town of Rossville on the opposite side of the river; and in 1857 it was made a city. In 1908, by the annexation of suburbs, the area and the population of Hamilton were considerably increased. Hamilton was the early home of William Dean Howells, whose recollections of it are to be found in his _A Boy's Town_; his father's anti-slavery sentiments made it necessary for him to sell his printing office, where the son had learned to set type in his teens, and to remove to Dayton.

HAMIRPUR, a town and district of British India, in the Allahabad division of the United Provinces. The town stands on a tongue of land near the confluence of the Betwa and Jumna, 110 m. N.W. of Allahabad. Pop. (1901), 6721. It was founded, according to tradition, in the 11th century by Hamir Deo, a Karchuli Rajput expelled from Alwar by the Mahommedans.

The district has an area of 2289 sq. m., and encloses the native states of Sarila, Jigni and Bihat, besides portions of Charkhari and Garrauli. Hamirpur forms part of the great plain of Bundelkhand, which stretches from the banks of the Jumna to the central Vindhyan plateau. The district is in shape an irregular parallelogram, with a general slope northward from the low hills on the southern boundary. The scenery is rendered picturesque by the artificial lakes of Mahoba. These magnificent reservoirs were constructed by the Chandel rajas before the Mahommedan conquest, for purposes of irrigation and as sheets of ornamental water. Many of them enclose craggy islets or peninsulas, crowned by the ruins of granite temples, exquisitely carved and decorated. From the base of this hill and lake country the general plain of the district spreads northward in an arid and treeless level towards the broken banks of the rivers. Of these the principal are the Betwa and its tributary the Dhasan, both of which are unnavigable. There is little waste land, except in the ravines by the river sides. The deep black soil of Bundelkhand, known as _mar_, retains the moisture under a dried and rifted surface, and renders the district fertile. The staple produce is grain of various sorts, the most important being gram. Cotton is also a valuable crop. Agriculture suffers much from the spread of the _kans_ grass, a noxious weed which overruns the fields and is found to be almost ineradicable wherever it has once obtained a footing. Droughts and famine are unhappily common. The climate is dry and hot, owing to the absence of shade and the bareness of soil, except in the neighbourhood of the Mahoba lakes, which cool and moisten the atmosphere.

In 1901 the pop. was 458,542, showing a decrease of 11% in the decade, due to the famine of 1895-1897. Export trade is chiefly in agricultural produce and cotton cloth. Rath is the principal commercial centre. The Midland branch of the Great Indian Peninsula railway passes through the south of the district.

From the 9th to the 12th century this district was the centre of the Chandel kingdom, with its capital at Mahoba. The rajas adorned the town with many splendid edifices, remains of which still exist, besides constructing the noble artificial lakes already described. At the end of the 12th century Mahoba fell into the hands of the Mussulmans. In 1680 the district was conquered by Chhatar Sal, the hero of the Bundelas, who assigned at his death one-third of his dominions to his ally the peshwa of the Mahrattas. Until Bundelkhand became British territory in 1803 there was constant warfare between the Bundela princes and the Mahratta chieftains. On the outbreak of the Mutiny in 1857, Hamirpur was the scene of a fierce rebellion, and all the principal towns were plundered by the surrounding chiefs. After a short period of desultory guerrilla warfare the rebels were effectually quelled and the work of reorganization began. The district has since been subject to cycles of varying agricultural prosperity.

HAMITIC RACES AND LANGUAGES. The questions involved in a consideration of Hamitic races and Hamitic languages are independent of one another and call for separate treatment.

I. _Hamitic Races._--The term Hamitic as applied to race is not only extremely vague but has been much abused by anthropological writers. Of the few who have attempted a precise definition the most prominent is Sergi,[1] and his classification may be taken as representing one point of view with regard to this difficult question.

Sergi considers the Hamites, using the term in the racial sense, as a branch of his "Mediterranean Race"; and divides them as follows:--

1. _Eastern Branch_-- (a) Ancient and Modern Egyptian (excluding the Arabs). (b) Nubians, Beja. (c) Abyssinians. (d) Galla, Danakil, Somali. (e) Masai. (f) Wahuma or Watusi.

2. _Northern Branch_-- (a) Berbers of the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Sahara. (b) Tibbu. (c) Fula. (d) Guanches (extinct).

With regard to this classification the following conclusions may be regarded as comparatively certain: that the members of groups d, e and f of the first branch appear to be closely inter-connected by ties of blood, and also the members of the second branch. The Abyssinians in the south have absorbed a certain amount of Galla blood, but the majority are Semitic or Semito-Negroid. The question of the racial affinities of the Ancient Egyptians and the Beja are still a matter of doubt, and the relation of the two groups to each other is still controversial. Sergi, it is true, arguing from physical data believes that a close connexion exists; but the data are so extremely scanty that the finality of his conclusion may well be doubted. His "Northern Branch" corresponds with the more satisfactory term "Libyan Race," represented in fair purity by the Berbers, and, mixed with Negro elements, by the Fula and Tibbu. This Libyan race is distinctively a white race, with dark curly hair; the Eastern Hamites are equally distinctively a brown people with frizzy hair. If, as Sergi believes, these brown people are themselves a race, and not a cross between white and black in varying proportions, they are found in their greatest purity among the Somali and Galla, and mixed with Bantu blood among the Ba-Hima (Wahuma) and Watussi. The Masai seem to be as much Nilotic Negro as Hamite. This Galla type does not seem to appear farther north than the southern portion of Abyssinia, and it is not unlikely that the Beja are very early Semitic immigrants with an aboriginal Negroid admixture. It is also possible that they and the Ancient Egyptians may contain a common element. The Nubians appear akin to the Egyptians but with a strong Negroid element.

To return to Sergi's two branches, besides the differences in skin colour and hair-texture there is also a cultural difference of great importance. The Eastern Hamites are essentially a pastoral people and therefore nomadic or semi-nomadic; the Berbers, who, as said above, are the purest representatives of the Libyans, are agriculturists. The pastoral habits of the Eastern Hamites are of importance, since they show the utmost reluctance to abandon them. Even the Ba-Hima and Watussi, for long settled and partly intermixed with the agricultural Bantu, regard any pursuit but that of cattle-tending as absolutely beneath their dignity.

It would seem therefore that, while sufficient data have not been collected to decide whether, on the evidence of exact anthropological measurements, the Libyans are connected racially with the Eastern Hamites, the testimony derived from broad "descriptive characteristics" and general culture is against such a connexion. To regard the Libyans as Hamites solely on the ground that the languages spoken by the two groups show affinities would be as rash and might be as false as to aver that the present-day Hungarians are Mongolians because Magyar is an Asiatic tongue. Regarding the present state of knowledge it would be safer therefore to restrict the term "Hamites" to Sergi's first group; and call the second by the name "Libyans." The difficult question of the origin of the ancient Egyptians is discussed elsewhere.

As to the question whether the Hamites in this restricted sense are a definite race or a blend, no discussion can, in view of the paucity of evidence, as yet lead to a satisfactory conclusion, but it might be suggested very tentatively that further researches may possibly connect them with the Dravidian peoples of India. It is sufficient for present purposes that the term Hamite, using it as coextensive with Sergi's Eastern Hamite, has a definite connotation. By the term is meant a brown people with frizzy hair, of lean and sinewy physique, with slender but muscular arms and legs, a thin straight or even aquiline nose with delicate nostrils, thin lips and no trace of prognathism. (T. A. J.)

II. _Hamitic Languages._--The whole north of Africa was once inhabited by tribes of the Caucasian race, speaking languages which are now generally called, after Genesis x., Hamitic, a term introduced principally by Friedrich Muller. The linguistic coherence of that race has been broken up especially by the intrusion of Arabs, whose language has exercised a powerful influence on all those nations. This splitting up, and the immense distances over which those tribes were spread, have made those languages diverge more widely than do the various tongues of the Indo-European stock, but still their affinity can easily be traced by the linguist, and is, perhaps, greater than the corresponding anthropologic similarity between the white Libyan, red Galla and swarthy Somali. The relationship of these languages to Semitic has long been noticed, but was at first taken for descent from Semitic (cf. the name "Syro-Arabian" proposed by Prichard). Now linguists are agreed that the Proto-Semites and Proto-Hamites once formed a unity, probably in Arabia. That original unity has been demonstrated especially by Friedrich Muller (_Reise der osterreichischen Fregatte Novara_, p. 51, more fully, _Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft_, vol. iii. fasc. 2, p. 226); cf. also A. H. Sayce, _Science of Language_, ii. 178; R. N. Cust, _The Modern Languages of Africa_, i. 94, &c. The comparative grammars of Semitic (W. Wright, 1890, and especially H. Zimmern, 1898) demonstrate this now to everybody by comparative tables of the grammatical elements.

The classification of Hamitic languages is as follows:[2]--

1. _The Libyan Dialects_ (mostly misnamed "Berber languages," after an unfortunate, vague Arabic designation, _barabra_, "people of foreign language"). The representatives of this large group extend from the Senegal river (where they are called Zenaga; imperfect _Grammaire_ by L. Faidherbe, 1877) and from Timbuktu (dialect of the Auelimmiden, sketched by Heinrich Barth, _Travels_, vol. v., 1857) to the oases of Aujila (Bengazi) and of Siwa on the western border of Egypt. Consequently, these "dialects" differ more strongly from each other than, e.g. the Semitic languages do between themselves. The purest representative seems to be the language of the Algerian mountaineers (Kabyles), especially that of the Zuawa (Zouaves) tribe, described by A. Hanoteau, _Essai de grammaire kabyle_ (1858); Ben Sedira, _Cours de langue kab._ (1887); _Dictionnaire_ by Olivier (1878). The learned little _Manuel de langue kabyle_, by R. Basset (1887) is an introduction to the study of the many dialects with full bibliography, cf. also Basset's _Notes de lexicographie berbere_ (1883 foll.). (The dictionaries by Brosselard and Venture de Paradis are imperfect.) The best now described is Shilh(a). a Moroccan dialect (H. Stumme, _Handbuch des Schilhischen_, 1899), but it is an inferior dialect. That of Ghat in Tripoli underlies the _Grammar_ of F. W. Newman (1845) and the _Grammaire Tamashek_ of Hanoteau (1860); cf. also the _Dictionnaire_ of Cid Kaoui (1900). Neither medieval reports on the language spoken by the Guanches of the Canary Islands (fullest in A. Berthelot, _Antiquites canariennes_, 1879; akin to Shilha; by no means primitive Libyan untouched by Arabic), nor the modern dialect of Siwa (still little known; tentative grammar by Basset, 1890), have justified hopes of finding a pure Libyan dialect. Of a few literary attempts in Arabic letters the religious _Poeme de Cabi_ (ed. Basset, _Journ. asiatique_, vii. 476) is the most remarkable. The imperfect native writing (named _tifinaghen_), a derivation from the Sabaean alphabet (not, as Halevy claimed, from the Punic), still in use among the Sahara tribes, can be traced to the 2nd century B.C. (bilingual inscription of Tucca, &c.; cf. J. Halevy, _Essai d'epigraphie libyque_, 1875), but hardly ever served for literary uses.