several smaller streams, while the Moksha and Sura are important means of conveyance.ty The climate is harsh, the average temperature at the city of Penza being only 38°. The population consists principally of Russians, together with Mordvinians, Meshcheryaks and Tatars. The Russians profess the Orthodox Greek faith, and very many, especially in the north, are Raskolniks or Nonconformists The chief occupation is agriculture. The principal crops are rye, oats, buckwheat, hemp, potatoes and beetroot. Grain and flour are considerable exports. The local authorities have established dépots for the sale of modern agricultural machinery. There are several agricultural and horticultural schools, and two model dairy-farms. Cattle breeding and especially horse-breeding are comparatively flourishing. Market-gardening is successfully carried on, and improved varieties of fruit-trees have been introduced through the imperial botanical garden at Penza and a private school of gardening in the Gorodishche district. Sheep-breeding is especially developed in Chembar and Insar. The Mordvinians devote much attention to bee-keeping. The forests (22% of the total area) are a considerable source of wealth, especially in Krasnoslobodsk and Gorodishche. The manufactures are few. Distilleries come first, followed by beet sugar and oil mills, with woollen cloth and paper mills, tanneries, soap, glass, machinery and iron-works. Trade is limited to the export of corn, spirits, timber, hempseed-oil, tallow, hides, honey, wax, woollen cloth, potash and cattle, the chief centres for trade being Penza, Nizhni-Lomov, Mokshany, Saransk and Krasnoslobodsk.
The government is divided into ten districts, the chief towns of which are Penza, Gorodishche, Insar, Kerensk, Krasnoslobodsk, Mokshany, Narovchat, Nizhni-Lomov, Saransk and Chembar The present government of Penza was formerly inhabited by Mordvinians, who had the Mescheryaks on the W. and the Bulgars on the N. In the 13th century these populations fell under the dominion of the Tatars, with whom they fought against Moscow. The Russians founded the town of Mokshany in 1535 Penza was founded in the beginning of the 17th century, the permanent Russian settlement dating as far back as 1666. In 1776 it was taken by the rebel Pugashev. The town was almost totally destroyed by conflagrations in 1836, 1839 and 1858.
PENZA, a town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name, 492 m. by rail S.E. from Moscow. It stands on a
plateau 567 ft. above the sea, at the confluence of the Penza with
the navigable Sura. Pop. (1897), 61,851. The older parts of
the town are constructed of wood, but the newer parts are well
built. The cathedral was erected in 1820–1821. Penza has
technical schools, public libraries, a museum of antiquities, and
a theatre which has played some part in the history of the
Russian stage. The bulk of the inhabitants support themselves
by agriculture or fishing in the Sura. An imperial botanical
garden is situated within two miles of the town. Apart from
paper-mills and steam flour-mills, the manufacturing establishments
are small. There is a trade in corn, oil, tallow, timber and
spirits, and two fairs where cattle and horses are sold.
PENZANCE, a municipal borough, market town and seaport in the St Ives parliamentary division of Cornwall, England, the
terminus of the Great Western railway, 32512 m. W.S.W. of
London. Pop. (1901), 13,136. It is finely situated on the
western shore of Mount’s Bay, opposite St Michael’s Mount,
being the westernmost port in England. The site of the old
town slopes sharply upward from the harbour, to the west of
which there extends an esplanade and modern residential
quarter, for Penzance, with its mild climate, is in considerable
favour as a health resort The town has no buildings of great
antiquity, but the public buildings (1867), in Italian style, are
handsome By the market house is a statue of Sir Humphry
Davy, who was born here in 1778 Among institutions there are
a specially fine public library, museums of geology and natural
history and antiquities, mining and science schools, the West
Cornwall Infirmary and a meteorological station. The harbour,
enclosed within a breakwater, has an area of 24 acres, with 12 to
16 ft depth of water, and floating and graving docks. There is a large export trade in fish, including that of pilchards to Italy.
Other exports are tin and copper, granite, serpentine, vegetables
and china clay. Imports are principally coal, iron and timber.
Great quantities of early potatoes and vegetables, together with
flowers and fish, are sent to London and elsewhere The
borough is under a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors.
Area, 355 acres.
Nearly two miles inland to the north-west is Madron (an urban district with a population of 3486). The church of St Maddern is principally Perpendicular, with earlier portions and a Norman front. Near the village a “wishing well” of ancient fame is seen, and close to it the ruins of a baptistery of extreme antiquity. Monoliths and cromlechs are not uncommon in the neighbourhood. Three miles north-east is the urban district of Ludgvan (pop. 2274), and to the south is Paul (6332), which includes the village of Newlyn (q.v.).
Penzance (Pensans) was not recognized as a port until the days of the Tudors, but its importance as a fishing village dates from the 14th century. In 1327 thirty burgesses in Penzance and thirteen boats paying 13s. yearly are found among the possessions of the lords of Alverton, of which manor it formed a portion of the demesne lands. The year 1512 marks the beginning of a new era. Until then St Michael’s Mount had been regarded as the port of Mounts Bay, but in that year Henry VIII. granted the tenants of Penzance whatever profits might accrue from the “ankerage, kylage and busselage” of ships resorting thither, so long as they should repair and maintain the quay and bulwarks for the safeguard of the ships and town Nevertheless thirty years later it is described by Leland as the westernmost market town in Cornwall “with no socur for Botes or shippes but a forsed Pere or Key.” During the war with Spain the town was devastated in 1595. The charter of incorporation granted in 1614 states that by the invasion of the Spaniards it had been treacherously spoiled and burnt but that its strength, prosperity and usefulness for navigation, and the acceptable and laudable services of the inhabitants in rebuilding and fortifying it, and their enterprise in erecting a pier, have moved the king to grant the petition for its incorporation. This charter provides for a mayor, eight aldermen and twelve assistants to constitute the common council, the mayor to be chosen by the council from the aldermen, the aldermen to be chosen from the assistants, and the assistants from the most sufficient and discreet of the inhabitants. It also ratified Henry's grant of anchorage, keelage and busselage. In 1663 Penzance was constituted a coinage town for tin. It has never enjoyed independent parliamentary representation. In 1332 a market on Wednesdays and a fair at the Feast of St Peter ad Vincula were granted to Alice de Lisle and in 1405 this market was ratified and three additional fairs added, viz. at the feasts of St Peter in Cathedra and the Conception and Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. The charter of 1614 substituted markets on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the Wednesday market and added two fairs one at Corpus Christi and the other on the Thursday before St Andrew Of the fairs only Corpus Christi remains; markets are now held on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Apart from fishing and shipping, Penzance has never been an industrial centre.
PEONAGE (Span peon; M. Lat. pedo (pes), primarily a foot-soldier, then a day-labourer), a system of agricultural servitude common in Spanish America, particularly in Mexico. In the early days the Spanish government, with the idea of protecting the Indians, exempted them from compulsory military service, the payment of tithes and other taxes, and regulated the system of labour; but left them practically at the mercy of the Spanish governors. The peons, as the Indian labourers were called, were of two kinds: (1) the agricultural workman who was free to contract himself, and (2) the criminal labourers who, often for slight offences, or more usually for debt, were condemned to practical slavery. Though legally peonage is abolished, the unfortunate peon is often lured into debt by his employer and then kept a slave, the law permitting his forcible detention till he has paid his debt to his master.
