Page:EB1911 - Volume 26.djvu/419

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398
TANGYE—TANJORE

accommodate large vessels. The climate is temperate and healthy, and good for consumptives.

As the seaport nearest to Europe, Tangier is the town in the empire in which the effects of progress are most marked, and since the end of the 18th century it has been the diplomatic headquarters. The nucleus of a cosmopolitan society thus formed has expanded into a powerful community enjoying privileges and immunities unknown to natives not receiving its protection. The steadily increasing number of visitors has induced the opening of first-class hotels, and necessitated extensive building operations, resulting in the immigration of some thousands of artisans, chiefly Spanish. The number of European inhabitants (1905) was about 9000 (7500 Spaniards); of Jews about 10,000.

The Roman Tingis, which stood in the immediate vicinity of the site of Tangier, was of great antiquity; under Augustus it became a free city, and when Otho placed the western half of Mauretania under a procurator, he called it Mauretania Tingitana after its capital Tingis. It was held by Vandals, Byzantines and Arabs, and when Mulai Idris passed from Tlemcen to Fez in 788, Tangier was "the oldest and most beautiful city " of the Maghrib. After many futile attempts the Portuguese obtained possession of it in 1471, but it passed to Spain in 1580, returning again to the Portuguese in 1656. In 1662 as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza on her marriage to Charles II., it came into the possession of the English, and they defended it against Mulai Ismail in 1680, but in 1684 it was decided, on account of expense, to abandon the place to the Moors. El Ufrani writes that "it was besieged so closely that the Christians had to flee on their vessels and escape by sea, leaving the place ruined from bottom to top." It was bombarded in 1844 by the French, then at war with Morocco. In the early years of the 20th century the sharlf Raisuli terrorized the district round Tangier and made captive several Europeans. As one result of the Algeciras conference of 1906 a regular police force was organized, and the control of the customs passed into European hands (see

Morocco

: § History).

See A. Cousin, Tanger (Paris, 1902); Archives Marocaines (Paris, 1904-6).

TANGYE, SIR RICHARD (1833-1906), British manufacturer, was born at Illogan, near Redruth, Cornwall, on the 24th of November 1833, the son of a small farmer. As a young boy he worked in the fields, but when he was eight years old he was incapacitated from further manual labour by a fracture of the right arm. His father then determined to give him the best education he could afford, and young Tangye was sent to the Friends' School at Sidcot, Somersetshire, where he progressed rapidly and became a pupil-teacher. Tangye was not long contented with this position, and through an advertisement in The Friend obtained a clerkship in a small engineering firm in Birmingham, where two of his brothers, skilled mechanics, subsequently joined him. Here Richard Tangye remained four years, obtaining a complete mastery of the details of an engineering business, and introducing the system of a Saturday half-holiday which was subsequently adopted in all English industrial works. In 1856 he started business in a small way in Birmingham as a hardware factor and commission agent. His first customers were the Cornish mine-owners in the Redruth district, and, the business prospering, he was able before long to start manufacturing hardware goods on his own account, his two brothers joining him in the enterprise. The speciality of the brothers Tangye was the manufacture of machinery, and their hydraulic lifting jacks were successfully employed in the launching of the steamship "Great Eastern." In 1858 the firm, who now confined themselves to making machinery, built their own works, and shortly afterwards secured the sole right of manufacturing the newly invented differential pulley-block, thereby materially adding to their business, which came to include every kind of power-machine — hydraulic, steam, gas, oil and electricity. The business was subsequently turned into a limited company, and in 1894 Richard Tangye was knighted. He died on the 14th of October 1906.


TANISTRY (from Gaelic tana, lordship), a custom among various Celtic tribes, by which the king or chief of the clan was chosen from among the heads of the septs and elected by them in full assembly. He held office for life and was required by custom to be of full age, in possession of all his faculties and without any remarkable blemish of mind or body. At the same time, and subject to the same conditions, a tanist or next heir to the chieftaincy was elected, who if the king died or became disqualified, at once became king. Usually the king's son became tanist, but not because the system of primogeniture was in any way recognized; indeed, the only principle adopted was that the dignity of chieftainship should descend to the eldest and most worthy of the same blood. These epithets, as Hallam says, were not necessarily synonymous, but merely indicated that the preference given to seniority was to be controlled by a due regard to desert (Constit. Hist., vol. iii. c. xviii.). This system of succession left the headship open to the ambitious, and was a frequent source of strife both in families and between the clans. Tanistry was abolished by a legal decision in the reign of James I. and the English land system substituted.


TANJORE, a city and district of British India in the Madras presidency. The city is situated on the right bank of the river Cauvery, and is an important junction on the South Indian railway, 218 m. S. of Madras. Pop. (1901) 57,870. As the last capital of the ancient Hindu dynasty of the Cholas, and in all ages one of the chief political, literary and religious centres of the south, the city is full of interesting associations. It was the scene of the earliest labours of Protestant missionaries in India. The modern history of Tanjore begins with its conquest by the Mahrattas in 1674 under Venkaji, the brother of Sivaji the Great. The British first came into contact with Tanjore by their expedition in 1749 with a view to the restoration of a deposed raja. In this they failed, and a subsequent expedition was bought off. The Mahrattas practically held Tanjore until 1799. In October of that year the district was ceded to the East India Company in absolute sovereignty by Raja Sharabhoji, pupil of the missionary Schwarz. The raja retained only the capital and a small tract of country round. He died in 1833 and was succeeded by his son Sivaji, on whose death in 1855 without an heir the house became extinct. The mission at Tanjore was founded in 1778 by the Rev. Christian F. Schwarz or Schwartz (1726-1798). The mission establishments were taken over in 1826 by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which subsequently founded new stations in several parts of the district. Roman Catholic missions date from the first half of the 17th century. St Peter's College, founded by Schwarz as a school, is now a first-grade college affiliated to the university of Madras. His church dates from 1779. Among interesting ancient buildings may be mentioned the palace within the fort, containing an armoury and fine library; and the Brihadiswaraswami temple, of the nth century, enclosed in two courts, surmounted by a lofty tower and including the exquisitely decorated shrine of Subrahmanya. Though the city has specialities of jewelry, carpets, modelling in pith, &c, there are no large industries.

The District of Tanjore has an area of 3710 sq. m. On account of its fertility it has been called the " Gaiden of Southern India." It is irrigated by an elaborate system of dams, cuts and canals in connexion with the rivers Cauvery and Coleroon, and the soil is exceedingly productive. The delta of the Cauvery occupies the flat northern part, which is highly cultivated, dotted over with groves of coco-nut trees, and is one of the most densely populated tracts in India. The staple crop is rice, which is grown on 77 per cent, of the cultivated area. Tanjore is a land of temples, many of them being of very early date. The district is traversed by the main line and several branches of the South Indian railway, some of which have been constructed by the district board. The chief seaport is Negapatam, and the principal export is rice to Ceylon. The population in 1901 was 2,245,029.

See Tanjore District Gazetteer (Madras, 1906).