Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/585

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DUR—DUR
563

Matthew, confirmed by James I. ; tbe third by Nathaniel Lord Crew, 168-4 (afterwards redelivered to the bishop, the corporation acting under the second charter); and the

fourth by John Egerton, 1780.

Durham can scarcely be said to have any staple trade or manufacture, though it possesses one carpet factory and one large mill for the preparation of " Durham mustard." It is now a very different place, socially, from what it was when there were twelve prebendaries with much larger incomes than the six canons now have, and when "The College" was a noted centre for dignified and liberal hospitality. At that time, canonical residence was kept with much more strictness than it is at present, and the prebendary in residence entertained guests of all classes. Noblemen and gentlemen then resided in houses in Fram- wellgate and Elvet, now let out into tenements and serving as the squalid homes of the very poorest class. The Bailey and Old Elvet are, however, still chiefly occupied by the upper classes, and Western Hill is a new and rapidly increasing suburb. The Palace Green is an open space having the cathedral on the south side, the castle, now University College, on the north, the Exchequer Buildings, now the university library, together with Bishop Cosin s library, on the west, and the museum, alms-houses, and other offices on the east. The museum contains an almost complete collection of British birds. Six out of the seven parish churches are ancient, and possess features of interest. The high banks of the river on which the cathedral and castle stand are richly wooded, and traversed in all directions by well-kept paths, which afford ever-changing views of wood, water, rocks, bridges, the cathedral, the castle, pic turesque old houses, and terraced gardens.

In 1861 the municipal borough of Durham had within its area of 880 acres 2007 inhabited houses, with a popu lation of 14,088. In 1871, the number of inhabited houses was 2349, and the population comprised 6956 males and 7450 females, or 14,406 in all. The parliamentary borough, which with an area of 967 acres had 14,833 inhabitants in 1871, returns two members to Parliament.

(j. t. f.)

DURHAM, John George Lambton, First Earl of (17921840), born at Lambton Castle, Durham, on the 12th April 1792, was the eldest son of William Henry Lambton, M.P. for the city of Durham. It is note worthy that the family to which he belonged had held the Lambton estate in uninterrupted male succession from the 12th century. Educated at Eton, he held for a short time a commission in a regiment of hussars. In 1813, soon after attaining his majority, he was returned to Parliament as representative of his native county. He was an advanced Liberal from the beginning to the end of his political career, and distinguished himself by his uncom promising opposition to the reactionary measures of the Tory Government. His political position was strengthened by his marriage in 1816 to the eldest daughter of Earl Grey. In 1819 he championed the rights of the people by his denunciation, in the House of Commons and at numerous public meetings, of the coercive measures proposed by the Government against the Chartists. In April 1821 he proposed in the House a scheme of parliamentary reform which was in some points, notably in regard to the redis tribution of seats, more thoroughgoing than that which was carried eleven years later. The delicate state of his health compelled him in 1826 to proceed to Naples, where he resided for about a year. He was a prominent supporter of the Canning administration of 1827, and of that of Lord Goderich by which it was succeeded. When the latter fell to pieces owing to its inherent weakness in January 1828, Lambton s services were acknowledged by his eleva tion to the peerage as Baron Durham. On the accession of Lord Grey to power in 1830 Lord Durham obtained the office of lord privy seal. He was one of a Cabinet com mittee of four who were intrusted with the preparation of the Reform Bill, the others being Sir James Gsaham, Lord John Russell, and Lord Duncannon. It was understood at the time that his influence was exerted to make the measure as liberal as possible, and in particular that lie wished to introduce the ballot as one of its provisions. In the debates on the bill in the Lords he did not take the leading part that might naturally have been expected f ram the only peer who had been on the Cabinet committee for its preparation. This was owing partly to his own indifferent health and partly to grief at the death of his eldest son, the Master Lambton of one of Lawrence s most admired portraits. Continued ill-health led him to resign office in March 1833, when he was raised to the dignity of Viscount Lambton and earl of Durham. In the summer of the same year, however, he was able to undertake a special embassy to the court of St Petersburg, the chief object of which was to secure lenient treatment for the insurgent Poles. In this he was unsuccessful. When the party that had carried reform began to be divided, Lord Durham was generally regarded as a likely leader of the more advanced section, and a strongly radical speech which he delivered at the celebrated Grey banquet at Edinburgh in 1834 helped to strengthen his claims to the position. It took the form of a reply to a previous speech of Lord Brougham, whose enmity Lord Durham thus provoked. In 1837 he accepted the post of ambassador at St Petersburg, which he occupied for about a year. Meanwhile a very serious insurrection had broken out in Canada, and early in 1838 the Government found it necessary to suspend the colonial constitution and send out a new governor with special powers. Lord Durham was selected to undertake the difficult task, for which his extensive experience and his well-known advanced liberalism were supposed specially to qualify him. Some what hasty and irascible in his temperament, he unfortunately adopted measures which were beyond the powers conferred upon him by the special Act of Parliament under which he had been appointed. These measures were disapproved of by a vote of the House of Lords on the motion of Lord Brougham, who imported the bitterness of his earlier quarrel with Lord Durham into the debate, and the Government were compelled to disallow the ordinances in which they were embodied. Lord Durham was so deeply incensed at this that he took the extraordinary step of returning home without waiting for his recall, and the Government marked its disapproval of his conduct by directing that lie should not receive the customary salute on landing in England. He defended his plan of administra tion in an able and elaborate report addressed to the queen, and his policy was practically justified by being adopted by his successor. He had returned to England in shattered health, and he died at Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, on the 28th July 1840.

DURIAN (Malay, duri, a thorn), the fruit of Dnrio

zibethinus, a tree of the natural order Sterculiacece, which attains a height of 70 or 80 feet, has oblong, tapering leaves, rounded at the base, and yellowish-green flowers, and bears a general resemblance to the elm. The durio is cultivated in Sumatra, Java, Celebes, and the Moluccas, and northwards as far as Mindanao in the Philippines; also in the Malay Peninsula, in Tenasserim, on the Bay of Bengal, to 14 N. lat., and in Siam to the 13th and 14th parallels. The fruit is spherical, and 6 to 8 inches in diameter, approaching the size of a large cocoa-nut ; it has a hard external husk or shell, and is completely armed with strong pyramidal tubercles, meeting one another at the base, and terminating in sharp thorny points ; these some times inflict severe injuries on persons upon whom the fruit

may chance to fall when ripe. On dividing the fruit at tho