Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/388

372 N E W N E W part of the Acushnet river. French Avenue, the favourite promenade, was laid out by the municipality in 1853; it runs 4 miles round the shore of Clark s Point at the mouth of the river, where the United States erected a granite fort in 1860-64. Since the decline of Nantucket New Bed ford has been the great seat of the United States whale fishery; in 1854, when this enterprise was at its best, the New Bedford district possessed 410 whalers with a burden of 132,966 tons, but owing to the civil war and other influences (especially the immense production of petroleum) the number was by 1 883 reduced to 95. The manufactories of the city, which on the other hand have been increasing in importance, produce cotton goods (460,000 spindles), woollen goods, silver-plated and iron wares, drills for metal workers, copper sheathings, Prussian blue, paraffin and other candles, glass, cordage, shoes, &c., the total value in 1880 being $8,880,384. The population was 21,320 in 1870, and 26,845 in 1880. New Bedford (Acushnet of the Indians) was settled by Quakers in 1664, but it did not receive its present name till about 1765. Previous to 1787 it formed part of the " town " of Dartmouth. The city charter dates from 1847. In 1778, in revenge for the use of its harbour as a rendezvous of privateers who had been driven from other ports, the shipping and wharves of New Bedford were burned by the British. Not many of the privateers, however, belonged to the town, most of the inhabitants at that time being Quakers. NEW BERNE, or NEWBERN, a city of the United States, the capital of Craven county, North Carolina, and the port of entry of the district of Pamlico, is situated at the meeting of the Neuse and the Trent, on the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad, 107 miles south-east of Raleigh. Vessels drawing 8| feet can reach the wharves at mean water-level, and steamers run regularly to New York, Baltimore, and Norfolk. Cotton, lumber, naval stores, fish, rice, corn, and early vegetables for the northern markets are the chief articles of trade. Tobacco factories, turpentine distilleries, candy factories, lumber mills, a wooden-plate factory, a cotton-seed-oil factory, a rice mill, and a cigar factory are the most noteworthy of the industrial establishments in the city. The population was 5849 in 1850, and 6443 in 1880. Founded by Swiss settlers in 1701, New Berne continued to be the capital of the pro vince of North Carolina till 1793. It was captured by Burnside in 1862, and suffered from fire. NEW BRIGHTON, a post-village of the United States, in Richmond county, New York, is situated at the north eastern corner of Staten Island, 6 miles south-west of New York, with which it is connected by ferry. Best known as the seat of the Sailors Snug Harbour, a fine building fronting the Kill von Kull, which was founded in 1831 for aged and disabled seamen of the port of New York, New Brighton also contains an asylum for destitute children of seamen, one of the largest dyeing and printing establish ments in the United States, a silk-printing factory, a paper- hanging factory, &c., as well as many residences belonging to New York men of business. The population in 1880 was 12,679. NEW BRITAIN, a city of the United States, in Hartford county, Connecticut, 10 miles south-west of Hartford by the New York and New England Railroad. It is the seat of the State normal school (the new building erected in 1881 cost $90,000), and has a public park of 74 acres, a public library, and a good water-supply from a reservoir 200 feet above the level of the streets. The principal manufactures are bronze goods, locks, builders hardware, cutlery, knit woollen goods, carpenters tools, and jewellery. In 1870 the population was 9480; in 1880, 13,979. Elihu Burritt was born at New Britain in 1811. NEW BRITAIN (BIRARA) AND NEW IRELAND, two Polynesian islands, about 340 miles by 23, and 240 by 22 respectively, are separated from the south-east extremity of New Guinea by a strait, first ascertained to be such by Dampier, 52 miles wide (see Plate VI.). They form together a sort of horse-shoe, divided in the middle by St George s Channel, some 20 miles wide, which in 1878 was half choked, temporarily, by pumice from a neigh bouring volcano. In this channel lies the Duke of York group, fourteen small, well-wooded, fertile islands, with steep cliffs and narrow fringing reefs. A Wesleyan mission and some German and other traders are settled here and on the adjacent part of New Britain. The coasts of New Britain are in some parts precipitous; in others the mountains lie farther inland, and the coast is flat and bordered by fringing reefs. The west coast of New Ireland is generally precipitous, and crowned by a table-land which falls away towards the east. The north coasts of New Britain and the adjacent islands are studded with active volcanoes rising to 4000 feet, and at both ends of the island these are on a very grand scale. The scenery and vegetation are varied and luxuriant, with abundant wood and water. In New Ireland images, apparently represent ing deceased relations, like the karwars of New Guinea, are made of a rock indistinguishable from pure chalk, which is said to exist nowhere else in the Pacific. These are deposited in buildings set apart for them. There are also peculiar wooden masks, worn at stated inter-tribal meetings and dances, and composite wooden images in which the human figure, male or female, is surrounded by those of the snake, fish, owl, tern, &c. The people of New Britain, especially towards the west, resemble those of eastern New Guinea, height about 5 feet 6 inches, with matted curly hair ; the women appear stunted and oppressed. They are a finer race than those farther east in Duke of York and New Ireland, who, ex cepting an evidently Polynesian colony on the south coast of New Ireland, rather resemble the Solomon Islanders. Both are thorough cannibals. Their weapons are clubs (stone-headed in New Britain), spears, tomahawks, and slings. They perform complicated surgical operations with an obsidian knife or a shark s tooth. They construct in genious fishing weirs. The villages are clean and well- kept, the houses varying from miserable huts 8 by 5 feet without furniture to neat well-built semicircular houses, the roof extending to the ground behind, with front of wicker work, leaving a space for the door. The common dead are buried or exposed to sharks on the reefs; bodies of chiefs are exposed in the fork of a tree. Girls for some time before puberty are confined in cages of pandanus leaves about 4 feet diameter, possibly to fatten them, an old Polynesian custom. Justice is executed, and tabus, feasts, taxes, &c., arranged, by a mysterious disguised figure, the "duk-duk." Only the chief and those who have been initiated on payment of a heavy fee know who or what he is. Women and children are forbidden to look on him. The custom, perhaps, points to a time when there was a priesthood, aiding the chief to rule the people. The population is divided into two exogamous classes. The children belong to the class of the mother, and when the father dies go to her village for support, the land and fruit trees in each district being divided between the two classes. Compare the Polynesian custom "tamaha" (the Fijian "vasu"), which gives certain privileges to a sister s children. There are several dialects, the construc tion resembling Fijian, as in the pronominal suffixes in singular, triad, and plural; the numerals, however, are Polynesian in character. See Wilfrid Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Country, and paper in Boy. Gcog. Soc. Proceedings, 1881 ; Rev. G. Brown in Roy. G-cocj. Soc. Journal, 1877, and Proceedings, 1881; Vcrlumdlungcn dcr Ges. f. Erdkundc zu Berlin, x., Nos. 5 and 6.