Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/619

NORTHUMBERLAND 567 52 9, winter 38 9 ; North Shields, summer 55 1, winter 39 0. At Greenwich during the same years it stood as summer 59 9, winter 39 - 4. The rainfall gradually increases as the country rises from the coast. The average rainfall during the six years 1877-82 W as : at Tynemouth (65 feet above the sea), 27 78 inches ; in New castle (105 feet), 30-28 inches ; near Belford (240 feet), 30 41 inches; near Haltwhistle (380 feet), 40 41 inches; near Rothbury (400 feet), 37 50 inches; at Allenheads (1353 feet), 47 65 inches; and at Broadstruther (1672 feet), about five miles north of the Cheviot, 60 93 inches. East winds, in summer, bring rain to the interior. The smell from the coal-field, the lighter grime of which is detected as far as Cumberland, is taken by the shepherd for a sign of wet. Governmental and Ecclesiastical Divisions. Northumberland comprises the nine wards (answering to hundreds and wapentakes) of Bamburgh, Glendale, Coquetdale, Morpeth, Tynedale, Castle, Norhamshire, Islandshire, and Bedlingtoiishire. The last three formed detached portions of Durham until 1844. It contains 76 mother -parishes and 162 benefices, together forming (with Alston and Nenthead in Cumberland) the diocese of Newcastle, erected in 1882. There are 541 civil parishes in which poor-rate is separately levied. The county has one court of quarter-sessions, is divided into 13 petty and special sessional divisions, and for par liamentary purposes into a northern and a southern division, each of which returns two members. Berwick-upon-Tweed (which has been joined to this county for election purposes) and Newcastle- upon-Tyne have separate courts of quarter-sessions and commissions of the peace, and, together with Morpeth and Tynemouth, the latter of which has also a commission of the peace, are municipal and parliamentary boroughs. Berwick and Newcastle each return two members, and Morpeth and Tynemouth each one. Population and People. The population in 1881 numbered 434,086 persons, 215,882 males and 218,204 females, showing an increase since 1871 of 47,440 persons, and of 256,008 since the first census in 1801. The average number of persons to an acre was 34, and of acres to a person 2 97. The number of inhabited houses was 70,682. The population of its chief towns was as follows : Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 145,359 (or with Gateshead upon the Durham side, 211,162) ; North Shields and Tynemouth, 44,118 ; Berwick-on-Tweed, 13,998; Alnwick, 7440; Morpeth, 6946; and Hexham, 5919. The Tyne ports are rapidly becoming one continu ous town. Walker had a population of 9522 persons, Wallsend 6515, and Willington Quay 5105. Persons engaged as miners or in mine service numbered 21,607, of whom 20,752 were coal-miners. Persons engaged in agriculture numbered 18,901. In physique the Northumbrian is stalwart and robust, and seldom corpulent. The people have mostly grey eyes, brown hair, and good complexions. The inhabitants of the fishing villages appear to be Scandinavian ; and parts of the county probably contain some admixture of the old Brit-Celt, and a trace of the Gipsy blood of the Faas of Yetholm. The natives have fine characteristics : they are clean, thrifty, and plodding, honest and sincere, shrewd, and very independent. Their virtues lie rather in solidity than in aspiration. Northumbrian speech is characterized by a "rough vibration of the soft palate " or pharynx in pronouncing the letter r, well known as the burr, a peculiarity extending to the town and liberties of Berwick, and absent only in a narrow strip along the north-west. Over the southern part of the county there is the same duplication of vowel-sounds, such as " peol " for " pool," that is met in the English counties adjacent. Many charming Old-English forms of speech strike the ear, such as "to butch a beef," i.e., to kill a bullock, and curious inversions, such as "they not can help." There is the Old-English distinction in the use of " thou " to familiars and " ye " to superiors. Ownership of Land. According to the Owners of Land Returns 1873, the distribution of land-property in Northumberland was as follows: there were 22 proprietors of more than 10,000 acres ; of 100 and less than 1000, 507 ; of 10 and less than 100, 771 ; of 1 and less than 10, 820 ; and of less than 1, 10,036. The gross estimated rental was 2,144,743. Six proprietors held lands exceeding 20,000 acres. The duke of Northumberland, the largest land-proprietor in England, held 181,616 acres ; the earl of Tankerville, Chilling- ham Park, held 28,930 ; Sir John Swinburne of Capheaton, 28,057 ; Walter C. Selby of Biddlestone, 25,327 ; Sir W. C. Trevelyan (now Sir Charles) of Wallington, 21,342 ; and the lords of the Admiralty, who held the old Derwentwater estate, 20,642. The mansions and parks attached to these estates are all beautiful or interesting. Biddlestone is uplying, but in some respects is the original of Scott s Osbaldistone Hall. Agriculture, Ac. More than half of the county is pastoral. South of the river Coquet there is a single broad tract of cultivation towards the coast that sends lessening strips up the valleys into the interior. From the Coquet northwards another breadth of enclosed ground stretches almost continuously along the base of the Cheviot hills. In the basin of the Till it becomes eminently fertile, and towards the Tweed the two breadths unite. In the porphyritic Cheviots the lower hills show a great extent of sound surface and good grass. The average hill-farms support about one sheep to two acres. A coarser pasturage covers the Carboniferous hills, and the propor tion of stock to surface is somewhat less. Their highest fells are a rough-and-tumble of bogs, hags, and sandstone scars, with many acres dangerous to sheep and worth less than nothing to tho farmer. The lower uplands are a patchwork of coarse grasses (mown by "the muirmen" into "bent-hay") and heather, or, in the popu lar terms, heather and " white ground," for it is blanched for eight months in the year. Heather is the natural cover of the sandstones (which form most of the eminences) and of the sandy glacier-debris near them. The limestone crops are bright green strips or gairs. Sheets of boulder -clay are common on the eastern sides of emi nences, in the valleys, and on the low grounds. On the uplands they grow bents ; lower down they are apt to be cold and strong, but are much relieved by patches and inworkings of gravel, especiallv north of the Wansbeck. The prevalent stream-alluvium is sandy loam, with a tincture of peat. The arable regions are very variable . Changes of soil are probably as numerous as fields. Fencing has now reached the watershed tracts ; draining is following ; but there is room to doubt whether the latter will be altogether an unmixed good. The peat mosses act retentively, like sponges, softening the air, nourishing the early-springing deer-grass and cotton-grass, and preventing precipitation of drainage on the rivers, which are now more liable to floods than formerly. Northumberland contains 1,290,312 acres. In the Agricultural Returns for 1883 the cultivated area of the county stands as 712,615 acres, exclusive of orchards and market gardens, embracing corn crops, 126,439 acres (wheat 19,980, barley 40,696, and oats 58,989); green crops, 55,202 acres (turnips and swedes 46,066, and potatoes 5384); clover, sanfoins, and grasses under rotation, 84,562 acres ; per manent pasture not under rotation, exclusive of heath or mountain land, 431,031 acres. Of orchards there were 184 acres; of market gardens, 659; of nursery gardens, 81; and of woods (in 1881), 39,977. Since 1866 55,626 acres have been reclaimed from mountain land. The corn area has meanwhile diminished by 27,277 acres, and turnip - culture has not increased ; but the permanent pastures are more extensive by nearly one -fourth, or 101,207 acres. The turnip-culture of the northern parts of the county takes rank with the best districts in Scotland. A five- or four-course shift is the usual rotation. By the census of live-stock (1883) the returns are as follows : horses and ponies, 18,147, including 13,538 used for agricultural purposes ; cattle, 93,550, of which 21,930 were in milk or in calf; sheep, 880,230, including 336,702 under one year old ; pigs, exclusive of those kept in towns and by cottagers, 14,883. The sheep, which are celebrated, fall into three groups. The half-breds crosses between the Leicester (or Shropshire) and Cheviot breeds occupy the lower enclosed grounds, the pure Cheviots are on the uplands, and the hardier blackfaced breeds lie out on the exposed heathery heights. The cattle are chiefly shorthorns and Galloways. The size of the agricultural holdings was returned in 1875 and 1880. Holdings of 50 acres and under numbered in these years 3070 and 3329 respectively ; of 100 to 300 acres, 1313 and 1273 ; of 1000 acres and upwards, 38 and 36. Leases of fourteen and nineteen years " usually without compensation clauses, and more or less restricted as to cropping," have hitherto been in fashion. In the large part of the county owned by the duke of Northumberland (nearly one-seventh of the whole) there obtains a system of yearly agreements, except in the case of hill-pastures. In the recent uncer tain years annual arrangements have been more in favour generally. Large farms have now much absorbed the smaller holdings of earlier times. In Allendale the mining population includes many small occupiers, and the commons are still unbroken. In other parts of the county the commons have mostly been divided. Between 1702 and 1877 commons to the number of 59, and with an aggregate extent of 194,917 acres, are known to have been enclosed. There is no authentic account of the unenclosed remainder. The management of many Northumbrian farms is excellent, far in advance of ordinary practice." Wages are high, but "the cost per acre of labour does not exceed and is often much lower than that of districts where wages are from 25 to 40 per cent, lower. This is attributable to (1) the superior quality of the labour, both physical and moral, (2) the extensive use of women-workers (the employment of whom is not found to be demoralizing when properly safe -guarded), and (3) more systematic and economical manage ment " (Coleman, Report, Royal Commission, 1882). The practice of paying wages in kind has passed greatly into disuse. Some of the shepherds still receive " stock-wages," being allowed to keep forty or fifty sheep and several cows on their employers farms in lieu of pay. This arrangement, which makes them really copartners, has probably done much to render them the singularly fine class of men they are. Manufactures, tL-c. The manufactures of this county chiefly come from the Tyne, which is a region of ironworks, blast-furnaces, shipbuilding- yards, ropeworks, coke-ovens, alkali-works, and manu factories of glass, pottery, and fire-bricks, from Newcastle to the sea (see NEWCASTLE). There is great activity in all trades con cerned in pit -sinking and mine -working. In the other parts of the county there are a few small cloth -mills, a manufactory of