[1] See Pollock and Maitland vol. i. 563. The sole survival of these grants is the jurisdiction of the justices of the Soke of Peterborough to try for capital offences at their quarter sessions.
[2] In most counties in Ireland the scaffold used (in 1852) to consist in an iron balcony permanently fixed outside the gaol wall. There was a small door in the wall commanding the balcony and opening out upon it. The bottom of the iron balcony or cage was so constructed that on the withdrawal of a pin or bolt which could be managed from within the gaol, the trap-door upon which the culprit stood dropped from under his feet. The upper end of the rope was fastened to a strong iron bar, which projected over the trap-door. There were usually two or three trap-doors on the same balcony, so that, if required, two or more men could be hanged simultaneously. (Trench, Realities of Irish Life (1869), 280.)
HANGÖ, a port and sea-bathing resort situated on the promontory of Hangöudd, to the extreme south-west of Finland. Hangö owes its commercial importance to the fact that it is practically the only winter ice-free port in Finland, and is thus of value both to the Finnish and the Russian sea-borne trade. When incorporated in 1874 it had only a few hundred inhabitants; in 1900 it had 2501 and it has now over six thousand (5986 in 1904). It is connected by railway with Helsingfors and Tammerfors, and is the centre of the Finnish butter export, which now amounts to over £1,000,000 yearly. There is a considerable import of coal, cotton, iron and breadstuffs, the chief exports being butter, fish, timber and wood pulp. During the period of emigration, owing to political troubles with Russia, over 12,000 Finns sailed from Hangö in a single year (1901), mostly for the United States and Canada. Hangö now takes front rank as a fashionable watering-place, especially for wealthy Russians, having a dry climate and a fine strand.
HANKA, WENCESLAUS (1791-1861), Bohemian philologist, was born at Horeniowes, a hamlet of eastern Bohemia, on the 10th of June 1791. He was sent in 1807 to school at Königgrätz, to escape the conscription, then to the university of Prague, where he founded a society for the cultivation of the Czech language. At Vienna, where he afterwards studied law, he established a Czech periodical; and in 1813 he made the acquaintance of Joseph Dobrowsky, the eminent philologist. On the 16th of September 1817 Hanka alleged that he had discovered some ancient Bohemian manuscript poems (the Königinhof MS.) of the 13th and 14th century in the church tower of the village of Kralodwor, or Königinhof. These were published in 1818, under the title Kralodworsky Rukopis, with a German translation by Swoboda. Great doubt, however, was felt as to their genuineness, and Dobrowsky, by pronouncing The Judgment of Libussa, another manuscript found by Hanka, an “obvious fraud,” confirmed the suspicion. Some years afterwards Dobrowsky saw fit to modify his decision, but by modern Czech scholars the MS. is regarded as a forgery. A translation into English, The Manuscript of the Queen’s Court, was made by Wratislaw in 1852. The originals were presented by the discoverer to the Bohemian museum at Prague, of which he was appointed librarian in 1818. In 1848 Hanka, who was an ardent Panslavist, took part in the Slavonic congress and other peaceful national demonstrations, being the founder of the political society Slovanska Lipa. He was elected to the imperial diet at Vienna, but declined to take his seat. In the winter of 1848 he became lecturer and in 1849 professor of Slavonic languages in the university of Prague, where he died on the 12th of January 1861.
His chief works and editions are the following: Hankowy Pjsne (Prague, 1815), a volume of poems; Starobyla Skladani (1817-1826), in 5 vols.—a collection of old Bohemian poems, chiefly from unpublished manuscripts; A Short History of the Slavonic Peoples (1818); A Bohemian Grammar (1822) and A Polish Grammar (1839)—these grammars were composed on a plan suggested by Dobrowsky; Igor (1821), an ancient Russian epic, with a translation into Bohemian; a part of the Gospels from the Reims manuscript in the Glagolitic character (1846); the old Bohemian Chronicles of Dalimil (1848) and the History of Charles IV., by Procop Lupáč (1848); Evangelium Ostromis (1853).
HANKOW (“Mouth of the Han”), the great commercial centre of the middle portion of the Chinese empire, and since 1858 one of the principal places opened to foreign trade. It is situated on the northern side of the Yangtsze-kiang at its junction with the Han river, about 600 m. W. of Shanghai in 30° 32′ 51″ N., 114° 19′ 55″ E., at a height of 150 ft. By the Chinese it is not considered a separate city, but as a suburb of the now decadent city of Hanyang; and it may almost be said to stand in a similar relation to Wu-chang the capital of the province of Hupeh, which lies immediately opposite on the southern bank of the Yangtsze-kiang. Hankow extends for about a mile along the main river and about two and a half along the Han. It is protected by a wall 18 ft. high, which was erected in 1863 and has a circuit of about 4 m. Within recent years the port has made rapid advance in wealth and importance. The opening up of the upper waters of the Yangtsze to steam navigation has made it a commercial entrepôt second only to Shanghai. It is the terminus of a railway between Peking and the Yangtsze, the northern half of the trunk line from Peking to Canton. There is daily communication by regular lines of steamers with Shanghai, and smaller steamers ply on the upper section of the river between Hankow and Ich’ang. The principal article of export continues to be black tea, of which staple Hankow has always been the central market. The bulk of the leaf tea, however, now goes to Russia by direct steamers to Odessa instead of to London as formerly, and a large quantity goes overland via Tientsin and Siberia in the form of brick tea. The quantity of brick tea thus exported in 1904 was upwards of 10 million ℔. The exports which come next in value are opium, wood-oil, hides, beans, cotton yarn and raw silk. The population of Hankow, together with the city of Wu-chang on the opposite bank, is estimated at 800,000, and the number of foreign residents is about 500. Large iron-works have been erected by the Chinese authorities at Hanyang, a couple of miles higher up the river, and at Wuchang there are two official cotton mills. The British concession, on which the business part of the foreign settlement is built, was obtained in 1861 by a lease in perpetuity from the Chinese authorities in favour of the crown. By 1863 a great embankment and a roadway were completed along the river, which may rise as much as 50 ft. or more above its ordinary levels, and not infrequently, as in 1849 and 1866, lays a large part of the town under water. On the former occasion little was left uncovered but the roofs of the houses. In 1864 a public assay office was established. Sub-leases for a term of years are granted by the crown to private individuals; local control, including the policing of the settlement, is managed by a municipal council elected under regulations promulgated by the British minister in China, acting by authority of the sovereign’s orders in council. Foreigners, i.e. non-British, are admitted to become lease-holders on their submitting to be bound by the municipal regulations. The concession, however, gives no territorial jurisdiction. All foreigners, of whatever nationality, are justiciable only before their own consular authorities by virtue of the extra-territorial clauses of their treaties with China. In 1895 a concession, on similar terms to that under which the British is held, was obtained by Germany, and this was followed by concessions to France and Russia. These three concessions all lie on the north bank of the river and immediately below the British. An extension of the British concession backwards was granted in 1898. The Roman Catholics, the London Missionary Society and the Wesleyans have all missions in the town; and there are two missionary hospitals. The total trade in 1904 was valued at £15,401,076 (£9,042,190 being exports and £6,358,886 imports) as compared with a total of £17,183,400 in 1891 and £11,628,000 in 1880.
HANLEY, a market town and parliamentary borough of Staffordshire, England, in the Potteries district, 148 m. N.W. from London, on the North Staffordshire railway. Pop. (1891) 54,946; (1901) 61,599. The parliamentary borough includes the adjoining town of Burslem. The town, which lies on high ground, has handsome municipal buildings, free library, technical and art museum, elementary, science and art schools, and a large park. Its manufactures include porcelain, encaustic tiles, and earthenware, and give employment to the greater part of the population, women and children being employed almost as largely as men. In the neighbourhood coal and iron are obtained. Hanley is of modern development. Its municipal constitution dates from 1857, the parliamentary borough from 1885, and the county borough from 1888. Shelton, Hope, Northwood and Wellington are populous ecclesiastical parishes included within its boundaries. That of Etruria, adjoining on the west, originated in the Ridge House pottery works of Josiah Wedgwood and Thomas Bentley, who founded them in 1769, naming them after the country of the Etruscans in Italy. Etruria Hall was the scene of Wedgwood’s experiments. The parliamentary borough of Hanley returns one member. The town was governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen, and 18 councillors until under the “Potteries federation” scheme (1908) it became part of the borough of Stoke-on-Trent (q.v.) in 1910.