HILLSDALE, a city and the county-seat of Hillsdale county, Michigan, U.S.A., about 87 m. W. by S. of Detroit. Pop. (1900) 4151, of whom 300 were foreign-born; (1904) 4809; (1910) 5001. Hillsdale is served by the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern railway. It has a public library, and is the seat of Hillsdale College (co-educational, Free Baptist), which was opened as Michigan Central College, at Spring Arbor, Michigan, in 1844, was removed to Hillsdale and received its present name in 1853 and was re-opened here in 1855. The college in 1907-1908 had 22 instructors and 345 students. The city is a centre for a rich farming region; among its manufactures are gasoline and gas engines, screen doors, wagons, barrels, shoes, fur-coats and flour. Hillsdale was first settled in 1837, was incorporated as a village in 1847, and was chartered as a city in 1869.
HILL TIPPERA, or Tripura, a native state of India, adjoining the British district of Tippera, in Eastern Bengal and Assam. Area, 4086 sq. m.; pop, (1901) 173,325; estimated revenue, £55,000. Six parallel ranges of hill cross it from north to south, at an average distance of 12 m. apart. The hills are covered for the most part with bamboo jungle, while the low ground abounds with trees of various kinds, canebrakes and swamps. The principal crop and food staple is rice. The other articles of produce are cotton, chillies and vegetables. The chief exports are cotton, timber, oilseeds, bamboo canes, thatching-grass and firewood, on all of which tolls are levied. The chief rivers are the Gumti, Haora, Khoyai, Dulai, Manu and Fenny (Pheni). During the heavy rains the people in the plains use boats as almost the sole means of conveyance.
The history of the state includes two distinct periods—the traditional period described in the Rajmala, or “Chronicles of the Kings of Tippera,” and the period since A.D. 1407. The Rajmala is a history in Bengali verse, compiled by the Brahmans of the court of Tripura. In the early history of the state, the rajas were in a state of chronic feud with all the neighbouring countries. The worship of Siva was here, as elsewhere in India, associated with the practice of human sacrifice, and in no part of India were more victims offered. It was not until the beginning of the 17th century that the Moguls obtained any footing in this country. When the East India Company obtained the diwani or financial administration of Bengal in 1765, so much of Tippera as had been placed on the Mahommedan rent-roll came under British rule. Since 1808, each successive ruler has received investiture from the British government. In October 1905 the state was attached to the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam. It has a chronological era of its own, adopted by Raja Birraj, from whom the present raja is 93rd in descent. The year 1875 corresponded with 1285 of the Tippera era.
Besides being the ruler of Hill Tippera, the raja holds an estate in the British district of Tippera, called chakla Roshnabad, which is far the most valuable of his possessions. The capital is Agartala (pop. 9513), where there is an Arts College. The raja’s palace and other public buildings were seriously damaged by the earthquake of the 12th of June 1897. The late raja, who died from the result of a motor-car accident in 1909, succeeded his father in 1896, but he had taken a large share in the administration of the state for some years previously. The principle of succession, which had often caused serious disputes, was defined in 1904, to the effect that the chief may nominate any male descendant through males from himself or from any male ancestor, but failing such nomination, then the rule of primogeniture applies.
HILTON, JOHN (1804-1878), British surgeon, was born at Castle Hedingham, in Essex, in 1804. He entered Guy’s Hospital in 1824. He was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in 1828, assistant-surgeon in 1845, surgeon 1849. In 1867 he was president of the Royal College of Surgeons, of which he became member in 1827 and fellow in 1843, and he also delivered the Hunterian oration in 1867. As Arris and Gale professor (1859-1862) he delivered a course of lectures on “Rest and Pain,” which have become classics. He was also surgeon-extraordinary to Queen Victoria. Hilton was the greatest anatomist of his time, and was nick named “Anatomical John.” It was he who, with Joseph Towne the artist, enriched Guy’s Hospital with its unique collection of models. In his grasp of the structure and functions of the brain and spinal cord he was far in advance of his contemporaries. As an operator he was more cautious than brilliant. This was doubtless due partly to his living in the pre-anaesthetics period, and partly to his own consummate anatomical knowledge, as is indicated by the method for opening deep abscesses which is known by his name. But he could be bold when necessary; he was the first to reduce a case of obturator hernia by abdominal section, and one of the first to practise lumbar colostomy. He died at Clapham on the 14th of September 1878.
HILTON, WILLIAM (1786-1839), English painter, was born in Lincoln on the 3rd of June 1786, son of a portrait-painter. In 1800 he was placed with the engraver J. R. Smith, and about the same time began studying in the Royal Academy school. He first exhibited in this institution in 1803, sending a “Group of Banditti”; and he soon established a reputation for choice of subject, and qualities of design and colour superior to the great mass of his contemporaries. He made a tour in Italy with Thomas Phillips, the portrait-painter. In 1813, having exhibited “Miranda and Ferdinand with the Logs of Wood,” he was elected an associate of the Academy, and in 1820 a full academician, his diploma-picture representing “Ganymede.” In 1823 he produced “Christ crowned with Thorns,” a large and important work, subsequently bought out of the Chantrey Fund; this may be regarded as his masterpiece. In 1827 he succeeded Henry Thomson as keeper of the Academy. He died in London on the 30th of December 1839, Some of his best pictures remained on his hands at his decease—such as the “Angel releasing Peter from Prison” (life-size), painted in 1831, “Una with the Lion entering Corceca’s Cave” (1832), the “Murder of the Innocents,” his last exhibited work (1838), “Comus,” and “Amphitrite.” The National Gallery now owns “Edith finding the Body of Harold” (1834), “Cupid Disarmed,” “Rebecca and Abraham’s Servant” (1829), “Nature blowing Bubbles for her Children” (1821), and “Sir Calepine rescuing Serena” (from the Faerie Queen) (1831). In the National Portrait Gallery is his likeness of John Keats, with whom he was acquainted. In a great school or period Hilton could not count as more than a respectable subordinate; but in the British school of the earlier part of the 19th century he had sufficient elevation of aim and width of attainment to stand conspicuous.