In 1869 the insignificant population of Key West was greatly increased by Cubans who left their native island after an attempt at revolution; they engaged in the manufacture of tobacco, and Key West cigars were soon widely known. Towards the close of the 19th century this industry suffered from labour troubles, from the competition of Tampa, Florida, and from the commercial improvement of Havana, Cuba; but soon after 1900 the tobacco business of Key West began to recover. Immigrants from the Bahama Islands form another important element in the population. They are known as “Conchs,” and engage in sponge fishing. In 1905 the value of factory products was $4,254,024 (an increase of 37.7% over the value in 1900); the exports in 1907 were valued at $852,457; the imports were valued at $994,472, the excess over the exports being due to the fact that the food supply of the city is derived from other Florida ports and from the West Indies.
According to tradition the native Indian tribes of Key West, after being almost annihilated by the Caloosas, fled to Cuba. There are relics of early European occupation of the island which suggest that it was once the resort of pirates. The city was settled about 1822. The Seminole War and the war of the United States with Mexico gave it some military importance. In 1861 Confederate forces attempted to seize Fort Taylor, but they were successfully resisted by General William H. French.
KHABAROVSK (known as Khabarovka until 1895), a town of Asiatic Russia, capital of the Amur region and of the Maritime Province. Pop. (1897), 14,932. It was founded in 1858 and is situated on a high cliff on the right bank of the Amur, at its confluence with the Usuri, in 48° 28′ N. and 135° 6′ E. It is connected by rail with Vladivostok (480 m.), and is an important entrepôt for goods coming down the Usuri and its tributary the Sungacha, as well as a centre of trade, especially in sables. The town is built of wood, and has a large cathedral, a monument (1891) to Count Muraviev-Amurskiy, a cadet corps (new building 1904), a branch of the Russian Geographical Society, with museum, and a technical railway school.
KHAIRAGARH, a feudatory state in the Central Provinces, India. Area, 931 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 137,554, showing a decrease of 24% in the decade due to the effects of famine; estimated revenue, £20,000; tribute £4600. The chief, who is descended from the old Gond royal family, received the title of raja as an hereditary distinction in 1898. The state includes a fertile plain, yielding rice and cotton. Its prosperity has been promoted by the Bengal-Nagpur railway, which has a station at Dongargarh, the largest town (pop. 5856), connected by road with Khairagarh town, the residence of the raja.
KHAIREDDIN (Khair-ed-Din = “Joy of Religion”) (d. 1890), Turkish statesman, was of Circassian race, but nothing is known about his birth and parentage. In early boyhood he was in the hands of a Tunisian slave-dealer, by whom he was sold to Hamuda Pasha, then bey of Tunis, who gave him his freedom and a French education. When Khaireddin left school the bey made him steward of his estates, and from this position he rose to be minister of finance. When the prime minister, Mahmud ben Ayad, absconded to France with the treasure-chest of the beylic, Hamuda despatched Khaireddin to obtain the extradition of the fugitive. The mission failed; but the six years it occupied enabled Khaireddin to make himself widely known in France, to become acquainted with French political ideas and administrative methods, and, on his return to Tunisia, to render himself more than ever useful to his government. Hamuda died while Khaireddin was in France, but he was highly appreciated by the three beys—Ahmet (1837), Mohammed (1855), and Sadok (1859)—who in turn followed Hamuda, and to his influence was due the sequence of liberal measures which distinguished their successive reigns. Khaireddin also secured for the reigning family the confirmation from the sultan of Turkey of their right of succession to the beylic. But although Khaireddin’s protracted residence in France had imbued him with liberal ideas, it had not made him a French partisan, and he strenuously opposed the French scheme of establishing a protectorate over Tunisia upon which France embarked in the early ’seventies. This rendered him obnoxious to Sadok’s prime minister—an apostate Jew named Mustapha ben Ismael—who succeeded in completely undermining the bey’s confidence in him. His position thus became untenable in Tunisia, and shortly after the accession of Abdul Hamid he acquainted the sultan with his desire to enter the Turkish service. In 1877 the sultan bade him come to Constantinople, and on his arrival gave him a seat on the Reform Commission then sitting at Tophane. Early in 1879 the sultan appointed him grand vizier, and shortly afterwards he prepared a scheme of constitutional government, but Abdul Hamid refused to have anything to do with it. Thereupon Khaireddin resigned office, on the 28th of July 1879. More than once the sultan offered him anew the grand vizierate, but Khaireddin persistently refused it, and thus incurred disfavour. He died on the 30th of January 1890, practically a prisoner in his own house.
KHAIRPUR, or Khyrpoor, a native state of India, in the Sind province of Bombay. Area, 6050 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 199,313, showing an apparent increase of 55% in the decade; estimated revenue, £90,000. Like other parts of Sind, Khairpur consists of a great alluvial plain, very rich and fertile in the neighbourhood of the Indus and the irrigation canals, the remaining area being a continuous series of sand-hill ridges covered with a stunted brushwood, where cultivation is altogether impossible. A small ridge of limestone hills passes through the northern part of the state, being a continuation of a ridge known as the Ghar, running southwards from Rohri. The state is watered by five canals drawn off from the Indus, besides the Eastern Nara, a canal which follows an old bed of the Indus. In the desert tracts are pits of natron.