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BENTON

H A R B O R —B E R C H E M Benton Harbor, a city of Berrien county, Rs.43,65,180 to the civil departments, Rs.7,16,137 to public Michigan, U.S.A., situated in the southern part of the lower works, and Rs.3,66,816 to famine relief. There was conpeninsula, on St Joseph river and on Lake Michigan, at an sequently a deficit; and for the first time for more than altitude of 596 feet. The city has three railways and a twenty years nothing could be paid over to the Nizam. In 1897-98 the local revenue amounted to Rs.8,55,967, large lake commerce. Population (1900), 6562. and the local expenditure amounted to Rs.9,64,676. The Benue, R. See Niger. municipalities in Berar number 12, with an aggregate Berar, or the Berars, the familiar name of a population of 170,912. There are 6 district boards, with province in Central India, officially styled the Haidarabad 21 subordinate taluk boards. In 1897-98 the aggregate Assigned Districts. It is administered on the lines of a income of the district boards was Rs.7,14,030, the British province by a commissioner, who is subordinate to aggregate expenditure was Rs.6,66,006. The following the resident at Haidarabad. The ancient capital was table gives the chief statistics of education in Berar for Ellichpur; the administrative headquarters are now at the years 1886-87 and 1896-97 :— Amraoti, while Akola is the residence of the judicial 1896-97. 1886-87. commissioner. The six districts of Berar are—Amraoti, Schools. Pupils. Schools. Pupils. Akola, Ellichpur, Buldana, Wun, Basim. Its area covers 3,992 4,695 28 26 Secondary Schools 17,718 square miles. The population in 1891 was 2,897,486; 935 38,530 1324 50,085 Primary Schools 109 96 4 the average density being 164 persons per square mile, 1 Special Schools. 157 340 5 26 Private Institutions ranging from 238 in the fertile plain of Amraoti to 120 in Wun, and only 29 in the hilly tract of Ellichpur. Classified 43,661 1361 54,343 Total according to religion, Hindus numbered 2,531,791, or 87 per cent, of the total population ; Mahommedans, 207,681, Compared with the estimated population of school-going or 7 per cent.; aboriginal tribes, 137,108, or 5 per cent., age, the proportion of boys at school rose in ten years chiefly in the two hilly districts of Wun and Ellichpur; from 20-4 to 22'6 per cent.; while the proportion of Christians, 1359, of whom 330 were Europeans and 318 girls at school has risen from ’7 to 1‘8 per cent. The Eurasians, leaving 711 for native converts, chiefly in expenditure on education in 1886-87 was Rs.4,20,574, Amraoti and Akola; Jains, 18,952; Parsees, 412; Sikhs, and in 1896-97 Rs.4,54,962. Berar suffered from 177; and “others,” 6. In 1901 the population was famine in 1896-97, and again in 1899-1900. In June 2,752,418, showing a decrease of 5 per cent., compared 1900 the maximum number of persons in receipt of with an increase of 8 per cent, in the preceding decade. relief was 516,000, or 18 per cent, of the total populaExcluding the hilly tract in Ellichpur known as the Melghat, tion. (J- s- Co ) which has never been surveyed for revenue, it is estimated Be rat, chief town of the sanjak to which it gives that only 2 per cent, of the total area available for cultivation its name, forming part of the vilayet of Janina, South remains unoccupied. The incidence of land revenue is nearly R.l per acre. In 1897-98, out of a total cultivated area of Albania, Turkey in Europe. The population numbers 6,625,806 acres, only 18,078 were twice cropped. The 12,000, consisting wholly of Albanians, of whom about irrigated area was 80,981 acres, almost entirely from wells, half are Orthodox Christians, and the remainder Mahomand mainly in the district of Buldana. The two staple medans. crops of Berar are millet and cotton, each of which is Be rail n (Czech, Beroun), an old manufacturing town ordinarily grown on about one-third of the cultivated area. in the government - district of Horowitz in Bohemia, Next in importance come wheat, oil-seeds, and pulse. In Austria, south-west of Prague, at the confluence of the 1897-98, the area under cotton was 2,150,709 acres. The Beraun with the Litawa river. It is the seat of important exports of cotton to Bombay average about 326,000 bales textile industry, sugar-refining, corn-milling, and brewing. of 392 lb, valued at Rs.3,00,00,000 (say £2,000,000 Lime-kilns and the manufacture of cement, and smelting sterling). In 1897 there were altogether 79 cotton and iron works are carried on in the environs. In 1890 factories under inspection. The daily number of opera- it had 7265 Czech inhabitants; in 1900, 9693. tives employed was 7547. The cotton mill at Badnera Berbers.—The mingled aboriginal white races of has 219 looms and 15,976 spindles, and employs 1186 hands, of whom 677 are adult males. In 1898 the out- the North African coast—hence known as Barbary—are now put was 5796 bales of twist and yarn equal to 2,298,767 chiefly confined to the highlands, where they still maintain lb, and 2339 bales of cloth. There are also three oil-mills their own unwritten language, split up into many dialects, worked by steam, of which two at Amraoti in 1898 pro- although for nearly a thousand years they have professed duced 236,150 gallons of oil and 2181 tons of oil-cake. IsHm. Ethnologists are not agreed as to the division in to class either their stock or their language, which Coal exists, but no mines are worked. Berar is traversed which latter approximates to the Hamitic group in its vocabulary, by the Nagpur line of the Great Indian Peninsula railway. but to the Semitic in its construction; and until, in recent The average imports and exports by rail, for the quin- years, French students made known the peculiarities of the quennial period ending 1897, were valued at—imports, Algerian section, very little had been ascertained regarding Rs. 1,87,08,000, and exports (mainly raw cotton) Rs.3,97,56,000. The results of the famine were shown in them, except that under the Carthaginian generals they 1897-98 by a reduction of one-half in the export of grain were the valiant foes of Rome, and under Arab generals the conquerors of Spain. In Morocco they still maintain and oil-seeds, while the export of hides and the import a semi-independence. Among themselves they are known of grain doubled. The export of raw cotton was little as Imazighan, “Free-men” (s. Amazigh), and by various local affected; but this almost entirely ceased in the still more names, but by the Moors as Briber (s. Berber). Whether disastrous year 1899-1900. In 1897-98 the total pro- the Greeks, and through them the Romans, borrowed this vincial revenue of Berar amounted to Rs.99,23,458, of name from the natives and applied it to other tribes of which Rs.68,55,550 was derived from land, Rs.10,63,058 uncouth tongue, or whether the natives learned it from from excise, Rs.8,27,641 from stamps, and Rs.4,00,350 the foreigners, is a disputed point. (b. m.*) from forests. The total provincial expenditure amounted Berchem, a town of Belgium, in the province and to Rs.1,00,47,081, of which Rs.43,91,423 was devoted to defraying the cost of the Haidarabad Contingent, 2 miles south of the town of Antwerp, of which it is a