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 natural nodules are first scraped to remove the red earthy matrix, then dried, again scraped and polished with wax. The rudely shaped masses thus prepared are sent from the East to Vienna and other manufacturing centres, where they are turned and carved, smoothed with glass-paper and Dutch rushes, heated in wax or stearine, and finally polished with bone-ash, &c. Imitations are made in plaster of Paris and other preparations.

The soft, white, earthy mineral from Långbanshyttan, in Vermland, Sweden, known as Aphrodite (, foam), is closely related to meerschaum. It may be noted that meerschaum has sometimes been called (q.v.).

 MEERUT, a city, district and division of British India, in the United Provinces. The city is half-way between the Ganges and the Jumna, and has two stations on the North-Western railway, 37 m. N.E. from Delhi. Pop. (1901), 118,129. The city proper lies south of the cantonments, and although dating back to the days of the Buddhist emperor Asoka (c. 250 ) Meerut owes its modern importance to its selection by the British government as the site of a great military station. In 1805 it is mentioned as “a ruined, depopulated town.” The cantonment was established in 1806, and the population rose to 29,014 in 1847, and 82,035 in 1853. The town is an important centre of the cotton-trade. It is the headquarters of the 7th division of the northern army, with accommodation for horse and field artillery, British and native cavalry and infantry. It was here that the first outbreak of the Mutiny of 1857 took place. (See .)

The forms part of the upper Doab, or tract between the Ganges and the Jumna, extending from river to river. Area, 2354 sq. m. Though well wooded in places and abundantly supplied with mango groves, it has but few patches of jungle or waste land. Sandy ridges run along the low watersheds which separate the minor channels, but with this exception the whole district is one continuous expanse of careful and prosperous tillage. Its fertility is largely due to the system of irrigation canals. The Eastern Jumna canal runs through the whole length of the district, and supplies the rich tract between the Jumna and the Hindan with a network of distributary streams. The main branch of the Ganges canal passes across the centre of the plateau in a sweeping curve and waters the midland tract. The Anūpshahr branch supplies irrigation to the Ganges slope, and the Agra canal passes through the southern corner of Loni pargana from the Hindan to the Jumna. Besides these natural and artificial channels, the country is everywhere cut up by small water-courses. The Burh Ganga, or ancient bed of the Ganges, lies at some distance from the modern stream; and on its bank stood the abandoned city of Hastinapur, the legendary capital of the Pandavas at the period of the Mahābhārata, said to have been deserted many centuries before the Christian era, owing to the encroachments of the river.

The comparatively high latitude and elevated position of Meerut make it one of the healthiest districts in the plains of India. The average temperature varies from 57° F. in January to 87° in June. The rainfall is small, less than 30 in. annually. The only endemic disease in the district is malarial fever; but small-pox and cholera occasionally visit it as epidemics. The population in 1901 was 1,540,175, showing an increase of 10·6% in the decade. The principal crops are wheat, pulse, millet, sugar-cane, cotton and indigo, but this last crop has declined of late years almost to extinction. The district is traversed by the North-Western railway, and also contains Ghaziabad, the terminus of the East Indian system, whence a branch runs to Delhi, while a branch of the Oudh & Rohilkhand railway from Moradabad to Ghaziabad was opened in 1900.

The authentic history of the district begins with the Moslem invasions. The first undoubted Mahommedan invasion was that of Kutbeddin in 1191, when Meerut town was taken and all the Hindu temples turned into mosques. In 1398 Timūr captured the fort of Loni after a desperate resistance, and put all his Hindu prisoners to death. He then proceeded to Delhi, and after his memorable sack of that city returned to Meerut, captured the town, razed all the fortifications and houses of the Hindus, and put the male inhabitants to the sword. The establishment of the great Mogul dynasty in the 16th century, under Baber and his successors, gave Meerut a period of internal tranquillity and royal favour. After the death of Aurangzeb, however, it was exposed to alternate Sikh and Mahratta invasions. From 1707 till 1775 the country was the scene of perpetual strife, and was only rescued from anarchy by the exertions of the military adventurer Walter Reinhardt, afterwards the husband of the celebrated Begum Samru, who established himself at Sardhāna in the north, and ruled a large estate. The southern tract, however, remained in its anarchic condition under Mahratta exactions until the fall of Delhi in 1803, when the whole of the country between the Jumna and the Ganges was ceded by Sindhia to the British. It was formed into a separate district in 1818. In the British period it has become memorable for its connexion with the Mutiny of 1857.

The comprises the northern portion of the Doab. It consists of the six districts of Dehra Dun, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Bulandshahr and Aligarh. Area, 11,302 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 5,979,711, showing an increase of 12·3% in the decade.

 MEETING (from “to meet,” to come together, assemble, O. Eng. mētan; cf. Du. moeten, Swed. möta, Goth. gamotjan, &c., derivatives of the Teut. word for a meeting, seen in O. Eng. mót, moot, an assembly of the people; cf. witanagemot), a gathering together of persons for the purpose of discussion or for the transaction of business. Public meetings may be either those of statutory bodies or assemblies of persons called together for social, political or other purposes. In the case of statutory bodies, by-laws usually fix the quorum necessary to constitute a legal meeting. That of limited companies may be either by reference to the capital held, or by a fixed quorum or one in proportion to the number of shareholders. It has been held that in the case of a company it takes at least two persons to constitute a meeting (Sharp v. Daws, 1886, 2 Q.B.D. 26). In the case of public meetings for social, political or other purposes no quorum is necessary. They may be held, if they are for a lawful purpose, in any place, on any day and at any hour, provided they satisfy certain statutory provisions or by-laws made under the authority of a statute for the safety of persons attending such meetings. If, however, a meeting is held in the street and it causes an obstruction those convening the meeting may be proceeded against for obstructing the highway. The control of a meeting and the subjects to be discussed are entirely within the discretion of those convening it, and whether the meeting is open to the public without payment, or subject to a charge or to membership of a specified body or society, those present are there merely by virtue of a licence of the conveners, which licence may be revoked at any time. The person whose licence is revoked may be requested to withdraw from the meeting, and on his refusal may be ejected with such force as is necessary. If he employs violence to those removing him he commits a breach of the peace for which he may be given into custody. An important English act has dealt for the first time with the disturbance of a public meeting. The Public Meeting Act 1908 enacted that any person who at a lawful public meeting acts in a disorderly manner for the purpose of preventing the transaction of the business for which the meeting was called together shall be guilty of an offence, and if the offence is committed at a political meeting held in any parliamentary constituency between the issue and return of a writ, the offence is made an illegal practice within the meaning of the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883. Any person who incites another to commit the offence is equally guilty. A public meeting is usually controlled by a chairman, who may be appointed by the conveners or elected by the meeting itself. On the chairman falls the duty of preserving order, of calling on persons to speak, deciding points of order, of putting questions to the meeting