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Rh though marred by blemishes of taste, is classed by native critics among the best productions of their literature. It treats of the history of St Joseph, and has been printed at Pondicherry in three volumes, with a full analysis. English influence has here, as in Bengal and elsewhere in India, greatly tended to create a healthier tone in literature both as to style and sentiment. As one of the best Tamil translations of English books in respect of diction and idiom may be mentioned the Bâlavyâpârikal, or “Little Merchants,” published by the Vernacular Text Society, Madras. P. Percival's collection of Tamil Proverbs (3rd ed., 1875) should also be mentioned. The copper-plate grants, commonly called śâsanams, and stone inscriptions in Tamil, many of which have been copied and translated (Archaeological Survey of Southern India, vol. iv.; R. Sewell, Lists of the Antiquarian Remains in the Presidency of Madras, vols. i., ii.), are the only authentic historical records. (See also Sir Walter Elliot's contribution to the International Numismata Orientalia, vol. iii. pt. 2.) As early as the time of the Chinese traveller Hsüan Tsang, books were written in southern India on talipot leaves, and Albiruni mentions this custom as quite prevalent in his time (1031). It has not died out even at the present day, though paper imported from Portugal has, during the last three centuries, occasionally been used. Madras is now the largest depository of Tamil palm-leaf MSS., which have been described in Wilson's Catalogue of the Mackenzie Collection (Calcutta, 1828, 2 vols.), W. Taylor's Catalogue (Madras, 1857, 3 vols.), and Condaswamy Iyer's Catalogue (vol. i., Madras, 1861). The art of printing, however, which was introduced in southern India at an early date, while it has tended to the preservation of many valuable productions of the ancient literature, has also been the means of perpetuating and circulating a deal of literary rubbish and lasciviousness which would much better have remained in the obscurity of manuscript. Dr Burnell has a note in his Elements of South Indian Paleography (2nd cd., p. 44), from which it appears that in 1578 Tamil types were cut by Father João de Faria, and that a hundred years later a Tamil and Portuguese dictionary was published at Ambalakkâḍu. At present the number of Tamil books (inclusive of newspapers) printed annually far exceeds that of all the other Dravidian vernaculars put together. The earliest Tamil version of the New Testament was commenced by the Dutch in Ceylon in 1688; Fabricius's translation appeared at Tranquebar in 1715. Since then many new translations of the whole Bible have been printed, and some of them have passed through several editions. The German missionary B. Ziegenbalg was the first to make the study of Tamil possible in Europe by the publication of his Grammatica Damulica, which appeared at Halle in 1716. Some time later the Jesuit father Beschi devoted much time and labour to the composition of grammars both of the vulgar and the poetical dialect. The former is treated in his Grammatica Latino-Tamulica, which was written in 1728, but was not printed till eleven years later (Tranquebar, 1739). It was twice reprinted, and two English translations have been published (1831, 1848). His Sen-Tamil Grammar, accessible since 1822 in an English translation by Dr Babington, was printed from his own MS. (Clavis humaniorurn liiterarum sublimioris Tamulici idiomatis) at Tranquebar in 1876. This work is especially valuable, as the greater portion of it consists of a learned and exhaustive treatise on Tamil prosody and rhetoric. (See, on his other works, Graul's Reise, vol. iv. p. 327.) There are also grammars by Anderson, Rhenius, Graul (in vol. ii. of his Bibliotheca Tamulica, Leipzig, 1855), Lazarus (Madras, 1878), Pope (4th edition in three parts, London, 1883-85), and Grammaire Française-Tamoule, by the Abbé Dupuis (Pondicherry, 1863). The last two are by far the best. The India Office library possesses a MS. dictionary and grammar “par le Rév. Père Dominique” (Pondicherry, 1843), and a copy of a MS. Tamil-Latin dictionary by the celebrated missionary Schwarz, in which 9000 words are explained. About the like number of words are given in the dictionary of Fabricius and Breithaupt (Madras, 1779 and 1809). Rottler's dictionary, the publication of which was commenced in 1834, is a far more ambitious work. But neither it nor Winslow's (1862) come up to the standard of Tamil scholarship; the Dictionnaire Tamoul-Français, which appeared at Pondicherry in 2 vols. (1855-62), is superior to both, just as the Dictionarium Latino-Gallico-Tamulicum (ibid., 1846) excels the various English-Tamil dictionaries which have been published at Madras.

See A. T. Mondière and J. Vinson in Dictionnaire des Sciences Anthropologiques, s.v. “Dravidiens”; S. C. Chitty, The Tamil Plutarch, Jaffna, 1859; J. Murdoch, Classified Catalogue of Tamil Printed Books, Madras, 1865; C. E. Gover, Folk-Songs of Southern India, Madras, 1871; Bishop Caldwell's Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages, 2nd ed., London, 1875; Graul's Reise nach Ostindien, vols. iv., and v.; the quarterly Lists of Books registered in the Madras Presidency; [Dr. Maclean's] Manual of the Administration of the Madras Presidency, vols. i. and ii., Madras, 1885, folio; F. Müller, Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, Vienna, 1884, iii. i. 162-246; G. U. Pope, First Lessons in Tamil, 7th ed., Oxford, 1904, and The Nāladiyār, Oxford, 1893; and J. Vinson, Manuel de la Langue Tamoule, Paris, 1903.

 TAMLUK, an ancient town of British India, in the Midnapore district of Bengal, on the river Rupnarayan. Pop. (1901) 8805. Under the name of Tamralipta was the capital of the

Peacock dynasty, and a seaport at which the Chinese Buddhist pilgrims embarked. It is now 60 m. from the sea, and the ruins of the old city lie deep beneath river silt. It contains the palace of a local raja, and some temples of peculiar construction.  TAMMANY HALL, a political organization in New York City, U.S.A., claiming to be the regular representative of the Democratic party in that city. It takes its name from a sachem or chief of the Delaware Indians, Tamanend or Tammany, the name itself meaning “the Affable.” Before the War of Independence there were Whig societies called “Sons of St Tammany” and “Sons of Liberty,” with rituals in which Indian words were used to suggest the American character of the lodges. On the 12th of May 1789 William Mooney (d. 1832), an upholsterer, of Irish birth, who had probably been a member of an earlier Tammany society, founded in New York City the “Society of St Tammany” or “Columbian Order” as a patriotic, benevolent and non-political organization, with the intent to counteract the influence of what was believed to be the aristocratic Order of the Cincinnati. A few short-lived societies of a similar kind were founded in other states. In 1805 the New York Society was incorporated as a benevolent society, in 1811 it built its first wigwam, or hall, in Frankfort Street near the City Hall, and in 1867 it moved to its present hall in Fourteenth Street. The society was a secret organization, divided into tribes, with sachems (the most important being the Grand Sachem) as the chief officials, a sagamore, or master of ceremonies, and a winskinskie, or door-keeper, and with a ritual of supposedly Indian character. This “Tammany Society” is not itself the well-known political organization, but rents its hall to the Tammany Hall General Committee, the “Tammany Hall” of political notoriety; the leading members, however, of the “Society” and of the “Hall” are identical, and the “Society” controls the meeting-place of the “Hall,” so that the difference between the two is little more than nominal. Almost from the beginning Tammany has been actively engaged in politics, being part of, and during the greater period of its existence actually representing in New York City, the Democratic party, though always subordinating the interests of the party as a whole to its own selfish interests. It has had local rivals at different times, but these, though successful for a while, have not lived long; on the other hand, the Hall has not generally been regarded with favour by the Democratic party throughout the country at large.

Soon after its founding, Tammany came under the influence of Aaron Burr. In 1800 it worked for the election of Jefferson as President. It bitterly opposed De Witt Clinton for many years and was hostile to his large Irish constituency; but, after it secured in 1822 the constitutional amendments providing for manhood suffrage and for the abolition of imprisonment of debtors, and especially after 1827 when Tammany first tried to reduce the five-year period of residence necessary for naturalization, the foreign-born element gradually came into control of the “Society” and of the “Hall.” About 1842 Irish “gangs,” which used physical violence at election time, became a source of Tammany strength. It reached its height of power about 1870, under the leadership of William Marcy Tweed (1823-78), who used his popularity as a volunteer fireman to advance himself in Tammany and who was the first “boss” of the organization, which had formerly been controlled by committees. In the mayoralty and the other administrative offices and in the common council of the city, in the chief executive office of the state, in the state legislature, and even in some of the judges' seats, Tweed had placed (or had secured the election of) accomplices or tools, or else controlled votes by purchase. In April 1870 Tweed secured the passage of a city charter which put the control of the city into the hands of the mayor, the comptroller, and the commissioners of parks and public works. A system of official plunder then began that has had few pa r rallels in modern times. How much was actually stolen can never be known; but the bonded debt of the city, which was $36,000,000 at the beginning of 1869, was $97,000,000 in September 1871, an increase of $61,000,000 in two years and