Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/103

 MANCHINEEL MANCINI 95 MANUFACT URES. No. of works. Steam power. Total No. of persona employed. Manufactures connected with building, &c. : Builders 52 161 1,185 Cabinet and furniture makers. . Miscellaneous .... 99 858 106 533 1,183 2,059 Total 509 800 4427 23 191 581 Miscellaneous manufactures : Letterpress printing 101 18 221 91 2,243 1,051 India rubber and gutta percha. Others 4 288 611 484 840 4,999 Total 411 1407 9138 Grand total 2,783 28,515 78,235 The site of Manchester is mentioned as a chief station of the druids, who had there an altar called Meyne. In A. D. 500 it was an unfre- quented woodland. In 620 it was taken by Edwin, king of Northumbria, and shortly after occupied by a colony of Angles. It then passed to the Danes, who about 920 were expelled by the king of Mercia. The charter conferring the privileges of a borough was granted in 1301. Manchester cotton is first mentioned in 1352, by which was meant, however, a coarse woollen cloth woven from unprepared fleece. In 1579 the manor was sold to John Lacye, a London cloth-worker, for 3,000, and resold in 1596 to Sir Nicholas Mosley for 3,500. At the time of the civil war it was distinguished for active industry, and suffered much from both parties. On Jan. 8, 1819, a great radical meeting was held at St. Peter's field ; and an- other great meeting, attended by 60,000 per- sons, on Aug.' 16 of the same year, was dis- persed by the yeomanry cavalry, eight persons being killed. In 1857 an exhibition was held from May to October for the display of the art treasures of the kingdom. Among the objects exhibited were 1,115 paintings, 969 water-color drawings, 160 specimens of modern sculpture, 260 original sketches and drawings by the old masters, and a museum of ornamental art com- prising 17,000 choice specimens. MANCHINEEL (hippomane mancinella}, a poi- sonous evergreen tree growing wild in the West India islands, along the shores of the Ca- ribbean sea, and in southern Florida. It is of the natural order euphorbiacece ; and the name hippomane (Gr. iTriroc, horse, and paivsadai, to be mad) is given to the genus from the sup- posed maddening effect of its juice upon horses. The manchineel tree grows to the height of 40 or 50 ft. ; it has a smooth brownish bark, and short and thick branches. The leaves are about 3 in. long and half as wide, with two glands at the junction of the blade with the short foot- stalks ; the flowers grow in short thick spikes at the end of the branches ; the fertile flowers are solitary at the base of the spikes, and the staminate ones in small clusters at its apex; 528 VOL. xi. 7 both kinds are obscure and without petals. The fruit when ripe is of a yellow color, and resembles an apple in appearance ; hence it is called manzanillo (little apple), a name that in Spanish American countries is applied to sev- eral plants bearing fruit like an apple, or the leaves and flowers of which have an apple-like odor. Some early accounts state that this tree is more deadly poisonous than the upas, assert- ing that grass would not grow beneath it, that death would follow sleeping under its shade, and that a drop of its juice falling upon the skin had the same effect as the application of red-hot iron. While the milky juice of the tree is highly poisonous, investigations have shown the earlier reports to be greatly exag- gerated, and that, like our poison sumach, it affects some persons more seriously than oth- ers. Those who, not knowing its character, have inadvertently tasted of the fruit, have suffered from severe blistering of the lips. The Manchineel, juice as well as the smoke from the burning wood produces temporary blindness. Berthold Seemann, the botanist, was blind after gather- ing specimens, and a boat's crew of his ship, the Herald, were blind for several days from having used some of the wood in making a fire. On account of the beauty of the brown and white wood when polished, it is much used for cabinet work. It is said that before stri- king the axe into the trees the workmen take care to light fires around them in order to thicken the juice and drive off the volatile poisonous quality ; and cabinet makers also when working it protect their faces with veils from the poisonous effects of the saw dust and exhalations from the wood. MANCHOORIA. See MANTCHOOKIA. MANCINI, a Eoman family, founded in the 14th century by Pietro Omni-Santi, surnamed Mancini dei Luci. Among his descendants was Michele Lorenzo Mancini, a brother of Cardinal Francesco Maria Mancini, who mar-