NEWBERY 



NEW BRUNSWICK 



453 



Newbery ? JOHN, a London bookseller, inti- 

 mately associated with Dr Johnson, Goldsmith, 

 Christopher Smart, Smollett, and many other men 

 of letters, was descended from an old bookselling 

 family, and born a farmer's son, in the Berkshire 

 parish of Waltham St Lawrence, about midsummer 

 1713. He had first a shop for general wares at 

 Reading, and about 1744 settled in London as a 

 vendor of books and such medicines as Dr James's 

 Powder the panacea of Horace Walixde as of 

 Goldsmith. He was the first to publish little books 

 for children such as have ever since been ixjpular, 

 and he was himself, in conjunction with Giles and 

 Griffith Jones (1722-86), and perhaps Goldsmith, 

 part author of some of the best of the series, as the 

 histories of Goody Two Shoes and Giles Gingerbread 

 and the Travels of Tommy Trip. He published 

 many books of a more useful character, a complete 

 list of which is given in Mr Welsh's careful volume. 

 In 1758 he started the Universal Chronicle, or 

 Weekly Gazette, in the numbers of which the cele- 

 brated Idler was first printed. The Public Ledger, 

 commenced in 17HO, has continued to our own day 

 in its early numbers appeared Goldsmith's Chinese 

 Letters, later reprinted as The Citizen of the World. 

 His death took place 22d December 1767. He had a 

 genius for advertising, even to an ingenious met hod 

 of bringing in allusions to his books and wares in 

 the text of his stories. Johnson sketched him 

 humorously as 'Jack Wliirler' in No. 19 of the 

 Idler. It was to Francis Newbery (1743-1818), 

 his nephew and ultimate successor, that Boswell 

 tells us Dr Johnson told him he sold for sixty 

 ]M>unds the manuscript of Goldsmith's Vicar of 

 Wakefielil, in which John Newbery has been 

 immortalised as 'the philanthropic bookseller in 

 St Paul's Churchyard, who has written so many 

 little boiks for children. He called himself their 

 friend, but he was the friend of all mankind.' 

 This transaction has occasioned much difficulty, as 

 Boswell himself gives no date, while the accounts 

 of Mrs Hin//d and Hawkins differ verv materially, 

 and Mr Welsh h;is discovered that B. Collins of 

 Sail-bury on October 28, 1762, paid Goldsmith 21 

 as one-tliird price of the book. Boswell describes 

 the book as then ' ready for the press ; ' Mrs Pioz/i 

 says Johnson procured the distressed author 'some 

 immediate relief;' Hawkins says the price that 

 Johnson brought him was 40. The year of the 

 sale by Dr Johnson was most likely 1762, when 

 the greater part of the book was written ; and it U 

 most probable that Johnson did not mean that he 

 brought the whole sum, but only an instalment of 

 it. See Charles Knight's Shadows of the Old Book- 

 tellers (1865) ; and A Bookseller of Last Century, 

 by Charles Welsh (1885). 



New Brighton, a post-village of Richmond 

 Borough, New York City, beautifully situated on 

 the north-east shore of Staten Inland, 6 miles from 

 the Battery, to which steamers run frequently. 

 The houses of New Brighton are mostly villa resi- 

 dences. 



New Britain, a manufacturing town of Con- 

 necticut, 9 miles by rail SW. of Hartford, engaged 

 in the production of hardware, cutlery, locks, 

 jewellery, hooks and eyes, hosiery, &c. It is a 

 pleasant city, with two large parks, and contains 

 the state armoury and normal school. The water- 

 supply is from a reservoir of 175 acres. Pop. (1880) 

 11,800; (1890) 19,007; ( 1900) 25,998. 



New Britain, by Germans called NEU-POM- 

 MKIIN. an island of the Western Pacific, separated 

 from the north-east coast of New Guinea by the 

 Dampier Strait. The interior is almost wholly un- 

 known. In the forest-clad interior there are several 

 volcanoes, active and quiescent, the highest being 

 the Father (3900 feet). The climate is hot and 



moist. Cocoa-nuts, yams, bananas, bread-fruit, 

 lietel-nuts, and similar fruits are the chief products. 

 Fish are caught in great numbers. The natives, 

 cannibals, of the Melanesian division, are warlike, 

 but suspicious and crafty. They make handsome 

 canoes, with sails and outriggers, earthenware 

 vessels, baskets, mats, &c. The sling, stone axe, 

 and spear are their favourite weapons. They 

 worship good and evil spirits. Area, 9600 sq. m. 

 The population of the several islands is not known. 



See Romilly, The Western Pacific and New Guinea 

 (1886); Powell, Wanderings in a Wild Cuuntry ( 1883 ) ; 

 and Parkinson, Im ttixmarck-Archipcl (1887). For map, 

 see NEW GUINEA. 



New Brunswick, a province of the Dominion 

 of Canada, is Iwunded on the N. and NW. by the 

 province of Quebec, from which it is separated by 

 the river Restigouche ; on the N. by the Chaleur 

 Bay ; E. by the Gulf of St Lawrence and Northum- 

 berland Straits the latter separating it from 

 Prince Edward Island ; S. by the Bay of Fundy 

 and part of Nova Scotia ; and on the W. by the 

 state of Maine, the boundary with the latter being 

 the St Croix and St John rivers. It has an area of 

 28,200 sq. m. rather smaller than Scotland. Its 

 coast-line is 500 miles in length, interrupted only 

 at the point of juncture with Nova Scotia, where 

 an isthmus not more than 11 miles broad con- 

 nects the two provinces, and divides the waters 

 of Northumberland Straits from those of the Bay 

 of Fundy, across which isthmus is the (unfinished) 

 Chignecto Ship-railway. The surface of the country 

 is generally undulating. There are low hills skirt- 

 ing the Bay of Fundy and the rivers of St John 

 and Restigouche. A feature of the coast-line is 

 the number of fine harbours, which have been of 

 great value as a means for exporting the timber 

 for which the country is famous. 



Several important rivers traverse the province ; 

 among the principal is the St John, 450 miles in 

 length, and navigable for vessels of 100 tons to 

 Fredericton, the capital of the province, 90 miles 

 from the sea. Above this point smaller vessels 

 and steamboats ascend for 125 miles. The country 

 drained by the St John and its tributaries com- 

 prises about nine million acres in New Brunswick, 

 as well as eight million in Quebec and the state of 

 Maine. The Miramichi River, 220 miles long and 

 7 miles wide at its mouth, is also navigable for 

 some distance. The Restigouche is 3 miles wide 

 at its entrance into the Chaleur Bay, and over 200 

 miles in length. The lakes are numerous, but of 

 small extent, the largest being Grand Lake, 30 

 miles long and 3 to 7 miles wide, communicating 

 with the St John River, 50 miles from the sea. 



The population of the province in 1881 was 

 321,129; in 1891 321,270. In 1891 there were 

 115,961 Catholics, 79,649 Baptists, 43,095 Church 

 of England, 40,639 Presbyterians, and 35,504 

 Methodists. The population in 1881 included 

 93,387 persons of English origin ; 101,284 Irish ; 

 49,829 Scotch ; 1401 Indian ; 6310 German ; French, 

 56,335. The principal cities and towns are St 

 John (including Portland), (44,000), Fredericton, 

 the capital (6700), Moncton (6000). The provin- 

 cial government is administered by a lieutenant- 

 governor, assisted by an executive council, a legis- 

 lative council of eighteen, and a legislative assem- 

 bly of forty-one members, elected by the people. 

 The province sends ten members to the senate, 

 and sixteen to the Dominion House of Commons. 



Like that of many other parts of Canada, the 

 climate of New Brunswick is subject to extremes 

 of heat and cold. The mean temperature for the 

 year 1885 was 40 '3 F. at St John ; the highest 

 and lowest temperatures for the year being 81* 

 and - 15 respectively. If, however, the climate of 

 a country is to be judged by its effects on animal 



