PRESTON 



PREVOST 



399 



(see Colonel Yule's Marco Polo, 2d ed. 1875, app. to 

 vol. ii.). Many writers about the close of the 13th 

 century, as Marco Polo, the Sieur de Joiuville, and 

 even Gregory Abulfaraj, identify him with Ung 

 Klian , king of the Nestorian tribe of Kerait. Friar 

 Odoric about 1326 visited the country the Temliic 

 of Marco Polo still ruled over by a prince whom 

 he styles Prester John, but he adds, with the 

 cautious gravity of the true historian, ' as regards 

 him, not one hundredth part is true that is told of 

 him as if it were undeniable. ' From this time the 

 Asiatic phantom entirely disappears from view, 

 but from the 14th century onwards Prester John 

 continues a less romantic existence under the guise 

 of the Christian king of Abyssinia. 



See D'Avezao in vol. iv. (1839) of the Recueil de Voy- 

 agei et de Memoires of the Paris Societe de Geographic ; 

 Dr Gustav Oppert, Der Presbyter Johannes in Sage und 

 Geichictite (2d ed. 1870); Friedrich Zarncke, Der 

 'Priester Johannei ( 1876-79 ). See also Colonel Sir Henry 

 Yule's article in Ency. Brit. (9tb ed.), his Hakluyt Society 

 Cathay and the Way Thither (voL i. 1866), and The Book 

 ofSer Marco Polo (2d ed. 1875). 



Preston, an important manufacturing town of 

 Lancashire, a municipal, parliamentary, and county 

 borough, on the north bank, and at the head of the 

 estuary, of the Kibble, 14 miles from the Irish 

 Sea, 28 NNE. of Liverpool, 31 N\V. of Manchester, 

 and 209 NNW. of London. Occupying an eminence 

 120 feet above the river, and built mostly of brick, 

 it is on the whole well laid out, and is surrounded 

 with pleasing scenery. The town-hall, built in 

 3862-67 from designs by Sir G. G. Scott at a cost 

 ft 80,000, is a French "Gothic pile, with a clock- 

 tower and spire 195 feet high. In September 1882 

 were laid the foundation-stones both of the Lanca- 

 shire county hall and of the Harris free library and 

 musenm, to the latter of which in 1883 Mr It. 

 Newshain bequeathed a collection of pictures and 

 art-treasures worth 70,000. The places of wor- 

 ship are all of them modern, for even the parish 

 church has been rebuilt. St Walburge's ( Roman 

 Catholic), by Hansom of cab celebrity, has a spire 

 306 feet high, the loftiest built in England since 

 the Reformation, which amply redeems 'proud 

 Preston ' from its old ' no-steeple ' reproach. Other 

 edifices are the grammar-school ( 1550 ; rebuilt 

 1841 ), the corn exchange and market-house ( 1824 ), 

 public baths (1851), a covered market (1870), 

 militia barracks (1856), the infirmary (1869), &c. 

 Three large public parks were laid out in 1867 

 the Miller and Avenham parks, and the former 

 unsightly ' Moor ' of 100 acres to the north of the 

 town. In the first a statue was erected in 1873 of 

 the fourteenth Earl of Derby ; in Winckley Square 

 is a monument to Sir Robert Peel. Preston was 

 constituted an independent port in 1843 ; and great 

 improvements have been effected at a cost of three- 

 quarters of a million under the ' Kibble Navigation 

 and Preston Dock Act, 1883,' these including the 

 deepening of the channel so as to admit vessels 

 of 1000 tons, the construction of a dock of 40 acres, 

 the erection of warehouses, &c. Arkwriglit (q.v. ), 

 who was born here in 1732, in 1768 set up here his 

 famous spinning-frame ; and Preston now is one of 

 the principal seats of the cotton industry, which 

 gradually superseded the linen manufacture, its 

 staple in the 18th century. There are also iron 

 ami brass foundries, iron shipbuilding yards, 

 engineering and machine shops, steam-boiler works, 

 rojie-walks, &c. A guild-merchant festival, first 

 clearly heard of in 1397, has been held regularly 

 every twenty years since 1562 -the last on 4th 

 September 1882. Preston, the first of whose royal 

 charters was granted by Henry VI., returns two 

 members to parliament. The borough boundary 

 was extended in 1885. Pop. (1811) 17,115; (1841) 

 60,073; (1881) 100,262; (1891) 111,696. 



Preston arose whilst ancient Coccium or Rib- 

 chester, higher up tlie Kibble, decayed. In Athel- 

 stan's reign Amounderness, the hundred in which 

 it is situated, was granted to the cathedral church 

 of York ; hence its chief town came to be known 

 as Preston or 'priests' town.' Near Preston, on 

 17th August 1648, Cromwell totally routed the 

 royalists under Sir Marmaduke Langdale ; and 

 Preston figures in both the Jacobite rebellions of 

 1715 and 1745. For Forster's little army sur- 

 rendered here to General Willes ; and Prince 

 Charles Edward occupied the town on both his 

 march to and his retreat from Derby. Lady 

 Hamilton has been claimed, but falsely it seems, 

 as a native. On 1st September 1832 Joseph 

 Livesey of Preston and six others here signed a 

 pledge of total abstinence the first ever taken in 

 England. 



See works by Whittle (2 vols. 1821-37), Dobson (four, 

 1856-62), Hardwick (1857), Abram (1882), and T. C. 

 Smith (1891). 



Prestonpans, a coast-town of Haddington- 

 shire, 8 miles E. of Edinburgh. Its salt-pans nour- 

 ished from the 12th century till 1825 ; now brewing 

 and fishing are the principal industries. Pop. 2623. 

 To the south-east, on 21st September 1745, was 

 fought the battle of Prestonpans, Preston, or 

 Gladsmuir, when in a five minutes' rush Prince 

 Charles Edward's 2500 Highlanders completely 

 routed 2300 disciplined soldiers under Sir John 

 Cope and Colonel Gardiner (q.v.). 



Prestwicll, a cotton manufacturing town of 

 Lancashire, 4 miles NNW. of Manchester, with a 

 13th century Gothic church. Pop. ( 1891 ) 7869. 



Prestwich, SIR JOSEPH (1812-96), was a Lon- 

 don wine-merchant till he was sixty, in 1874 became 

 professor of Geology at Oxford, and in 1896 was 

 knighted. See the Life by his wife ( 1899). 



Prestwick, the headquarters of golf on the 

 Ayrshire coast, 2i miles N. of Ayr ; pop. 2000. 



Presumption, an inference drawn by the 

 law in certain circumstances, and used to start 

 an argument. A person who has possession of 

 goods is presumed to be the owner till the con- 

 trary is proved. A man is presumed to be in- 

 nocent till the contrary is proved. The Law of 

 England presumes that any one who has not been 

 heard of for seven ;>-ears is dead. By an act of 1881 

 for Scotland the heir of a person who lias disappeared 

 for seven years may obtain authority to uplift the 

 annual income, and thirteen years later may obtain 

 full possession of the heritable estate of the person 

 presumed to be dead ; for securing full right to 

 inherit and dispose of movable estate, the person 

 must be dead for fourteen years. 



Pretender. See JACOBITES, STEWART. 



Pretoria, the capital of the South African 

 Republic (Transvaal), 980 miles by rail (1893) from 

 Capetown and 285 miles W. of Lorenzo Marques, 

 Delagoa Bay, to which a railway was opened in 



'.)."i. Pretoria was founded in 1855 by the Boer 



. 



leader Pretorius, has bro-d streets, and pure water. 

 It owes its prosperity chiefly to the gold-mines at 

 Johannesburg, about 30 miles distant. New public 

 buildings were erected in 1891. Pop. 8000. 



Preventive Officers. See COASTGUARD. 



Preveza, or PREVISA, a fortified town in the 

 extreme south-west of European Turkey, stands on 

 the north side of the entrance to the Gulf of Arta. 

 It exports valonia acorns, wool, cotton, and oil. 

 The Venetians held the town from 1683 to 1797. 

 One year later AH Pasha drove out the French 

 garrison and plundered the place. Pop. 6000. 



Pr^VOSt, ABBE. Antoine Francois Prevost 

 d'Exiles, commonly called the Abbe Prevost, and 



