88 



8T HELENS 



ST JOHN 



30,000 per annum. Jamestown, the capital, is a 

 second-class imperial coaling-station, and is strongly 

 fortified. St Helena is largely used as a recruiting 

 station for the West Indian Squadron. The garri- 

 Bon consist* of a battery of royal artillery and a 

 company of infantry. The educational system is 

 very complete, four of it- schools receiving 

 government grant*. St Helena was discovered by 

 the Portuguese in 1502, and taken possession of by 

 the British East India Company m 1651. They 

 remained masters of the island down to 1834 ; 

 since that time it has been administered by a 

 governor and an executive council of five members. 

 The island is chiefly celebrated as the place of 

 Napoleon Bonaparte's imprisonment from 1815 

 to his death in 1821. His home was the farm- 

 house of Longwood, 3 miles inland from James- 

 town ; and the spot where he was first buried lies 

 about 1 mile to the south-west. There is an 

 Anglican bishop of St Helena. See Melliss, St 

 Helena (Loml. 1875); Brooke, History of St Helena 

 (1808-24) ; and hooks quoted under NAPOLEON. 



St Helens, ( 1 ) a town of Lancashire, on the 

 Sankey brook, flowing to the Mersey, 12 miles 

 ENE. of Liverpool and 21 W. by S. of Manchester. 

 Thanks to its railway and canal facilities, and to 

 the immediate neighbourhood of coal, it has grown 

 within recent years from quite a small village to 

 an important industrial centre, and now is the great 

 seat of the manufacture of crown, plate, and sheet 

 glass, and also possesses extensive alkali, copper- 

 smelting, and iron works. It was constituted 

 a municipal borough in 1868; a parliamentary 

 borough, returning one member, in 1885 ; and a 

 county trough by the Local Government Act, 

 1888. The handsome town-hall, with a public 

 library, was opened in 1876. Pop. (1871) 45,134; 

 (1881)57,403; (1891 ) 71,288. (2) A small town in 

 the Isle of Wight, 4 miles SE. of Ryde. Pop. of 

 parish ( 1851 ) 1948 ; ( 1891 ) 4469. 



St Heller, the capital of Jersey, is situated on 

 the south shore of the island, and the east side of 

 St Aubin Bay. It is defended by Elizabeth Castle 

 (1551-86), on a rocky island off the shore, 

 approached by a causeway at low-water ; and by 

 Fort Regent, on the south-east side of the town, 

 built in 1806-15 on a scarped granite rock, at a 

 cost of 1,000,000. Victoria College (1852) is a 

 handsome edifice ; and one may also notice the 

 courthouse (1647), the public library (1736), a gilt 

 statue of George II. ( 1751 ), and the harbour, form- 

 ing an outer and inner basin. An active trade is 

 carried on with England, France, and India. Pop. 

 (1851) 29,153; (1871) 30,756; (1891) 29,100. See 

 JERSEY, and CHANNEL ISLANDS. 



Si-llilairr. See BARTHELEMY, GEOFFROY. 



St |LMI:II iu>' Beans. See IONATIUS' BEANS. 



Saint iiii'. or BONIFACE, JOSEPH XAVIER(1798- 

 1865 ), a Frenchman, the author of plays, poems, and 

 tales without number, of which one only is famous 

 now Picciola, the Story of it Prison Flower ( 1863). 



St Ives, (1 ) a fishing-town of Cornwall, beauti- 

 fully situated on the west shore of St Ives Bay, 8 

 mill". N\K. of Penzance. It has a branch-line 

 (1865); a harbour, with a pier by Smeaton (1770) 

 and a breakwater (1864); a 15th-century granite 

 church, with an ancient cross ; and a town-hall 

 ( 1832) ; whilst on a hill, 545 feet high, is a pyramid 

 (1782). St Ives is the chief seat of the Pilchard 

 (q.v.) fishery, and from its mild climate and good 

 bathing is a favourite resort. It is said to take 

 name from St la, an Irish princess, martyred here 

 in 450 A.D. Incorporated by Charles I. i'n 1639, it 

 returned two niemVrs till 1832, and then one till 

 1885. Pon. (1861) 7027; (1891) 6094. See Lach 

 Bzynna's History of Pemance, St fva, <tc. (1878), 



and J. H. Matthews' Hist or;/ of St Ives (1802). 

 (2) A picturesque old monastic town of Hunting- 

 ilonshin*, on the left bank of tin- < >usc, ~> miles E. 

 uf Huntingdon. It has a curious likeness to Strat- 

 ford-on-Avon ; and, surrounded on one side by low 

 clay hills, it stands on the lionler of the fen 

 country, but not in the fens, having a gravel sub- 

 soil, with an unusually rich alluvial soil alxive. 

 Almost destroyed by iire (1689), and inundated 

 by the river (1823), it has a l.Hh-century parish 

 church, a corn exchange (1864), and a MX ureh 

 stone bridge of singular beauty, Imili hv the abbots 

 of Ramsey, with an old chapel or lighthouse in the 

 middle. Cromwell lived at Slepe Hall, now built 

 over, in 1631-36, and Theodore Watts was born 

 here. This place is said to be named after Ko, 

 a Persian bishop, who diet! here aliout 590, and it 

 became in 1017 the seat of a Benedictine priory. 

 A large weekly cattle market was chartered in 

 1290, and the town was incorporated in 1874. Pop. 

 ( 1851 ) 3522 ; ( 1891 ) 3037. 



St James's Palare, a large inelegant brick 

 structure, fronting towards Pall Mall. Originally 

 a hospital dedicated to St James, it was recon- 

 structed and made a manor by Henry VIII., who 

 also annexed to it a park, which he enclosed with 

 a brick wall, to connect St James's with Whitehall. 

 The gateway and clock-tower are from designs by 

 Holbein. Here Queen Mary died ( 1558) ; Charles 

 I. slept, here the night before his execution ; and 

 here Charles II., the Old Pretender, and George 

 IV. were bom. When Whitehall was burned in 

 1697, St James's became the regular London resi- 

 dence of the British sovereigns, and it con- 

 tinued to be so till Queen Victoria's time. 

 Additions and improvements, gradually made, 

 totally changed the original palace, so that at the 

 present time little, if any, of the old structure 

 remains. In 1837 the royal household was trans- 

 ferred to Buckingham Palace, whither the drawing- 

 rooms were also removed at the death of the Prince 

 Consort, and St James's is now used only for 

 levees. The Court of St James's is a frequent 

 designation of the British Court. St James's Park 

 lies southward from the Palace, and extends over 

 58 acres. 



St-Jean-D'Angely, a -mall town of France, 

 dent, of Charente-Infeneure, 15 miles NNE. of 

 Saintes. Pop. 6494. 



St John, the largest river of New Brunswick, 

 rises in the highlands in the north of Maine, flows 

 north-east and then south-east 450 miles , the lost 

 225 within British territory ), and lulls into the Bay 

 of Fundy by an estuary 5 miles in width. Near 

 the sea it is navigable for large vessels ; while for 

 craft of 120 tons it is practicable as far as Frederic- 

 ton (80 miles), and for small steamers to Wood- 

 stock, 75 farther up. For great part of its middle 

 course the stream separates Maine from Canada. 



St John, the commercial capital and largest 

 city, and the railway centre, of New Brunswick, 

 stands on the north or left bank of the estuary of 

 the St John Hiver, by rail 277 miles N\V. of 

 Halifax and 481 from Montreal. Steamers con- 

 nect it with Boston. The harlnmr is good, and 

 accessible to the largest vessels at all seasons of 

 the year. Shipbuilding and the timber-trade are 

 the chief industries, together with fishing and the 

 West India trade ; but the manufactures also are 

 important and numerous, and include engines and 

 locomotives, machinery and fanning implement -. 

 nails, axes, leather, boots and shoes, paper, cotton 

 and woollen goods, clothing, furniture, carriages, 

 soap, wrought stone, &c. On June 21, 1877, a fire 

 destroyed the greater part of the town ; but a new 

 St John speedily arose, with wide, clean streets 

 and handsome buildings. These include a custom- 



