Volume 2, Slice 2 Part 2 (1/2)
_Administration._--Annam is ruled in theory by its emperor, a.s.sisted by the ”_comat_” or secret council, composed of the heads of the six ministerial departments of the interior, finance, war, ritual, justice and public works, who are nominated by himself. The resident superior, stationed at Hue, is the representative of France and the virtual ruler of the country. He presides over a council (_Conseil de Protectorat_) composed of the chiefs of the French services in Annam, together with two members of the ”_comat_”; this body deliberates on questions of taxation affecting the budget of Annam and on local public works. A native governor (_tong-doc_ or _tuan-phu_), a.s.sisted by a native staff, administers each of the provinces into which the country is divided, and native officials of lower rank govern the areas into which these provinces are subdivided. The governors take their orders from the imperial government, but they are under the eye of French residents.
Native officials are appointed by the court, but the resident superior has power to annul an appointment. The mandarinate or official cla.s.s is recruited from all ranks of the people by compet.i.tive examination. In the province of Tourane, a French tribunal alone exercises jurisdiction, but it administers native law where natives are concerned. Outside this territory the native tribunals survive. The Annamese village is self-governing. It has its council of notables, forming a sort of oligarchy which, through the medium of a mayor and two subordinates, directs the interior affairs of the community--policing, recruiting, the a.s.signment and collection of taxes, &c.--and has judicial power in less important suits and crimes. More serious cases come within the purview of the _an-sat_, a judicial auxiliary of the governor. An a.s.sembly of notables from villages grouped together in a canton chooses a cantonal representative, who is the mouthpiece of the people and the intermediary between the government and its subjects. The direct taxes, which go to the local budget of Annam, consist primarily of a poll-tax levied on all males over eighteen and below sixty years of age, and of a land-tax levied according to the quality and the produce of the holding.
The following table summarizes the local budget of Annam for the years 1899 and 1904:--
+------+-----------------------------------+----------------+
--
_Receipts._
_Expenditure._
+------+-----------------------------------+----------------+
1899
203,082 (direct taxes, 171,160)
175,117
1904
247,435 ( ” ” 219,841)
232,480
+------+-----------------------------------+----------------+
In 1904 the sum allocated to the expenses of the court, the royal family and the native administration, the members of which are paid by the crown, was 85,000, the chief remaining heads of expenditure being the government house and residencies (39,709), the native guard (32,609) and public works (24,898).
Education is available to every person in the community. The primary school, in which the pupils learn only Chinese writing and the precepts of Confucius, stands at the base of this system. Next above this is the school of the district capital, where a half-yearly examination takes place, by means of which are selected those eligible for the course of higher education given at the capital of the province in a school under the direction of a _doc-hoc_, or inspector of studies. Finally a great triennial compet.i.tion decides the elections. The candidate whose work is notified as _tres bien_ is admitted to the examinations at Hue, which qualify for the t.i.tle of doctor and the holding of administrative offices. The education of a mandarin includes local history, cognizance of the administrative rites, customs, laws and prescriptions of the country, the ethics of Confucius, the rules of good breeding, the ceremonial of official and social life, and the practical acquirements necessary to the conduct of public or private business. Annamese learning goes no farther. It includes no scientific idea, no knowledge of the natural sciences, and neglects even the most rudimentary instruction conveyed in a European education. The complications of Chinese writing greatly hamper education. The Annamese mandarin must be acquainted with Chinese, since he writes in Chinese characters. But the character being ideographic, the words which express them are dissimilar in the two languages, and official text is read in Chinese by a Chinese, in Annamese by an Annamese.
The chief towns of Annam are Hue (pop. about 42,000), seat both of the French and native governments, Tourane (pop. about 4000), Phan-Thiet (pop. about 20,000) in the extreme south, Qui-Nhon, and Fai-Fo, a commercial centre to the south of Tourane. A road following the coast from Cochin-China to Tongking, and known as the ”Mandarin road,” pa.s.ses through or near the chief towns of the provinces and forms the chief artery of communication in the country apart from the railways (see INDO-CHINA, FRENCH).
_History._--The ancient tribe of the Giao-chi, who dwelt on the confines of S. China, and in what is now Tongking and northern Annam, are regarded by the Annamese as their ancestors, and tradition ascribes to their first rulers descent from the Chinese imperial family. These sovereigns were succeeded by another dynasty, under which, at the end of the 3rd century B.C., the Chinese invaded the country, and eventually established there a supremacy destined to last, with little intermission, till the 10th century A.D. In 968 Dinh-Bo-Lanh succeeded in ousting the Chinese and founded an independent dynasty of Dinh. Till this period the greater part of Annam had been occupied by the Chams, a nation of Hindu civilization, which has left many monuments to testify to its greatness, but the encroachment of the Annamese during the next six centuries at last left to it only a small territory in the south of the country. Three lines of sovereigns followed that of Dinh, under the last of which, about 1407, Annam again fell under the Chinese yoke. In 1428 an Annamese general Le-Loi succeeded in freeing the country once more, and founded a dynasty which lasted till the end of the 18th century. During the greater part of this period, however, the t.i.tular sovereigns were mere puppets, the reality of power being in the hands of the family of Trinh in Tongking and that of Nguyen in southern Annam, which in 1568 became a separate princ.i.p.ality under the name of Cochin-China. Towards the end of the 18th century a rebellion overthrew the Nguyen, but one of its members, Gia-long, by the aid of a French force, in 1801 acquired sway over the whole of Annam, Tongking and Cochin-China. This force was procured for him by Pigneau de Behaine, bishop of Adran, who saw in the political condition of Annam a means of establis.h.i.+ng French influence in Indo-China and counterbalancing the English power in India. Before this, in 1787, Gia-long had concluded a treaty with Louis XVI., whereby in return for a promise of aid he ceded Tourane and Pulo-Condore to the French. That treaty marks the beginning of French influence in Indo-China.
See also Legrand de la Liraye, _Notes historiques sur la nation annamite_ (Paris, 1866?); C. Gosselin, _L'Empire d'Annam_ (Paris, 1904); E. Sombsthay, _Cours de legislation et d'administration annamites_ (Paris, 1898).
ANNAN, a royal, munic.i.p.al and police burgh of Dumfriess.h.i.+re, Scotland, on the Annan, nearly 2 m. from its mouth, 15 m. from Dumfries by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. It has a station also on the Caledonian railway company's branch line from Kirtlebridge to Brayton (c.u.mberland), which crosses the Solway Firth at Seafield by a viaduct, 1-1/3 m. long, constructed of iron pillars girded together by poles, driven through the sand and gravel into the underlying bed of sandstone. Annan is a well-built town, red sandstone being the material mainly used. Among its public buildings is the excellent academy of which Thomas Carlyle was a pupil. The river Annan is crossed by a stone bridge of three arches dating from 1824, and by a railway bridge. The Harbour Trust, const.i.tuted in 1897, improved the s.h.i.+pping accommodation, and vessels of 300 tons approach close to the town. The princ.i.p.al industries include cotton and rope manufactures, bacon-curing, distilling, tanning, s.h.i.+pbuilding, sandstone quarrying, nursery-gardening and salmon-fis.h.i.+ng.
Large marine engineering works are in the vicinity. Annan is a burgh of considerable antiquity. Roman remains exist in the neighbourhood, and the Bruces, lords of Annandale, the Baliols, and the Douglases were more or less closely a.s.sociated with it. During the period of the Border lawlessness the inhabitants suffered repeatedly at the hands of moss-troopers and through the feuds of rival families, in addition to the losses caused by the English and Scots wars. Edward Irving was a native of the town. With Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, Lochmaben and Sanquhar, Annan unites in sending one meniber to parliament. Annan Hill commands a beautiful prospect. Population (1901) 5805.
ANNA PERENNA, an old Roman deity of the circle or ”ring” of the year, as the name (_per annum_) clearly indicates. Her festival fell on the full moon of the first month (March 15), and was held at the grove of the G.o.ddess at the first milestone on the Via Flaminia. It was much frequented by the city _plebs_, and Ovid describes vividly the revelry and licentiousness of the occasion (_Fasti_. iii. 523 foll.). From Macrobius we learn (_Sat_. i. 12. 6) that sacrifice was made to her ”ut annare perannareque commode liccat,” i.e. that the circle of the year may be completed happily. This is all we know for certain about the G.o.ddess and her cult; but the name naturally suggested myth-making, and Anna became a figure in stories which may be read in Ovid (_l.c._) and in Silius Italicus (8.50 foll.). The coa.r.s.e myth told by Ovid, in which Anna plays a trick on Mars when in love with Minerva, is probably an old Italian folk-tale, poetically applied to the persons of these deities when they became partially anthropomorphized under Greek influence.
(W. W. F.*)
ANNAPOLIS, a city and seaport of Maryland, U.S.A., the capital of the state, the county seat of Anne Arundel county, and the seat of the United States Naval Academy; situated on the Severn river about 2 m.
from its entrance into Chesapeake Bay, 26 m. S. by E. from Baltimore and about the same distance E. by N. from Was.h.i.+ngton. Pop. (1890) 7604; (1900) 8525, of whom 3002 were negroes; (1910 census) 8609. Annapolis is served by the Was.h.i.+ngton, Baltimore & Annapolis (electric) and the Maryland Electric railways, and by the Baltimore & Annapolis steams.h.i.+p line. On an elevation near the centre of the city stands the state house (the corner stone of which was laid in 1772), with its lofty white dome (200 ft.) and pillared portico. Close by are the state treasury building, erected late in the 17th century for the House of Delegates; Saint Anne's Protestant Episcopal church, in later colonial days a state church, a statue of Roger B. Taney (by W.H. Rinehart), and a statue of Baron Johann de Kalb. There are a number of residences of 18th century architecture, and the names of several of the streets--such as King George's, Prince George's, Hanover, and Duke of Gloucester--recall the colonial days. The United States Naval Academy was founded here in 1845.
Annapolis is the seat of Saint John's College, a non-sectarian inst.i.tution supported in part by the state; it was opened in 1789 as the successor of King William's School, which was founded by an act of the Maryland legislature in 1696 and was opened in 1701. Its princ.i.p.al building, McDowell Hall, was originally intended for a governor's mansion; although 4000 current money was appropriated for its erection in 1742, it was not completed until after the War of Independence. In 1907 the college became the school of arts and sciences of the university of Maryland.
Annapolis, at first called Providence, was settled in 1649 by Puritan exiles from Virginia. Later it bore in succession the names of Town at Proctor's, Town at the Severn, Anne Arundel Town, and finally in 1694, Annapolis, in honour of Princess Anne, who at the time was heir to the throne of Great Britain. In 1694 also, soon after the overthrow of the Catholic government of the lord proprietor, it was made the seat of the new government as well as a port of entry, and it has since remained the capital of Maryland; but it was not until 1708 that it was incorporated as a city. From the middle of the 18th century until the War of Independence, Annapolis was noted for its wealthy and cultivated society. The _Maryland Gazette_, which became an important weekly journal, was founded by Jonas Green in 1745; in 1769 a theatre was opened; during this period also the commerce was considerable, but declined rapidly after Baltimore, in 1780, was made a port of entry, and now oyster-packing is the city's only important industry. Congress was in session in the state house here from the 26th of November 1783 to the 3rd of June 1784, and it was here on the 23rd of December 1783 that General Was.h.i.+ngton resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. In 1786 a convention, to which delegates from all the states of the Union were invited, was called to meet in Annapolis to consider measures for the better regulation of commerce (see ALEXANDRIA, Va.); but delegates came from only five states (New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, and Delaware), and the convention--known afterward as the ”Annapolis Convention,”--without proceeding to the business for which it had met, pa.s.sed a resolution calling for another convention to meet at Philadelphia in the following year to amend the articles of confederation; by this Philadelphia convention the present Const.i.tution of the United States was framed.
See D. Ridgely, _Annals of Annapolis from 1649 until the War of 1812_ (Baltimore, 1841); S.A. Shafer, ”Annapolis, Ye Ancient City,” in L.P.
Powell's _Historic Towns of the Southern States_ (New York, 1900); and W. Eddis, _Letters from America_ (London, 1792).