Palmerston told Lord Malmesbury, on his accession to the foreign office in 1858, that the chief reason of his opposition to the canal was this: he believed that, if the canal was made and proved successful, Great Britain, as the first mercantile state, and that most closely connected with the East, would be the power most interested in it; that England would therefore be drawn irresistibly into a more direct interference in Egypt, which it was desirable to avoid because England had already enough upon her hands, and because intervention might lead to a rupture with France. He therefore preferred that no such line of communication should be opened.
Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Lord Palmerston acknowledged that it was the duty of the British government to stand aloof from the fray; but his own opinion led him rather to desire than to avert, the rupture of the Union, which might have been the result of a refusal on the part of England and France to recognize a blockade of the Southern ports, which was notoriously imperfect, and extremely prejudicial to the interests of Europe. The cabinet was not of this opinion, and, although the belligerent rights of the South were promptly recognized, the neutrality of the Government was strictly observed. When, however, the Southern envoys were taken by force from the “Trent,” a British packet, Palmerston did not hesitate a moment to insist upon a full and complete reparation for so gross an infraction of international law. But the difficulty with the American government over the “Alabama” and other vessels, fitted out in British ports to help the Southern cause, was only settled at last (see Alabama Arbitration) by an award extremely onerous to England.
The last transaction in which Palmerston engaged arose out of the attack by the Germanic Confederation, and its leading states Austria and Prussia, on the kingdom of Denmark and the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. There was but one feeling in the British public and the nation as to the dishonest character of that unprovoked aggression, and it was foreseen that Austria would ere long have reason to repent her share in it. Palmerston endeavoured to induce France and Russia to concur with England in maintaining the Treaty of London, which had guaranteed the integrity of the Danish dominions. But those powers, for reasons of their own, stood aloof, and the conference held in London in 1864 was without effect. A proposal to send the British fleet into the Baltic was overruled, and the result was that Denmark was left to her own resources against her formidable opponents. In the following year, on the 18th of October 1865, Lord Palmerston expired at Brocket Hall, after a short illness, in the eighty-first year of his age. His remains were laid in Westminster Abbey.
Although there was much in the official life of Lord Palmerston which inspired distrust and alarm to men of a less ardent and contentious temperament, he had a lofty conception of the strength and the duties of England, he was the irreconcilable enemy of slavery, injustice and oppression, and he laboured with inexhaustible energy for the dignity and security of the Empire. In private life his gaiety, his buoyancy, his high breeding, made even his political opponents forget their differences; and even the warmest altercations on public affairs were merged in his large hospitality and cordial social relations. In this respect he was aided with consummate ability by the tact and grace of Lady Palmerston, the widow of the 5th Earl Cowper, whom he married at the close of 1839, and who died in 1869. She devoted herself with enthusiasm to all her husband’s interests and pursuits, and she made his house the most attractive centre of society in London, if not in Europe. They had no children, and the title became extinct, the property descending to Lady Palmerston’s second son by Earl Cowper, W. F. Cowper-Temple, afterwards Baron Mount Temple, and then to her grandson Evelyn Ashley (1836–1907) son of her daughter, who married the 7th earl of Shaftesbury—who was Lord Palmerston’s private secretary from 1858 to 1865.
The Life of Lord Palmerston, by Lord Dalling (2 vols., 1870), with valuable selections from the minister’s autobiographical diaries and private correspondence, only came down to 1847, and was completed by Evelyn Ashley (vol. iii., 1874; iv., v., 1876). The whole was re-edited by Mr Ashley, in two volumes (1879), the standard biography. The Life by Lloyd Sanders (1888) is an excellent shorter work.
PALMERSTON, the chief town of the Northern Territory of South Australia, in Palmerston county, on the E. shore of Port Darwin, 2000 m. direct N.N.W. of Adelaide. The town stands 60 ft. above the level of the sea, by which it is almost surrounded. There are a government house, a town hall, and an experimental nursery garden. Palmerston has a magnificent harbour, accessible to ocean-going vessels, and the jetty is
connected by rail with Playford, 146 m. distant. Cool breezes blow almost continuously throughout the year. The mean annual rainfall is 62·21 in. Pop. (1901), 1973, mostly Chinese.
PALMETTO, in botany, a popular name for Sabal Palmetto, the Palmetto palm, a native of the southern United States, especially in Florida. It has an erect stem, 20 to 80 ft. high and deeply cut fan-shaped leaves, 5 to 8 ft. long; the fruit is a black drupe 13 to 12 in. long. The trunks make good piles for wharves, &c., as the wood resists the attacks of borers; the leaves are used for thatching. The palm is grown as a pot-plant in greenhouses.
PALMISTRY, (from “palmist,” one who studies the palm, and the Teutonic affix ry signifying “art”; also called Chiromancy, from χείρ, the hand, and μαντεία, divination).
The desire to learn what the future has in store is nearly as
old as the sense of responsibility in mankind, and has been the
parent of many empirical systems of fortune-telling, which
profess to afford positive knowledge whereby the affairs of life
may be regulated, and the dangers of failure foretold. Most of
these systems come into the category of occult pursuits, as they
are the interpretations of phenomena on the ground of fanciful
presumptions, by an appeal to unreal or at least unverifiable
influences and relations.
One of the oldest of this large family of predictive systems is that of palmistry, whereby the various irregularities and flexion-folds of the skin of the hand are interpreted as being associated with mental or moral dispositions and powers, as well as with the current of future events in the life of the individual. How far back in prehistoric times this system has been practised it is impossible to say, but in China it is said to have existed 3000 years before Christ,[1] and in Greek literature it is treated even in the most ancient writings as well-known belief. Thomas Blackwell[2] has collected some Homeric references: a work by Melampus of Alexandria is extant in several versions. Polemon, Aristotle and Adamantius may also be named as having dealt with the subject; as also have the medical writers of Greece and Rome—Hippocrates, Galen and Paulus Aegineta, and in later times the Arabian commentators on these authors. From references which can be gathered from patristic writings it is abundantly evident that the belief in the mystical meaning of marks on the “organ of organs” was a part of the popular philosophy of their times.
After the invention of printing a very considerable mass of literature concerning this subject was produced during the 16th and 17th centuries. Praetorius, in his Ludicrum chiromanticum (Jena, 1661)[3] has collected the titles of 77. Other works are quoted by Fulleborn and Horst, and by writers on the history of philosophy and magic; altogether about 98 books on the subject published before 1700 are at present accessible. There is not very much variety among these treatises, one of the earliest, valuable on account of its rarity, is the block-book by Hartlieb, Die Kunst Ciromantia,[4] published at Augsburg about 1470 (probably, but it bears no imprint of place or date). In this there are colossal figures of hands, each of which has its regions marked out by inscriptions. Few of these works are of sufficient interest to require mention,
- ↑ Giles, in Contemporary Review (1905).
- ↑ Proofs of the Inquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer, p. 330 (London, 1736).
- ↑ This book is worthy of note on account of the quaint and sarcastic humour of its numerous acrostic verses.
- ↑ There is a copy in the Rylands Library, Manchester. See also Dibdin’s Bibliographical Decameron (1817), i. 143.
