Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

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his great “machines,” as French art slang calls them. Much more
noteworthy as well as more frequent are the sudden touches which
he gives. The bishops are “cuistres violets”; M. de Caumartin
“porte sous son manteau toute la fatuite que M. de Yilleroy etale
sur son baudrier”; another politician has a “mine de chatfache”;
a third is hit off as “comptant faire” (“he would still be doing,”
though Saint-Simon certainly did not know that phrase). In short,
the interest of the Memoirs, independent of the large addition of
positive knowledge which they make, is one of constant surprise
at the novel and adroit use of word and phrase. It is not super¬
fluous to inform the English reader that some of Macaulay’s most
brilliant portraits and sketches of incident are adapted and some¬
times almost literally translated from Saint-Simon.
The 1st edition of Saint-Simon (some scattered pieces may have been printed
before) appeared in 1788. It was a mere selection in three volumes and was
much cut down before it was allowed to appear. Next year four more volumes
made their appearance, and in 1791 a new edition, still further increased. The
whole, or rather not the whole, was printed in 1829-30 and reprinted some ten
years later. The real creator of Saint-Simon, as far as a full and exact text is
concerned, was M. Cheruel, whose edition in 20 volumes dates from 1856 and
was reissued again revised in 1872. So immense, however, is the mass of Saint-
Simon’s MSS. that still another recension has been found necessary, and is now
being published by M. de Boislisle in the series of Grands ticrivains, but with
M. CherueTs sanction and assistance. Even this, as above noted, will not ex¬
haust available Saint-Simoniana, and it may be doubted whether it will be
possible for many years to place a complete edition on the shelves. It must,
however, be admitted that the matter other than the Memoirs is of altogether
inferior interest and may be pretty safely neglected by any one but professed
antiquarian and historical students. For criticism on Saint-Simon there is
nothing better than Sainte-Beuve’s two sketches in the 3d and 15th volumes of
the Causeries du Lundi. The latter was written to accompany M. Cheruel’s 1st
edition. In English by far the most accurate treatment is in a recent Lothian
prize essay by E. Cannan (Oxford and London, 1885). (G. SA)
ST THOMAS, one of the Danish West India Islands,
lies 36 miles east of Porto Rico (Spanish) and 40 north-
north-west of St Croix (Danish), with its principal town
(Charlotte Amalie) in 18° 20' 27" 1ST. lat. and 64° 55' 40"
W. long. It is 13 miles long from east to west, with an
average breadth of 3, and is estimated to have an area of
33 square miles. The highest point, West Mountain, is
1586 feet above the sea. Previous to the abolition of
slavery in 1848 the island was covered with sugar planta¬
tions and dotted with substantial mansions; but now a
few vegetables, a little fruit, and some guinea grass are all
that it produces. Greengroceries are imported from the
United States, poultry and eggs from the neighbouring
islands. Nor is the exceptional position which St Thomas
has hitherto enjoyed as a commercial depot any longer
secure; the value of the imports in 1880 was less than
one-half of what it was in 1870, and the merchants of
Venezuela, Porto Rico, San Domingo, Hayti, &c., who used
to purchase in St Thomas, now go direct to the markets
of the United States and Europe. The Royal Mail Com¬
pany, which at an early date chose the island as the princi¬
pal rendezvous for its steam-packets in that part of the
world, and whose example was followed by other important
lines, removed its headquarters to Barbados in 1885.
The harbour lies about the middle of the south coast and
is nearly landlocked; its depth varies from 36 to 18 feet.
A floating dock, 250 feet in length, was completed in 1875 ;
there is in addition a steam-slip capable of taking up a
vessel of 1200 tons. Along the north side of the harbour
lies Charlotte Amalie, popularly known as St Thomas, the
only town on the island. In 1880 the inhabitants of the
island numbered 14,389 (males 5757, females 8632), of
whom about a sixth are white, of various nationalities;
the rest have nearly all more or less of Negro blood.
English has gradually become almost the exclusive lan¬
guage of the educated classes, and is used in the schools
and churches of all the various communities. The curious
Creole speech of the Negroes, which contained a mixture
of broken Dutch, Danish, English, &c., though it was re¬
duced to writing by the Moravian missionaries subsequent
to 1770, is rapidly dying out.1 About a third of the popu¬
lation are Roman Catholics, and the rest mainly Protestants
of the Lutheran, Dutch Reformed, Moravian, and English
Episcopal Churches. The Jewish community, 500 or 600
strong, has a synagogue. There are in the town two
1 See specimens and analysis by Dr E. Pontoppidan, in Ztschr. f.
JEthnol., Berlin, 1881.
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hospitals, a public reading-room and library, a Government
college (1877), a Roman Catholic college (St Thomas), a
Moravian school, and a small theatre. A quarantine laza¬
retto is maintained on Lighthouse or Muhlenfeldt Point
The general health of the town is good. The climate
varies little all the year round, the thermometer seldom
falling below 70° or rising above 90°. In the “hurricane”
months—August, September, and October—south winds
accompanied by sultry heat, rain, and thunder, are not un¬
common ; throughout the rest of the year the wind blows
between east and north. Earthquakes are not unfrequent
but they do little damage in comparison with cyclones'
which sometimes sweep over the island.
St Thomas was discovered by Columbus in 1493, and at that
time was inhabited by two tribes, the Caribs and the Arrowauks.
In 1657 it was colonized by the Dutch, and after their departure
for New York it was held by the English in 1667. The Danish
West India and Guinea Company took possession in 1671, and
some eight years later began the introduction of slave labour. It
was succeeded in 1685 by the so-called Brandenburgh Company,
the principal shareholders of which were Dutch. The colony was
strengthened by French refugees from St Christopher’s after the
revocation of the edict of Nantes. The neutrality of Denmark led
to the prizes of the various belligerents being brought to its port for
sale. In 1754 the king of Denmark took the management of the
colony into his own hands, and in 1764 he threw open the port to
vessels of all nations. The neutrality of Denmark again favoured
it in the war of 1792 ; and it became the only market in the West
Indies from which the products of the colonies could be conveyed
to the north of Europe. In 1801 the island was held by the British
for ten months, and it was again in their possession from the latter
part of 1807 to 1815. At that time the harbour was three or four
times a year the rendezvous for homeward-bound English ships,
from 200 to 400, as the case might be, which waited there for their
convoys. The South American War of Independence led a number
of Spaniards to settle at St Thomas. A great but temporary stimulus
was given to its commerce during the American Civil War. In
1871 the Danish Government removed the headquarters of their
West India possessions from St Croix to St Thomas.
ST THOMAS (Portuguese, Sdo Thome), a volcanic island
in the Gulf of Guinea (West Africa), lies immediately
north of the equator and in 6° 40' E. long. From the
Gaboon, the nearest point of the mainland, the distance is
166 miles, and from the Cameroons 297. The extreme
length of the island is 32 miles and the breadth from west
to east 21; the area is estimated at 355 square miles.
From the coast it rises pretty uniformly towards the lofty
and verdant mountains, in the midst of which the peak of
St Thomas towers to a height of 6000 feet. At least a
hundred streams great and small rush down the mountain¬
sides through deep-cut ravines, many of them forming
beautiful waterfalls, such as those of Blu-blu, &c., on the
Agua Grande. The bi-seasonal climate of the tropics ob¬
tains a comparatively normal development on the island,
which, however, has a very evil repute of unhealthiness,
probably owing to the fact that the chief town occupies a
peculiarly malarial site on the coast. The first object of
European cultivation in St Thomas was sugar, and to this
the colony owed its prosperity in the 16th century; but
now it is quite displaced by coffee and cocoa, introduced
in the beginning of the 19th century. In 1879-80 the
export of coffee was 3,778,580 S> and of cocoa 1,026,746
lb. Vanilla and cinchona bark both succeed well, the latter
between 1800 and 3300 feet of altitude. Though nearly
the whole surface of the island is fitted for cultivation, only
about a fifth part is really turned to account. Along with
Principe, St Thomas forms a Portuguese province, to which
are attached the little island of Rolas and the petty fort of
Ajuda on the Guinea coast.
The town of St Thomas, the capital of the province, is situated on
the north-east coast of the island, and the neighbouring districts
form the only well-peopled region. In 1878 the population in the
island was 18,266, of whom 1200 were white. The great bulk con¬
sisted of a mixture of Negroes from various parts of the West
Coast, mainly introduced as slaves, and now all using a Negro
Portuguese—“lingua de S. Thome.” On the south-west coast are