TWELVE TABLES  , the tables of

wood on which was engraved or painted the earliest codification of the Roman law . Originally ten in number, two others were afterwards added, containing supplemental matter, and the whole code was termed the Lex XII . Tabularum (Law of the Twelve Tables) . (See ROMAN LAW and ROME.) TWENTY-FOUR PARGANAS, THE, a district of British India, in the presidency division of Bengal, with an area of 4844 sq. m . It occupies part of the Gangetic delta, east of the Hugli, surrounding (but not including) the city of Calcutta . It also includes the greater part of the almost uninhabited Sundarbans (q.v.) . The administrative headquarters are at Alipur, a southern suburb of Calcutta . The country consists for the most part of a vast alluvial plain, and is everywhere watered by numerous branches of the Ganges . In 1901 the population was 2,078,359, showing an increase of lo % in the decade . Rice is the staple crop, followed by jute, pulses and sugar-cane . The district is traversed by three railways, two of which terminate at the ports of Diamond Harbour and Port Canning, but numerous river channels are still the chief means of communication . Apart from the suburbs of Calcutta, there is hardly a single real ,town .

But

round Calcutta all the manufactures of a great city are to be found, principally jute mills and jute presses, cotton mills and paper mills, and also government factories for rifles and ammunition . The Twenty-four Parganas form the tract of which the zamindari or landlord rights were granted to the East India Company after the battle of Plassey, while the revenue arising therefrom was conferred upon Clive, upon whose death it reverted to the company .