H
 
HABEAS CORPUS.  A writ by which a man may be taken out of jail when
confined for the wrong crime.
HABIT, n.  A shackle for the free.
HADES, n.  The lower world; the residence of departed spirits; the
place where the dead live.
    Among the ancients the idea of Hades was not synonymous with our
Hell, many of the most respectable men of antiquity residing there in
a very comfortable kind of way.  Indeed, the Elysian Fields themselves
were a part of Hades, though they have since been removed to Paris.
When the Jacobean version of the New Testament was in process of
evolution the pious and learned men engaged in the work insisted by a
majority vote on translating the Greek word "Aides" as "Hell"; but a
conscientious minority member secretly possessed himself of the record
and struck out the objectional word wherever he could find it.  At the
next meeting, the Bishop of Salisbury, looking over the work, suddenly
sprang to his feet and said with considerable excitement:  "Gentlemen,
somebody has been razing 'Hell' here!"  Years afterward the good
prelate's death was made sweet by the reflection that he had been the
means (under Providence) of making an important, serviceable and
immortal addition to the phraseology of the English tongue.
HAG, n.  An elderly lady whom you do not happen to like; sometimes
called, also, a hen, or cat.  Old witches, sorceresses, etc., were
called hags from the belief that their heads were surrounded by a kind
of baleful lumination or nimbus -- hag being the popular name of that
peculiar electrical light sometimes observed in the hair.  At one time
hag was not a word of reproach:  Drayton speaks of a "beautiful hag,
all smiles," much as Shakespeare said, "sweet wench."  It would not
now be proper to call your sweetheart a hag -- that compliment is
reserved for the use of her grandchildren.
HALF, n.  One of two equal parts into which a thing may be divided, or
considered as divided.  In the fourteenth century a heated discussion
arose among theologists and philosophers as to whether Omniscience
could part an object into three halves; and the pious Father
Aldrovinus publicly prayed in the cathedral at Rouen that God would
demonstrate the affirmative of the proposition in some signal and
unmistakable way, and particularly (if it should please Him) upon the
body of that hardy blasphemer, Manutius Procinus, who maintained the
negative.  Procinus, however, was spared to die of the bite of a
viper.
HALO, n.  Properly, a luminous ring encircling an astronomical body,
but not infrequently confounded with "aureola," or "nimbus," a
somewhat similar phenomenon worn as a head-dress by divinities and
saints.  The halo is a purely optical illusion, produced by moisture
in the air, in the manner of a rainbow; but the aureola is conferred
as a sign of superior sanctity, in the same way as a bishop's mitre,
or the Pope's tiara.  In the painting of the Nativity, by Szedgkin, a
pious artist of Pesth, not only do the Virgin and the Child wear the
nimbus, but an ass nibbling hay from the sacred manger is similarly
decorated and, to his lasting honor be it said, appears to bear his
unaccustomed dignity with a truly saintly grace.
HAND, n.  A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and
commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.
HANDKERCHIEF, n.  A small square of silk or linen, used in various
ignoble offices about the face and especially serviceable at funerals
to conceal the lack of tears.  The handkerchief is of recent
invention; our ancestors knew nothing of it and intrusted its duties
to the sleeve.  Shakespeare's introducing it into the play of
"Othello" is an anachronism:  Desdemona dried her nose with her skirt,
as Dr. Mary Walker and other reformers have done with their coattails
in our own day -- an evidence that revolutions sometimes go backward.
HANGMAN, n.  An officer of the law charged with duties of the highest
dignity and utmost gravity, and held in hereditary disesteem by a
populace having a criminal ancestry.  In some of the American States
his functions are now performed by an electrician, as in New Jersey,
where executions by electricity have recently been ordered -- the
first instance known to this lexicographer of anybody questioning the
expediency of hanging Jerseymen.
HAPPINESS, n.  An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the
misery of another.
HARANGUE, n.  A speech by an opponent, who is known as an harrangue-
outang.
HARBOR, n.  A place where ships taking shelter from stores are exposed
to the fury of the customs.
HARMONISTS, n.  A sect of Protestants, now extinct, who came from
Europe in the beginning of the last century and were distinguished for
the bitterness of their internal controversies and dissensions.
HASH, x.  There is no definition for this word -- nobody knows what
hash is.
HATCHET, n.  A young axe, known among Indians as a Thomashawk.
    "O bury the hatchet, irascible Red,
    For peace is a blessing," the White Man said.
        The Savage concurred, and that weapon interred,
    With imposing rites, in the White Man's head.
                                                           John Lukkus
HATRED, n.  A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's
superiority.
HEAD-MONEY, n.  A capitation tax, or poll-tax.
    In ancient times there lived a king
    Whose tax-collectors could not wring
    From all his subjects gold enough
    To make the royal way less rough.
    For pleasure's highway, like the dames
    Whose premises adjoin it, claims
    Perpetual repairing.  So
    The tax-collectors in a row
    Appeared before the throne to pray
    Their master to devise some way
    To swell the revenue.  "So great,"
    Said they, "are the demands of state
    A tithe of all that we collect
    Will scarcely meet them.  Pray reflect:
    How, if one-tenth we must resign,
    Can we exist on t'other nine?"
    The monarch asked them in reply:
    "Has it occurred to you to try
    The advantage of economy?"
    "It has," the spokesman said:  "we sold
    All of our gray garrotes of gold;
    With plated-ware we now compress
    The necks of those whom we assess.
    Plain iron forceps we employ
    To mitigate the miser's joy
    Who hoards, with greed that never tires,
    That which your Majesty requires."
    Deep lines of thought were seen to plow
    Their way across the royal brow.
    "Your state is desperate, no question;
    Pray favor me with a suggestion."
    "O King of Men," the spokesman said,
    "If you'll impose upon each head
    A tax, the augmented revenue
    We'll cheerfully divide with you."
    As flashes of the sun illume
    The parted storm-cloud's sullen gloom,
    The king smiled grimly.  "I decree
    That it be so -- and, not to be
    In generosity outdone,
    Declare you, each and every one,
    Exempted from the operation
    Of this new law of capitation.
    But lest the people censure me
    Because they're bound and you are free,
    'Twere well some clever scheme were laid
    By you this poll-tax to evade.
    I'll leave you now while you confer
    With my most trusted minister."
    The monarch from the throne-room walked
    And straightway in among them stalked
    A silent man, with brow concealed,
    Bare-armed -- his gleaming axe revealed!
                                                                  G.J.
HEARSE, n.  Death's baby-carriage.
HEART, n.  An automatic, muscular blood-pump.  Figuratively, this
useful organ is said to be the esat of emotions and sentiments -- a
very pretty fancy which, however, is nothing but a survival of a once
universal belief.  It is now known that the sentiments and emotions
reside in the stomach, being evolved from food by chemical action of
the gastric fluid.  The exact process by which a beefsteak becomes a
feeling -- tender or not, according to the age of the animal from
which it was cut; the successive stages of elaboration through which a
caviar sandwich is transmuted to a quaint fancy and reappears as a
pungent epigram; the marvelous functional methods of converting a
hard-boiled egg into religious contrition, or a cream-puff into a sigh
of sensibility -- these things have been patiently ascertained by M.
Pasteur, and by him expounded with convincing lucidity.  (See, also,
my monograph, _The Essential Identity of the Spiritual Affections and
Certain Intestinal Gases Freed in Digestion_ -- 4to, 687 pp.)  In a
scientific work entitled, I believe, _Delectatio Demonorum_ (John
Camden Hotton, London, 1873) this view of the sentiments receives a
striking illustration; and for further light consult Professor Dam's
famous treatise on _Love as a Product of Alimentary Maceration_.
HEAT, n.
    Heat, says Professor Tyndall, is a mode
        Of motion, but I know now how he's proving
    His point; but this I know -- hot words bestowed
        With skill will set the human fist a-moving,
    And where it stops the stars burn free and wild.
    _Crede expertum_ -- I have seen them, child.
                                                          Gorton Swope
HEATHEN, n.  A benighted creature who has the folly to worship
something that he can see and feel.  According to Professor Howison,
of the California State University, Hebrews are heathens.
    "The Hebrews are heathens!" says Howison.  He's
        A Christian philosopher.  I'm
    A scurril agnostical chap, if you please,
        Addicted too much to the crime
        Of religious discussion in my rhyme.
    Though Hebrew and Howison cannot agree
        On a _modus vivendi_ -- not they! --
    Yet Heaven has had the designing of me,
        And I haven't been reared in a way
        To joy in the thick of the fray.
    For this of my creed is the soul and the gist,
        And the truth of it I aver:
    Who differs from me in his faith is an 'ist,
        And 'ite, an 'ie, or an 'er --
        And I'm down upon him or her!
    Let Howison urge with perfunctory chin
        Toleration -- that's all very well,
    But a roast is "nuts" to his nostril thin,
        And he's running -- I know by the smell --
        A secret and personal Hell!
                                                           Bissell Gip
HEAVEN, n.  A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with
talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention
while you expound your own.
HEBREW, n.  A male Jew, as distinguished from the Shebrew, an
altogether superior creation.
HELPMATE, n.  A wife, or bitter half.
    "Now, why is yer wife called a helpmate, Pat?"
        Says the priest.  "Since the time 'o yer wooin'
    She's niver [sic] assisted in what ye were at --
        For it's naught ye are ever doin'."
    "That's true of yer Riverence [sic]," Patrick replies,
        And no sign of contrition envices;
    "But, bedad, it's a fact which the word implies,
        For she helps to mate the expinses [sic]!"
                                                         Marley Wottel
HEMP, n.  A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of
neckwear which is frequently put on after public speaking in the open
air and prevents the wearer from taking cold.
HERMIT, n.  A person whose vices and follies are not sociable.
HERS, pron.  His.
HIBERNATE, v.i.  To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion.
There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of
various animals.  Many believe that the bear hibernates during the
whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws.  It is
admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean
that it had to try twice before it can cast a shadow.  Three or four
centuries ago, in England, no fact was better attested than that
swallows passed the winter months in the mud at the bottom of their
brooks, clinging together in globular masses.  They have apparently
been compelled to give up the custom and account of the foulness of
the brooks.  Sotus Ecobius discovered in Central Asia a whole nation
of people who hibernate.  By some investigators, the fasting of Lent
is supposed to have been originally a modified form of hibernation, to
which the Church gave a religious significance; but this view was
strenuously opposed by that eminent authority, Bishop Kip, who did not
wish any honors denied to the memory of the Founder of his family.
HIPPOGRIFF, n.  An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half
griffin.  The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and
half eagle.  The hippogriff was actually, therefore, a one-quarter
eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold.  The study of
zoology is full of surprises.
HISTORIAN, n.  A broad-gauge gossip.
HISTORY, n.  An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant,
which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly
fools.
    Of Roman history, great Niebuhr's shown
    'Tis nine-tenths lying.  Faith, I wish 'twere known,
    Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide,
    Wherein he blundered and how much he lied.
                                                           Salder Bupp
HOG, n.  A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and
serving to illustrate that of ours.  Among the Mahometans and Jews,
the hog is not in favor as an article of diet, but is respected for
the delicacy and the melody of its voice.  It is chiefly as a songster
that the fowl is esteemed; the cage of him in full chorus has been
known to draw tears from two persons at once.  The scientific name of
this dicky-bird is _Porcus Rockefelleri_.  Mr. Rockefeller did not
discover the hog, but it is considered his by right of resemblance.
HOMOEOPATHIST, n.  The humorist of the medical profession.
HOMOEOPATHY, n.  A school of medicine midway between Allopathy and
Christian Science.  To the last both the others are distinctly
inferior, for Christian Science will cure imaginary diseases, and they
can not.
HOMICIDE, n.  The slaying of one human being by another.  There are
four kinds of homocide:  felonious, excusable, justifiable, and
praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain
whether he fell by one kind or another -- the classification is for
advantage of the lawyers.
HOMILETICS, n.  The science of adapting sermons to the spiritual
needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.
    So skilled the parson was in homiletics
    That all his normal purges and emetics
    To medicine the spirit were compounded
    With a most just discrimination founded
    Upon a rigorous examination
    Of tongue and pulse and heart and respiration.
    Then, having diagnosed each one's condition,
    His scriptural specifics this physician
    Administered -- his pills so efficacious
    And pukes of disposition so vivacious
    That souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam
    Were convalescent ere they knew they had 'em.
    But Slander's tongue -- itself all coated -- uttered
    Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered
    That in the case of patients having money
    The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey.
                                          _Biography of Bishop Potter_
HONORABLE, adj.  Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach.  In
legislative bodies it is customary to mention all members as
honorable; as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur."
HOPE, n.  Desire and expectation rolled into one.
    Delicious Hope! when naught to man it left --
    Of fortune destitute, of friends bereft;
    When even his dog deserts him, and his goat
    With tranquil disaffection chews his coat
    While yet it hangs upon his back; then thou,
    The star far-flaming on thine angel brow,
    Descendest, radiant, from the skies to hint
    The promise of a clerkship in the Mint.
                                                       Fogarty Weffing
HOSPITALITY, n.  The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain
persons who are not in need of food and lodging.
HOSTILITY, n.  A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense of the
earth's overpopulation.  Hostility is classified as active and
passive; as (respectively) the feeling of a woman for her female
friends, and that which she entertains for all the rest of her sex.
HOURI, n.  A comely female inhabiting the Mohammedan Paradise to make
things cheery for the good Mussulman, whose belief in her existence
marks a noble discontent with his earthly spouse, whom he denies a
soul.  By that good lady the Houris are said to be held in deficient
esteem.
HOUSE, n.  A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat,
mouse, beelte, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus and microbe.
_House of Correction_, a place of reward for political and personal
service, and for the detention of offenders and appropriations.
_House of God_, a building with a steeple and a mortgage on it.
_House-dog_, a pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult
persons passing by and appal the hardy visitor.  _House-maid_, a
youngerly person of the opposing sex employed to be variously
disagreeable and ingeniously unclean in the station in which it has
pleased God to place her.
HOUSELESS, adj.  Having paid all taxes on household goods.
HOVEL, n.  The fruit of a flower called the Palace.
        Twaddle had a hovel,
            Twiddle had a palace;
        Twaddle said:  "I'll grovel
            Or he'll think I bear him malice" --
    A sentiment as novel
        As a castor on a chalice.
        Down upon the middle
            Of his legs fell Twaddle
        And astonished Mr. Twiddle,
            Who began to lift his noddle.
        Feed upon the fiddle-
            Faddle flummery, unswaddle
    A new-born self-sufficiency and think himself a [mockery.]
                                                                  G.J.
HUMANITY, n.  The human race, collectively, exclusive of the
anthropoid poets.
HUMORIST, n.  A plague that would have softened down the hoar
austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with
his best wishes, cat-quick.
    Lo! the poor humorist, whose tortured mind
    See jokes in crowds, though still to gloom inclined --
    Whose simple appetite, untaught to stray,
    His brains, renewed by night, consumes by day.
    He thinks, admitted to an equal sty,
    A graceful hog would bear his company.
                                                        Alexander Poke
HURRICANE, n.  An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now
generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone.  The hurricane is
still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain
old-fashioned sea-captains.  It is also used in the construction of
the upper decks of steamboats, but generally speaking, the hurricane's
usefulness has outlasted it.
HURRY, n.  The dispatch of bunglers.
HUSBAND, n.  One who, having dined, is charged with the care of the
plate.
HYBRID, n.  A pooled issue.
HYDRA, n.  A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many
heads.
HYENA, n.  A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its
habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead.  But the
medical student does that.
HYPOCHONDRIASIS, n.  Depression of one's own spirits.
    Some heaps of trash upon a vacant lot
    Where long the village rubbish had been shot
    Displayed a sign among the stuff and stumps --
    "Hypochondriasis."  It meant The Dumps.
                                                        Bogul S. Purvy
HYPOCRITE, n.  One who, profession virtues that he does not respect
secures the advantage of seeming to be what he depises.
 
                                  I
 
I is the first letter of the alphabet, the first word of the language,
the first thought of the mind, the first object of affection.  In
grammar it is a pronoun of the first person and singular number.  Its
plural is said to be _We_, but how there can be more than one myself
is doubtless clearer the grammarians than it is to the author of this
incomparable dictionary.  Conception of two myselfs is difficult, but
fine.  The frank yet graceful use of "I" distinguishes a good writer
from a bad; the latter carries it with the manner of a thief trying to
cloak his loot.
ICHOR, n.  A fluid that serves the gods and goddesses in place of
blood.
    Fair Venus, speared by Diomed,
    Restrained the raging chief and said:
    "Behold, rash mortal, whom you've bled --
    Your soul's stained white with ichorshed!"
                                                             Mary Doke
ICONOCLAST, n.  A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are
imperfectly gratified by the performance, and most strenuously protest
that he unbuildeth but doth not reedify, that he pulleth down but
pileth not up.  For the poor things would have other idols in place of
those he thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth.  But the
iconoclast saith:  "Ye shall have none at all, for ye need them not;
and if the rebuilder fooleth round hereabout, behold I will depress
the head of him and sit thereon till he squawk it."
IDIOT, n.  A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in
human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.  The Idiot's
activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action,
but "pervades and regulates the whole."  He has the last word in
everything; his decision is unappealable.  He sets the fashions and
opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes
conduct with a dead-line.
IDLENESS, n.  A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of
new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.
IGNORAMUS, n.  A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge
familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know
nothing about.
    Dumble was an ignoramus,
    Mumble was for learning famous.
    Mumble said one day to Dumble:
    "Ignorance should be more humble.
    Not a spark have you of knowledge
    That was got in any college."
    Dumble said to Mumble:  "Truly
    You're self-satisfied unduly.
    Of things in college I'm denied
    A knowledge -- you of all beside."
                                                               Borelli
ILLUMINATI, n.  A sect of Spanish heretics of the latter part of the
sixteenth century; so called because they were light weights --
_cunctationes illuminati_.
ILLUSTRIOUS, adj.  Suitably placed for the shafts of malice, envy and
detraction.
IMAGINATION, n.  A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint
ownership.
IMBECILITY, n.  A kind of divine inspiration, or sacred fire affecting
censorious critics of this dictionary.
IMMIGRANT, n.  An unenlightened person who thinks one country better
than another.
IMMODEST, adj.  Having a strong sense of one's own merit, coupled with
a feeble conception of worth in others.
    There was once a man in Ispahan
        Ever and ever so long ago,
    And he had a head, the phrenologists said,
        That fitted him for a show.
    For his modesty's bump was so large a lump
        (Nature, they said, had taken a freak)
    That its summit stood far above the wood
        Of his hair, like a mountain peak.
    So modest a man in all Ispahan,
        Over and over again they swore --
    So humble and meek, you would vainly seek;
        None ever was found before.
    Meantime the hump of that awful bump
        Into the heavens contrived to get
    To so great a height that they called the wight
        The man with the minaret.
    There wasn't a man in all Ispahan
        Prouder, or louder in praise of his chump:
    With a tireless tongue and a brazen lung
        He bragged of that beautiful bump
    Till the Shah in a rage sent a trusty page
        Bearing a sack and a bow-string too,
    And that gentle child explained as he smiled:
        "A little present for you."
    The saddest man in all Ispahan,
        Sniffed at the gift, yet accepted the same.
    "If I'd lived," said he, "my humility
        Had given me deathless fame!"
                                                          Sukker Uffro
IMMORAL, adj.  Inexpedient.  Whatever in the long run and with regard
to the greater number of instances men find to be generally
inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral.  If man's
notions of right and wrong have any other basis than this of
expediency; if they originated, or could have originated, in any other
way; if actions have in themselves a moral character apart from, and
nowise dependent on, their consequences -- then all philosophy is a
lie and reason a disorder of the mind.
IMMORTALITY, n.
    A toy which people cry for,
    And on their knees apply for,
    Dispute, contend and lie for,
        And if allowed
        Would be right proud
    Eternally to die for.
                                                                  G.J.
IMPALE, v.t.  In popular usage to pierce with any weapon which remains
fixed in the wound.  This, however, is inaccurate; to imaple is,
properly, to put to death by thrusting an upright sharp stake into the
body, the victim being left in a sitting position.  This was a common
mode of punishment among many of the nations of antiquity, and is
still in high favor in China and other parts of Asia.  Down to the
beginning of the fifteenth century it was widely employed in
"churching" heretics and schismatics.  Wolecraft calls it the "stoole
of repentynge," and among the common people it was jocularly known as
"riding the one legged horse."  Ludwig Salzmann informs us that in
Thibet impalement is considered the most appropriate punishment for
crimes against religion; and although in China it is sometimes awarded
for secular offences, it is most frequently adjudged in cases of
sacrilege.  To the person in actual experience of impalement it must
be a matter of minor importance by what kind of civil or religious
dissent he was made acquainted with its discomforts; but doubtless he
would feel a certain satisfaction if able to contemplate himself in
the character of a weather-cock on the spire of the True Church.
IMPARTIAL, adj.  Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage
from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two
conflicting opinions.
IMPENITENCE, n.  A state of mind intermediate in point of time between
sin and punishment.
IMPIETY, n.  Your irreverence toward my deity.
IMPOSITION, n.  The act of blessing or consecrating by the laying on
of hands -- a ceremony common to many ecclesiastical systems, but
performed with the frankest sincerity by the sect known as Thieves.
    "Lo! by the laying on of hands,"
        Say parson, priest and dervise,
    "We consecrate your cash and lands
        To ecclesiastical service.
    No doubt you'll swear till all is blue
    At such an imposition.  Do."
                                                          Pollo Doncas
IMPOSTOR n.  A rival aspirant to public honors.
IMPROBABILITY, n.
    His tale he told with a solemn face
    And a tender, melancholy grace.
        Improbable 'twas, no doubt,
        When you came to think it out,
        But the fascinated crowd
        Their deep surprise avowed
    And all with a single voice averred
    'Twas the most amazing thing they'd heard --
    All save one who spake never a word,
        But sat as mum
        As if deaf and dumb,
    Serene, indifferent and unstirred.
        Then all the others turned to him
        And scrutinized him limb from limb --
        Scanned him alive;
        But he seemed to thrive
        And tranquiler grow each minute,
        As if there were nothing in it.
    "What! what!" cried one, "are you not amazed
    At what our friend has told?"  He raised
    Soberly then his eyes and gazed
        In a natural way
        And proceeded to say,
    As he crossed his feet on the mantel-shelf:
    "O no -- not at all; I'm a liar myself."
IMPROVIDENCE, n.  Provision for the needs of to-day from the revenues
of to-morrow.
IMPUNITY, n.  Wealth.
INADMISSIBLE, adj.  Not competent to be considered.  Said of certain
kinds of testimony which juries are supposed to be unfit to be
entrusted with, and which judges, therefore, rule out, even of
proceedings before themselves alone.  Hearsay evidence is inadmissible
because the person quoted was unsworn and is not before the court for
examination; yet most momentous actions, military, political,
commercial and of every other kind, are daily undertaken on hearsay
evidence.  There is no religion in the world that has any other basis
than hearsay evidence.  Revelation is hearsay evidence; that the
Scriptures are the word of God we have only the testimony of men long
dead whose identity is not clearly established and who are not known
to have been sworn in any sense.  Under the rules of evidence as they
now exist in this country, no single assertion in the Bible has in its
support any evidence admissible in a court of law.  It cannot be
proved that the battle of Blenheim ever was fought, that there was
such as person as Julius Caesar, such an empire as Assyria.
    But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily
be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were
a scourge to mankind.  The evidence (including confession) upon which
certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a
flaw; it is still unimpeachable.  The judges' decisions based on it
were sound in logic and in law.  Nothing in any existing court was
ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery
for which so many suffered death.  If there were no witches, human
testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.
INAUSPICIOUSLY, adv.  In an unpromising manner, the auspices being
unfavorable.  Among the Romans it was customary before undertaking any
important action or enterprise to obtain from the augurs, or state
prophets, some hint of its probable outcome; and one of their favorite
and most trustworthy modes of divination consisted in observing the
flight of birds -- the omens thence derived being called _auspices_.
Newspaper reporters and certain miscreant lexicographers have decided
that the word -- always in the plural -- shall mean "patronage" or
"management"; as, "The festivities were under the auspices of the
Ancient and Honorable Order of Body-Snatchers"; or, "The hilarities
were auspicated by the Knights of Hunger."
    A Roman slave appeared one day
    Before the Augur.  "Tell me, pray,
    If --" here the Augur, smiling, made
    A checking gesture and displayed
    His open palm, which plainly itched,
    For visibly its surface twitched.
    A _denarius_ (the Latin nickel)
    Successfully allayed the tickle,
    And then the slave proceeded:  "Please
    Inform me whether Fate decrees
    Success or failure in what I
    To-night (if it be dark) shall try.
    Its nature?  Never mind -- I think
    'Tis writ on this" -- and with a wink
    Which darkened half the earth, he drew
    Another denarius to view,
    Its shining face attentive scanned,
    Then slipped it into the good man's hand,
    Who with great gravity said:  "Wait
    While I retire to question Fate."
    That holy person then withdrew
    His scared clay and, passing through
    The temple's rearward gate, cried "Shoo!"
    Waving his robe of office.  Straight
    Each sacred peacock and its mate
    (Maintained for Juno's favor) fled
    With clamor from the trees o'erhead,
    Where they were perching for the night.
    The temple's roof received their flight,
    For thither they would always go,
    When danger threatened them below.
    Back to the slave the Augur went:
    "My son, forecasting the event
    By flight of birds, I must confess
    The auspices deny success."
    That slave retired, a sadder man,
    Abandoning his secret plan --
    Which was (as well the craft seer
    Had from the first divined) to clear
    The wall and fraudulently seize
    On Juno's poultry in the trees.
                                                                  G.J.
INCOME, n.  The natural and rational gauge and measure of
respectability, the commonly accepted standards being artificial,
arbitrary and fallacious; for, as "Sir Sycophas Chrysolater" in the
play has justly remarked, "the true use and function of property (in
whatsoever it consisteth -- coins, or land, or houses, or merchant-
stuff, or anything which may be named as holden of right to one's own
subservience) as also of honors, titles, preferments and place, and
all favor and acquaintance of persons of quality or ableness, are but
to get money.  Hence it followeth that all things are truly to be
rated as of worth in measure of their serviceableness to that end; and
their possessors should take rank in agreement thereto, neither the
lord of an unproducing manor, howsoever broad and ancient, nor he who
bears an unremunerate dignity, nor yet the pauper favorite of a king,
being esteemed of level excellency with him whose riches are of daily
accretion; and hardly should they whose wealth is barren claim and
rightly take more honor than the poor and unworthy."
INCOMPATIBILITY, n.  In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly
the taste for domination.  Incompatibility may, however, consist of a
meek-eyed matron living just around the corner.  It has even been
known to wear a moustache.
INCOMPOSSIBLE, adj.  Unable to exist if something else exists.  Two
things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for
one of them, but not enough for both -- as Walt Whitman's poetry and
God's mercy to man.  Incompossibility, it will be seen, is only
incompatibility let loose.  Instead of such low language as "Go heel
yourself -- I mean to kill you on sight," the words, "Sir, we are
incompossible," would convey and equally significant intimation and in
stately courtesy are altogether superior.
INCUBUS, n.  One of a race of highly improper demons who, though
probably not wholly extinct, may be said to have seen their best
nights.  For a complete account of _incubi_ and _succubi_, including
_incubae_ and _succubae_, see the _Liber Demonorum_ of Protassus
(Paris, 1328), which contains much curious information that would be
out of place in a dictionary intended as a text-book for the public
schools.
    Victor Hugo relates that in the Channel Islands Satan himself --
tempted more than elsewhere by the beauty of the women, doubtless --
sometimes plays at _incubus_, greatly to the inconvenience and alarm
of the good dames who wish to be loyal to their marriage vows,
generally speaking.  A certain lady applied to the parish priest to
learn how they might, in the dark, distinguish the hardy intruder from
their husbands.  The holy man said they must feel his brown for horns;
but Hugo is ungallant enough to hint a doubt of the efficacy of the
test.
INCUMBENT, n.  A person of the liveliest interest to the outcumbents.
INDECISION, n.  The chief element of success; "for whereas," saith Sir
Thomas Brewbold, "there is but one way to do nothing and divers way to
do something, whereof, to a surety, only one is the right way, it
followeth that he who from indecision standeth still hath not so many
chances of going astray as he who pusheth forwards" -- a most clear
and satisfactory exposition on the matter.
    "Your prompt decision to attack," said Genera Grant on a certain
occasion to General Gordon Granger, "was admirable; you had but five
minutes to make up your mind in."
    "Yes, sir," answered the victorious subordinate, "it is a great
thing to be know exactly what to do in an emergency.  When in doubt
whether to attack or retreat I never hesitate a moment -- I toss us a
copper."
    "Do you mean to say that's what you did this time?"
    "Yes, General; but for Heaven's sake don't reprimand me:  I
disobeyed the coin."
INDIFFERENT, adj.  Imperfectly sensible to distinctions among things.
    "You tiresome man!" cried Indolentio's wife,
    "You've grown indifferent to all in life."
    "Indifferent?" he drawled with a slow smile;
    "I would be, dear, but it is not worth while."
                                                     Apuleius M. Gokul
INDIGESTION, n.  A disease which the patient and his friends
frequently mistake for deep religious conviction and concern for the
salvation of mankind.  As the simple Red Man of the western wild put
it, with, it must be confessed, a certain force:  "Plenty well, no
pray; big bellyache, heap God."
INDISCRETION, n.  The guilt of woman.
INEXPEDIENT, adj.  Not calculated to advance one's interests.
INFANCY, n.  The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth,
"Heaven lies about us."  The world begins lying about us pretty soon
afterward.
INFERIAE,n.  [Latin]  Among the Greeks and Romans, sacrifices for
propitation of the _Dii Manes_, or souls of the dead heroes; for the
pious ancients could not invent enough gods to satisfy their spiritual
needs, and had to have a number of makeshift deities, or, as a sailor
might say, jury-gods, which they made out of the most unpromising
materials.  It was while sacrificing a bullock to the spirit of
Agamemnon that Laiaides, a priest of Aulis, was favored with an
audience of that illustrious warrior's shade, who prophetically
recounted to him the birth of Christ and the triumph of Christianity,
giving him also a rapid but tolerably complete review of events down
to the reign of Saint Louis.  The narrative ended abruptly at the
point, owing to the inconsiderate crowing of a cock, which compelled
the ghosted King of Men to scamper back to Hades.  There is a fine
mediaeval flavor to this story, and as it has not been traced back
further than Pere Brateille, a pious but obscure writer at the court
of Saint Louis, we shall probably not err on the side of presumption
in considering it apocryphal, though Monsignor Capel's judgment of the
matter might be different; and to that I bow -- wow.
INFIDEL, n.  In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian
religion; in Constantinople, one who does.  (See GIAOUR.)  A kind of
scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and niggardly contributory to,
divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, monks, mollahs,
voodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbes, nuns,
missionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests,
muezzins, brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders,
primates, prebendaries, pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries,
clerks, vicars-choral, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors,
preachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, curates, patriarchs,
bonezs, santons, beadsmen, canonesses, residentiaries, diocesans,
deans, subdeans, rural deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons,
hierarchs, class-leaders, incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins,
postulants, scribes, gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons,
reverences, revivalists, cenobites, perpetual curates, chaplains,
mudjoes, readers, novices, vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas,
sacristans, vergers, dervises, lectors, church wardens, cardinals,
prioresses, suffragans, acolytes, rectors, cures, sophis, mutifs and
pumpums.
INFLUENCE, n.  In politics, a visionary _quo_ given in exchange for a
substantial _quid_.
INFALAPSARIAN, n.  One who ventures to believe that Adam need not have
sinned unless he had a mind to -- in opposition to the
Supralapsarians, who hold that that luckless person's fall was decreed
from the beginning.  Infralapsarians are sometimes called
Sublapsarians without material effect upon the importance and lucidity
of their views about Adam.
    Two theologues once, as they wended their way
    To chapel, engaged in colloquial fray --
    An earnest logomachy, bitter as gall,
    Concerning poor Adam and what made him fall.
    "'Twas Predestination," cried one -- "for the Lord
    Decreed he should fall of his own accord."
    "Not so -- 'twas Free will," the other maintained,
    "Which led him to choose what the Lord had ordained."
    So fierce and so fiery grew the debate
    That nothing but bloodshed their dudgeon could sate;
    So off flew their cassocks and caps to the ground
    And, moved by the spirit, their hands went round.
    Ere either had proved his theology right
    By winning, or even beginning, the fight,
    A gray old professor of Latin came by,
    A staff in his hand and a scowl in his eye,
    And learning the cause of their quarrel (for still
    As they clumsily sparred they disputed with skill
    Of foreordination freedom of will)
    Cried:  "Sirrahs! this reasonless warfare compose:
    Atwixt ye's no difference worthy of blows.
    The sects ye belong to -- I'm ready to swear
    Ye wrongly interpret the names that they bear.
    _You_ -- Infralapsarian son of a clown! --
    Should only contend that Adam slipped down;
    While _you_ -- you Supralapsarian pup! --
    Should nothing aver but that Adam slipped up.
    It's all the same whether up or down
    You slip on a peel of banana brown.
    Even Adam analyzed not his blunder,
    But thought he had slipped on a peal of thunder!
                                                                  G.J.
INGRATE, n.  One who receives a benefit from another, or is otherwise
an object of charity.
    "All men are ingrates," sneered the cynic.  "Nay,"
        The good philanthropist replied;
    "I did great service to a man one day
    Who never since has cursed me to repay,
                Nor vilified."
    "Ho!" cried the cynic, "lead me to him straight --
        With veneration I am overcome,
    And fain would have his blessing."  "Sad your fate --
    He cannot bless you, for AI grieve to state
                This man is dumb."
                                                            Ariel Selp
INJURY, n.  An offense next in degree of enormity to a slight.
INJUSTICE, n.  A burden which of all those that we load upon others
and carry ourselves is lightest in the hands and heaviest upon the
back.
INK, n.  A villainous compound of tannogallate of iron, gum-arabic and
water, chiefly used to facilitate the infection of idiocy and promote
intellectual crime.  The properties of ink are peculiar and
contradictory:  it may be used to make reputations and unmake them; to
blacken them and to make them white; but it is most generally and
acceptably employed as a mortar to bind together the stones of an
edifice of fame, and as a whitewash to conceal afterward the rascal
quality of the material.  There are men called journalists who have
established ink baths which some persons pay money to get into, others
to get out of.  Not infrequently it occurs that a person who has paid
to get in pays twice as much to get out.
INNATE, adj.  Natural, inherent -- as innate ideas, that is to say,
ideas that we are born with, having had them previously imparted to
us.  The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the most admirable faiths
of philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore inaccessible
to disproof, though Locke foolishly supposed himself to have given it
"a black eye."  Among innate ideas may be mentioned the belief in
one's ability to conduct a newspaper, in the greatness of one's
country, in the superiority of one's civilization, in the importance
of one's personal affairs and in the interesting nature of one's
diseases.
IN'ARDS, n.  The stomach, heart, soul and other bowels.  Many eminent
investigators do not class the soul as an in'ard, but that acute
observer and renowned authority, Dr. Gunsaulus, is persuaded that the
mysterious organ known as the spleen is nothing less than our
important part.  To the contrary, Professor Garrett P. Servis holds
that man's soul is that prolongation of his spinal marrow which forms
the pith of his no tail; and for demonstration of his faith points
confidently to the fact that no tailed animals have no souls.
Concerning these two theories, it is best to suspend judgment by
believing both.
INSCRIPTION, n.  Something written on another thing.  Inscriptions are
of many kinds, but mostly memorial, intended to commemorate the fame
of some illustrious person and hand down to distant ages the record of
his services and virtues.  To this class of inscriptions belongs the
name of John Smith, penciled on the Washington monument.  Following
are examples of memorial inscriptions on tombstones:  (See EPITAPH.)
    "In the sky my soul is found,
    And my body in the ground.
    By and by my body'll rise
    To my spirit in the skies,
    Soaring up to Heaven's gate.
            1878."
    "Sacred to the memory of Jeremiah Tree.  Cut down May 9th, 1862,
aged 27 yrs. 4 mos. and 12 ds.  Indigenous."
        "Affliction sore long time she boar,
            Phisicians was in vain,
        Till Deth released the dear deceased
            And left her a remain.
    Gone to join Ananias in the regions of bliss."
    "The clay that rests beneath this stone
    As Silas Wood was widely known.
    Now, lying here, I ask what good
    It was to let me be S. Wood.
    O Man, let not ambition trouble you,
    Is the advice of Silas W."
    "Richard Haymon, of Heaven.  Fell to Earth Jan. 20, 1807, and had
the dust brushed off him Oct. 3, 1874."
INSECTIVORA, n.
    "See," cries the chorus of admiring preachers,
    "How Providence provides for all His creatures!"
    "His care," the gnat said, "even the insects follows:
    For us He has provided wrens and swallows."
                                                         Sempen Railey
INSURANCE, n.  An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player
is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating
the man who keeps the table.
    INSURANCE AGENT:  My dear sir, that is a fine house -- pray let me
        insure it.
    HOUSE OWNER:  With pleasure.  Please make the annual premium so
        low that by the time when, according to the tables of your
        actuary, it will probably be destroyed by fire I will have
        paid you considerably less than the face of the policy.
    INSURANCE AGENT:  O dear, no -- we could not afford to do that.
        We must fix the premium so that you will have paid more.
    HOUSE OWNER:  How, then, can _I_ afford _that_?
    INSURANCE AGENT:  Why, your house may burn down at any time.
        There was Smith's house, for example, which --
    HOUSE OWNER:  Spare me -- there were Brown's house, on the
        contrary, and Jones's house, and Robinson's house, which --
    INSURANCE AGENT:  Spare _me_!
    HOUSE OWNER:  Let us understand each other.  You want me to pay
        you money on the supposition that something will occur
        previously to the time set by yourself for its occurrence.  In
        other words, you expect me to bet that my house will not last
        so long as you say that it will probably last.
    INSURANCE AGENT:  But if your house burns without insurance it
        will be a total loss.
    HOUSE OWNER:  Beg your pardon -- by your own actuary's tables I
        shall probably have saved, when it burns, all the premiums I
        would otherwise have paid to you -- amounting to more than the
        face of the policy they would have bought.  But suppose it to
        burn, uninsured, before the time upon which your figures are
        based.  If I could not afford that, how could you if it were
        insured?
    INSURANCE AGENT:  O, we should make ourselves whole from our
        luckier ventures with other clients.  Virtually, they pay your
        loss.
    HOUSE OWNER:  And virtually, then, don't I help to pay their
        losses?  Are not their houses as likely as mine to burn before
        they have paid you as much as you must pay them?  The case
        stands this way:  you expect to take more money from your
        clients than you pay to them, do you not?
    INSURANCE AGENT:  Certainly; if we did not --
    HOUSE OWNER:  I would not trust you with my money.  Very well
        then.  If it is _certain_, with reference to the whole body of
        your clients, that they lose money on you it is _probable_,
        with reference to any one of them, that _he_ will.  It is
        these individual probabilities that make the aggregate
        certainty.
    INSURANCE AGENT:  I will not deny it -- but look at the figures in
        this pamph --
    HOUSE OWNER:  Heaven forbid!
    INSURANCE AGENT:  You spoke of saving the premiums which you would
        otherwise pay to me.  Will you not be more likely to squander
        them?  We offer you an incentive to thrift.
    HOUSE OWNER:  The willingness of A to take care of B's money is
        not peculiar to insurance, but as a charitable institution you
        command esteem.  Deign to accept its expression from a
        Deserving Object.
INSURRECTION, n.  An unsuccessful revolution.  Disaffection's failure
to substitute misrule for bad government.
INTENTION, n.  The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of
influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence,
immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.
INTERPRETER, n.  One who enables two persons of different languages to
understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to
the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said.
INTERREGNUM, n.  The period during which a monarchical country is
governed by a warm spot on the cushion of the throne.  The experiment
of letting the spot grow cold has commonly been attended by most
unhappy results from the zeal of many worthy persons to make it warm
again.
INTIMACY, n.  A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for
their mutual destruction.
    Two Seidlitz powders, one in blue
    And one in white, together drew
    And having each a pleasant sense
    Of t'other powder's excellence,
    Forsook their jackets for the snug
    Enjoyment of a common mug.
    So close their intimacy grew
    One paper would have held the two.
    To confidences straight they fell,
    Less anxious each to hear than tell;
    Then each remorsefully confessed
    To all the virtues he possessed,
    Acknowledging he had them in
    So high degree it was a sin.
    The more they said, the more they felt
    Their spirits with emotion melt,
    Till tears of sentiment expressed
    Their feelings.  Then they effervesced!
    So Nature executes her feats
    Of wrath on friends and sympathetes
    The good old rule who don't apply,
    That you are you and I am I.
INTRODUCTION, n.  A social ceremony invented by the devil for the
gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies.  The
introduction attains its most malevolent development in this century,
being, indeed, closely related to our political system.  Every
American being the equal of every other American, it follows that
everybody has the right to know everybody else, which implies the
right to introduce without request or permission.  The Declaration of
Independence should have read thus:
        "We hold these truths to be self-evident:  that all men are
    created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
    inalienable rights; that among these are life, and the right to
    make that of another miserable by thrusting upon him an
    incalculable quantity of acquaintances; liberty, particularly the
    liberty to introduce persons to one another without first
    ascertaining if they are not already acquainted as enemies; and
    the pursuit of another's happiness with a running pack of
    strangers."
INVENTOR, n.  A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels,
levers and springs, and believes it civilization.
IRRELIGION, n.  The principal one of the great faiths of the world.
ITCH, n.  The patriotism of a Scotchman.
 
                                  J
 
J is a consonant in English, but some nations use it as a vowel --
than which nothing could be more absurd.  Its original form, which has
been but slightly modified, was that of the tail of a subdued dog, and
it was not a letter but a character, standing for a Latin verb,
_jacere_, "to throw," because when a stone is thrown at a dog the
dog's tail assumes that shape.  This is the origin of the letter, as
expounded by the renowned Dr. Jocolpus Bumer, of the University of
Belgrade, who established his conclusions on the subject in a work of
three quarto volumes and committed suicide on being reminded that the
j in the Roman alphabet had originally no curl.
JEALOUS, adj.  Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which
can be lost only if not worth keeping.
JESTER, n.  An officer formerly attached to a king's household, whose
business it was to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and
utterances, the absurdity being attested by his motley costume.  The
king himself being attired with dignity, it took the world some
centuries to discover that his own conduct and decrees were
sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of
all mankind.  The jester was commonly called a fool, but the poets and
romancers have ever delighted to represent him as a singularly wise
and witty person.  In the circus of to-day the melancholy ghost of the
court fool effects the dejection of humbler audiences with the same
jests wherewith in life he gloomed the marble hall, panged the
patrician sense of humor and tapped the tank of royal tears.
    The widow-queen of Portugal
        Had an audacious jester
    Who entered the confessional
        Disguised, and there confessed her.
    "Father," she said, "thine ear bend down --
        My sins are more than scarlet:
    I love my fool -- blaspheming clown,
        And common, base-born varlet."
    "Daughter," the mimic priest replied,
        "That sin, indeed, is awful:
    The church's pardon is denied
        To love that is unlawful.
    "But since thy stubborn heart will be
        For him forever pleading,
    Thou'dst better make him, by decree,
        A man of birth and breeding."
    She made the fool a duke, in hope
        With Heaven's taboo to palter;
    Then told a priest, who told the Pope,
        Who damned her from the altar!
                                                            Barel Dort
JEWS-HARP, n.  An unmusical instrument, played by holding it fast with
the teeth and trying to brush it away with the finger.
JOSS-STICKS, n.  Small sticks burned by the Chinese in their pagan
tomfoolery, in imitation of certain sacred rites of our holy religion.
JUSTICE, n.  A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition
the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes
and personal service.
 
                                  K
 
 
K is a consonant that we get from the Greeks, but it can be traced
away back beyond them to the Cerathians, a small commercial nation
inhabiting the peninsula of Smero.  In their tongue it was called
_Klatch_, which means "destroyed."  The form of the letter was
originally precisely that of our H, but the erudite Dr. Snedeker
explains that it was altered to its present shape to commemorate the
destruction of the great temple of Jarute by an earthquake, _circa_
730 B.C.  This building was famous for the two lofty columns of its
portico, one of which was broken in half by the catastrophe, the other
remaining intact.  As the earlier form of the letter is supposed to
have been suggested by these pillars, so, it is thought by the great
antiquary, its later was adopted as a simple and natural -- not to say
touching -- means of keeping the calamity ever in the national memory.
It is not known if the name of the letter was altered as an additional
mnemonic, or if the name was always _Klatch_ and the destruction one
of nature's pums.  As each theory seems probable enough, I see no
objection to believing both -- and Dr. Snedeker arrayed himself on
that side of the question.
KEEP, v.t.
    He willed away his whole estate,
        And then in death he fell asleep,
    Murmuring:  "Well, at any rate,
        My name unblemished I shall keep."
    But when upon the tomb 'twas wrought
    Whose was it? -- for the dead keep naught.
                                                     Durang Gophel Arn
KILL, v.t.  To create a vacancy without nominating a successor.
KILT, n.  A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and
Americans in Scotland.
KINDNESS, n.  A brief preface to ten volumes of exaction.
KING, n.  A male person commonly known in America as a "crowned head,"
although he never wears a crown and has usually no head to speak of.
    A king, in times long, long gone by,
        Said to his lazy jester:
    "If I were you and you were I
    My moments merrily would fly --
        Nor care nor grief to pester."
    "The reason, Sire, that you would thrive,"
        The fool said -- "if you'll hear it --
    Is that of all the fools alive
    Who own you for their sovereign, I've
        The most forgiving spirit."
                                                             Oogum Bem
KING'S EVIL, n.  A malady that was formerly cured by the touch of the
sovereign, but has now to be treated by the physicians.  Thus 'the
most pious Edward" of England used to lay his royal hand upon the
ailing subjects and make them whole --
                    a crowd of wretched souls
    That stay his cure:  their malady convinces
    The great essay of art; but at his touch,
    Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand,
    They presently amend,
as the "Doctor" in _Macbeth_ hath it.  This useful property of the
royal hand could, it appears, be transmitted along with other crown
properties; for according to "Malcolm,"
                            'tis spoken
    To the succeeding royalty he leaves
    The healing benediction.
    But the gift somewhere dropped out of the line of succession:  the
later sovereigns of England have not been tactual healers, and the
disease once honored with the name "king's evil" now bears the humbler
one of "scrofula," from _scrofa_, a sow.  The date and author of the
following epigram are known only to the author of this dictionary, but
it is old enough to show that the jest about Scotland's national
disorder is not a thing of yesterday.
    Ye Kynge his evill in me laye,
    Wh. he of Scottlande charmed awaye.
    He layde his hand on mine and sayd:
    "Be gone!"  Ye ill no longer stayd.
    But O ye wofull plyght in wh.
    I'm now y-pight:  I have ye itche!
    The superstition that maladies can be cured by royal taction is
dead, but like many a departed conviction it has left a monument of
custom to keep its memory green.  The practice of forming a line and
shaking the President's hand had no other origin, and when that great
dignitary bestows his healing salutation on
                        strangely visited people,
    All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
    The mere despair of surgery,
he and his patients are handing along an extinguished torch which once
was kindled at the altar-fire of a faith long held by all classes of
men.  It is a beautiful and edifying "survival" -- one which brings
the sainted past close home in our "business and bosoms."
KISS, n.  A word invented by the poets as a rhyme for "bliss."  It is
supposed to signify, in a general way, some kind of rite or ceremony
appertaining to a good understanding; but the manner of its
performance is unknown to this lexicographer.
KLEPTOMANIAC, n.  A rich thief.
KNIGHT, n.
    Once a warrior gentle of birth,
    Then a person of civic worth,
    Now a fellow to move our mirth.
    Warrior, person, and fellow -- no more:
    We must knight our dogs to get any lower.
    Brave Knights Kennelers then shall be,
    Noble Knights of the Golden Flea,
    Knights of the Order of St. Steboy,
    Knights of St. Gorge and Sir Knights Jawy.
    God speed the day when this knighting fad
    Shall go to the dogs and the dogs go mad.