habitable earh and Canada.
When the world was young and Man was new, And everything was
pleasant, Distinctions Nature never drew 'Mongst kings and priest and
peasant. We're not that way at present, Save here in this Republic, where
We have that old regime, For all are kings, however bare Their backs,
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howe'er extreme Their hunger.And, indeed, each has a voice To accept the
tyrant of his party's choice.
A citizen who would not vote, And, therefore, was detested, Was one
day with a tarry coat (With feathers backed and breasted) By patriots
invested. "It is your duty," cried the crowd, "Your ballot true to cast For
the man o' your choice."He humbly bowed, And explained his wicked past:
"That's what I very gladly would have done, Dear patriots, but he has
never run."
Apperton Duke
MANES, n.The immortal parts of dead Greeks and Romans.They
were ina state of dull discomfort until the bodies from which they
hadexhaled were buried and burned; and they seem not to have
beenparticularly happy afterward.
MANICHEISM, n.The ancient Persian doctrine of an incessant
warfarebetween Good and Evil.When Good gave up the fight the
Persiansjoined the victorious Opposition.
MANNA, n.A food miraculously given to the Israelites in
thewilderness.When it was no longer supplied to them they settleddown
and tilled the soil, fertilizing it, as a rule, with the bodiesof the original
occupants.
MARRIAGE, n.The state or condition of a community consisting of
amaster, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.
MARTYR, n.One who moves along the line of least reluctance to
adesired death.
MATERIAL, adj.Having an actual existence, as distinguished from
animaginary one.Important.
Material things I know, or fell, or see; All else is immaterial to me.
Jamrach Holobom
MAUSOLEUM, n.The final and funniest folly of the rich.
MAYONNAISE, n.One of the sauces which serve the French in place
of astate religion.
ME, pro.The objectionable case of I.The personal pronoun inEnglish
has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and theoppressive.Each
is all three.
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MEANDER, n.To proceed sinuously and aimlessly.The word is
theancient name of a river about one hundred and fifty miles south ofTroy,
which turned and twisted in the effort to get out of hearingwhen the
Greeks and Trojans boasted of their prowess.
MEDAL, n.A small metal disk given as a reward for
virtues,attainments or services more or less authentic. It is related of
Bismark, who had been awarded a medal forgallantly rescuing a drowning
person, that, being asked the meaning ofthe medal, he replied:"I save lives
sometimes."And sometimes hedidn't.
MEDICINE, n.A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in
Broadway.
MEEKNESS, n.Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is
worthwhile.
M is for Moses, Who slew the Egyptian. As sweet as a rose is The
meekness of Moses. No monument shows his Post-mortem inscription,
But M is for Moses Who slew the Egyptian.
_The Biographical Alphabet_
MEERSCHAUM, n.(Literally, seafoam, and by many erroneously
supposedto be made of it.)A fine white clay, which for convenience
incoloring it brown is made into tobacco pipes and smoked by the
workmenengaged in that industry.The purpose of coloring it has not
beendisclosed by the manufacturers.
There was a youth (you've heard before, This woeful tale, may be),
Who bought a meerschaum pipe and swore That color it would he!
He shut himself from the world away, Nor any soul he saw. He smoke
by night, he smoked by day, As hard as he could draw.
His dog died moaning in the wrath Of winds that blew aloof; The
weeds were in the gravel path, The owl was on the roof.
"He's gone afar, he'll come no more," The neighbors sadly say. And so
they batter in the door To take his goods away.
Dead, pipe in mouth, the youngster lay, Nut-brown in face and limb.
"That pipe's a lovely white," they say, "But it has colored him!"
The moral there's small need to sing -- 'Tis plain as day to you: Don't
play your game on any thing That is a gamester too.
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Martin Bulstrode
MENDACIOUS, adj.Addicted to rhetoric.
MERCHANT, n.One engaged in a commercial pursuit.A
commercialpursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.
MERCY, n.An attribute beloved of detected offenders.
MESMERISM, n.Hypnotism before it wore good clothes, kept a
carriageand asked Incredulity to dinner.
METROPOLIS, n.A stronghold of provincialism.
MILLENNIUM, n.The period of a thousand years when the lid is to
bescrewed down, with all reformers on the under side.
MIND, n.A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain.Itschief
activity consists in the endeavor to ascertain its own nature,the futility of
the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothingbut itself to know itself
with.From the Latin _mens_, a fact unknownto that honest shoe-seller,
who, observing that his learned competitorover the way had displayed the
motto "_Mens conscia recti_,"emblazoned his own front with the words
"Men's, women's and children'sconscia recti."
MINE, adj.Belonging to me if I can hold or seize it.
MINISTER, n.An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility.
In diplomacy and officer sent into a foreign country as the
visibleembodiment of his sovereign's hostility.His principal qualificationis
a degree of plausible inveracity next below that of an ambassador.
MINOR, adj.Less objectionable.
MINSTREL, adj.Formerly a poet, singer or musician; now a nigger
witha color less than skin deep and a humor more than flesh and blood
canbear.
MIRACLE, n.An act or event out of the order of nature
andunaccountable, as beating a normal hand of four kings and an ace
withfour aces and a king.
MISCREANT, n.A person of the highest degree of unworth.
Etymologically, the word means unbeliever, and its presentsignification
may be regarded as theology's noblest contribution tothe development of
our language.
MISDEMEANOR, n.An infraction of the law having less dignity than
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afelony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best
criminalsociety.
By misdemeanors he essays to climb Into the aristocracy of crime. O,
woe was him! -- with manner chill and grand "Captains of industry"
refused his hand, "Kings of finance" denied him recognition And "railway
magnates" jeered his low condition. He robbed a bank to make himself
respected. They still rebuffed him, for he was detected.
S.V. Hanipur
MISERICORDE, n.A dagger which in mediaeval warfare was used
by thefoot soldier to remind an unhorsed knight that he was mortal.
MISFORTUNE, n.The kind of fortune that never misses.
MISS, n.The title with which we brand unmarried women to
indicatethat they are in the market.Miss, Missis (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.)
arethe three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in
soundand sense.Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master.Inthe
general abolition of social titles in this our country theymiraculously
escaped to plague us.If we must have them let us beconsistent and give
one to the unmarried man.I venture to suggestMush, abbreviated to Mh.
MOLECULE, n.The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter.It
isdistinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unitof
matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate,indivisible
unit of matter.Three great scientific theories of thestructure of the universe
are the molecular, the corpuscular and theatomic.A fourth affirms, with
Haeckel, the condensation ofprecipitation of matter from ether --whose
existence is proved by thecondensation of precipitation.The present trend
of scientificthought is toward the theory of ions.The ion differs from
themolecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion.A fifththeory is
held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any moreabout the matter
than the others.
MONAD, n.The ultimate, indivisible unit of
matter.(See_Molecule_.)According to Leibnitz, as nearly as he seems
willing tobe understood, the monad has body without bulk, and mind
withoutmanifestation -- Leibnitz knows him by the innate power
ofconsidering.He has founded upon him a theory of the universe, whichthe
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creature bears without resentment, for the monad is a gentlmean. Small as
he is, the monad contains all the powers and possibilitiesneedful to his
evolution into a German philosopher of the first class-- altogether a very
capable little fellow.He is not to beconfounded with the microbe, or
bacillus; by its inability to discernhim, a good microscope shows him to be
of an entirely distinctspecies.
MONARCH, n.A person engaged in reigning.Formerly the
monarchruled, as the derivation of the word attests, and as many
subjectshave had occasion to learn.In Russia and the Orient the monarch
hasstill a considerable influence in public affairs and in thedisposition of
the human head, but in western Europe politicaladministration is mostly
entrusted to his ministers, he beingsomewhat preoccupied with reflections
relating to the status of hisown head.
MONARCHICAL GOVERNMENT, n.Government.
MONDAY, n.In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.
MONEY, n.A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when
wepart with it.An evidence of culture and a passport to
politesociety.Supportable property.
MONKEY, n.An arboreal animal which makes itself at home
ingenealogical trees.
MONOSYLLABIC, adj.Composed of words of one syllable, for
literarybabes who never tire of testifying their delight in the vapid
compoundby appropriate googoogling.The words are commonly Saxon -
that isto say, words of a barbarous people destitute of ideas and
incapableof any but the most elementary sentiments and emotions.
The man who writes in Saxon Is the man to use an ax on
Judibras
MONSIGNOR, n.A high ecclesiastical title, of which the Founder
ofour religion overlooked the advantages.
MONUMENT, n.A structure intended to commemorate something
whicheither needs no commemoration or cannot be commemorated.
The bones of Agammemnon are a show, And ruined is his royal
monument,
but Agammemnon's fame suffers no diminution in
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consequence.Themonument custom has its _reductiones ad absurdum_ in
monuments "to theunknown dead" -- that is to say, monuments to
perpetuate the memory ofthose who have left no memory.
MORAL, adj.Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right.
Having the quality of general expediency.
It is sayd there be a raunge of mountaynes in the Easte, onone syde of
the which certayn conducts are immorall, yet on the othersyde they are
holden in good esteeme; wherebye the mountayneer is
muchconveenyenced, for it is given to him to goe downe eyther way and
actas it shall suite his moode, withouten offence.
_Gooke's Meditations_
MORE, adj.The comparative degree of too much.
MOUSE, n.An animal which strews its path with fainting women.As
inRome Christians were thrown to the lions, so centuries earlier
inOtumwee, the most ancient and famous city of the world, femaleheretics
were thrown to the mice.Jakak-Zotp, the historian, the onlyOtumwump
whose writings have descended to us, says that these martyrsmet their
death with little dignity and much exertion.He evenattempts to exculpate
the mice (such is the malice of bigotry) bydeclaring that the unfortunate
women perished, some from exhaustion,some of broken necks from
falling over their own feet, and some fromlack of restoratives.The mice, he
avers, enjoyed the pleasures ofthe chase with composure.But if "Roman
history is nine-tenthslying," we can hardly expect a smaller proportion of
that rhetoricalfigure in the annals of a people capable of so incredible
cruelty to alovely women; for a hard heart has a false tongue.
MOUSQUETAIRE, n.A long glove covering a part of the arm.Worn
inNew Jersey.But "mousquetaire" is a might poor way to spellmuskeeter.
MOUTH, n.In man, the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet
ofthe heart.
MUGWUMP, n.In politics one afflicted with self-respect and
addictedto the vice of independence.A term of contempt.
MULATTO, n.A child of two races, ashamed of both.
MULTITUDE, n.A crowd; the source of political wisdom and
virtue.Ina republic, the object of the statesman's adoration."In a
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multitudeof consellors there is wisdom," saith the proverb.If many men
ofequal individual wisdom are wiser than any one of them, it must bethat
they acquire the excess of wisdom by the mere act of
gettingtogether.Whence comes it?Obviously from nowhere -- as well
saythat a range of mountains is higher than the single
mountainscomposing it.A multitude is as wise as its wisest member if it
obeyhim; if not, it is no wiser than its most foolish.
MUMMY, n.An ancient Egyptian, formerly in universal use among
moderncivilized nations as medicine, and now engaged in supplying art
withan excellent pigment.He is handy, too, in museums in gratifying
thevulgar curiosity that serves to distinguish man from the loweranimals.
By means of the Mummy, mankind, it is said, Attests to the gods its
respect for the dead. We plunder his tomb, be he sinner or saint, Distil him
for physic and grind him for paint, Exhibit for money his poor, shrunken
frame, And with levity flock to the scene of the shame. O, tell me, ye gods,
for the use of my rhyme: For respecting the dead what's the limit of time?
Scopas Brune
MUSTANG, n.An indocile horse of the western plains.In
Englishsociety, the American wife of an English nobleman.
MYRMIDON, n.A follower of Achilles --particularly when he
didn'tlead.
MYTHOLOGY, n.The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning
itsorigin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguishedfrom
the true accounts which it invents later.
N
NECTAR, n.A drink served at banquets of the Olympian
deities.Thesecret of its preparation is lost, but the modern Kentuckians
believethat they come pretty near to a knowledge of its chief ingredient.
Juno drank a cup of nectar, But the draught did not affect her. Juno
drank a cup of rye -- Then she bad herself good-bye.
J.G.
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NEGRO, n.The _piece de resistance_ in the American
politicalproblem.Representing him by the letter n, the Republicans begin
tobuild their equation thus:"Let n = the white man."This, however,appears
to give an unsatisfactory solution.
NEIGHBOR, n.One whom we are commanded to love as ourselves,
and whodoes all he knows how to make us disobedient.
NEPOTISM, n.Appointing your grandmother to office for the good
ofthe party.
NEWTONIAN, adj.Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe
inventedby Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground,
butwas unable to say why.His successors and disciples have advanced
sofar as to be able to say when.
NIHILIST, n.A Russian who denies the existence of anything
butTolstoi.The leader of the school is Tolstoi.
NIRVANA, n.In the Buddhist religion, a state of
pleasurableannihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise
enough tounderstand it.
NOBLEMAN, n.Nature's provision for wealthy American minds
ambitiousto incur social distinction and suffer high life.
NOISE, n.A stench in the ear.Undomesticated music.The chiefproduct
