naturalists have never been able to find aliving specimen of either.
Freedom, as every schoolboy knows, Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell;
On every wind, indeed, that blows I hear her yell.
She screams whenever monarchs meet, And parliaments as well, To
bind the chains about her feet And toll her knell.
And when the sovereign people cast The votes they cannot spell, Upon
the pestilential blast Her clamors swell.
For all to whom the power's given To sway or to compel, Among
themselves apportion Heaven And give her Hell.
Blary O'Gary
FREEMASONS, n.An order with secret rites, grotesque ceremonies
andfantastic costumes, which, originating in the reign of Charles II,among
working artisans of London, has been joined successively by thedead of
past centuries in unbroken retrogression until now it embracesall the
generations of man on the hither side of Adam and is drummingup
distinguished recruits among the pre-Creational inhabitants ofChaos and
Formless Void.The order was founded at different times byCharlemagne,
Julius Caesar, Cyrus, Solomon, Zoroaster, Confucious,Thothmes, and
Buddha.Its emblems and symbols have been found in theCatacombs of
Paris and Rome, on the stones of the Parthenon and theChinese Great Wall,
among the temples of Karnak and Palmyra and in theEgyptian Pyramids -
always by a Freemason.
FRIENDLESS, adj.Having no favors to bestow.Destitute of fortune.
Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.
FRIENDSHIP, n.A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather,
butonly one in foul.
The sea was calm and the sky was blue; Merrily, merrily sailed we two.
(High barometer maketh glad.) On the tipsy ship, with a dreadful shout,
The tempest descended and we fell out. (O the walking is nasty bad!)
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Armit Huff Bettle
FROG, n.A reptile with edible legs.The first mention of frogs
inprofane literature is in Homer's narrative of the war between them
andthe mice.Skeptical persons have doubted Homer's authorship of
thework, but the learned, ingenious and industrious Dr. Schliemann hasset
the question forever at rest by uncovering the bones of the slainfrogs.One
of the forms of moral suasion by which Pharaoh wasbesought to favor the
Israelities was a plague of frogs, but Pharaoh,who liked them _fricasees_,
remarked, with truly oriental stoicism,that he could stand it as long as the
frogs and the Jews could; so theprogramme was changed.The frog is a
diligent songster, having a goodvoice but no ear.The libretto of his favorite
opera, as written byAristophanes, is brief, simple and effective -
"brekekex-koax"; themusic is apparently by that eminent composer,
Richard Wagner.Horseshave a frog in each hoof -- a thoughtful provision
of nature, enablingthem to shine in a hurdle race.
FRYING-PAN, n.One part of the penal apparatus employed in
thatpunitive institution, a woman's kitchen.The frying-pan was inventedby
Calvin, and by him used in cooking span-long infants that had diedwithout
baptism; and observing one day the horrible torment of a trampwho had
incautiously pulled a fried babe from the waste-dump anddevoured it, it
occurred to the great divine to rob death of itsterrors by introducing the
frying-pan into every household in Geneva. Thence it spread to all corners
of the world, and has been ofinvaluable assistance in the propagation of
his sombre faith.Thefollowing lines (said to be from the pen of his Grace
Bishop Potter)seem to imply that the usefulness of this utensil is not
limited tothis world; but as the consequences of its employment in this
lifereach over into the life to come, so also itself may be found on theother
side, rewarding its devotees:
Old Nick was summoned to the skies. Said Peter:"Your intentions Are
good, but you lack enterprise Concerning new inventions.
"Now, broiling in an ancient plan Of torment, but I hear it Reported
that the frying-pan Sears best the wicked spirit.
"Go get one -- fill it up with fat -- Fry sinners brown and good in't." "I
know a trick worth two o' that," Said Nick -- "I'll cook their food in't."
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FUNERAL, n.A pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead
byenriching the undertaker, and strengthen our grief by an expenditurethat
deepens our groans and doubles our tears.
The savage dies -- they sacrifice a horse To bear to happy huntinggrounds the corse. Our friends expire -- we make the money fly In hope
their souls will chase it to the sky.
Jex Wopley
FUTURE, n.That period of time in which our affairs prosper,
ourfriends are true and our happiness is assured.
G
GALLOWS, n.A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in
whichthe leading actor is translated to heaven.In this country thegallows is
chiefly remarkable for the number of persons who escape it.
Whether on the gallows high Or where blood flows the reddest, The
noblest place for man to die -- Is where he died the deadest.
(Old play)
GARGOYLE, n.A rain-spout projecting from the eaves of
mediaevalbuildings, commonly fashioned into a grotesque caricature of
somepersonal enemy of the architect or owner of the building.This
wasespecially the case in churches and ecclesiastical structuresgenerally,
in which the gargoyles presented a perfect rogues' galleryof local heretics
and controversialists.Sometimes when a new deanand chapter were
installed the old gargoyles were removed and otherssubstituted having a
closer relation to the private animosities of thenew incumbents.
GARTHER, n.An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming
outof her stockings and desolating the country.
GENEROUS, adj.Originally this word meant noble by birth and
wasrightly applied to a great multitude of persons.It now means nobleby
nature and is taking a bit of a rest.
GENEALOGY, n.An account of one's descent from an ancestor who
didnot particularly care to trace his own.
GENTEEL, adj.Refined, after the fashion of a gent.
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Observe with care, my son, the distinction I reveal: A gentleman is
gentle and a gent genteel. Heed not the definitions your "Unabridged"
presents, For dictionary makers are generally gents.
GEOGRAPHER, n.A chap who can tell you offhand the difference
betweenthe outside of the world and the inside.
Habeam, geographer of wide reknown, Native of Abu-Keber's ancient
town, In passing thence along the river Zam To the adjacent village of
Xelam, Bewildered by the multitude of roads, Got lost, lived long on
migratory toads, Then from exposure miserably died, And grateful
travelers bewailed their guide.
Henry Haukhorn
GEOLOGY, n.The science of the earth's crust -- to which,
doubtless,will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come
upgarrulous out of a well.The geological formations of the globealready
noted are catalogued thus:The Primary, or lower one,consists of rocks,
bones or mired mules, gas-pipes, miners' tools,antique statues minus the
nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors.TheSecondary is largely made up
of red worms and moles.The Tertiarycomprises railway tracks, patent
pavements, grass, snakes, mouldyboots, beer bottles, tomato cans,
intoxicated citizens, garbage,anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.
GHOST, n.The outward and visible sign of an inward fear.
He saw a ghost. It occupied --that dismal thing! --The path that he
was following. Before he'd time to stop and fly, An earthquake trifled with
the eye That saw a ghost. He fell as fall the early good; Unmoved that
awful vision stood. The stars that danced before his ken He wildly brushed
away, and then He saw a post.
Jared Macphester
Accounting for the uncommon behavior of ghosts, Heine
mentionssomebody's ingenious theory to the effect that they are as
muchafraid of us as we of them.Not quite, if I may judge from suchtables
of comparative speed as I am able to compile from memories ofmy own
experience. There is one insuperable obstacle to a belief in ghosts.A
ghostnever comes naked:he appears either in a winding-sheet or "in
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hishabit as he lived."To believe in him, then, is to believe that notonly
have the dead the power to make themselves visible after there isnothing
left of them, but that the same power inheres in textilefabrics.Supposing
the products of the loom to have this ability,what object would they have
in exercising it?And why does not theapparition of a suit of clothes
sometimes walk abroad without a ghostin it?These be riddles of
significance.They reach away down andget a convulsive grip on the very
tap-root of this flourishing faith.
GHOUL, n.A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of
devouringthe dead.The existence of ghouls has been disputed by that class
ofcontroversialists who are more concerned to deprive the world
ofcomforting beliefs than to give it anything good in their place.In1640
Father Secchi saw one in a cemetery near Florence and frightenedit away
with the sign of the cross.He describes it as gifted withmany heads an an
uncommon allowance of limbs, and he saw it in morethan one place at a
time.The good man was coming away from dinner atthe time and explains
that if he had not been "heavy with eating" hewould have seized the
demon at all hazards.Atholston relates that aghoul was caught by some
sturdy peasants in a churchyard at Sudburyand ducked in a horsepond.(He
appears to think that so distinguisheda criminal should have been ducked
in a tank of rosewater.)The waterturned at once to blood "and so contynues
unto ys daye."The pond hassince been bled with a ditch.As late as the
beginning of thefourteenth century a ghoul was cornered in the crypt of
the cathedralat Amiens and the whole population surrounded the
place.Twenty armedmen with a priest at their head, bearing a crucifix,
entered andcaptured the ghoul, which, thinking to escape by the stratagem,
hadtransformed itself to the semblance of a well known citizen, but
wasnevertheless hanged, drawn and quartered in the midst of
hideouspopular orgies.The citizen whose shape the demon had assumed
was soaffected by the sinister occurrence that he never again showed
himselfin Amiens and his fate remains a mystery.
GLUTTON, n.A person who escapes the evils of moderation
bycommitting dyspepsia.
GNOME, n.In North-European mythology, a dwarfish imp inhabiting
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theinterior parts of the earth and having special custody of
mineraltreasures.Bjorsen, who died in 1765, says gnomes were common
enoughin the southern parts of Sweden in his boyhood, and he frequently
sawthem scampering on the hills in the evening
twilight.LudwigBinkerhoof saw three as recently as 1792, in the Black
Forest, andSneddeker avers that in 1803 they drove a party of miners out
of aSilesian mine.Basing our computations upon data supplied by
thesestatements, we find that the gnomes were probably extinct as early
as1764.
GNOSTICS, n.A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a
fusionbetween the early Christians and the Platonists.The former would
notgo into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrinof
the fusion managers.
GNU, n.An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated
stateresembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag.In its wild condition it
issomething like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and a cyclone.
A hunter from Kew caught a distant view Of a peacefully meditative
gnu, And he said:"I'll pursue, and my hands imbrue In its blood at a closer
interview." But that beast did ensue and the hunter it threw O'er the top of
a palm that adjacent grew; And he said as he flew:"It is well I withdrew
Ere, losing my temper, I wickedly slew That really meritorious gnu."
Jarn Leffer
GOOD, adj.Sensible, madam, to the worth of this present writer.
Alive, sir, to the advantages of letting him alone.
GOOSE, n.A bird that supplies quills for writing.These, by someoccult
process of nature, are penetrated and suffused with variousdegrees of the
bird's intellectual energies and emotional character,so that when inked and
drawn mechanically across paper by a personcalled an "author," there
results a very fair and accurate transcriptof the fowl's thought and
feeling.The difference in geese, asdiscovered by this ingenious method, is
considerable:many are foundto have only trivial and insignificant powers,
but some are seen to bevery great geese indeed.
GORGON, n.
The Gorgon was a maiden bold Who turned to stone the Greeks of old
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That looked upon her awful brow. We dig them out of ruins now, And
swear that workmanship so bad Proves all the ancient sculptors mad.
GOUT, n.A physician's name for the rheumatism of a rich patient.
GRACES, n.Three beautiful goddesses, Aglaia, Thalia and
Euphrosyne,who attended upon Venus, serving without salary.They were
at noexpense for board and clothing, for they ate nothing to speak of
anddressed according to the weather, wearing whatever breeze happened
tobe blowing.
GRAMMAR, n.A system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the
feetfor the self-made man, along the path by which he advances
todistinction.
GRAPE, n.
Hail noble fruit! -- by Homer sung, Anacreon and Khayyam; Thy
praise is ever on the tongue Of better men than I am.
The lyre in my hand has never swept, The song I cannot offer: My
humbler service pray accept -- I'll help to kill the scoffer. The waterdrinkers and the cranks Who load their skins with liquor -- I'll gladly bear
their belly-tanks And tap them with my sticker.
Fill up, fill up, for wisdom cools When e'er we let the wine rest. Here's
death to Prohibition's fools, And every kind of vine-pest!
Jamrach Holobom
GRAPESHOT, n.An argument which the future is preparing in
answer tothe demands of American Socialism.
GRAVE, n.A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming
ofthe medical student.
Beside a lonely grave I stood -- With brambles 'twas encumbered; The
winds were moaning in the wood, Unheard by him who slumbered,
A rustic standing near, I said: "He cannot hear it blowing!" "'Course
not," said he:"the feller's dead -- He can't hear nowt [sic] that's going."
"Too true," I said; "alas, too true -- No sound his sense can quicken!"
"Well, mister, wot is that to you? -- The deadster ain't a-kickin'."
I knelt and prayed:"O Father, smile On him, and mercy show him!"
That countryman looked on the while, And said:"Ye didn't know him."
Pobeter Dunko
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GRAVITATION, n.The tendency of all bodies to approach one
anotherwith a strength proportion to the quantity of matter they contain -
the quantity of matter they contain being ascertained by the strengthof
their tendency to approach one another.This is a lovely andedifying
illustration of how science, having made A the proof of B,makes B the
proof of A.
GREAT, adj.
"I'm great," the Lion said -- "I reign The monarch of the wood and
plain!"
The Elephant replied:"I'm great -- No quadruped can match my
weight!"
"I'm great -- no animal has half So long a neck!" said the Giraffe.
"I'm great," the Kangaroo said -- "see My femoral muscularity!"
The 'Possum said:"I'm great --behold, My tail is lithe and bald and
cold!"
An Oyster fried was understood To say:"I'm great because I'm good!"
Each reckons greatness to consist In that in which he heads the list,
And Vierick thinks he tops his class Because he is the greatest ass.
Arion Spurl Doke
GUILLOTINE, n.A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his
shoulderswith good reason. In his great work on _Divergent Lines of
Racial Evolution_, thelearned Professor Brayfugle argues from the
prevalence of this gesture-- the shrug -- among Frenchmen, that they are
descended from turtlesand it is simply a survival of the habit of retracing
the head insidethe shell.It is with reluctance that I differ with so eminent
anauthority, but in my judgment (as more elaborately set forth
andenforced in my work entitled _Hereditary Emotions_ -- lib. II, c.
XI)the shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so important
atheory, for previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown.Ihave
not a doubt that it is directly referable to the terror inspiredby the
guillotine during the period of that instrument's activity.
GUNPOWDER, n.An agency employed by civilized nations for
thesettlement of disputes which might become troublesome if
leftunadjusted.By most writers the invention of gunpowder is ascribed
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tothe Chinese, but not upon very convincing evidence.Milton says itwas
invented by the devil to dispel angels with, and this opinionseems to
derive some support from the scarcity of angels.Moreover,it has the hearty
concurrence of the Hon. James Wilson, Secretary ofAgriculture. Secretary
Wilson became interested in gunpowder through an eventthat occurred on
the Government experimental farm in the District ofColumbia.One day,
several years ago, a rogue imperfectly reverent ofthe Secretary's profound
attainments and personal character presentedhim with a sack of
gunpowder, representing it as the sed of the_Flashawful flabbergastor_, a
Patagonian cereal of great commercialvalue, admirably adapted to this
climate.The good Secretary wasinstructed to spill it along in a furrow and
