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The C.I.D. (Criminal Investigation Department) is the detective section of the British police force. It was established in 1878 by E Howard Vincent. A ' Special Branch' was founded in 1883 to deal with the Fenian troubles, it now deals with the protection of high-ranking individuals and protection of the state, such as harassing members of the Communist Party.
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CO53 is the codename for the 'South East Region Police Air Support Unit' which is staffed jointly by Metropolitan and Surrey police officers, and has two bases - one in northeast London and one in Surrey.
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CP (corporal punishment) is a sexual activity forming a mild form of SM (sado-masochism) in which one or both partners typically spank the bottom of the other. variations include the use of slippers, belts, riding crops, spoons, hair brushes and other instruments in place of the usual flat of the hand. The positions may also be varied, though typically one partner sits and takes the other across their knee.
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A cabaret is a type of theatre that emphasises skits, songs, magic and comedy acts, often performed in a somewhat intimate setting.
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The term cable's length refers to a length or distance of 100 fathoms.
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A cabriolet (cab) was a vehicle similar to a hackney-carriage with two or four wheels, originally drawn by a single horse but later by a motor. The original cabriolets were for a single passenger beside the driver and were a kind of hooded chaise. In the beginning of the 19th century an effort was made to introduce cabriolets into Britain, to supersede hackney carriages. It was not until 1823, however, that licences were obtained for cabriolets. At first their number was limited to twelve. These were of an improved pattern, with a folding hood, and seated two passengers, the driver being separated from them by a partition. In 1832 all restrictions were removed, and cabriolets came into popular favour. In 1836 a cabriolet on four wheels, the precursor of the brougham, was introduced, and from this the clarence evolved. In 1834 a patent was taken out for an improved, two-wheeled safety cab by Hansom, the architect of Birmingham town hall. The safety consisted in an arrangement of the framework which prevented the cab tilting backwards
or forwards in case of accident. These cabriolets had a small body, hung between wheels of over seven feet diameter. Two years later a fresh patent was obtained for an improved Hansom. Motor cabs were first introduced in 1897, but failed to pay and were phased out, only to start to reappear in London around 1905.
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A cache is properly a hole in the ground used for hiding and preserving provisions which it is inconvenient to carry. They were used by settlers in the western states of America and Arctic explorers.
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A cachecope bell was a bell formerly rung at funerals, the pall being thrown over the coffin.
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A cacolet was a contrivance somewhat resembling a double arm-chair, or in other cases like a bed, formerly fixed on the back of a mule or horse for carrying sick persons or travellers in mountainous countries.
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A cadastral survey is a detailed survey of the lands of a country, their extent, divisions, and subdivisions, nature of culture, etc. They are in most countries executed by the government as the basis of an assessment for fiscal purposes.
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A cade was a British measurement for herrings equal to 500 fish.
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The Cadillac Eldorado Brougham was an American two-door sedan car produced from 1957 to 1958 and developed from the earlier 1954 Cadillac Park Avenue. The
Cadillac Eldorado Brougham was powered by a 6384 cc V-eight engine rated at 325 bhp which provided a top speed of 190 kmh.
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Cadmium yellow is a pigment prepared from the sulphide of cadmium. It is of an intense yellow colour, and possesses much body.
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A caduceus was originally an enchanters wand, and later a herald's staff. It is most familiar in the hands of Hermes. Its first form was three shoots, of which two were intertwined, while the third formed the handle. The fully- developed form has, besides the rod itself, a pair of wings either at the top or in the middle, and two serpents intertwined.
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In Latin verse a caesura is the separation of the last syllable of any word from those which precede it, by making it part of the following foot. In English poetry it is equivalent to a pause.
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The term cafeteria originates in Spanish where it refers to a coffee-shop, its English meaning as a self-service or small restaurant originates from New York in the 1880s and became popular in England (often abbreviated to cafe) since 1923.
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In Scottish archaeology, a cairn is a mound of stones raised over a prehistoric grave, like an English barrow. Ancient cairns are of two types - chambered from the stone age and unchambered from the bronze age. Chambered cairns are again found in two forms; long cairns and horned cairns.
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A calabash is a vessel made of a dried gourd-shell or of a calabash shell, used in some parts of America and Africa. They are so close-grained and hard that when they contain any liquid they may be put several times on the fire as kettles.
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A calash was a light pleasure or travelling carriage, with low wheels, a removable top or hood and driven by the traveller himself, rather than a separate driver.
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The Caldecott Medal, named after Randolph Caldecott, is an annual award given since 1938 to the best US artist-illustrator of children's books.
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A calendar (named from the Latin calendarium, from calendce, the first day of the month), is a record or marking out of time as systematically divided into years, months, weeks, and days.
The periodical occurrence of certain natural phenomena gave rise to the first division of time, the division into weeks being the only purely arbitrary partition. The year of the ancient Egyptians was based on the changes of the seasons alone, without reference to the lunar month, and contained 365 days divided into twelve months of thirty days each, with five supplementary days at the end of the year.
The Jewish year consisted of lunar months of which they reckoned twelve in the year, intercalating a thirteenth when necessary to maintain the correspondence of the particular months with the regular recurrence of the seasons.
The Greeks in the earliest period also reckoned by lunar and intercalary months, but after one or two changes adopted the plan of Meton and Euctemon, who took account of the fact that in a period of nineteen years, the new moons return upon the same days of the year as before. This period of nineteen years was found, however, to be about six hours too long, and subsequent calculators still failed to make the beginning of the seasons return on the same fixed day of the year. Each month was divided into three decads.
The Romans at first divided the year into ten months, but they early adopted the Greek method of lunar and intercalary months, making the lunar year consist of 354, and afterwards of 355 days, leaving ten or eleven days and a fraction to be supplied by the intercalary division. This arrangement continued until the time of Julius Caesar. The first day of the month was called the calends. In March, May, July, and October the 15th, in other months the 13th, was called the ides. The ninth day before the ides (reckoning inclusive) was called the nones, being therefore either the 7th or the 5th of the month. From the inaccuracy of the Roman method of reckoning the calendar came to represent the vernal equinox nearly two months after the event, and at the request of Julius Caesar, the Greek astronomer Sosigenes with the assistance of Marcus Fabius, contrived the so-called Julian calendar. The chief improvement consisted in restoring the equinox to its proper place by inserting two months between November and December, so that the year 707 (46 BC), called the year of confusion, contained fourteen months.
In the number of days the Greek computation was adopted, which made it 365.25. To dispose of the quarter of a day it was determined to intercalate a day every fourth year between the 23rd and 24th of February. This calendar continued in use among the Romans until the fall of the empire, and throughout Christendom until 1582.
By this time, owing to the cumulative error of eleven minutes, the vernal equinox really took place ten days earlier than its date in the calendar, and accordingly Pope Gregory XIII issued a brief abolishing the Julian calendar in all Catholic countries, and introducing in its stead the one now in use, the Gregorian or reformed calendar. In this way began the new style, as opposed to the other or old style. Ten days were to be dropped; every hundredth year, which by the old style was to have been a leap year, was now to be a common year, the fourth excepted; and the length of the solar year was taken to be 365 days, five hours, forty-nine minutes, and twelve seconds, the difference between which and subsequent observations is immaterial. The new calendar was adopted in Spain, Portugal, and France in 1582; in Catholic Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands in 1583; in Poland in 1586; in Hungary in 1587; in Protestant Germany, Holland, and Denmark in 1700; in Switzerland in 1701; in England in 1752; and in Sweden, 1753.
In the English calendar of 1752, also, the 1st of January was now adopted as the beginning of the legal year, and it was customary for some time to give two dates for the period intervening between 1st January and 25th March, that of the old and that of the new year, as January 1752/3. Russia alone retained the old style, which by 1906 differed twelve days from the new.
In France, during the revolution, a new calendar was introduced by a decree of the rational Convention, on November the 24th, 1793. The time from which the new reckoning was to commence was the autumnal equinox of 1792, which fell upon the 22nd of September, when the first decree of the new republic had been promulgated. The year was made to consist of twelve months of three decades each, and, to complete the full number, five fete days, or sansculotides (in leap years six) were added to the end of the year. The seasons and months were as follows: Autumn; 22nd September to 22nd December Vendimiaire, vintage month; Brumaire, foggy month; Frimaire, sleet month. Winter; 22nd December to 22nd March: Nivose, snowy month; Plumose, rainy month; Ventose, windy month. Spring; 22nd March to 22nd June: Germinal, bud month; Floreal, flower month; Prairial, meadow month. Summer; 22nd June to 22nd Sept.: Messidor, harvest month; Thermidor, hot month; Fructidor, fruit month. The common Christian or Gregorian calendar was re-established in France on the 1st of January, 1806, by Napoleon.
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Calends was the first day of the Roman calendar month.
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Calico-printing is the art of applying colours to cloth after it has come from the hand of the weaver in such a manner as to form patterns or figures. The art was originally brought to Britain from India, and was sometimes practised on linen, woollen, and silk, but most frequently upon that species of cotton cloth called calico. The process was originally accomplished by means of hand-blocks made of wood on which patterns or parts of patterns for each different colour were cut. These blocks were of various dimensions, according to the nature of the work, and where several colours were employed in one pattern, a block for each colour was necessary.
As an improvement in the method of printing from wooden blocks, especially where delicacy of outline was required, engraved copperplates were introduced about 1760; but the greatest improvement was effected by the introduction of cylinder printing about 1785, which had almost superseded the other methods, except for particular styles by 1900. The machinery then generally used consisted of various modifications of the cylinder printing-machine, in which a number of separate engraved cylinders were mounted, corresponding to the number of colours to be printed. Formerly the cloth had to pass once through the machine for every colour; but later, by an arrangement of machinery equally ingenious and effective, any number of cylinders were fitted on one machine, which acted on the cloth one after the other, and by this means the pattern was finished with a corresponding number of colours in the same time that was formerly employed to give one.
A great variety of methods have been employed in calico-printing, but they all fall under the general heads of dye-colours and steam-colours. Under the first head are included all the styles in which the pattern is printed on the cloth by a mordant - a substance which may have little or no colour itself, but has an affinity for the fibre on the one hand, and for the colouring matter on the other - the dye or colouring matter being subsequently fixed by dyeing on such parts of the cloth as have been impregnated with the mordant, and thus bringing out the pattern.
In steam-colour printing the colouring material is applied to the cloth direct from the printing-cylinder, and subsequently fixed by steaming. In steam-colours there is no limit to the number and variety of shades which may be produced, each colour-box on the cylinder printing-machine containing the whole ingredients essential to the production and fixation of a separate and distinct shade of colour. This process was superseding most of the other styles by the end of the Victorian era, the brilliant coal-tar colours so extensively used being almost entirely fixed by steaming.
The bodies used for fixing were tin mordants, tannic acid, etc, which were mixed with the dye-colours and printed together. The effects of calico-printing are varied by numerous other operations, such as the discharge-style, in which the cloth is first dyed all over, then printed in a certain pattern with discharge-chemicals, which either produce a pattern of some other colour, or one purely white, as in the Turkey-red bandanna handkerchiefs. The resist-style, in some respects, is the reverse of the discharge-style; the process being to print a pattern in certain chemicals, which will enable those parts to resist the action of the dye subsequently applied to all other parts of the cloth. After the prints have undergone the printing process they are submitted to a series of finishing operations, the object of which is to give to the fabrics a pleasing appearance to the eye.
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Calisthenics are physical exercises designed and practised to give grace and strength to the body.
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Call to the bar is the formal admission of a person to the rank of barrister.
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A calumet is a kind of pipe used by the American Indians for smoking tobacco. Its bowl is usually of soft red soapstone, and the tube a long reed ornamented with feathers. The calumet was used in the ratification of all solemn engagements, both of war and peace. To accept the calumet was to accept the proposed agreement, and to reject it was to reject the agreement.
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The Calves' head club was instituted in ridicule of Charles I. The great annual banquet was held on the 30th of January, and consisted of a cod's head, to represent the person of Charles Stuart independent of his kingly office; a pike with little ones in its mouth, an emblem of tyranny; a boar's head with an apple in its mouth to represent the king preying on his subjects; and calves' heads dressed in sundry ways to represent Charles in his regal capacity. After the banquet the king's book (Icon Basilike) was burnt and the parting toast was 'To those worthy patriots who killed the tyrant'.
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A camaieu is a monochrome drawing or painting with a single colour, varied only by graduation of the single colour in terms of light and dark.
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Camel hair is the name given to brushes made of the hair from squirrel's tails. Camel hair brushes are very soft, and when wet have no springiness at all, making them useless to artists, but valuable for glass work and the application of gold leaf.
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Camelot was the castle of King Arthur.
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Cameo is a general name for all gems cut in relief, in contradistinction to those hollowed out, or intaglios. More particularly, a cameo is a gem composed of several different-coloured layers having a subject in relief cut upon one or more of the upper layers, an under layer of a different colour forming the ground. Eor this purpose the ancients used the onyx, sardonyx, agate, etc. The shells of various molluscs are now much used for making cameos; and they are also imitated on glass and other materials.
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Camorra was a well-organized secret society, once spread thoughout all parts of the kingdom of Naples. At one time the Camorristi were all-powerful, levying a kind of blackmail at all markets, fairs, and public gatherings, claiming the right of deciding disputes, hiring themselves out for any criminal service from the passing of contraband goods to assassination. It had central stations in all the large provincial towns, and a regular staff of recruiting officers. Though properly a secret society, it did not find it necessary under the regime of the Bourbons to conceal its operations; but under the later governments of united Italy, the society lost most of its power, except in the wilder parts of Southern Italy.
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The campos are the open grassy plains of South America.
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Camwood is a red dye-wood imported from tropical West Africa, and obtained from the Baphia nifida, a leguminous tree, of the suborder Caesalpinieae. This wood is of a very fine colour, and is used in turnery for making knife handles and other similar articles. The dye obtained from it is brilliant, but not permanent. It is called sometimes Bar-wood, though this name belongs also to another tree.
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The Canada Company was a company formed by Sir William Alexander in 1621. On September the 21st James I granted to the Canada Company an enormous territory in America, covering a large part of what is now the USA and the whole of Canada. Sir William Alexander and his associate, David Kirke, endeavoured to sell the land as baronetcies, but the scheme failed and the Canada Company was dissolved.
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The Canadian Pacific Railway is a line of railway which traverses British North America from the St Lawrence to the Pacific. One of the conditions upon which the province of British Columbia in 1871 entered the Dominion of Canada was the construction of such a railway. Since that time more than one act had been passed empowering different companies to go on with the work. Eventually, however, it was completed, according to arrangement with the Canadian government, by a syndicate of London, Paris, and American capitalists, being opened for general traffic in June, 1886. Commencing at Montreal, the line goes on to Ottawa, thence round the north of the Great Lakes to Port Arthur at the head of Lake Superior, and thence to Winnipeg, Manitoba, thence to Stephen in the Rocky Mountains, then across British Columbia to Vancouver on the Pacific. Vancouver, now a thriving city, owes its existence to this railway. The line was of great importance not only as a means of communication between Europe and Eastern Asia and Australasia, but also as a military highway binding together the great masses of the British Empire during the late 19th century.
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Canary-wood is the light orange-coloured wood of Persea indica and Persea canariensis, trees of the laurel family belonging to the Canary Islands and Madeira.
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A canaster (canister) was a rush basket in which South American tobacco was packed, and hence the name was applied to a kind of tobacco consisting of the leaves coarsely broken for smoking.
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Candaulism is sexual arousal through watching two people having sex, particularly one's partner with another.
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A candelabrum is a large and ornamental candlestick, often of a branched form. Ancient candelabra frequently display much ingenious and artistic treatment in the design, and the branches were often numerous. Marble and other materials, as well as metal, were employed.
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A candidate is a person who seeks or is nominated for an honour, office or position. The term comes from the Latin candidatus, a candidate, literally meaning a person dressed in white, because, among the Romans, a man who solicited an office, such as the praetorship or consulship, appeared in a bright white garment known as the toga candida.
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Candlemas day is a Christian feast of the purification of the Virgin Mary. The celebration is held on February the 2nd and involves a candle procession to consecrate all the candles which will be needed in the church during the year.
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The candy is an eastern measurement of weight varying from 560 lbs upwards.
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The Cane Ridge Revival was a religious revival that occurred in 1799 and 1800 in the USA, and was the first famous religious revival in the United States after the 'Great Awakening', along the western frontier, particularly in Kentucky. It was begun by the inspired preaching of two brothers from Ohio, who addressed a camp meeting on the Red River, and made numerous enthusiastic converts. At the Cane Ridge camp meeting of 1800, the religious enthusiasm was intense. Converts were made by hundreds.
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A cang was a Chinese instrument for the punishment of trifling offences. It was a kind of wooden cage fitting closely around the neck, with the weight proportioned to the nature of the offence, but so constructed that the culprit couldn't lie down nor feed himself. The cang was not removed during the period of punishment which lasted two or three months. Inscribed on the cang was the nature of the offence and the name of the criminal who was generally left exposed at the city gates.
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In paint brush making, cannoning is a process whereby the brush is given a bevel to that it is shaped ready for immediate use without having to be broken in.
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In geography, a canon is a deep ravine or valley with precipitous sides made by the rapid flow of a river and the action of denudation.
In religion, canon is a term given collectively to the books of the Holy Scriptures received as genuine by Christian Churches. Some books accepted as canonical by the Roman Catholics are generally rejected by Protestants.
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Canon Law is a collection of ecclesiastical constitutions for the regulation of the Church of Rome, consisting for the most part of ordinances of general and provincial councils, decrees promulgated by the popes with the sanction of the cardinals, and decretal epistles and bulls of the popes. There is also a canon law for the regulation of the Church of England, which under certain restrictions is used in ecclesiastical courts and in the courts of the two universities.
In the Roman Church these collections came into use in the 5th and 6th centuries. The chief basis of them was a translation of the decrees of the four first general councils, to which other decrees of particular synods and decretals of the popes were added. In the time of Charlemagne the collection of Dionysius the Little acquired almost the authority of laws. Equal authority, also, was allowed to the spurious 9th-century collection of decretals falsely ascribed to Isidore, Bishop of Seville. After the 10th century systematical compendiums of ecclesiastical law began to be drawn from these canons, the most important being that of the Benedictine Gratian of Chiusi, finished in 1151. Within ten years after its appearance the Universities of Bologna and Paris had their professors of canon law, who taught from Gratian's work, which superseded all former chronological collections. After the appearance of the Decretum Gratiani, new decrees of councils and new decretals were promulgated, which were collected by Raymond of Pennaforte under the name of Decretales Gregorii Noni (1234); and the later decretals, etc, collected by Boniface VIII, were published as the sixth book of the Gregorian Decretals in 1298, all these having the authority of laws.
Pope Clement V published a collection of his decrees in 1313. About the year 1340 the decretals of John XXII were published (Extravagantes Johannis XXII); and at a later period the subsequent decretals, to the time of Sextus IV. (Extravagantes Communes) appeared. These Extravagantes have not altogether the authority of law. Under Pope Pius IV a commission was appointed to revise the Decretum Gratiani, the work being completed under Gregory XIII, and sanctioned by bull in 1580. The authority of the canon law in England, since the Reformation, depends upon the statute 25th Henry VIII, according to which such ecclesiastical laws as were not repugnant to the laws of the realm and the king's prerogative were to remain in force until revised. This revision was never made. A body of 141 canons was drawn up for the English church in 1603-4, and these are still partially in force, so far as concerns the clergy.
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Canonical hours are certain stated times of the day appropriated by ecclesiastical law to the offices of prayer and devotion in the Roman Catholic Church, such as: matins with lauds, prime, tierce, sext, nones, evensong or vespers, and compline.
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Canonization is a ceremony in the Roman Church, by which deceased persons are declared saints. The pope institutes a formal investigation of the miraculous and other qualifications of the deceased person recommended for canonization; and an advocate of the devil, as he is called, is appointed to oppose the canonization and submit evidence. If the examination is satisfactory, the pope pronounces the beatification of the candidate, the actual canonization generally taking place some years afterwards, when a day is dedicated to his honour, his name inserted in the calendar of the Saints, a solemn mass is celebrated by the pope, and his remains preserved as holy relics.
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A cant hook is a wooden lever with a movable iron hook near the end used for canting or turning over heavy logs, etc, particularly in the USA.
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The cantaro is a measure of weight and capacity used in the past in the Mediterranean countries. In Turkey it was 125 lb, in Egypt 99 lb, in Malta 175 lb and in Spain to measure wine it was about 3.5 gallons.
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A canticoy is a social gathering; usually, one for dancing.
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Canvas is a coarse, unbleached cloth made from hemp or flax and used for sails, tents, etc. When prepared for portrait-painting it is classed as kit-cat, 28 by 36 inches, three-quarters, 25 by 30; half-length, 40 by 50; bishop's half-length, 44 or 45 by 56;
bishop's whole length, 58 by 94.
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In geography a canyon is a narrow, deep gorge, with steep sides, cut by a river through soft rock in a dry region. The biggest and best known is the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, USA.
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Canzone is an Italian and Provencal form of poetry, used chiefly for love themes, though religious and other subjects were not entirely excluded. the earliest Provencal specimens date from the 12th century, those in Italian from the 13th. The number of stanzas varies, five or six being the most common, and the last stanza was invariably shorter than the others.
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In geography a cape is a headland or piece of land jutting out into the sea.
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Capital punishment is punishment by death. Capital punishment is retained in 92 countries and territories, including the 37 states of the USA, China, and Islamic countries. It was abolished in the UK in 1965 for all crimes except treason - in 1998 the death penalty for treason was finally abolished in the United Kingdom. Methods of execution include electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, shooting, lethal injection, garrotting, and decapitation. In Britain, the number of capital offences was reduced from over 200 at the end of the 18th century, until capital punishment was abolished in 1866 for all crimes except murder, treason, piracy, and certain arson attacks. Its use was subject to the royal prerogative of mercy. The punishment was carried out by hanging (in public until 1866).
The improvement in the penal laws of Europe in respect to the reduction of capital punishment may be traced in large part to the publication of Beccaria's treatise on Crimes and Punishments (Dei Delitti e delle Pene) in 1764. At that time in England, as Blackstone a year later pointed out with some amount of feeling, there were 160 capital offences in the statute book. The work of practical reform was initiated in 1770 by Sir William Meredith, who moved for a committee of inquiry into the state of the criminal laws; but the modifications secured by it were few, owing to the opposition of the House of Lords, which continued down to 1832 to oppose systematically all attempts at criminal law reform.
The publication of Madan's Thoughts on Executive Justice, in 1784, urging the stricter administration of the law as it then stood, brought out the opposition of Sir Samuel Romilly, who replied to it in 1785, and introduced at short intervals a series of bills for the abolition of the extreme sentence for minor offences. The influence of Paley and Lord Ellenborough, and the reaction from the revolutionary principles, which prior to the French Revolution had inaugurated great penal changes in France, told strongly against his efforts; and even his Shoplifting Act, to abolish the sentence of death in cases of theft to the value of five shillings, was resolutely rejected, though passed by the Commons in 1810, 1811, 1813, and 1816. Romilly's work was taken up by Sir James Mackintosh in 1820, and under Peel's ministry with greater success. At his death, however, in the year of the passage of the Reform Bill (1832) forty kinds of forgery with many less serious offences were still capital, though from that time the amelioration was rapid. In the five years following the Reform Act, the capital offences were reduced to 37, and subsequent changes left in 1861 only four capital charges - setting fire to H.M. dockyards or arsenals, piracy with violence, treason, and murder. By 1906 only treason and murder were capital offences in England, andScotland also, though robbery, rape, incest, and wilful fire-raising were still capital crimes in Scottish common law.
Prior to 1868 executions were conducted in public in England, but then in 1868 the law changed that all executions were to be conducted in private within the prison walls. Capital punishment for murder was abolished in the United Kingdom in 1965 but still exists for treason, and during the 1980's it was revealed that the police had a shoot-to-kill and summary execution policy for those suspected of being terrorists. In 2005 a 27 year old Brazilian man was executed by being shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder after being tackled to the ground by plain clothed police officers who mistakenly believed him to be a suicide bomber.
In 1990, Ireland abolished the death penalty for all offences. In Saudi Arabia execution is by beheading in public. Countries that have abolished the death penalty fall into three categories: those that have abolished it for all crimes (44 countries); those that retain it only for exceptional crimes such as war crimes (17 countries); and those that retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes but have not executed anyone since 1980 (25 countries and territories).
The first country in Europe to abolish the death penalty was Romania in 1864, followed by Portugal in 1867, Holland in 1870, and by Switzerland in 1874. In the USA, the Supreme Court declared capital punishment unconstitutional in 1972, as a cruel and unusual punishment, but decided in 1976 that this was not so in all circumstances. It was therefore reintroduced in some states. Many countries use capital punishment for crimes other than murder, such as drug offences (in Malaysia and elsewhere). In 1977 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ruled out imposition of the death penalty on those under the age of 18. The covenant was signed by President Carter on behalf of the USA, but in 1989 the US Supreme Court decided that it could be imposed from the age of 16 for murder, and that the mentally retarded could also face the death penalty.
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Capitals are the large letters used in writing and printing, most commonly as the initial letters of certain words. As among the ancient Greeks and Romans, so also in the early part of the middle ages, all books were written without any distinction in the kind of letters, large letters (capitals) being the only ones used; but gradually the practice became common of beginning a book, subsequently, also, the chief divisions and sections of a book, with a large capital letter, usually illuminated and otherwise richly ornamented.
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Capnolagnia is sexual arousal from watching others smoke.
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Capnomancy is divination by observation of the ascent of smoke from incense or a sacrifice.
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Cappagh brown is a bituminous earth, coloured by oxide of manganese and iron, which yields pigments of various rich brown colours. It is called also manganese brown andt derives its name from Cappagh, near Cork, in Ireland.
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Capricorn is a sign of the zodiac symbolised by a goat.
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Caprification is a horticultural operation performed by the ancients upon figs. It consists in suspending above the cultivated figs branches of the wild fig covered with a species of gall insect, which carries the pollen of the male flowers to fertilize the female flowers of the cultivated fig. The term is also applied to the fecundation of the female date palms by shedding over them the pollen from the male plant.
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A caracole is the term used to describe the half turn which a horseman makes, either to the right or the left.
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Carat is the unit of measurement of gold purity - the proportion of gold to other metals in the alloy, expressed in 24ths. Coinage contains 22 parts of gold and is therefore described as 22 carat, pure gold is 24 carat. The carat is also a unit of weight, equal to 3.17 troy grains, used in the weighing of precious stones.
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Carbonado is a powdered form of diamond.
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Carbonari was the name of an Italian political secret society, which appears to have been formed by the Neapolitan republicans during the reign of Joachim (Murat), and had for its object the expulsion of the strangers and the establishment of a democratic government. The ritual of the Carbonari was taken from the trade of the charcoal-burner. A lodge was baracca (a hut); a meeting was vendita (a sale); an important meeting alta vendita.
There were four grades in the society; and the ceremonies of initiation were characterized by many mystic rites. The language of religion was much used to express their purposes. Christ was the lamb torn by the wolf and whom they were sworn to avenge. Clearing the wood of wolves (opposition to tyranny) became the symbolic expression of their aim. By this they are said to have meant at first only deliverance from foreign dominion; but in later times democratical and antimonarchical principles sprang up, which were discussed chiefly among the higher degrees. The order, soon after its foundation, contained from 24,000 to 30,000 members, and increased so rapidly that it spread through all Italy. In 1820, in the month of March alone, about 650,000 new members are said to have been admitted.
After the suppression of the Neapolitan and Piedmontese revolution in 1821, the Carbonari, throughout Italy, were declared guilty of high treason, and punished as such by the laws. Meantime societies of a similar kind had been formed in France, with which the Italian Carbonari amalgamated; and Paris became the head-quarters of Carbonarism. The organization took on more of a French character, and gradually alienated the sympathies of the Italian members, a number of whom dissolved connection with it, in order to form the party of 'Young Italy.'
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A carboy is a large and somewhat globular bottle of green glass protected by an outside covering of wickerwork or other material, for carrying vitriol or other corrosive liquid.
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Cardboard is a kind of stiff paper or pasteboard made by sticking together several sheets of paper.
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A cardinal number is an ordinary, positive whole number such as 1,2,3 etc.
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The cardinal points are the north, south, east and west points of the horizon; the four intersections of the horizon with the meridian and the prime vertical circle.
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The cardinal virtues or principal virtuesis a name applied in morality to justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude.
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A caret (from the Latin meaning something is missing) is a writer's mark indicating that something should be inserted at this point, usually an omitted word or phrase. The caret is represented by an open based triangle, with its apex uppermost.
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The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is an organisation made up of former British colonies in the Caribbean whose aim is to promote cooperation in economic, cultural and technological matters, as well as coordinating a common foreign policy. The Caribbean Community was founded in 1973.
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A caricature is a representation of the qualities and peculiarities of an object, but in such a way that beauties are concealed and peculiarities or defects exaggerated, so as to make the person or thing ridiculous, while a general likeness is retained. Though a degenerate, it is one of the oldest forms of art. Egyptian art has numerous specimens of caricature, and it has an important place in Greek and Roman art. It nourished in every European nation during the middle ages, and in the 19th century day was the chief feature in the so-called comic journals. The chief masters of caricature in Britain were Hogarth, Gilray, Rowlandson, Bunbury, John Doyle, Leech, Richard Doyle, Cruickshank, Tenniel, etc. Punch and Vanity Fair traditionally contained the best examples of caricature in British art.
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A cariole was a small and light open carriage, somewhat resembling a calash, but having only one seat and drawn by one horse.
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The Carlton Club was a famous political club in Pall Mall, London. It was the recognised headquarters of the Conservative Party, and was founded in 1831 or 1832 by the Duke of Wellington. and held its first meeting in Charles Street, St James's before being removed to Carlton Gardens in 1832 and built a club-house in Pall Mall in 1836.
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In the fine arts, carnation describes the colour of flesh and as such the parts of a picture which are naked or without drapery, exhibiting the natural colour of the flesh.
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Carnival is traditionally the feast or season of rejoicing before Lent, observed in Catholic countries with much revelry and merriment. The name comes from Low Latin carnelevamen for carnis levamen, solace of the flesh or body, feasting permitted in anticipation of any fast. Carnival observances declined greatly by 1900, but in some of the cities of Italy, especially Rome, Milan, and Naples, were still a great popular festival, as well as in some parts of Germany and by the later part of the 20th century the greatest carnivals were held in Brazil and the West Indian islands. Some have thought the carnival mainly a survival of the pagan Saturnalia of the Romans, which it much resembles in many of the usages, and in the tricks and mummeries with which it abounds.
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Carpet, a thick fabric, generally composed wholly or principally of wool, for covering the floors of apartments, staircases, and passages in the interior of a house or other place. Carpets were originally introduced from the East, where they were fabricated in pieces, like the modern rugs, for sitting on - a use obviously suggested by the Eastern habit of sitting cross-legged upon the floor. Eastern carpets are still highly thought of in Europe, into which they are largely imported. The good quality Persian, Turkish, and Indian carpets are all woven by hand, and the design is formed by knotting into the warp tufts of woollen threads of the proper colour one after the other.
Of European carpets the Brussels carpet was a common and highly-esteemed variety at the end of the 19th century. It was composed of linen thread and worsted, the latter forming the pattern. The linen basis did not appear on the surface, being concealed by the worsted, which was drawn through the reticulations and looped over wires that were afterwards withdrawn, giving the surface a ribbed appearance.
Wilton carpets were similar to Brussels in the process of their manufacture, but in them the loops were cut open by using wires with a knife-edge, and the surface thus obtained a pile.
Tapestry carpets have also a pile surface. They were traditionally manufactured according to a process patented by Mr. Whytock of Edinburgh in 1832, the great speciality of which was that the threads were particoloured by printing in the proper manner for each design before being woven up.
The Kidderminster or Scotch carpet consisted of two distinct webs woven at the same time and knitted together by the woof. The pattern was the same on both sides of the cloth, but the colours were reversed. An improvement upon this was the three-ply carpeting, made originally at Kilmarnock.
The original Axminster carpets were made on the principle of the Persian or Turkey carpets. Patent Axminster carpets (invented by Templeton of Glasgow, 1839) have a fine pile, which is produced by using chenille as the weft, the projecting threads of which form the pile, which is dyed before being used. Carpets of felted wool, with designs printed on them, are also used, and are very cheap. Cheap jute carpets are also made.
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Carpet Baggers was a name first given to American Northern state politicians who sought temporary homes in the Southern States in order to obtain qualifications for admission to Congress from these Southern States. After 1865 the name was given to Northern Republicans who settled in the South and later to all whites who endeavoured to control the coloured vote. Today the term carpet bagger refers to a person seeking to achieve political success or private gain in a place with which he is unconnected.
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In the USA, during the period between 1865 and 1870 the government of a majority of the Southern States of America was controlled by unscrupulous adventurers, who excluded the better class of whites from voting and controlled elections by Negro majorities. Fraudulent taxes were levied and enormous State debts were rolled up. These governments were known as Carpet-bag Governments'.
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Carpolite is a term applied to fossils of fruits.
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In Victorian London the public were plagued by petty criminals known as carriage thieves. Writing in 1888, Dickens reports:
'Among the many thieves who infest the London streets none ar more artful or more active =than the carriage thieves. No vehicle should ever be left with open windows; and valuable rugs in victorias, etc should always be secured to the carriage by a strap or other fastening. Ladies should be especially careful of officious persons volunteering to open or close carriage-doors. In nine cases out of ten these men and boys are expert pickpockets.'
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Carse is the name given in Scotland to a wide fertile valley.
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A cart is a strong two or four wheeled vehicle used in farming and for carrying heavy goods.
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A Carte-Blanche is a blank piece of white paper, signed and sealed and given to a person to fill-up as he pleases, thus giving unlimited power to decide.
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A cartel is a written agreement for the exchange or ransom of prisoners.
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A carton is a light box or case for holding goods.
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In painting, a cartoon is a drawing on stout paper or other material, intended to be used as a model for a large picture in fresco, a process in which it is necessary to complete the picture portion by portion and in which a fault cannot afterwards be easily corrected. The cartoon is made exactly the size of the picture intended, and the design is transferred to the surface to be ornamented by tracing or other processes. Cartoons executed in colour, like paintings, are used for designs in tapestries, mosaics, etc. The most famous are those painted by Raphael for the Vatican tapestries, seven of which are still preserved in the South Kensington Museum, London. The subjects of the seven are: 1, Paul Preaching at Athens; 2, The Death of Ananias; 3, Elymas the Sorcerer Struck with Blindness; 4, Christ's Charge to Peter; 5, The Sacrifice at Lystra; 6, Peter and John Healing the Cripple at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple; 7, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes. In modern times the term is also applied to a pictorial sketch relating to some notable character or events of the day, and erroneously to an animated film.
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Cartridge-paper is a thick paper. It is so named because it was originally used to make soldiers' cartridges.
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A carucate was formerly as much land as one team could plough in one year. The size varied according to the nature of the soil and the practice of husbandry in different districts.
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In 1705, Thomas Cary, then Deputy Governor of North Carolina, was deposed at the solicitation of the Quakers for disfranchising them through the requirements of the Test Act. He endeavoured to usurp the government during several years. Finally, in 1711 he endeavoured to capture Governor Hyde by force. Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, sent a troop to Hyde's assistance. Cary was forced into submission.
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Casale Media is a Canadian interactive marketing and technology company that operates an online advertising network launched in September 2003 by Joe Casale. Within a year of its launch, Casale Media was ranked the second largest online advertising network by comScore Media Metrix. Key features of the Casale Media network are: campaign statistics that are updated and delivered in real-time; both advertisers and publishers can pause or make changes to campaigns at any time of the day or night instantly, without delay; advertisers only pay for the CPM inventory they buy; publishers receive the industry's highest payouts - 70% of the gross revenue; adverts can be precisely targeted to specific markets using a variety of targeting filters including sixteen content categories that include time-of-day targeting, geo-targeting (down to individual cities) and capping the frequency with which end users will be delivered the same advert; no minimum spend for advertisers, which makes Casale Media accessible to smaller businesses.
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A case was a British measurement of annatto equivalent to about 2.25 hundred weight, in use during the 19th century.
In grammar, case is a term indicating certain relationships in which nouns and pronouns may stand as regards other words, and which are often marked by special forms or inflections. A word that is the subject of a verb is generally said to be in the nominative case, one that is an object in the objective or accusative case. In English these two cases are alike except in pronouns, the only inflected noun-case in English being the possessive. English pronouns have three cases - nominative, possessive, and objective, as he, his, him. In Sanskrit there are eight cases. In French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese there are no case-forms. In German there are four cases, nominative, genitive, dative, accusative.
In law a case is a cause or action, or a statement on which a decision is to be given.
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A cask was a British unit of measurement of arsenic equivalent to about 4 hundred weight, in use during the 19th century.
A cask was a British measure of cocoa equivalent to 1.25 hundred weight, in use during the 19th century.
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Cassier's Magazine was a magazine founded in 1891 by Louis Cassier, and published in New York as the first monthly publication devoted to purely engineering and scientific subjects. It was particularly noted for its illustrations.
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Cassina are an Italian furniture-making company. They were established in 1923 in Meda, Italy.
Cassina moved from craft to mass production after 1945 and successfully sold modern design to a sophisticated international niche market, using designers such as Franco Albini, Gio Ponti and Vico Magistretti. Ponti's 'Superleggera' chair of 1957 was among the most successful of Cassina's products.
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Cassiopeia is a conspicuous constellation in the northern hemisphere, situated next to Cepheus, and often called the Lady in her Chair. It contains fifty-five stars, five of which, arranged in the form of a 'W', are of the third magnitude.
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Caste is an Indian hereditary class system with members socially equal, united in religion and usually following the same trade. A member of one caste has no social intercourse with a member of any other caste except their own. There are four main groups: Brahmans (priests), Kshatriyas (nobles and warriors), Vaisyas (traders and farmers) , and Sudras (servants); plus a fifth group, Harijan (untouchables) with hundreds of subdivisions existing within each caste. No upward or downward mobility exists, as in socially classed societies.
The system of caste dates from ancient times, and there are more than 3,000 subdivisions. In Hindu tradition, the four main castes are said to have originated from the head, arms, thighs, and feet respectively of Brahma, the creator; the members of the fifth were probably the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, known variously as Scheduled Castes, Oppressed Classes, Untouchables, or Harijan (a name ironically coined by Gandhi meaning 'children of God' - ironically because Ghandi suppressed the Untouchable uprising which was demanding equality and actively promoted the continued abuse of the Untouchables). This lowest caste handles animal products, rubbish, and human wastes and are considered to be polluting by touch, or even by sight, to others. Discrimination against them was supposedly made illegal 1947 when India became independent, but persists, with millions of Untouchables being treated inhumanely and as virtual slaves, being beaten, raped and murdered should they 'forget their place' and perhaps use a village well reserved for all other castes. Members of the Untouchable caste are segregated from the rest of society, and forced to live in appalling conditions, some scratching a living by cleaning the sewers, others by foraging for food scraps from rubbish bins.
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Castile soap is a type of hard, white soap made from olive oil sometimes including iron rust matter.
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A casting-vote is the vote of a presiding officer in an assembly or council which decides a question when the votes of the assembly or house are equally divided between the affirmative and negative.
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Castor is a star (Alpha Geminorum) of magnitude 1.6, the fainter star of the zodiacal constellation Gemini, or the Twins. In 1719 it was discovered to be a visual binary star, with components of magnitudes 2.8 and 2.0 separated by 6 seconds of arc and revolving around each other in about 350 years. Each of these components has been found to be a spectroscopic binary. In addition, a faint companion, separated from the other two by 72 sec of arc, has been discovered. This star is also a spectroscopic binary, the two components of which revolve around each other in about one day. Hence, the entire system of the star Castor contains at least six stars. Its distance is about 45 light- years from the earth.
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Castrametation is the art of tracing out and disposing to advantage the several parts of a camp on the ground.
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Castration is the act of depriving a male animal of the testicles. It is practised on domestic animals (as oxen, horses, cats and dogs) with the object of rendering them more submissive and docile, etc. Men who are castrated are known as eunuchs.
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Casuistry is the science which deals with difficult cases of conscience - i.e. which undertakes to apply acknowledged principles of conduct to doubtful cases, or cases where there seems to be a conflict of duties. The science was developed systematically by the medieval church in the 14th and 15th centuries. There have been many celebrated casuists among the Jesuits - for example, Escobar, Sanchez, Busembaum, etc. - famous for their ingenuity and the fine-spun sophistry of their solutions.
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Casus belli is the material grounds which justify a declaration of war.
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A cat burglar is a burglar characterised by climbing buildings so as to enter through the upper levels, as distinct from a common burglar who breaks in through any convenient point.
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The cat and fiddle is a popular British public house sign. The sign owes its origins to being a corruption of Caton le fidele which actually means Caton, governor of Calais, and not the cat and the fiddle!
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Catachresis is a figure in rhetoric, when a word is too far wrested from its true signification; as, to speak of tones being made more palatable for 'agreeable to the ear.' So in Scripture we read of the blood of the grape. The term is also used in philolology for the employment of a word under a false form through misapprehension in regard to its origin; thus crayfish or crawfish has its form by catachresis.
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Catacombs ( derived from the Greek kata, meaning down, and kumbos, meaning a hollow or recess) are caves or subterranean places for the burial of the dead, the bodies being placed in graves or recesses hollowed out in the sides of the cave. Caves of this kind were common amongst the Phoenicians, Greeks, Persians, and many oriental nations.
In Sicily and Asia Minor numerous excavations have been discovered containing sepulchres, and the catacombs near Naples are remarkably extensive. Those of Rome, however, are the most important. The catacumbae is said to have been originally applied to the district near Rome which contains the chapel of St Sebastian, in the vaults of which, according to tradition, the body of St Peter was first deposited; but (besides its general application) it is now applied in a special way to all the extensive subterranean burial-places in the neighbourhood of Rome, which extend underneath the town itself as well as the neighbouring country, and are said to contain not less than 6,000,000 tombs. They consist of long narrow galleries usually about 2.4 meters high and 1.5 meters wide, which branch off in all directions, forming a perfect maze of corridors. Different stories of galleries lie one below the other. Vertical shafts run up to the outer air, thus introducing light and air, though in small quantity.
The graves or loculi lie longwise in the galleries. They are closed laterally by a slab, on which there is occasionally a brief inscription or a symbol, such as a dove, an anchor, or a palm-branch, and sometimes both. The earliest that can be dated with any certainty belongs to the year 111 AD. It is now regarded as certain that in times of persecution the early Christians frequently took refuge in the catacombs, in order to celebrate there in secret the ceremonies of their religion; but it is not less certain that the catacombs served also as ordinary places of burial to the early Christians, and were for the most part excavated by the Christians themselves.
In early times rich Christians constructed underground burying-places for themselves and their brethren, which they held as private property under the protection of the law. But in course of time, partly by their coming under the control of the church and partly by accidents of proprietorship, these private burying-grounds were connected with each other, and became the property, not of particular individuals, but of the Christian community. In the 3rd century AD there were already several such common burying-places belonging to the Christian congregations, and their number went on increasing until the time of Constantine, when the catacombs ceased to be used as burying-places.
From the time of Constantine down to the 8th century they were used only as places of devotion and worship. But their use as formal places of worship can only have been occasional, for the limited dimensions even of the largest rooms, and the extreme narrowness of the passages, must have made it impossible for any large number to take efficient part in the services at one time. But though the idea of the catacombs as regular places of worship may be carried too far, there is no doubt, from the episcopal chairs, altars, basins, etc, found within them, and from the subjects of the mosaics and carvings on the walls, that the rites of the church, and particularly the eucharist and the sacrament of baptism, were often celebrated there.
They could never have cerved as dwelling-places for any length of time to the Christians, residence in most of them for more than a short time being very dangerous to the health.
During the siege of Rome by the Lombards in the 8th century the catacombs were in part destroyed, and soon became entirely inaccessible, so that they were forgotten, and only the careful and laborious investigations of archaeologists, amongst whom De Rossi (Roma Sotterranea) and Parker (The Catacombs) may be mentioned, have thrown anything like a complete light on the origin and history of the catacombs.
There are extensive catacombs at Paris, consisting of old quarries from which has been obtained much of the material for the building of the city. In them are accumulated bones removed from cemeteries now built over.
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A catafalco or catafalque is a temporary and ornamental structure, representing a tomb placed over the coffin of a distinguished person or over a grave.
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A catafalque is a temporary and ornamental structure, representing a tomb, placed over the coffin of a distinguished person or over a grave.
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A catamite is a young boy kept for homosexual sex by an older man. The practice occurred in ancient Greece, where older men would take boys with the parents permission as homosexual lovers, and in return ensured the boy received an education, thereby relieving the parents of the financial burden of paying for the boy's education. The ancient Mayas provided single young men with a slave boy for sex, so as to protect other men's wives and the women from the attentions of overly-anxious young single men.
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In geography a cataract is a large waterfall, or series of waterfalls.
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Catechetical Schools are institutions for the education of Christian teachers, of which there were many in the Eastern Church from the 2nd to the 5th century. The first and most renowned were those formed at Alexandria between 160 and 400) on the model of the fanous Greek schools.
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A catechism is an elementary book containing a number of principles in any science or art, but originally particularly in religion, reduced to the form of questions and answers.
The first regular catechisms appear to have been compiled in the 8th and 9th centuries, those by Kero of St Gall and Otfried of Weissenburg being most famous. In the Roman Catholic Church each bishop has the right to make a catechism for his diocese. But in modern times Roman Catholic catechisms are generally a pretty close copy of the one drawn up by the Council of Trent and published in 1566, of which an English translation was issued in London in 1687 under the patronage of James II.
Among Protestants the catechisms of Luther (1518, 1520, and 1529) acquired great celebrity, and continue to be used in Germany, though not exclusively. Calvin's smaller and larger catechisms (1536-1539) never gained the popularity of those of Luther.
The catechism of the Church of England is contained in the Book of Common Prayer. In the First Book of Edward VI, 1549, it contained merely the baptismal vow, the creed, the ten commandments, and the Lord's prayer, with explanations, the part relative to the sacraments being subjoined during the reign of James I.
The catechism of the Church of Scotland is that agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, with the assistance of commissioners from the Church of Scotland, and approved of by the General Assembly in the year 1648. What is called the Shorter Catechism is merely an abridgment of the Larger, and is the one in most common nse. The best-known catechism among English Protestant Dissenters was that of Dr. Watts; but the use of catechisms is far from usual amongst them.
Catechisms remained quite rare, until the format was adopted by the computer industry in the form of the FAQ (frequently asked questions).
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In logic, a category, or predicament, is an assemblage of all the beings contained under any genus or kind ranged in order. The ancients, following Aristotle, held that all beings or objects of thought may be referred to ten categories: quantity, quality, relation, action, passion, time, place, situation, and habit. Plato admits only five: substance, identity, diversity, motion, and rest; the Stoics four: subjects, qualities, independent circumstances, relative circumstances. Descartes suggested seven divisions: spirit, matter, quantity, substance, figure, motion, and rest. Others make but two categories, substance and attribute, or subject and accident; or three, accident being divided into the inherent and circumstantial.
In the philosophy of Kant the term categories is applied to the primitive conceptions originating in the understanding independently of all experience (hence called pure conceptions), though incapable of being realized in thought except in their application to experience. These he divides into four classes, quantity, quality, relation, and modality, placing under the first class the conceptions of unity, plurality, and totality; under the second, reality, negation, and limitation; under the third, inherence and subsistence, causality and dependence, and community (mutual action); and under the fourth, possibility and impossibility, existence and non-existence, necessity and contingency. J S Mill applies the term categories to the most general heads under which everything that may be asserted of any subject may be arranged. Of these he makes five, existence, co-existence, sequence, causation, and resemblance, or, considering causation as a peculiar case of sequence, four.
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Catgut is a cord made from the intestines of sheep, and sometimes from those of the horse, ass, and mule, but not from those of cats. The manufacture is chiefly carried on in Italy and France by a tedious process. Catgut for stringed instruments, as violins and harps, is made principally in Milan and Naples, the latter having a high reputation for treble strings.
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Catheterophilia is sexual arousal from catheters.
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Catholic Emancipation was the abolition of those civil and ecclesiastical restraints to which the Roman Catholics of Great Britain, and particularly of Ireland, were once subjected. By the statutes of William III. Roman Catholics were forbidden to hold property in land, and their spiritual instructors were open to the penalties of felony; and although latterly these restrictions had not been enforced, they remained unrepealed in England until 1778. The proposal to repeal similar enactments on the Scotch statute-books was delayed by the strenuous opposition of the Protestant associations, in connection with which the Lord Gordon riots occurred. In 1791, however, a bill was passed allowing Roman Catholics who took the oath of allegiance to hold landed property, enter the legal profession, and enjoy freedom of education.
In Ireland the Roman Catholics had been even more unjustly treated. Their public worship was proscribed, all offices and the learned professions were closed against them, they were deprived of the guardianship of their children, and if they had landed estates they were forbidden to marry Protestants. Burke and a strong body of followers took up their cause, and in 1792 and 1793 the worst of the disabilities were removed by the Irish parliament. Restraints on worship, education, and disposition of property were removed; they were admitted to the franchise, and to some of the higher civil and military offices, and to the honours and endowments of the Dublin University. They continued to be excluded, however, from thirty public offices, and from parliament = an arrangement which could not be changed without a repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. It was part of Pitt's scheme when the union with Ireland was formulated in 1799 to admit Irish Roman Catholics to the parliament of the United Kingdom and to offices of state.
To this proposal, however, George III. was strongly hostile, and in 1801 Pitt was compelled to resign. Between that year and 1828 numerous attempts were made to abolish remaining disabilities, but without success, the Lords throwing out the bills passed latterly in the Commons, and George IV proving not less unyielding than his father. At length, on April the 10th 1829 an emancipation bill was carried through the Commons by Mr. Peel, and through the Lords by the Duke of Wellington. By this act Catholics became eligible to all offices of state, excepting the lord-chancellorships of England and Ireland, the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, the office of regent or guardian of the United Kingdom, and that of High Commissioner to the Church of Scotland. They were still excluded from the right of presentation to livings, and all places connected with the ecclesiastical courts and establishment. The church patronage attached to any office in the hands of a Catholic was vested in the Archbishop of Canterbury. Attached to the bill was a clause for the gradual suppression of the Jesuits and monastic orders (religious establishments of females excepted). During the 20th century full emancipation was realised.
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The Cato Street Conspiracy was a plot to murder British ministers in 1820. Arthur Thistlewood, who had already been mixed up with revolutionary projects, conceived a plan for assassinating Lord Castlereagh and his ministerial colleagues at a dinner in Grosvenor Square, London on February 23rd. Arms were collected in a hired rendezvous in the neighbouring Cato Street. The plot was discovered, and Thistlewood and his colleagues (Brunt, Davidson, Harrison, Ings, Monument, Tidd and Wilson) were arrested (Arthur Thistlewood escaped at the time, but was arrested the next day). All eight were sent to the Tower of London and Thistlewood and four others were hanged for high treason on May the 1st 1820.
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Catoptromancy is divination by means of mirrors.
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The catty was a Chinese unit of weight equivalent to 1.5 lbs.
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Caucus is a term, originally American, for a private meeting of citizens to agree upon candidates to be proposed for election to offices or to concert measures for supporting a party. In Britain the term is applied to the system of political organization of which the Birmingham Liberal Association was a former typical type, where all electioneering business is managed by a representative committee of voters. Its origin is referred to a fray between some British soldiers and Boston rope-makers in 1770, which resulted in democratic meetings of rope-makers and caulkers, called by the Tories (or Loyalists) caucus meetings.
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A cauldron is a large boiling vessel, usually of a deep basin shape with a hoop handle and a removable lid.
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A cause is that which produces an effect; that from which anything proceeds and without which it would not exist. In the system of Aristotle the word rendered by cause and its equivalents in modern language has a more extensive signification. He divides causes into four kinds: efficient, formal, material, and final. The efficient or first cause is the force or agency by which a result is produced; the formal, the means or instrument by which it is produced; the material, the substance from which it is produced; the final, the purpose or end for which it is produced. In a general sense the term is used for the reason or motive that urges, moves, or impels the mind to act or decide.
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A causeway is a raised road across a low or wet piece of land.
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A cavalcade is a procession of riders on horse-back.
Research Cavalcade
A cave, or cavern is an opening of some size in the solid crust of the earth beneath the surface. Caves are principally met with in limestone rocks, sometimes in sandstone and in volcanic rocks. Some of them have a very grand or picturesque appearance, such as Fingal's Cave in Staffordshire, others, such as the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, which incloses an extent of about 40 miles of subterranean windings, are celebrated for their great size and subterranean waters, others for their gorgeous stalactites and stalagmites; others are of interest to the geologist and archaeologist from the occurrence in them of osseous remains of animals no longer found in the same region, perhaps altogether extinct, or for the evidence their clay floors and rudely-sculptured walls, and the prehistoric implements and human bones found in them, offer of the presence of early man.
Caves in which the bones of extinct animals are found owe their origin, for the most part, to the action of rain-water on limestone rocks. The deposit contained in them usually consists of clay, sand, and gravel combined. In this are embedded the animal remains, and stones either angular or rounded. Some of the remains found in European caverns belong to animals now found only in the tropical or subtropical regions, and others are the remains of animals now living in more northerly areas; others, again, are the relics of extinct animals. Among the latter class of animals are the cave bear and lion, the mammoth and mastodon, species of rhinoceros, etc. Of others that have only migrated may be mentioned the reindeer, which is no longer found in Southern Europe; and the Hyoena crocuta, found in the Gibraltar caves, which now lives in South Africa. The ibex, the chamois, and a species of ground squirrel, are shown to have once lived in the Dordogne, but are now found only on the heights of the Alps and Pyrenees.
Thus it is evident that the geographical conditions of the country must have been very different from what they are now. Man's relation to these extinct animals, and his existence at the time these changes took place, are demonstrated by such discoveries as those of human bones and worked flints beneath layers of hyena droppings, as in Wokey's Hole, near Wells, England; mixed up indiscriminately, as in Kent's Hole, near Torquay, with bones of elephant, rhinoceros, hyena, etc; and by the fact that many bones of the extinct animals are split up, evidently for the sake of the marrow.
In the Dordogne and Savigne caves fragments of horn have been found bearing carved, or rather deeply scratched, outline figures of ibex, reindeer, and mammoth. Among the most remarkable bone-caves are those of Kirkdale, in Yorkshire; Kent's Hole, Wokey's Hole; of Franconia, in Bavaria; the banks of the Meuse, near Liege; and the south of France.
Research Cave
In law a caveat is a process in a court to stay proceedings until the party entering the caveat has had an opportunity of putting forward his objection, as in proceedings about to be taken under a disputed will; to prevent the patenting of an invention, or the enrolment of a decree in chancery, in order to gain time to present a petition of appeal to the lord-chancellor; etc.
Research Caveat
Cavendish is softened tobacco which has been sweetened with molasses and then pressed into cakes. Cavendish was first manufactured in the USA by a company called Cavendish.
Research Cavendish
Cavo-Rilievo is a form of sculpture in which the highest surface of the relief is only level with that of the original stone.
Research Cavo-Rilievo
Cawnpore is a town in India, on the right bank of the Ganges. In 1857 the native regiments stationed here mutinied and marched off, placing themselves under the command of the Rajah of Bithoor, the notorious Nana Sahib. General Wheeler, the commander of the European forces, defended his position for some days with great gallantry, but, pressed by famine and loss of men, was at length induced to surrender to the rebels on condition of his party being allowed to quit the place uninjured. This was agreed to but after the European troops, with the women and children, had been embarked in boats on the Ganges, they were treacherously fired on by the rebels; many were killed, and the remainder conveyed back to the city, where the men were massacred and the women and children placed in confinement. The approach of General Havelock to Cawnpore roused the brutal instincts of the Nana, and he ordered his hapless prisoners to be slaughtered, and their bodies to be thrown into a well. The following day he was obliged, by the victorious progress of Havelock, to retreat to Bithoor.
Research Cawnpore Mutiny
A cedilla is a mark made under the letter c, especially in French, to indicate that it is to be pronounced like the English s.
Research Cedilla
A ceilidh is a Gaelic festival of singing and dancing held in Scotland and Ireland.
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