A bastard is a child begotten and born out of wedlock; an illegitimate child. By the former civil and canon laws, and by the law of Scotland (as well as of some of the United States), a bastard became legitimate by the intermarriage of the parents at any future time. But by the former laws of England a child, to be legitimate, must at least be born after the lawful marriage; it did not require that the child should be begotten in wedlock, but it was indispensable that it should be born after marriage, no matter how short the time, the law presuming it to be the child of the husband. The only incapacity of a bastard in former law was that he cannot be heir or next of kin to any one save his own issue. In England the maintenance of a bastard in the first instance formerly devolved on the mother, while in Scotland it was a joint burden upon both parents. The mother was entitled to the custody of the child in preference to the father. By the 1980's the law had evolved and illegitimacy was irrelevant. Research Bastard
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. Research Catamite
The Rebecca Riots were a series of disturbances generated by bands of Welshmen who from 1842 to 1844 gave violent expression to the popular demand for the abolition of tolls and turnpike gates. The rioters were dressed in women's clothes, and in allusion to Isaac's bride the leader and his followers were known as 'Rebecca and her daughters'. The rioters destroyed turnpike gates and tollhouses at night, generally without harming the toll keepers, and were very successful. In 1844 Lord Cawdor's Act was passed which amended the turnpike trust laws in South Wales and reduced the burden of the tollgate system. Research Rebecca Riots
The window tax was a tax levied by the British government first in 1697 to replace revenue lost through the clipping of coins. The tax levied charges depending upon the number of windows, which led to many buildings bricking up their windows to reduce their tax burden. In 1851 the window tax was abolished. Research Window Tax
The camel is a group of two species of even-toed, ungulate ruminating mammals of the family Camelidae characterised by the absence of horns, the possession of incisor, canine and molar teeth, a fissure in the upper lip, a long and arched neck, one or two humps or protuberances on the back (the Arabian camel has one hump, the Common, Asian or Bactrian Camel, two), and a broad elastic foot which does not readily sink into the sand of the desert.
The native country of the camel is said to extend from Marocco to China, within a zone of 900 or 1000 miles in breadth. The common camel (Camelus Bactridnus), having two humps, is only found in the northern part of this region, and exclusively from the ancient Bactria, now Turkestan, to China. The dromedary, or Single-hump camel (Camelus dromedarius), or Arabian camel, is
found throughout the entire length of this zone, on its southern side, as far as Africa and India. The Bactrian species is the larger, more robust, and more fitted for carrying heavy burdens. The dromedary has been called the race-horse of its species. To people residing in the vicinity of the great deserts the camel is an invaluable mode of conveyance. It will travel three days under a load and five days under a rider without drinking. The stronger varieties carry from 700 to 1000 Lbs. burden.
The camel's power of enduring thirst is partly due to the peculiar structure of its stomach, to which are attached little pouches or water-cells, capable of straining off and storing up water for future use, when journeying across the desert. It can live on little food, and of the coarsest kind, leaves of trees, nettles, shrubs, twigs, etc. In this it is helped by the fact that its humps are mere accumulations of fat (the back-bone of the animal being quite straight) and form a store upon which the system can draw when the outside supply is defective. Hence the camel-driver who is about to start on a journey takes care to see that the humps of his animalpresent a full and healthy appearance. Camels which carry heavy burdens will do about 25 miles a day, those which are used for speed alone, from 60 to 90 miles a day.
The camel is rather passive than docile, showing less intelligent co-operation with its master than the horse or elephant; but it is very vindictive when injured. It lives from forty to fifty years. Its flesh is esteemed by the nomadic Arab and its milk is his common food. The hair of the camel serves in the East for making cloth for tents, carpets and wearing apparel. It is imported into European countries for the manufacture of fine pencils for painting and for other purposes. The South American members of the family Camelidae constitute the genusAuchenia, to which the llama and alpaca belong; they have no humps. Research Camel
The Eskimo dog is a breed of dogs extensively spread over the northern regions of America and of Eastern Asia. It is rather larger than the English pointer, but appears less on account of the shortness of its legs. It has oblique eyes, an elongated muzzle, and a bushy tail, which give it a wolfish appearance. The colour is generally a deep dun, obscurely barred and patched with darker colour. It is the only beast of burden in these latitudes, and with a team of such dogs attached to his sledge an Innuit can cover 90 or 100 km a day for several successive days. Research Eskimo Dog
The llama (Lama glama) is a domesticated South American even-toed hoofed mammal of the camel family Camelidae, standing about 1.2 metres high at the shoulder. Llamas can be white, brown, or dark, sometimes with spots or patches. They are very hardy, and require little food or water. They spit profusely when annoyed.
Llamas are used in Peru as beasts of burden, and also for their wool, milk, and meat. Research Llama
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the USA. He was born in 1809 at Hardin County, Kentucky and died in 1865 when he was assassinated at a theatre by John Wilkes Booth. Both in Kentucky and in Indiana, to which in 1816 the family removed, as well as in Illinois, whither they went in 1830, Abraham Lincoln had the privations and also the training of a backwoodsman's life.
In his youth he earned money to educate himself by splitting rails for a neighbour, and so earned the nickname 'rail-splitter'. About this time he also made a flat-boat voyage to New Orleans.
In the Black Hawk War of 1832 he served as captain and private. He tried keeping store and failed, studied law, was postmaster of New Salem in Illinois, and deputy surveyor of the county. As a politician he had better success, and after one defeat served in the Legislature from 1834 to 1842. Meanwhile he removed to Springfield and built up a law practice. From 1847 to 1849 he was a Whig Congressman, but was not notably prominent.
His importance dates from the Kansas-Nebraska controversy. In its progress he became the Republican State leader, and in 1858 he took part with Stephen A Douglas in a series of joint debates in canvassing for the US Senatorship. Abraham Lincoln was defeated, but the discussion had aroused great interest, and his utterances, e.g.: 'a house divided against itself cannot stand', brought him into national prominence. In February, 1860, he delivered a remarkable political speech at the Cooper Institute, New York.
He was pressed for the Presidency by many Western Republicans in the Chicago Convention in May, though Seward was in the lead at the outset. Amid great excitement Abraham Lincoln was nominated on the third ballot, and elected, by 180 electoral votes, over Douglas, Breckenridge and Bell. This first victory of the Republicans decided the Secessionists, and when the new President delivered his conciliatory inaugural address the country was drifting toward civil war.
In the Cabinet Seward had the Department of State, Chase the Treasury, Cameron, and soon afterward Stanton, War, Welles the Navy, Caleb B. Smith the Interior, Edward Bates was Attorney-General, and Montgomery Blair Postmaster-General. Immediately on the fall of Port Sumter the President, on April the 15th, 1861, called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the Rebellion. He soon issued a call for additional troops, instituted a blockade, and summoned Congress to meet in extra session on July the 4th.
As the 'War President' Abraham Lincoln is identified with a great part of the history of the struggle. Foreign complications, military and naval movements, domestic politics, as well as routine administrative duties, all claimed his attention; to the people and the armies he was endeared as 'Father Abraham' innumerable anecdotes are related bearing on his humour, strong common sense and sympathy.
On September the 22nd, 1862, profiting by the partial success of Antietam, he issued a preliminary proclamation fixing the coming January the 1st as the date for freeing slaves in insurgent States. The Emancipation Proclamation to that effect accordingly appeared at the opening of 1863. On the nineteenth of November 1863, he pronounced on the battlefield of Gettysburg his short but famous eulogy.
He was renominated by the Republicans on June the 8th, 1864, and elected over McClellan, receiving 212 electoral votes. 'Malice toward none, charity for all' was the burden of his second inaugural. He had visited Richmond after its fall, and was pondering the questions of reconstruction, when on the night of April the 14th he was shot in Ford's Theatre at the capital, and died the next morning. Research Abraham Lincoln
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
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