The frugal Scottish dish, brose, is made by pouring boiling water, milk, or the liquor in which meat has been boiled, on oatmeal, and mixing the ingredients by immediate stirring. Butter may be added, and sweet milk when the brose is made with water. It is kail-brose, water-brose or beef-brose, according to the liquid used. Athole-brose, a famous Highland cordial, is a compound of honey and whisky.

The charade is a form of amusement which consists in dividing a word of one or more syllables into its component syllables, or into its component letters, predicating something of each; and then, having reunited the whole, and predicated something of that also, the reader or listener is asked to guess the word. The acted charade is a presentation of the parts of the problem in dramatic form, usually as a parlor pastime.

Curfew was a bell rung in early days in England, and long previously in other countries, the object of which was to warn the people to cover up their fires and retire to rest. The time for ringing these bells was sunset in summer, and about eight o'clock in winter; and certain penalties were imposed upon those who did not attend to the signal. The prevention of fires was the original purpose, but the name has passed into literature as a synonym for nightfall.

The history of the Great Mogul Diamond runs back to B.C. 56, but little is known of it till the fourteenth century, when it was held by the rajah of Malwa. Later on it fell into the hands of the sultans of Delhi, after their conquest of Malwa. Tavernier tells us he saw it among the jewels of Aurengzebe, and says in the rough state it weighed 7935/8 carats. The Shah Djihan sent it to Hortensio Borgio, a Venetian lapidary, to be cut, when it was reduced to 186 carats.

The habit of eating human flesh as food, known as Cannibalism, or Anthropophagy, is widely spread at the present moment among many of the lower races, but has also not infrequently held its place even among peoples at a comparatively high level of culture. There is perhaps no quarter of the globe which has been free from what appears to our eyes a practice essentially so degrading to human nature, but one hardly so repellent to minds that hold no very exalted notions of the inherent superiority of the human animal.

A horse will travel 400 yards in 41/2 minutes at a walk; 400 yards in 2 minutes at a trot; 400 yards in 1 minute at a gallop. He can carry 250 pounds 25 miles in 8 hours. An average draught horse can draw 1,600 pounds 23 miles on a level road, weight of carriage included. The average weight of a horse is 1,000 lbs., and his strength is equal to 5 men. A horse will live 25 days on water without solid food; 17 days without eating or drinking; but only 5 days on solid food without drinking.

Australians of the colony of Victoria give the name of "Black Thursday" to Thursday, February 6, 1851, when the most terrible bush fire known in the annals of the colony occurred. It raged over an immense area. One writer in the newspapers of the time said that he rode at headlong speed for fifty miles, with fire raging on each side of his route. The heat was felt far out at sea, and many birds fell dead on the decks of coasting vessels. The destruction of animal life and farming stock in this conflagration was enormous.

Jeunesse Doree ("gilded youth"), a party name given to those young men of Paris who, during the French Revolution, struggled to bring about the reaction or counter-revolution after Robespierre's fall (27th July, 1794). Other nicknames bestowed upon the same party were Muscadins ("scented darlings") and Petits-Maitres ("elegants"). The term jeunesse doree is still in use to designate young men about town, who always go elegantly dressed, have the air of spending money, and live a butterfly life of enjoyment and pleasure.

The first English sparrow was brought to the United States in 1850, but it was not until 1870 that the species can be said to have firmly established itself. Since then it has taken possession of the country. Its fecundity is amazing. In the latitude of New York and southward it hatches, as a rule, five or six broods in a season, with from four to six young in a brood. Assuming the average annual product of a pair to be twenty-four young, of which half are females and half males, and assuming further, for the sake of computation, that all live, together with their offspring, it will be seen that in ten years the progeny of a single pair would be 275,-716,983,698.

The socialistic society called Brook Farm, had its locale in the vicinity of Boston. Every member contributed to the general fund or paid his quota in manual or other work. The idea was suggested by Margaret Fuller, but the society was organized by the Rev. W. H. Channing. The members boarded in common, dressed most economically, bought at their own stores, and reduced the price of living to the lowest point. The evening were spent in intellectual amusements or social gatherings. The speculation was an utter failure, and after six years the "Farm" was broken up. Emerson often visited the Farm, and Hawthorne lived there for twelve months.

The township, or vill, the oldest proprietary and political unit of the Germanic races was an organized self-acting group of families exercising ownership over a definite area, the mark. The oldest English manors are coterminous with townships; the parish, a later division than the township, and originally purely ecclesiastical, is assumed to be equivalent to the township if there is no evidence to the contrary. In the United States the word is variously used (1) of a subdivision of a county; (2) the corporation composed of the inhabitants of such area; or sometimes (3) of municipal corporations only less fully organized and with fewer powers than a city.

The apartments in which Indian women are secluded, corresponding to the harem in Arabic-speaking Moslem lands is called the zenana. In India the Mahommedan women are much in the same position as the women in the other less bigoted Mahommedan countries. Amongst those of the Hindu faith the women of all castes are more or less secluded, especially among the well-to-do. Till about 1860, when zenana missions were organized in Bengal by Mr. Fordyce, Christian women were not allowed to enter a Hindu zenana. Now thousands of Hindu ladies are taught by British, American and native Christian women, some of whom are completely trained medical missionaries.