In tubs of liquid slippery-elm

In vain -- from his detaining pinch
They cannot struggle half an inch!

'Tis lucky that he so is planned
That breath he draws not with his hand,

For if he did, so great his greed
He'd draw his last with eager speed.

Nay, that were well, you say. Not so
He'd draw but never let it go!

THEOSOPHY, n. An ancient faith having all the certitude of religion
and all the mystery of science. The modern Theosophist holds, with

the Buddhists, that we live an incalculable number of times on this
earth, in as many several bodies, because one life is not long enough

for our complete spiritual development; that is, a single lifetime
does not suffice for us to become as wise and good as we choose to

wish to become. To be absolutely wise and good -- that is perfection;
and the Theosophist is so keen-sighted as to have observed that

everything desirous of improvementeventually attains perfection.
Less competent observers are disposed to except cats, which seem

neither wiser nor better than they were last year. The greatest and
fattest of recent Theosophists was the late Madame Blavatsky, who had

no cat.
TIGHTS, n. An habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the

general acclamation of the press agent with a particular publicity.
Public attention was once somewhat diverted from this garment to Miss

Lillian Russell's refusal to wear it, and many were the conjectures as
to her motive, the guess of Miss Pauline Hall showing a high order of

ingenuity and sustained reflection. It was Miss Hall's belief that
nature had not endowed Miss Russell with beautiful legs. This theory

was impossible of acceptance by the male understanding, but the
conception of a faultyfemale leg was of so prodigiousoriginality as

to rank among the most brilliant feats of philosophical speculation!
It is strange that in all the controversyregarding Miss Russell's

aversion to tights no one seems to have thought to ascribe it to what
was known among the ancients as "modesty." The nature of that

sentiment is now imperfectly understood, and possibly incapable of
exposition with the vocabulary that remains to us. The study of lost

arts has, however, been recently revived and some of the arts
themselves recovered. This is an epoch of _renaissances_, and there

is ground for hope that the primitive "blush" may be dragged from its
hiding-place amongst the tombs of antiquity and hissed on to the

stage.
TOMB, n. The House of Indifference. Tombs are now by common consent

invested with a certain sanctity, but when they have been long
tenanted it is considered no sin to break them open and rifle them,

the famous Egyptologist, Dr. Huggyns, explaining that a tomb may be
innocently "glened" as soon as its occupant is done "smellynge," the

soul being then all exhaled. This reasonable view is now generally
accepted by archaeologists, whereby the noble science of Curiosity has

been greatly dignified.
TOPE, v. To tipple, booze, swill, soak, guzzle, lush, bib, or swig.

In the individual, toping is regarded with disesteem, but toping
nations are in the forefront of civilization and power. When pitted

against the hard-drinking Christians the absemious Mahometans go down
like grass before the scythe. In India one hundred thousand beef-

eating and brandy-and-soda guzzling Britons hold in subjection two
hundred and fifty million vegetarian abstainers of the same Aryan

race. With what an easy grace the whisky-loving American pushed the
temperate Spaniard out of his possessions! From the time when the

Berserkers ravaged all the coasts of western Europe and lay drunk in
every conquered port it has been the same way: everywhere the nations

that drink too much are observed to fight rather well and not too
righteously. Wherefore the estimable old ladies who abolished the

canteen from the American army may justly boast of having materially
augmented the nation's military power.

TORTOISE, n. A creature thoughtfully created to supply occasion for
the following lines by the illustrious Ambat Delaso:

TO MY PET TORTOISE
My friend, you are not graceful -- not at all;

Your gait's between a stagger and a sprawl.
Nor are you beautiful: your head's a snake's

To look at, and I do not doubt it aches.
As to your feet, they'd make an angel weep.

'Tis true you take them in whene'er you sleep.
No, you're not pretty, but you have, I own,

A certain firmness -- mostly you're [sic] backbone.
Firmness and strength (you have a giant's thews)

Are virtues that the great know how to use --
I wish that they did not; yet, on the whole,

You lack -- excuse my mentioning it -- Soul.
So, to be candid, unreserved and true,

I'd rather you were I than I were you.
Perhaps, however, in a time to be,

When Man's extinct, a better world may see
Your progeny in power and control,

Due to the genesis and growth of Soul.
So I salute you as a reptile grand

Predestined to regenerate the land.
Father of Possibilities, O deign

To accept the homage of a dying reign!
In the far region of the unforeknown

I dream a tortoise upon every throne.
I see an Emperor his head withdraw

Into his carapace for fear of Law;
A King who carries something else than fat,

Howe'er acceptably he carries that;
A President not strenuously bent

On punishment of audibledissent --
Who never shot (it were a vain attack)

An armed or unarmed tortoise in the back;
Subject and citizens that feel no need

To make the March of Mind a wild stampede;
All progress slow, contemplative, sedate,

And "Take your time" the word, in Church and State.
O Tortoise, 'tis a happy, happy dream,

My glorious testudinous regime!
I wish in Eden you'd brought this about

By slouching in and chasing Adam out.
TREE, n. A tall vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal

apparatus, though through a miscarriage of justice most trees bear
only a negligible fruit, or none at all. When naturally fruited, the

tree is a beneficient agency of civilization and an important factor
in public morals. In the stern West and the sensitive South its fruit

(white and black respectively) though not eaten, is agreeable to the
public taste and, though not exported, profitable to the general

welfare. That the legitimate relation of the tree to justice was no
discovery of Judge Lynch (who, indeed, conceded it no primacy over the

lamp-post and the bridge-girder) is made plain by the following
passage from Morryster, who antedated him by two centuries:

While in yt londe I was carried to see ye Ghogo tree, whereof
I had hearde moch talk; but sayynge yt I saw naught remarkabyll in

it, ye hed manne of ye villayge where it grewe made answer as
followeth:

"Ye tree is not nowe in fruite, but in his seasonne you shall
see dependynge fr. his braunches all soch as have affroynted ye

King his Majesty."
And I was furder tolde yt ye worde "Ghogo" sygnifyeth in yr

tong ye same as "rapscal" in our owne.
_Trauvells in ye Easte_

TRIAL, n. A formalinquiry designed to prove and put upon record the
blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors. In order to

effect this purpose it is necessary to supply a contrast in the person
of one who is called the defendant, the prisoner, or the accused. If

the contrast is made sufficiently clear this person is made to undergo
such an affliction as will give the virtuous gentlemen a comfortable

sense of their immunity, added to that of their worth. In our day the
accused is usually a human being, or a socialist, but in mediaeval

times, animals, fishes, reptiles and insects were brought to trial. A
beast that had taken human life, or practiced sorcery, was duly

arrested, tried and, if condemned, put to death by the public
executioner. Insects ravaging grain fields, orchards or vineyards