LABOR, n. One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
LAND, n. A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The

theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control
is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the

superstructure. Carried to its logicalconclusion, it means that some
have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own

implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass
are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that

if the whole area of _terra firma_ is owned by A, B and C, there will
be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to

exist.
A life on the ocean wave,

A home on the rolling deep,
For the spark the nature gave

I have there the right to keep.
They give me the cat-o'-nine

Whenever I go ashore.
Then ho! for the flashing brine --

I'm a natural commodore!
Dodle

LANGUAGE, n. The music with which we charm the serpents guarding
another's treasure.

LAOCOON, n. A famous piece of antiquescripture representing a priest
of that name and his two sons in the folds of two enormous serpents.

The skill and diligence with which the old man and lads support the
serpents and keep them up to their work have been justly regarded as

one of the noblest artistic illustrations of the mastery of human
intelligence over brute inertia.

LAP, n. One of the most important organs of the femalesystem -- an
admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly

useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and
heads of adult males. The male of our species has a rudimentary lap,

imperfectly developed and in no way contributing to the animal's
substantial welfare.

LAST, n. A shoemaker's implement, named by a frowning Providence as
opportunity to the maker of puns.

Ah, punster, would my lot were cast,
Where the cobbler is unknown,

So that I might forget his last
And hear your own.

Gargo Repsky
LAUGHTER, n. An interiorconvulsion, producing a distortion of the

features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious
and, though intermittent, incurable. Liability to attacks of laughter

is one of the characteristics distinguishing man from the animals --
these being not only inaccessible to the provocation of his example,

but impregnable to the microbes having original jurisdiction in
bestowal of the disease. Whether laughter could be imparted to

animals by inoculation from the human patient is a question that has
not been answered by experimentation. Dr. Meir Witchell holds that

the infectioncharacter of laughter is due to the instantaneous
fermentation of _sputa_ diffused in a spray. From this peculiarity he

names the disorder _Convulsio spargens_.
LAUREATE, adj. Crowned with leaves of the laurel. In England the

Poet Laureate is an officer of the sovereign's court, acting as
dancing skeleton at every royal feast and singing-mute at every royal

funeral. Of all incumbents of that high office, Robert Southey had
the most notable knack at drugging the Samson of public joy and

cutting his hair to the quick; and he had an artistic color-sense
which enabled him so to blacken a public grief as to give it the

aspect of a national crime.
LAUREL, n. The _laurus_, a vegetable dedicated to Apollo, and

formerly defoliated to wreathe the brows of victors and such poets as
had influence at court. (_Vide supra._)

LAW, n.
Once Law was sitting on the bench,

And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
"Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench!

Nor come before me creeping.
Upon your knees if you appear,

'Tis plain your have no standing here."
Then Justice came. His Honor cried:

"_Your_ status? -- devil seize you!"
"_Amica curiae,_" she replied --

"Friend of the court, so please you."
"Begone!" he shouted -- "there's the door --

I never saw your face before!"
G.J.

LAWFUL, adj. Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.
LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.

LAZINESS, n. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
LEAD, n. A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to

light lovers -- particularly to those who love not wisely but other
men's wives. Lead is also of great service as a counterpoise to an

argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong
way. An interesting fact in the chemistry of international

controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is
precipitated in great quantities.

Hail, holy Lead! -- of human feuds the great
And universal arbiter; endowed

With penetration to pierce any cloud
Fogging the field of controversial hate,

And with a sift, inevitable, straight,
Searching precision find the unavowed

But vital point. Thy judgment, when allowed
By the chirurgeon, settles the debate.

O useful metal! -- were it not for thee
We'd grapple one another's ears alway:

But when we hear thee buzzing like a bee
We, like old Muhlenberg, "care not to stay."

And when the quick have run away like pellets
Jack Satan smelts the dead to make new bullets.

LEARNING, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
LECTURER, n. One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear

and his faith in your patience.
LEGACY, n. A gift from one who is legging it out of this vale of

tears.
LEONINE, adj. Unlike a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in

which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end, as
in this famous passage from Bella Peeler Silcox:

The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades.
Cries Pluto, 'twixt his snores: "O tempora! O mores!"

It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to
teach pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues. Leonine verses

are so called in honor of a poet named Leo, whom prosodists appear to
find a pleasure in believing to have been the first to discover that a

rhyming couplet could be run into a single line.
LETTUCE, n. An herb of the genus _Lactuca_, "Wherewith," says that

pious gastronome, Hengist Pelly, "God has been pleased to reward the
good and punish the wicked. For by his inner light the righteous man

has discerned a manner of compounding for it a dressing to the
appetency whereof a multitude of gustible condiments conspire, being

reconciled and ameliorated with profusion of oil, the entire
comestible making glad the heart of the godly and causing his face to

shine. But the person of spiritual unworth is successfully tempted to
the Adversary to eat of lettuce with destitution of oil, mustard, egg,

salt and garlic, and with a rascal bath of vinegar polluted with
sugar. Wherefore the person of spiritual unworth suffers an

intestinal pang of strange complexity and raises the song."
LEVIATHAN, n. An enormous aquatic animal mentioned by Job. Some

suppose it to have been the whale, but that distinguished
ichthyologer, Dr. Jordan, of Stanford University, maintains with

considerable heat that it was a species of gigantic Tadpole (_Thaddeus
Polandensis_) or Polliwig -- _Maria pseudo-hirsuta_. For an

exhaustive description and history of the Tadpole consult the famous
monograph of Jane Potter, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_.

LEXICOGRAPHER, n. A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of
recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does

what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and
mechanize its methods. For your lexicographer, having written his