POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the

superstructure of organized society is reared. When we wriggles he
mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.

As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being
alive.

POLYGAMY, n. A house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with
several stools of repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which

has but one.
POPULIST, n. A fossilpatriot of the early agricultural period, found

in the old red soapstone underlying Kansas; characterized by an
uncommon spread of ear, which some naturalists contend gave him the

power of flight, though Professors Morse and Whitney, pursuing
independent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed out that had he

possessed it he would have gone elsewhere. In the picturesque speech
of his period, some fragments of which have come down to us, he was

known as "The Matter with Kansas."
PORTABLE, adj. Exposed to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of

possession.
His light estate, if neither he did make it

Nor yet its former guardianforsake it,
Is portable improperly, I take it.

Worgum Slupsky
PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They

are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed
with garlic.

POSITIVE, adj. Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
POSITIVISM, n. A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and

affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte,
its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.

POSTERITY, n. An appellate court which reverses the judgment of a
popular author's contemporaries, the appellant being his obscure

competitor.
POTABLE, n. Suitable for drinking. Water is said to be potable;

indeed, some declare it our natural beverage, although even they find
it palatable only when suffering from the recurrent disorder known as

thirst, for which it is a medicine. Upon nothing has so great and
diligent ingenuity been brought to bear in all ages and in all

countries, except the most uncivilized, as upon the invention of
substitutes for water. To hold that this general aversion to that

liquid has no basis in the preservative instinct of the race is to be
unscientific -- and without science we are as the snakes and toads.

POVERTY, n. A file provided for the teeth of the rats of reform. The
number of plans for its abolition equals that of the reformers who

suffer from it, plus that of the philosophers who know nothing about
it. Its victims are distinguished by possession of all the virtues

and by their faith in leaders seeking to conduct them into a
prosperity where they believe these to be unknown.

PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf
of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

PRE-ADAMITE, n. One of an experimental and apparently unsatisfactory
race of antedated Creation and lived under conditions not easily

conceived. Melsius believed them to have inhabited "the Void" and to
have been something intermediate between fishes and birds. Little its

known of them beyond the fact that they supplied Cain with a wife and
theologians with a controversy.

PRECEDENT, n. In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in
the absence of a definitestatute, has whatever force and authority a

Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task of
doing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything, he has

only to ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate
those in the line of his desire. Invention of the precedent elevates

the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the
noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.

PRECIPITATE, adj. Anteprandial.
Precipitate in all, this sinner

Took action first, and then his dinner.
Judibras

PRECEDENT, n. In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in
the absence of a definitestatute, has whatever force and authority a

Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task of
doing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything, he has

only to ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate
those in the line of his desire. Invention of the precedent elevates

the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the
noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.

PRECIPITATE, adj. Anteprandial.
Precipitate in all, this sinner

Took action first, and then his dinner.
Judibras

PREDESTINATION, n. The doctrine that all things occur according to
programme. This doctrine should not be confused with that of

foreordination, which means that all things are programmed, but does
not affirm their occurrence, that being only an implication from other

doctrines by which this is entailed. The difference is great enough
to have deluged Christendom with ink, to say nothing of the gore.

With the distinction of the two doctrines kept well in mind, and a
reverent belief in both, one may hope to escape perdition if spared.

PREDICAMENT, n. The wage of consistency.
PREDILECTION, n. The preparatory stage of disillusion.

PRE-EXISTENCE, n. An unnoted factor in creation.
PREFERENCE, n. A sentiment, or frame of mind, induced by the

erroneous belief that one thing is better than another.
An ancient philosopher, expounding his conviction that life is no

better than death, was asked by a disciple why, then, he did not die.
"Because," he replied, "death is no better than life."

It is longer.
PREHISTORIC, adj. Belonging to an early period and a museum.

Antedating the art and practice of perpetuating falsehood.
He lived in a period prehistoric,

When all was absurd and phantasmagoric.
Born later, when Clio, celestial recorded,

Set down great events in succession and order,
He surely had seen nothing droll or fortuitous

In anything here but the lies that she threw at us.
Orpheus Bowen

PREJUDICE, n. A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
PRELATE, n. A church officer having a superior degree of holiness and

a fat preferment. One of Heaven's aristocracy. A gentleman of God.
PREROGATIVE, n. A sovereign's right to do wrong.

PRESBYTERIAN, n. One who holds the conviction that the government
authorities of the Church should be called presbyters.

PRESCRIPTION, n. A physician's guess at what will best prolong the
situation with least harm to the patient.

PRESENT, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of
disappointment from the realm of hope.

PRESENTABLE, adj. Hideously appareled after the manner of the time
and place.

In Boorioboola-Gha a man is presentable on occasions of ceremony
if he have his abdomen painted a bright blue and wear a cow's tail; in

New York he may, if it please him, omit the paint, but after sunset he
must wear two tails made of the wool of a sheep and dyed black.

PRESIDE, v. To guide the action of a deliberative body to a desirable
result. In Journalese, to perform upon a musicalinstrument; as, "He

presided at the piccolo."
The Headliner, holding the copy in hand,

Read with a solemn face:
"The music was very uncommonly grand --

The best that was every provided,
For our townsman Brown presided

At the organ with skill and grace."
The Headliner discontinued to read,

And, spread the paper down
On the desk, he dashed in at the top of the screed:

"Great playing by President Brown."
Orpheus Bowen

PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American
politics.

PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom --
and of whom only -- it is positively known that immense numbers of