Vickipedia

SOCAGE, or SOCCAGE (originally hlaford-socn, seeking a lord; whence we have also soc, a right, of holding a court), a tenure of lands in England, of which the characteristic feature is, that the service is fixed and determinate in quality, thereby differing both from knight-service and from villeinage. It was originally peculiar to the Anglo-Danish districts of England. At the time when the allodial tenure was converted into immediate dependence on the crown, this tenure seems to have arisen out of the necessity for commendation or seeking a lord. In Domesday, socmen are often mentioned as bound ‘ to seek a lord,’ or free to go with their land where they pleased. The socmen of Stamford are said to be free to seek a lord, being only liable to the king for the toll attached to them as inhabitants of a borough. The obligation of socage in its origin has been compared to the mutual bonds of allegiance of later times so common in the Highlands of Scotland, and known as Bonds of Manrent (see manrent). Three kinds of socage have been enumerated as existing at a later period—viz., free and common socage, socage in ancient tenure, and socage in base tenure. The second and third kind are equivalent to tenure in ancient demesne and copyhold tenure (see DEMESNE, ANCIENT, and copyhold), and the first is what has generally and more properly been denominated socage, where the services were both certain and honorable. Besides fealty, which the socager was bound to do when required, he was obliged to give attendance at the court baron of his lord, if he held one, either for a manor or for a seigniory in gross.

By an act passed during the Commonwealth, and confirmed after the Restoration by 12 Car. II. c. 24, tenure by knight-service was abolished, and all lands except church-lands held in free-alms, were directed to be held in free and common socage, which is now (with that exception) the universal tenure of real property in England and Ireland.

Socage tenures are unknown in Scotland, where, unless at a very early period, they never existed.

PAINS AND PENALTIES. When a person has committed some crime of peculiar enormity, and for which no adequate punishment is provided by the ordinary law, the mode of proceeding is by introducing a bill of pains and penalties, the object of which, therefore, is to inflict a punishment of an extraordinary and anomalous kind. These bills are now seldom resorted to, and the last instance of an attempt to revive such a form of punishment was by the ministers of George IV. against Queen Caroline, an attempt which was signally defeated. When a bill of this kind is resolved upon, it is introduced, and passes through all the stages like any other bill in parliament, except that the party proceeded against is allowed to defend himself or herself by counsel and witnesses. The proceeding is substantially an indictment, though in form a bill.

RE’BUS, an enigmatical representation of a name or thing by using pictorial devices for letters, syllables, or parts of words. The term probably originates from the device speaking to the beholder non verbus sed rebus. Devices of this kind, allusive to the bearer’s name, were exceedingly common in the middle ages, particularly in England. In many instances, they were used by ecclesiastics and others who had not a right to armorial ensigns. Thus, on the rector’s lodgings at Lincoln College, Oxford, erected in the 15th c., to which Thomas Beckyngton, Bishop of Bath and Wells, liberally contributed, is carved the rebus of that prelate— a becon and tun, with T, the initial letter of his Christian name.

In Westminster Abbey, Abbot Islip’s chapel gives two forms of his rebus—one, a human eye, and a small branch or slip of a tree; the other, a man in the act of falling from a tree, and exclaiming, ‘ I slip ! ‘ Many of the monograms of the artists of the middle ages and early printers were rebuses. That of Ludger you King was the letter L inserted into a ring. A large proportion of the early coats of arms were rebuses on the names of the bearer of them, as, for example, three salmons for the name of Salmon, a lock and heart for that of Lockhart, three skenes or dirks for Skene. Family badges are also frequently of the nature of a rebus, and mottoes, as Ver non semper viret of the Vernons.

PA’LATE, the, forms the roof of the mouth, and consists of two portions, the hard palate in front and the soft palate behind. The framework of the hard palate is formed by the palate process of the superior maxillary bone, and by the horizontal process of the palate bone, and is bounded in front and at the sides by the alvolar arches and gums, and posteriorly it is continuous with the soft palate. It is covered by a dense structure formed by the periosteum and mucous membrane of the mouth, which are closely adherent. Along the middle line is a linear ridge or raphe, on either side of which the mucous membrane is thick, pale, and corrugated, while behind it is thin, of a darker tint, and smooth. This membrane is covered with scaly epithelium, and is furnished with numerous follicles (the palatal glands). The soft palate is a movable fold of mucous membrane enclosing muscular fibres, and suspended from the posterior border of the hard palate so to form an incomplete septum between the mouth and the pharynx; its sides being blended with the pharynx, while its lower border is free. When occupying its usual position (that is to say, when the muscular fibres contained in it are relaxed), its anterior surface is concave; and when its muscles are called into action, as in swallowing a morsel of food, it is raised and made tense, and the food is thus prevented from passing into the posterior nares, and is at the same time directed obliquely backwards and downwards into the pharynx.

Hanging from the middle of its lower border is a small conical pendulous process, the uvula ; and passing outwards from the uvula on each side are two curved folds of mucous membrane containing muscular fibres, and called the arches or pillars of the soft palate. The anterior pillar is continued downwards to the side of the base of the tongue, and is formed by the projection of the palato-glossus muscle. The posterior pillar is larger than the anterior, and runs downwards and backwards to the side of the pharynx. The anterior and posterior pillars are closely united above, but are separated below by an angular interval, in which the tonsil of either side is lodged. The tonsils (amygdalæ) are glandular organs of a rounded form, which vary considerably in size in different individuals. They are composed of an assemblage of mucous follicles, which secrete a thick grayish matter, and open on the surface of the gland by numerous (12 to 15) orifices.

The space left between the arches of the palate on the two sides is called the isthmus of the fauces. It is bounded above by the free margin of the palate, below by the tongue, and on each side by the pillars of the soft palate and tonsils.

As the upper lip may be fissured through imperfect development (in which case it presents the condition known as hare-lip), so also may there be more or less decided fissure of the palate. In the slightest form of this affection, the uvula merely is fissured, while in extreme cases the cleft extends through both the soft and hard palate as far forward as the lips, and is then often combined with hare-lip. When the fissure is considerable, it materially interferes with the acts of sucking and swallowing, and the infant runs a great risk of being starved; and if the child grows up, its articulation is painfully indistinct. When the fissure is confined to the soft palate, repeated cauterization of the angle of the fissure has been found sufficient to effect a cure by means of the contraction that follows each burn. As a general rule, however, the child is allowed to reach the age of puberty when the operation of staphyloraphy (or suture of the soft parts) is performed—an operation always difficult, and not always successful. For the method of performing it, the reader is referred to the Practical Surgery of Mr. Fergusson. who has introduced several most important modifications into the old operation.

Acute inflammation of the tonsils, popularly known as quinsy, is treated of in a separate article.

Chronic enlargement of the tonsils is very frequent in scrofulous children, and is not rare in scrofulous persons of more advanced age, and may give rise to very considerable inconvenience and distress. It may occasion difficulty in swallowing, confused and inarticulate speech, deafness in various degrees from closure of the eustachian tubes (now often termed throat deafness), and noisy and laborious respiration, especially during sleep; and it may even cause death by suffocation, induced by the entanglement of viscid mucus between the enlarged glands. Iodide of iron (especially in the form of Blancard’s Pills) and cod-liver oil are the medicines upon whose action most reliance should be placed in these cases, while a strong solution of nitrate of silver (a scruple of the salt to an ounce of distilled water), or some preparation of iodine, should be applied once a day to the affected parts. If these measures fail, the tonsils must be more or less removed by the surgeon, either by the knife or scissors, or by a small guillotine specially invented for the purpose.

Enlargement or relaxation of the uvula is not uncommon and gives rise to a constant tickling cough, and to expectoration, by the irritation of the larynx which it occasions. If it will not yield to astringent or stimulating gargles, or to the stronger local applications directed for enlarged tonsils, its extremity must be seized with the forceps, and it must be divided through the middle with a pair of long scissors.

REBE’LLION (Lat. rebellio, from bellum, war, a revolt by nations subdued in war), an openly avowed renunciation of the authority of the government to which one owes allegiance, or a levying of war to resist the authority of the government. Unlike insurrection, which may be merely an opposition to a particular law, rebellion involves a design to renounce all subjection to the state. A commission of rebellion is a commission awarded against a person who treats the sovereign’s authority with contempt, by not obeying his proclamation according to his allegiance, and refusing to attend his sovereign when required. It consists of four commissioners, who are ordered to attack the rebel wherever found. In Scotland, by legal fiction, a debtor disobeying a charge on letters of horning to pay or perform in terms of his obligation, was accounted a rebel, as being disobedient to the sovereign’s command contained in the writ. This disobedience was called civil rebellion, and the penal consequences of actual rebellion followed it, until they were abolished by 20 Geo. II. c. 50. By the old form of diligence (which is still competent), it has therefore been said that debtors were imprisoned not for debt but for rebellion. The fiction was discarded in the provisions of the statute 1 and 2 Vict. c. 114, simplifying the form of diligence and the steps by which imprisonment for debt is effected.

The expression ‘The Great Rebellion,’ is generally applied in England to the revolt of the Long Parliament against the authority of Charles I. It began with the votes of the two Houses regarding the militia in 1642, by which they endeavored to seize the military power of the country, and the departure of the king for York, which was immediately followed by the breaking out of hostilities. The civil war was, properly speaking, terminated by the submission of Charles to the Scots, in April 1646; but the period of the rebellion is usually held to include the Commonwealth or Protectorate, and to extend to the restoration of Charles II. in May 1660. The revolts in behalf of the House of Stuart in 1715 and 1745 ire often, particularly in Scotland, spoken of emphatically as ‘The Rebellion.’ The former rising in favor of the Chevalier de St. George, son of James II. of England, called the Old Pretender, was headed by the Earl of Mar, and put down in 1716: the latter was led by Prince Charles Edward, known as the Young Pretender, who, landing in the Hebrides, was joined by the Highland chieftains and numerous followers, and after taking possession of Edinburgh, and marching to Derby, retreated into Scotland, and was defeated with great slaughter by the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden, on the 16th of April 1746.

ROULETTE (Fr. ‘a little wheel’), a game of chance which, from the end of last century till the beginning of 1838, reigned supreme over all others in Paris. It continued to be played at German watering-places till 1872, when it ceased in terms of an act gassed four years before. R. is still played at Monaco, in Italy. As much as £8000 a year used to be spent in the papers of Paris alone advertising this game, which is purely one of chance, and is played on a table (see fig.) of an oblong form, covered with green cloth, which has in its center a cavity, of a little more than two feet in diameter, in the shape of a punch-bowl. This cavity, which has several copper bands round its sides at equal distances from each other, has its sides fixed, but the bottom is movable round au axis placed in the center of the cavity; the handle by which motion is communicated being a species of cross or capstan of copper fixed on the upper extremity of the axis. Round the circumference of this movable bottom are 38 holes, painted in black and red alternately, with the first 36 numbers, and a single and double zero, as shown in the figure; and these 38 symbols are also figured at each end of the table in order that the players may place their stakes on the chance they select. Along the margin of the table and at each end of it are painted six words,’ pair, passe, noir, impair, manque, rouge, which will be afterwards explained.

Those who manage the table and keep the bank are called tailleurs. The game is played as follows: One of the tailleurs puts the movable bottom in motion by turning the cross with his forefinger, and at the same instant throws into the cavity an ivory ball in a direction opposite to the motion of the bottom; the ball makes several revolutions, and at last falls into one of the 38 holes above mentioned, the hole into which it falls determining the gain or loss of the players. A player may stake his money on 1, 2, or any of the 38 numbers (including the zeros), and shows what number or numbers he selects by placing his stake upon them; if he has selected a number or zero corresponding to the one into which the ball falls, he receives from one of the tailleurs 36 times his stake—viz., his stake and 35 times more—if he selected only 1 number, 18 times if 2 numbers, 12 times if 3 numbers, &c. The blank rectangles at the bottom of each of the 3 columns of numbers figured on the table, are for the reception of the stake of that player who selects a column (12 numbers) as his chance, and if the ball enters a hole the number of which is found in his column, he is paid 3 times his stake. Those who prefer staking their money on any of the chances marked¹ on the edge of the table, if they win, receive double their stake (their stake and as much more), and under the following circumstances : The ‘pair’ wins when the ball falls into a hole marked by an even number; the ‘ impair,’ if the hole is marked odd; the ‘ manque,’ if the hole is numbered from 1 to 18 inclusive; the ‘ passe,’ if it is numbered from 19 to 36 inclusive; the ‘ rouge,’ if it is colored red; and the ‘ noir,’ if it is colored black.

If the ball should fall into either of the holes marked with the single or the double zero, the stakes of those players who venture upon the 6 chances last described are either equally divided between the bank and the players, or as is more commonly the case, they are ‘ put in prison,’ as it is called, and the succeeding trial determines whether they are to be restored to the players or gained by the bank. Should it so happen that at this trial the ball again falls into one of the two holes (the chance against its occurring is 360 to 1) marked with zeros, then half of the stakes in prison are taken by the bank, and the remainder are ‘ put into the second prison,’ and so on. The tailleurs thus have an advantage over the players in the proportion of 19 to 18. The player who bets upon the numbers labors under a similar disadvantage, for although the two zero-points do not affect him in the same way as the player who stakes upon one of the other 6 chances, still (supposing him to bet upon a single number) as the chances are 37 to 1 against him, he ought to receive 37 times his stake (besides the stake) when he does win, whereas he only receives 35 times that amount, a manifest advantage in favor of the bank in the proportion of 37 to 35.

PERFU’MERY, PE’RFUMES (Fr. perfum, from Lat. fumus, smoke or vapor), delicate fumes or smells. Perfumes are of three distinct classes when derived from plants, and there is a fourth class, which are of animal origin.

CLASS I.—These are the most ancient, and have been in use from the earliest period of which there is record. They consist of the various odoriferous gum-resins, which exude naturally from the trees which yield them; and to increase the produce, the plants are often purposely wounded. The most important are benzoin, olibanum, myrrh, and camphor. No less than 5000 cwt. of these together are annually imported into Britain. Gum-resins form the chief ingredients in ‘ Incense,’ (q. v.), and in Pastilles (q. v.)

CLASS II. are those perfumes which are procured by distillation. As soon as the Greeks and the Romans learned the use of the still, which was an invention imported by them from Egypt, they quickly adapted it to the separation of the odorous principle from the numerous fragrance-bearing plants which are indigenous to Greece and Italy. An essential oil or otto thus procured from orange-flowers bears in commerce to this day the name of Neroly, supposed to be so named after the Emperor Nero. Long before that time, however, fragrant waters were in use in Arabia. Odor-bearing plants contain the fragrant principle in minute glands or sacs; these are found sometimes in the rind of the fruit, as the lemon and orange; in others, it is in the leaves, as sage, mint, and thyme; in wood, as rosewood and sandal-wood; in the bark, as cassia and cinnamon; in seeds, as caraway and nutmeg. These glands or bags of fragrance may be plainly seen in a thin cut stratum of orange-peel; so also in a bay leaf, if it be held up to the sunlight, all the oil cells may be seen like specks. All these fragrant-bearing substances yield by distillation an essential oil peculiar to each; thus is procured oil of patchouly from the leaves of the patchouly plant, Pogostemon patchouly. a native of Burmah; oil of caraway, from the caraway seed; oil of geranium, from the leaves of the Geranium rosa; oil of lemon, from lemon-peel; and a hundred of others of more infinite variety.

The old name for these pure odoriferous principles was Quintessence. Latterly, they have been termed Essential Oils; they are now, in modern scientific works, often termed Ottos, from the Turkish word attar, which is applied to the well-known otto or attar of roses. See oil.

All the various essential oils or ottos are very slightly soluble in water, so that in the process of distillation the water which conies over is always fragrant. Thus, elder water, rose water, orange water, dill water are, as it were, the residue of the distillation for obtaining the several ottos. The process of Distillation (q. v.) is very simple; the fragrant part of the plant is put into the still and covered with water; and when the water is made to boil, the ottos rise along with the steam, are condensed with it in the pipe, and remain floating on the water, from which they are easily separated by decanting. In this way 100 pounds of orange, lemon, or bergamot fruit peel will yield about 10 ounces of the fragrant oil; 100 pounds of cedar wood will give about 15 ounces of oil of cedar; 100 pounds of nutmeg will yield 60 to 70 ounces of oil of nutmeg; 100 pounds of geranium leaves will yield 2 ounces of oil.

Every fragrant substance varies in yield of essential oil. The variety of essential oils is endless; "but there are a certain relationship among odors as among tints. The lemon-like odors are the most numerous, such as verbena, lemon, bergamot, orange, citron, citronella; then the almond-like odors, such as heliotrope, vanilla, violet; then spice odors, cloves, cinnamon, cassia. The whole may be classified into twelve well-defined groups. All these ottos are very soluble in alcohol, in fat, butter, and fixed oils. They also mix with soap, snuff, starch, sugar, chalk, and other bodies, to which they impart their fragrance.

The principal consumption of the various fragrant ottos is for scenting soap. Windsor soap, almond soap, rose soap, and a great variety of others, consist of various soaps made of oil and tallow, perfumed while in a melted state with the several named ottos or mixtures of them.

Though snuff is by no means so popular an article in the reign of Victoria as it was in Anne’s time, yet the increased population, and the extended exports to colonies, cause a production of scented snuff positively greater now than fifty years ago; and it is especially in demand in the fur countries of Northern Canada. There is a large consumption of fragrant essential oils in the manufacture of toilet powders; under the various names of rose powder, violet powder, &c., a mixture of starch and orris, differently scented, is in general demand for drying the skin of infants after the bath.

Precipitated chalk and powdered cuttle-fish bone, being perfumed with otto of roses, powdered myrrh, and camphor, become ‘ Dentrifice.’ The ottos of peppermint, lavender, rose, and others, are extensively used in scenting sweetmeats and lozenges.

More than 200,000 pounds weight of various ottos have been imported into Britain in one year, and valued at over £180,000; to this must be added at least one-third as much again distilled in England. Of the imported articles enumerated, oils of lemon and bergamot, from the Two Sicilies, reached 128,809 pounds, valued at £57,054.

class III.—These are the perfumes proper, such as are used for perfuming handkerchiefs, &c. Contrary to the general belief, nearly all the perfumes derived from flowers are not made by distillation, but by the processes of enfleurage and maceration. Although this mode of obtaining the odors from flowers has certainly been in practice for two centuries in the valley of the Var, in the south of France, it is only by the publication of a recent work* [*Art of Perfumery, by Septimus Piesse, Ph. D., 8vo. 50 cuts. Longman. 4th] that the method has been made generally known. The odors of flowers do not, as a general rule, exist in them as a store or in a gland, but are developed as an exhalation. While the flower breathes it yields fragrance, but kill the flower, and fragrance ceases. It has not been ascertained when the discovery was made of condensing, as it were, the breath of the flower during life; what we know now is, that if a living flower be placed near to grease, animal fat, butter, or oil, these bodies absorb the odor given off by the blossom, and in turn themselves become fragrant. If we spread fresh unsalted butter upon the bottom of two desert-plates, and then fill one of the plates with gathered fragrant blossoms of clematis, covering them over with the second greased plate, we shall find that after 24 hours the grease has become fragrant. The blossoms, though separated from the parent stem, do not die for some time, but live and exhale odor; which is absorbed by the fat. To remove the odor from the fat, the fat must be scraped off the plates and put into alcohol; the odor then leaves the grease and enters into the spirit, which thus becomes ’scent,’ and the grease again becomes odorless.

The flower fanners of the Var follow precisely this method on a very large scale, with but a little practical variation, with the following flowers—rose, orange, acacia, violet, jasmine, tuberose, and jonquil. The process is termed enfleurage. In the valley of the Var, there are acres of jasmine, of tuberose, of violets, and the other flowers named; in due season the air is laden with fragrance, the flower harvest is at hand. Women and children gather the blossoms, which they place in little panniers like fishermen’s baskets hung over the shoulders. They are then carried to the laboratory of flowers and weighed. In the laboratory the harvest of flowers has been anticipated. During the previous winter great quantities of grease, lard, and beef-suet have been collected, melted, washed, and clarified. In each laboratory there sire several thousand chassis (sashes), or framed glasses, upon which the grease to be scented is spread, and upon this grease the blossoms are sprinkled or laid. The chasse en -verve is, in fact, 41 frame with a glass in it as near as possible like a window-sash, only that the frame is two inches thicker, so that when one chasse is placed on another, there is a space of four inches between every two glasses, thus allowing space for blossoms. The illustration shows the chasse with grease and flowers upon it (fig. 1), also a pile of the same as in use. The flower blossoms are changed every day, or every other day, as is convenient in regard to the general work of the laboratory or flowering of the plants. The same grease, however, remains in the chasse so long as the particular plant being used yields blossoms. Each time the fresh flowers are put on, the grease is ‘ worked ‘—that is, serrated with a knife—so as to offer a fresh surface of grease to absorb odor. The grease being enfleuree in this way for three weeks or more—in fact, so long as the plants produce blossoms—is at last scraped off the chasse, melted, strained, and poured into tin canisters, and is now fit for exportation. Fat or oil is perfumed with these same flowers by the process of maceration; that is, infusion of the flowers in oil or melted fat. For this end, purified fat is melted in a bain marie, or warm bath, and the fresh blossoms are infused in it for several hours. Fresh flowers being procured, the spent blossoms are strained away, and new flowers added repeatedly, so long as they can be procured.

The bain marie is used in order to prevent the grease becoming too hot from exposure to the naked tire; so long as the grease is fluid, it is warm enough. Oil does not require to be warmed, but improved results are obtained when it is slightly heated.

Jasmine and tuberose produce best perfumed grease by enfleurage, but rose, orange, and acacia, give more satisfactory products by maceration; while violet and jonquil grease is best obtained by the joint processes—enfleurage followed by maceration. In the engraving a. chasse en fer (2, fig. 1) is shown; this is for enfleurage of oil. In the place of glass, the space is filled with a wire net; on which is laid a molleton, or thick cotton fabric—moleskin, soaked with oil; on this the flowers are laid, just as with solid grease. In due time—that is, after repeated changing the flowers —the oil becomes fragrant, and it is then pressed out of the moleskin cloth. Oil of jasmine, tuberose, &c., are prepared in this way. In order now to obtain the perfume of these flowers in the form used for scenting handkerchiefs, we have only to infuse the scented fat or oil, made by any of the above methods, in strong alcohol.

In extracting the odor from solid fat it has to be chopped up fine as suet is chopped, put into the spirit, and left to infuse for about a month. In the case of scented oil it has to be repeatedly agitated with the spirit. The result is, that the spirit extracts all the odor, becoming itself ‘ perfume,’ while the grease again becomes odorless; thus is procured the essence of jasmine, essence of orange flowers, essence of violets, and others already named, rose, tuberose, acacia, and jonquil.

It is remarkable that these flowers yield perfumes which, either separate or mixed in various proportions, are the types of nearly all flower odors; thus, when jasmine and orange flowers are blended, the scent produced is like sweet pea; when jasmine and tuberose are mixed, the perfume is that of the hyacinth. Violet and tuberose resemble lily of the valley. All the various bouquets and nosegays, such as ‘ frangipanni,’ ‘white roses,’ ’sweet daphne," are made upon this principle.

The commercial importance of this branch of perfumes may be indicated by the quantity of flowers annually grown in the district of the Var. Flower Harvest: orange blossoms, 1,475,000 lbs.; roses, 530,000 lbs.; jasmine, 100,000 lbs.; violets, 75,000 lbs.; acacia, 45,000 lbs.; geranium, 30,000 lbs.; tuberose, 24.000 lbs. jonquil, 5000 lbs.

class IV. Perfumes of animal origin.—The principal are Musk (q. v.), Ambergris (q. v.), Civet (q. v.), and Castor (q. v.) The aroma of musk is the most universally admired of all perfumes; it freely imparts odor to every body with which it is in contact. Its power to impart odor is such, that polished steel will become fragrant of it if the metal be shut in a box where there is musk, contact not being necessary.

In perfumery manufacture, musk is mixed with other odorous bodies to give permanence to a scent. The usual statement as to the length of time that musk continues to give out odor has been called in question. If fine musk be spread in thin layers upon any surface, and fully exposed to a changing current of air, all fragrance, it is said, will be gone in from six to twelve months.

Civet is exceedingly potent as an odor, and when pure, and smelled at in the bulk of an ounce or so, is utterly insupportable from its nauseousness; in this respect it exceeds musk. When, however, civet is diluted so as to offer but minute quantities to the olfactories, then its perfume is generally admitted; this is so with gas-tar; but the fragrant principle is the same as that breathed by the beautiful narcissus. Castor is in our day almost obsolete as a perfume.

The average importation of musk per annum for a period of five years was 9388 ounces, value £10,688; export 1578 ounces, value £2143; leaving for home-consumption every year 7810 ounces, value £8545. Average importation per annum for a similar period; otto of roses 1117 ounces, value £13,561; vanilla 3525 pounds, value £12,568; ambergris 225 ounces, value £225; civet 355 ounces, value £300; orris root 420 hundredweight.

The works on perfumes are very few; that of Madame Celnart, in the Libraire Roret, is most worthy of notice among the French; a translation of it has been made by Mr. C. Morflt of Philadelphia. In England. The British Perfumer, by C. Lilly (1822), was the only work of the kind published in England prior to the Art of Perfumery by S. Piesse (1855). See also Rimmel’s Book of Perfumes (1875).

REAPING, the act of cutting corn, has been performed from . time immemorial with an instrument called a reaping-hook or sickle. The sickles in use among the ancient Jews, Egyptians, and Chinese appear to have differed very little in form from those employed in Great Britain. The reaping-hook is a curved instrument of about a foot and a half in length, tapering from a breadth of about two inches at the but-end, where it is fixed into a wooden handle. The edge is sometimes serrated, but, as a rule, it has long been made plain and sharp like a knife. In reaping, the harvester takes the corn in his left hand, and then with the hook cuts the stalks as close to the ground as possible; but when a grass crop has been sown down with the grain, the stubble is often left rather longer, in order to preserve the young grass The corn is placed handful by handful in a band usually made of the corn, and when as much has been cut as will form a sheaf, it is tied up by the ‘ bandster.’ The most expert reapers slash down the corn with the hook in the right hand, using the left merely to keep the corn from falling, until sufficient to make a sheaf has been cut, when the reaper places his hook under the corn, and supporting it with his left arm, deposits it all at once in the band. A bandster (one to every three or four reapers) binds the grain, and sets it up in stocks of generally 12 sheaves. It was surprising to see women of sixty years and upwards, handling the ‘ hook ‘ with great dexterity, accomplishing their 20 and sometimes 24 stocks of 12 sheaves each per day. After such a day’s work, these women appeared much fatigued, but a night’s rest seemed to set them on foot, vigorous as ever. They divested themselves of much of their clothing, and really worked hard for their money.

In the principal corn-growing districts of Scotland, a great proportion of the reaping by hand was at one time done by laborers from Ireland, who undertook the work at from 8s. to 15s. per acre, with board and lodging in addition. Their fare was of the simplest kind—consisting in the majority of cases, of porridge morning and evening, and bread and beer for dinner; their lodging at night was the barn or some outhouse, the farmer providing coarse blankets for covering. The quantity of porridge consumed at each meal by those people was sometimes astonishing—no less, as has been proved by actual weighing, than 5 lbs., with 1 ½ lbs. of milk besides. In England, most of the corn was cut by piecework, at prices varying from 10s. to 18s. per acre. On the stronger lands of the midland and southern counties, the stubble is some-times left knee-high, and afterwards at leisure cut by the scythe, or with a long hook, at a cost of 2s. per acre. In Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Oxfordshire, and on many of the lighter soils in other counties, the operation of fagging or hacking, to be afterwards noticed, was preferred as being more expeditious than reaping. A good hand cut down from one-third to one-half of an acre of wheat, and often consumed, during his long day’s labor, two gallons of good ale.

The scythe in some counties, more than thirty years ago, was preferred to the sickle. The most common varieties were: the Hainault scythe—an importation from Belgium—the cradle scythe, and the common scythe fitted with a cradle. The Hainault scythe consists of a blade about 2 feet 3 inches long, having a handle 14 inches long. This the mower holds in his right hand, while in his left he carries a hook, with a handle of about equal length. ‘The reaping,’ says the late Mr. Henry Stephens, in his Book of the Farm, ‘is done by pressing the back of the hook with the left hand against the standing corn, in the direction of the wind, and by cutting with the scythe close to the ground against the standing corn with a free swing of the right arm,’ the hook keeping the cut corn from falling until a sufficient quantity to form a sheaf has been cut. This operation was practised in many parts of England, and especially on the lighter soils, under the name of fagging or hacking, the reaper sometimes using in his left band. instead of the hook, a stout crooked stick from 2 1/2 to 3 feet long. Beans and oats were the crops most generally fagged.

The cradle scythe is composed of a blade about 3 1/2 feet long, attached to a principal helve or sned about 4 feet long, into which another helve of about 2 1/2 feet in length is tenoned, thus making two handles. The cradle or bow is a piece of wood joined to the heel of the blade, into which are inserted three or four wooden teeth, in a line with the blade, the object of which is to secure the grain being laid evenly in one direction. As skill at the working of the scythe, however, increased, the cradle or bow was discarded in many cases. By the scythe, corn can be cut at a rather less cost per acre than with the hook; but the work is not so neatly done. As nice a stubble will be left by a good hand with the scythe, and often nicer than by the hook, but the sheaves are not, as a rule, so tidy after the scythe, though they will stack rather earlier. Of a fair working crop, an adept at the scythe would cut 2 or 2 1/4 acres per diem. The average area cut per day with the scythe does not exceed 1 1/2 acres. In fact, if the crop is heavy, that extent is a very hard day’s work. Those who contract for cutting the crops by the scythe, obtain the services of the best men, and thus generally get about 2 acres per day reaped, and reaped very well too. In the midland and southern counties, of England, the scythe, long in general use, was of larger size, and had only one long shaft, on which were fixed two handles. In Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, and some of the eastern counties, the whole of the cutting, until the introduction of reaping-machines, was done by these scythes. The harvest operations then, from the cutting of the crop to the thatching of the ricks, cost from 18s. to 25s. per acre.

The process of reaping with either the sickle or the scythe is, however, both tedious and expensive; and hence, during the last three-quarters of a century, many attempts have been made to accomplish the work by machinery—attempts which, in the course of the last twenty years, have been crowned with complete success ‘ Reaping by machinery, however, is no modern invention. Pliny the elder, who was born in the 1st c. of the Christian era, found a reaping-machine in Gaul. He says : ‘ In the extensive fields in the lowlands of Gaul, vans of large size, with projecting teeth on the edge, are driven on two wheels through the standing corn by an ox yoked in a reverse position. In this manner the ears are torn off, and fall into the van.’ Palladius, about four centuries later, found a similar appliance for reaping corn in Gaul. He gives a more detailed but similar description of the machine. The annexed cut, copied from Mr. Woodcroft’s Appendix to the Specifications of English Patents for Reaping-machines, represents what is conceived, from the descriptions, to have been the form of this ancient reaper.

In modern times, the idea of a mechanical reaper appears to have originated with a Mr. Capel Lloft, who, in 1785, suggested a machine something after the pattern of the ancient one above described. Between that time and the Great Exhibition of 1851, in London, from which the general use of mechanical reapers may be said to date, the patents taken out for reaping-machines were very numerous. Among the most promising of these may be mentioned those of Mr. Gladstone of Castle-Douglas; Mr. Smith of Deanston; Mr. Kerr, Edinburgh; Mr. Scott of Ormiston; Mr. Dobbs, an actor in Birmingham; Mr. Mann of Raby, near Wigton; and the late Rev. Patrick Bell of Carmylie, Scotland. In 1826, Mr. Bell constructed an efficient and simple machine, which long continued in use, and several features of which are observable in the reapers of the present day. The inventor of this, the first machine of the kind in Scotland, received a public testimonial from agriculturists, in consideration of the services he thus rendered to agriculture. In America Mr. Hussey and Mr. M’Cormick took out patents for reaping-machines of superior character in 1833 and 1834 respectively.

The movements of the cutters of these machines were various. A few were advancing only, some sidelong and advancing, others reciprocating and advancing, a large number continuous and advancing, and others continuous and alternate. The reciprocating and advancing motion is that now employed on the machines in use. The principal difference in the machines now so largely used for cutting corn is in the form and character of the cutters, and in the mode of delivering the grain after it is cut.

The cutting-knives are of two kinds—one, obtuse-angled and serrated; the other, acute-angled and for the most part plain. Both are attached to a bar, and are made to-work through another bar of iron fitted with hollow fingers, called guard-fingers, which, projecting forwards, catch the standing corn, and retain it firmly until it is cut. The serrated knife saws through it; the plain knife clips it, as it were; the finger-guard forming the fixed blade of the scissors.

The delivery of the sheaves is effected either by manual or mechanical labor; but the vast proportion of the machines in use are what are termed manual delivery-reapers. The delivery of the sheaves by manual labor is now almost at the back of the machine, the side delivery being generally abandoned, unless in the self-deliveries. In delivering the grain, a man, with a short-handled rake in his hand, sits upon the machine almost opposite the cutting apparatus. With this he inclines the grain towards the knife; and when sufficient to make a sheave has been cut, he rakes it off the platform upon the machine, on to which it has fallen, and deposits it on the ground. The cut subjoined will illustrate the method of raking off. In making a neat and squarely-formed sheaf, the raker is greatly assisted by a hinge in the platform, which enables him, by pressure of the foot, to tip the board over, so as to let the corn slide gently down.

With the back-delivery, the sheaves must be tied up and removed out of the way of the machine before it comes round again. Such a reaper, therefore, always requires a full supply of hands to attend upon it. But it is the best for all that. It does require a skilful, careful man to ‘ tilt,’ but the fact that the course has to be kept clear for the horses every round, spurs the laborers, who thus do more work than they would otherwise accomplish. Besides, it is a very doubtful advantage to be enabled to slash down the crops irrespective of the gathering capacities. Moreover, with the self-deliveries, it is the distance gone over, and not the quantity of crops collected, that regulates the size of the sheaf. With uneven crops, this is an inconvenience. Sheaves of different sizes are very troublesome in the stock. They will not stand well, and in stacking it is difficult to keep uniformity in building. Large and small sized sheaves are not equally dried, and are not ready for stacking at the same time. Eight people ‘ lifting’ after the manual-reaper will do as much work as nine following the self-delivery, so that the saving of a man’s labor claimed by the self-delivery is doubtful. The sheaves are rather better formed by the manual machine than by the self-delivery. Each kind, has, however, and will likely continue to have its advocates, though the preponderance is in favor of the manual.

The mechanical or self-delivery machines, as they are generally called, are of two kinds—one lays the cut corn in swaths, the other deposits it in sheaves. The latter is decidedly the best and most fashionable of the two.

The automaton sheaf-deliverers best known to the public are those of Samuelson of Banbury; Hornsby and Son; Burgess and Key; Brigham and Bickerton, Berwick; Howard and Co., Bedford. We give a description of Samuelson’s sheaf-deliverer (largely used in Great Britain), which will be made plain by the accompanying cut. The self-delivering machinery consists of a series of four rakes—two toothed, and two plain—attached to an upright shaft, in such manner as to admit of a free ascending, descending, and horizontal motion. The two toothless rakes, or ‘ dummies,’ are shorter in the arms by six inches than the other two, and are merely employed to incline the grain towards the cutter. The platform upon which the grain fails after it is cut is of quadrant shape, and is surrounded, on the outer edge, by a rim of about a foot deep. The side of the earn next the platform is bent or depressed, so that the rakes on reaching this point, make a sudden fall, or eccentric motion, thus assuming the horizontal attitude necessary to sweep over the platform on the level. The rakes are adjusted so as to lay the sheaves about 12 feet apart, to the side, and out of the way of the horses. This machine has a, double-throw knife—an arrangement which reduces the driving speed, and consequently the wear and tear of the machinery.

In M’Cormick’s automatic delivery-machine, a rake is so used that ‘during one part of the revolution of the gathering-reel, it acts as one of the vanes of the reel in bending the standing corn to the cutting-blades. When the rake reaches the cutting-blades in front of the platform, it ceases to revolve around the reel-shaft (which continues its rotary motion), and is made to move horizontally upon a vertical hinge, to which one end is attached (the points of the teeth being near the surface of the platform), sweeping the cut corn off at the side, and depositing it on the ground in sheaves ready for the binder.’ The Messrs. Brigham and Bickerton’s improved machine has a deep upright board of sheet-iron to keep the corn on the platform. Iron rods on these sheets separate the corn. This firm has thrown off two branches lately. The first offshoot was Messrs. Lillie and Elder, and the last was Bickerton and Co. The three firms make good serviceable reapers. Howard and Hornsby’s reapers are substantially and simply constructed, embracing slight improvements every other year, formed on experience. Prices range from £20 to £35.

The makers of manual delivery-machines are numerous, including in a prominent degree Kemp, Murray, and Nicholson, Stirling; Jack and Sons, Maybole; Harrison, Macgregor, & Co.; Picksley, Sims & Co.; Ransome, Sims and Head, Ipswich; Sam-nelson & Co., Banbury; J. and F. Howard, Bedford; and many others of fame. The manual delivery-machines of the first named firm are very popular, strong and ingeniously manufactured, while those of the Maybole firm are not quite so strong, but work with great ease and tastefulness. Carefully handled, the manual delivery-reaper will take up laid and twisted crops admirably. Indeed, all the reapers nowadays, perfected as they are year by year, now do their work remarkably well, leaving a beautiful stubble and a nice sheaf. The sheaves from the reaper, however, are not so easily dried for the stackyard as those from the scythe, but they defend rain better, and are altogether preferable. The number of reapers now in use in Great Britain is enormous, and is growing rapidly every year. They are a most decided improvement. Indeed, they are one of the most valuable introductions that have been made in rural agriculture in this country. At almost every farm of ordinary or even comparatively small dimensions, there is a reaper, and three or four engaged on the larger holdings. The cost of the manual delivery ranges from £18 to £30.

The cost of reaping by machinery is much less than either by scythe or sickle. Mr. Wilson of Woodhorn, Morpeth, found that the cutting of wheat with the sickle (binding and stocking included) cost him from 11s. to 15s. per acre, and with the scythe 8s., whilst with the machine it only cost him 5s. 9d., exclusive of wear and tear. From data supplied by a large number of their customers, Messrs. Samuelson & Co. make out that the saving by mechanical over hand labor is, as compared with reaping, 4s. per 1 acre, and with mowing, Is. 9d. per acre; and most farmers who have tried reaping-machines set down the saving at from 20 to 30 per cent. Besides, there is about a like economy in time, which is of immense importance in a variable climate like that of Great Britain.—See Woodcroft’s Appendix to Patents for Reaping-machines; Mr. Jacob Wilson’s ‘ Essay on Reaping-machines,’ in Transactions of Highland Society for January 1864; Book of Farm Implements, and Book of the Farm, by Henry Stephens; J. C. Morton’s Cyclopaedia of Agriculture.