Tarantula: A large hairy kind of spider common in some parts of Italy, Southern California, Texas, and Mexico and other sub-tropical countries, and at one point thought to be poisonous and perhaps are occasionally so. Music was supposed to be the only cure for its sting, which superstition gave the Tarantula dance, an ancient Bacchanalian amusement. The Church banned it, and it was ascribed to the hateful spider.
Tattooing: The practice of pricking patterns or designs in the skin, with indelible pigments. It is in vogue among the brown and yellow races and sailors the world over. Among savages a matter of primitive taste and custom, or means of identification. It is a habit, says Lombroso, distinguishing the criminal type.
Taximeter: An ingenious contrivance by which the strictly legal fare chargeable for a cab journey is indicated. It is only recently that it has been adopted on a large scale in London and New York, although in Berlin and Paris it has been successfully working for many years. It is now in use extensively in this country both for motor cabs and ordinary cabs. It gives its name to the Taxicab, in which the number of wheel revolutions and consequently distance traveled and fare due, are automatically recorded on the dial of the taximeter, to avoid disputes.
Thugs: A secret organization of Indian fanatical assassins. They strangled their victims, and buried their bodies with a consecrated pick-axe, and set apart one-third of their plunder to the goddess Kali. These assassins were difficult to suppress, but vigorous measures ultimately, after twenty years’ effort, secured their extermination in about 1830.
Trance: An abnormal psychical state. In waking trance the thoughts are fixed on one subject, often religion, and other perception ceases. In trance coma and death trance pulsation, respiration and vitality appear to cease, all the nature being concentrated on interior thought or vision. It can be distinguished from death only by absence of decay and may last for weeks.
•Taken from the 1912 Standard Illustrated Book of Facts.
See also