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Marriage: In law, a civil contract establishing the status of a man and a woman united in lawful wedlock; the relation of husband and wife. In its ethical sense, it is, in all Christian countries, a mutual compact, based on regard and affection, to live together as husband and wife, until death. Its purpose is to perpetuate the family and the race, to preserve moral and social purity, and to properly rear the young. The marriageable age is especially regulated by statute in the various States; under the common law it is 14 years in the male, and 12 in the female.

Mixed Races: The subject of mixed races is intimately connected with the study of both ethnology and atavism. It involves a consideration of the phenomena attendant upon the sexual union of individuals belonging to different varieties of the human race. Two phases of mixing of races are particularly interesting to North Americans, the result of the mixing of white and negro blood, and the amalgamation of various white races, belonging to every strata of society, from the descendants of generations of oppressed peasants, to scions of high nobility in what has been termed the “American Melting Pot.” The mingling of European nations seems to produce a strong and thoughtful race, combining the finest elements of those who are, from the struggle to emigrate, the best physical specimens of their people, and now the United States is increasing the difficulty of admission, thus aiding the natural principle of selection. The result of amalgamation among more distant races, as exemplified in the population of Central and Southern America and the Eurasians of India, have not commended themselves to the American mind, and there is a strong opposition to the admission of Chinese and Japanese, the finest of non-Caucasian races.

Morgue: Originally a prison court for the identification of prisoners in France, then applied to a building on the Seine behind the cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, where the bodies of the drowned and other unknown dead are exposed for identification and police inspection. This practice is now usual in all large cities. The period of exposure is usually 72 hours, and the unidentified bodies are then buried by the city or given to anatomists. To avoid morbid curiosity, only adults with an interest in identification are admitted, and a careful record is preserved of physical appearance and peculiarities.

Moving Pictures: About 1903 the stock of films in existence had gradually become sufficiently numerous to enable the establishment of small theaters with frequent changes of views. They became very popular and by 1905 had driven the traveling exhibitors of moving pictures practically out of business. There are now upwards of 10,000 such theaters in the United States alone, and they are proportionately numerous all over the civilized world. Receipts of such theaters range from $200 to $5,000 weekly according to size and location. Over fifty reels (lengths of 1,000 feet) are now produced weekly so that one person could spend two or three hours daily and never see a repeated picture. The business of the ordinary theater has been seriously affected, and the lower class of melodramas has been entirely eliminated. Moving pictures are of course liable to great abuse, as vulgar and vicious films have sensational interest, but the manufacturers have voluntarily submitted their products to a respectable censorship, and they have become the best, cheapest and most instructive amusement. In its far-reaching effects, the invention of moving pictures is one of the greatest in the history of science.

Murder: The crime of killing a human being with malice aforethought; an idiot is irresponsible; an infant under fourteen goes to the reformatory. Killing in hot-blooded quarrel without premeditation is manslaughter, punishable with imprisonment, not death; and killing in self-defense, or when a house is broken into at night is justifiable. But if a man shoots at one and kills another, or kills, even in self-defense, when caught in burglary, it is murder. Intoxication is not an excuse, nor provocation, when it does not give absolute necessity of self-defense. Most American states punish murder by death, but a mawkishness of juries, and the technicalities of evidence and specialist arguments for insanity of criminals often defeat justice. European practice is stricter.

•Taken from the 1912 Standard Illustrated Book of Facts.

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(Image by Lenore Edman.)

Liberal: A political term meaning, where used, those who take advanced views, and welcome changes that promise betterment in public affairs, in contradistinction to the Conservative who usually favors letting well enough alone.

Lincoln, Abraham: The great president of the United States during the Civil War. He was the son of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, born in Hardin County, Kentucky, of English-Quaker stock, and passed his youth amid the then rough frontier environment of the middle west, where anti-slavery sentiment prevailed. His early education was self-acquired, mostly by voracious reading; and his first business training was secured while serving as a clerk in a general store, where, by fair dealing, he earned the nickname of “Honest Abe.” In 1846 he was elected to Congress and in 1860 was nominated for the Presidency. In 1861 Lincoln was elected after a spirited campaign. He came to office at a time when the country was torn with the anti-slavery agitation, when the Civil War, long impending, was breaking out, and throughout the four year struggle he stood, often alone, firmly contending for the abolition of slavery and the preservation of the Union, strong in the faith that ultimately the nation would emerge from the period of stress and strain, greater and more prosperous than ever. He brought the country successfully out if its travail, and by the weight of the burden, “Honest Abe,” became the “Man of Sorrows.” For the service to the nation he paid with his life; he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, while witnessing a play in the box at Ford’s Theatre, Washington D.C., on the night of April 14, 1865, one month after his second inauguration. In personal appearance, Lincoln was very tall with legs out of all proportion to his body. He stood 6 feet, 4 inches in height and weighed about 180 lbs. When he sat, he usually crossed his legs or rested them on the arm of his chair; standing, he stooped slightly, and had the general appearance of a consumptive. His facial expression stamped him a man of long cherished sorrow, yet his sense of humor was exceptionally keen and he possessed a never-failing fund of witty stories. As an orator he is conceded one of the greatest America ever produced.

Literature, American: It may be well to admit at the outset that America has never produced a world writer. The nearest approach to it, in poetry in Longfellow and, in prose, Emerson.

Lottery: A game of hazard in which prizes are drawn by lot. Lotteries are said to have been first employed by the Genoese government for the purpose of increasing its revenue. The first lottery in England seems to have been in the year of 1569 and the profits went to the repair of rivers and harbors. They were long tolerated both in England and the United States, though from 1830 onward until they were abolished there was an ever-growing sentiment against them. The most notorious ever was the Louisiana lottery at New Orleans. It went out of existence in 1890.

Love-apple: An old name for the tomato.

•Taken from the 1912 Standard Illustrated Book of Facts.

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Kidnapping: The stealing or abduction or carrying off forcibly of any human being whether man, or woman or child, but in common use the term applies to the stealing of a child, as abduction specifically refers to the carrying off of a maid. It was the practice formerly for gypsies and traveling mountebanks to steal young children and initiate them in their arts, and the tradition that they do so still persists.

Kissing Bug: An insect that stings people upon the lips causing swelling and great suffering. The kissing bugs are about an inch in length, dark brown, with wings of a light red color. They fly with great rapidity and are all seldom seen in places where there is a bright light. In stinging they give warning by making a sharp shrill sound. By dodging one may escape the bug.

Know Nothing: The colloquial name of the political party, the so called American Party, in the United States before the Civil War, organized for the purpose of withholding naturalization and the privilege of the franchise from foreigners. It lasted only a short time but was the cause of considerable disorder.

Knuckle-Duster: A formidable apparatus contrived for the purpose of protecting the knuckles and to add force to their use. It is frequently employed by garrotters and other lawless ruffians.

Kuatau: A Japanese method of restoring the apparently lifeless, by concussive or mechanical means. Kuatasu is homeopathic in principle–the concussion of one vital spot renders one unconscious, that of another spot quickly restores the sufferer. It is affected by a stimulation of the accelerator nerves that quickens the heart action and which is best attained by concussing over the region of the seventh cervical vertebra.

•Taken from the 1912 Standard Illustrated Book of Facts.

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