gether fails to accomplish. Besides this abatement of expense in maintaining prisoners, very few keepers will be required on the new system; and the females should be intrusted wholly to the custody of suitable individuals of their own sex, whose services can, of course, be secured for less compensation than those of men. Such of the prisoners as may be employed, will necessarily labor alone; and, the kinds of business in which they will be engaged not being as rough and exposing as those now adopted, the expenditure for clothing must be much diminished. On the score of cost, therefore,-if that indeed be an object in a work of this magnitude,-the solitary plan recommends itself to the regard of the public economist. But the problem of expense, in my opinion, can only be truly solved by showing the cheapest method of keeping prisoners to be, that which is most likely to reform them, to deter others, by the imposing character of the punishment, from preying upon the honest and unoffending members of society, af terwards involving heavy judicial costs to establish their guilt, and becoming, at last, a charge to the country as convicted felons " PÉRIER, Casimir. died at Paris, May 16, 1832. minating the life of the culprit in the midst of his wickedness, or making a mockery of justice by forming such into communities of hardened and corrupting transgressors, who enjoy each other's society, and contemn the very power which thus vainly seeks their restoration, and idly calculates to afford security to the state, from their outrages in future. In separate confinement, every prisoner is placed beyond the possibility of being made more corrupt by his imprisonment. In separate confinement, the prisoners will not know who are undergoing punishment at the same time with themselves, and thus will be afforded one of the greatest protections to such as may happily be enabled to form resolutions to behave well when they are discharged. In separate confinement, it is especially intended to furnish the criminal with every opportunity which Christian duty enjoins, for promoting his restoration to the path of virtue; because seclusion is believed to be an essential ingredient in moral treatment, and, with religious instruction and advice superadded, is calculated to achieve more than has ever yet been done for the miserable tenants of our penitentiaries. In separate confinement, a specific graduation of punishment can be obtained, as surely, and with as much facility, as by any other system. Some prisoners may laborsome may be kept without labor--some PHANSYGURS, or THUGS; a remarkable may have the privilege of books-others race of professional murderers in some may be deprived of it-some may expe- parts of Hindoostan. Having been comrience total seclusion--others may enjoy pelled, in a great measure, to abandon such intercourse as shall comport with their sanguinary trade in the original teran entire separation of prisoners. In ritories of the British government, they separate confinement, the same variety of have, of late years, pursued their operadiscipline, for offences committed after tions principally in the newly-acquired convicts are introduced into prison, which provinces of North-western and Central any other mode affords, can be obtained India, where, from the scantier popula(though irregularities must necessarily be tion, and comparatively backward state less frequent), by denying the refractory of the country, they run less hazard of individual the benefit of his yard, by tak- interruption. A thug is a Hindoo of a ing from him his books or labor, and low caste, or a Mussulman, who, at the lastly, in extreme cases, by diminishing conclusion of his agricultural labors, about his diet to the lowest rate. By the last the commencement of the hot season, in means, the most fierce, hardened and des- March and April, quits his village, and perate offender can be subdued. From goes forth to make goes forth to make a little money by separate confinement other advantages of strangling—an art in which he sometimes an economical nature will result: among becomes a great proficient, always, if these may be mentioned a great reduction dexterous, performing it with a pocketof the terms of imprisonment; for, instead handkerchief, in preference to a noose, to of from three to twenty years, and some- avoid suspicion. The hot season is times longer, as many months, excepting chosen for this excursion, because then for very atrocious crimes, will answer all people travel by night, and thus afford the ends of retributive justice, and peni- better opportunities for attack. When tential experience, which, on the actual the rainy season begins, in July or Auplan, the greatest detention in prison alto- gust, the thug returns, with his share of PETS. (See Funfkirchen.) the booty which the gang have accumulated, to his usual residence, and takes to ploughing the field, like a peaceable husbandman. In this alternation of agricultural and homicidal pursuits, the thug lives on, often undetected, till age obliges him to remain at home, and send out his son in his stead. "I am a thug of the royal records (meaning one of sufficient notoriety to have been recorded as such), and my forefathers before me, for seven generations, have followed this profession," was the boast of one of these wretches, who attach some pride to the number of generations through which they can trace the adherence of their family to this pursuit. In the wild and unsettled parts of the country, their associations assume a more distinct and separate character; and in such places the leaders are to be found, around whom, at the beginning of the season, the mere operative thugs assemble. The abodes of the latter, however, are often mingled with those of the inhabitants of the most civilized stations and villages, where their conduct is usually quiet and inoffensive. On assembling at the beginning of the season, the line of road which they are to pursue is settled, and then they separate into small parties, under all sorts of disguises, sometimes travelling as sepoys returning home on a furlough; sometimes appearing, one as a merchant and another as his attendant; sometimes personifying pilgrims. In these characters they insinuate themselves into acquaintance with travellers, and, if they find them to be rich, take an opportunity of despatching them, either by means of some stupefying drug, which they use in the tobacco of their hookahs, and the dagger, or else by throttling them with a pocket-handkerchief, when they have persuaded them to halt, at some convenient spot, under pretence of being fatigued, or wishing to take rest. The bodies of the victims are then buried, or thrown into a well or neighboring cavern. In this manner, a single In this manner, a single gang, consisting of twenty-five thugs, has been proved, on trial, to have, in an excursion of six weeks, despatched thirty victims. PHIGALIAN MARBLES; a series of sculptures, in alto relievo, in the British museum, so called because they were discovered in the year 1812, near Paulizza, supposed to be the ancient town of Phigalia, in Arcadia. They are from the temple of Apollo Epicurius; and the subjects represented are the battle of the Centaurs and the Lapithæ, and the contest between the Greeks and Amazons. There is great ability displayed in the execution of these marbles, although some heaviness and disproportion are observable in the figures. The conception of the whole, and the composition of the various groups, are, however, remarkably fine, and compensate, in a great measure, for the defects above mentioned. The circumstance. which renders these marbles particularly interesting is the knowledge of the time at which they were executed; for Pausanias (Arcad., c. 14) says that the temple of Apollo Epicurius was built by Ictinus, the architect who superintended the construction of the Parthenon at Athens; and, though the Phigalian marbles want the purity of design and execution which distinguish the Athenian works, the high qualities they do possess give them an elevated place among the remains of ancient art. PHRYGIAN CAP. (See Mitre.) PTISAN. (See Tisan.) Acid.) PYTHON. This enormous genus of serpents, which is very often confounded with the boas of the new continent, is found only in some of the hot regions of the eastern continent. The pythons have the ventral plates narrow, like the boas, but differ from the latter in having double plates under the tail. Their head has plates on the end of the muzzle; and there are fossets to their lips. Some species of this genus approach, and even equal, the boas in size; and the ancients appear to have had some acquaintance with several of them. Aristotle speaks of African serpents as long as vessels, by which a galley with three oars might be overturned. Pliny talks of Indian serpents capable of swallowing deer. Ælian mentions dragons of eighty to one hundred cubits in length; and, finally, Suetonius mentions that there was exhibited at Rome, under Augustus Cæsar, a serpent of fifty cubits in length. With its enormous length twisted round a tree, the python awaits in ambuscade the arrival of its fated victim, which it immediately envelopes in its tortuous folds, and strangles in its murderous embrace. It then breaks its bones by squeezing it, extends it on the earth, covers it with a mucous saliva, and begins to swallow it head first. In this sort of deglutition, the two jaws of the serpent dilate excessively, so that it seems to swallow a body larger than itself. In the mean time, digestion begins to take place in the oesophagus. The serpent then becomes lethargic, and is very easily killed, as he neither offers resistance nor attempts to fly. Among the species of this genus, the one most worthy of remark is the ular sawa (P. imethystinus, Daud.), Java snake (col. Javanicus of Shaw). This serpent, which is as large as any boa, reaching to more than thirty feet in length, inhabits the island of Java. The meaning of its Japanese name is serpent of the rice-fields, because it lives in them habitually. Its bite is not venomous. It usually lives on rats and birds, but sometimes devours arger animals, which it finds in the mountains. Of the P. bora, Russel was the first who gave us any account. It is a native of Bengal, and not venomous, notwithstanding the assertion of the natives, who affirm that persons bitten by it have a cutaneous eruption over the entire body in the course of ten or twelve days. Acid.) SACHTLEEVEN. (See Zaftleeven.) SAINT CLAIR, STRAIT OF. (See Detroit River.) SAINT LUCIA BARK. (See Caribbee Bark.) SAINT UBES. (See Setuval.) SARDONIC LAUGH; a convulsive affection of the muscles of the face and lips on both sides, which involuntarily forces the muscles of those parts into a species of grinning distortion, and forms a species of malignant sneer. It sometimes arises from eating hemlock, or other poisons, or succeeds to an apoplectic stroke. SATI. (See Suttee.) SAWS. [The following article is from the treatise on manufactures in metal in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia.] The saw is, undoubtedly, next to the axe, the instrument most effectual in the hands of man when the trees of the forest are to be appropriated to his convenience. The earliest and most obvious method of preparing timber for use would be to split the trunks with wedges, and afterwards to smooth and fashion the planks by means of the hatchet. This wasteful and slovenly process had allowedly one recommendation of no small importance in ages when the strength and management of timber were less perfectly understood than they are at present. In riving, the separation of the boards or spars necessarily followed the direction of the grain; and hence the strength of the material was secured at its maximum ratio, the disruption of fibre being much less easily effected in split than in sawn timber. It is equally certain that wood cut in this primitive manner must often be crooked and irregular. This, however, in many respects, may be no disadvantage, but, for some purposes, a desideratum, as in ship-building; besides, the straightening of it would not always be impracticable. It is to the invention of the saw, however, that we owe the ease, economy and regularity, with which the largest trees are separated into useful portions by modern industry. That the saws of the Grecian carpenters were pretty similar in form to those at present in use, is satisfactorily inferred from a painting found at Herculaneum, in which two genii are represented at the end of a bench, consisting of a long table, each end of which rests upon two four-footed stools. The instrument in this representation resembles our frame saw it consists of a square frame, having in the middle a blade or web, the teeth of which stand perpendicular to the plane of the frame. The arms, too, in which the blade is fastened, have the same form as that which is at present given to them. The piece of wood which is to be sawn extends beyond the end of the bench; and one of the workmen appears standing and the other sitting on the ground. This is probably the most ancient authentic voucher extant, for the early existence of an instrument resembling our common saw. Montfaucon has given figures of two ancient saws, though too imperfectly delineated to allow their peculiar formation to be distinguished. Palladius describes saws fastened to a handle; and Cicero, in his oration for Cluentius, incidentally mentions one with which an ingenious thief sawed out the bottom of a chest. Since the fourth century, if not earlier, the working of large saws, with a reciprocating motion, by means of water power, has been more or less common in various parts of Europe, especially in Germany, Norway, and, at a later period, in England. A succinct account of these early saw-mills will not be out of place here. According to Beckmann, there were saw-mills at Augsburg as early as 1322. When settlers were first sent out to the island of Madeira, which was discovered in 1420, not only were the various kinds of European fruits carried thither, but saw-mills were erected for the purpose of cutting into deals the many species of excellent timber with which the island abounded, and which were afterwards transported to Portugal. About the year 1427, the city of Breslau had a saw-mill which produced the year y rent of three merks; and, in 1490, the magistrates of Erfurt purchased a forest, in which they caused a saw-mill to be erected; and they rented another mill in the neighborhood besides. In Norway, which is covered with forests, the first saw-mill was erected about the year 1530. This mode of manufacturing timber was called the "new art;" and, because the exportation of deals was by means thereof much increased, this circumstance gave occasion to the deal tithe imposed by Christian III, in the year 1545. In 1555, the bishop of Ely, ambassador from Mary, queen of England, to the court of Rome, having seen a saw-mill in the neighborhood of Lyons, the writer of his travels thought it worthy of a particular description, from which it appears that the motion of the blade was perpendicular; for, says the account, the wheel "being turned with the force of the water, hoist ed up and down the saw." Peter the Great introduced the saw into Russia. For this purpose policy was necessary. The czar, during his residence in England, and while employed as a carpenter in one of the dock-yards, had, in all probability, both seen the advantages of the saw, and used it with his own hands. On his return to St. Petersburg, the capital of his dominions, among other things that attracted his attention as requiring reform, was the practice of riving timber. Peter saw the necessity of introducing a more rational mode. Instead, however, of interdicting the old method, he imposed a duty upon all the split timber that was floated down the Neva, while sawn deals were exempted from the impost. By this course, the rude practice of riving was soon superseded by the more effective operation of the saw wrought by machinery. In the sixteenth century, mills became general, in which, by working several saws parallel to each other, a plank was at once cut into several deals. The Dutch have claimed the invention of this improvement; and a great number of saw-mills of this kind might formerly be seen at Saardam, in Holland. The first mill, however, of this description, is believed to have been erected in Sweden, in the year 1653; and one of the wonders of that kingdom was a mill having the water-wheel twelve feet broad, and giving motion to seventy-two saws. The common hand-saw, similar to that so universally in use among carpenters, has, no doubt, been known from a remote antiquity; in all probability, indeed, it presents the earliest form of the instrument. In that curious specimen of typography, the Nuremberg Chronicle, which made its appearance soon after the invention of printing, there occurs, amidst hundreds of other wood cuts, a rude picture of the building of the ark, in which two or three saws are introduced, differing but little from those at present in use with our joiners. The axes, on the other hand, delineated in the print, differ materially from those with which every one must be more or less acquainted. That the artist might intend them for antediluvian axes may well enough be imagined by the reader, when told that, in a preceding picture of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise, the gates of the garden of Eden are furnished with immense scroll hinges, like those sometimes seen on old church doors. Saws are manufactured either of iron, which is hammer-hardened, or planished on an anvil, to give the requisite degree of stiffness and elasticity; or they are made of shear steel; or, lastly, of cast steel. The last named, of course, are the best, the most expensive, as well as the most durable, articles-the only instruments, indeed, in which all the desirable qualities of a good tool of this kind are found to be combined. SAY, Jean Baptiste, professor of political economy in the university of Paris, died in November, 1832. SCARLET SNAKE. (See Serpent.) SCHINDERHANNES. (See Buckler, John.) SCHUYLER, Peter, mayor of the city of Albany, was much distinguished for his patriotism, and for his influence over the Indians. In 1691, with a party of 300 Mohawks and about the same number of English, he made a bold attack upon the French settlements at the north end of lake Champlain, and slew three hundred of the enemy. Such was his authority with the Five Nations, that whatever he recommended had the force of law In 1710, he went to England at his own expense, taking with him five Indian chiefs, for the purpose of exciting the government to vigorous measures against the French in Canada. The chief command in New York devolved upon him as the eldest member of the council, in 1719; but in the following year governor Burnet arrived. He often warned the New England colonies of expeditions meditated against them by the French and Indians. SCIATICA. (See Rheumatism.) SCOLPING, OF SCULPING. (See Lasher.) SCOTT, Sir Walter, died at Abbotsford, Sept. 21, 1832, and was interred in Dryburgh abbey. SCOURGING. (See Flagellation.) SCREVEN, James, a brigadier-general in Georgia during the revolutionary war, commanded the militia when that state was invaded from East Florida, in November, 1778. While a party of the enemy was marching from Sunbury towards Savannah, he had repeated skirmishes with them at the head of a hundred militia. In an engagement at Midway, the place of his residence, he was wounded by a musket ball, and fell from his horse. Several of the British immediately came up, and discharged their pieces at him. He died, soon afterwards, of his wounds. Few officers were more zealous in the service of their country, and few men were more esteemed and beloved for their virtues in private life. SEA EGGS. (See Echinus:) SEMSEM. (See Sesamum Orientale.) SERJEANTS AT LAW. (See Barristers, and Inns of Court.) SESAC. (See Shishac.) SETINES; the modern name of Athens. (See Athens.) SEWALL, Stephen, first Hancock professor of Hebrew in Harvard college, was born at York, Maine, in April, 1734, and graduated at the institution just named, in 1761. In 1762, he was appointed Hebrew instructer in the college, and June 17, 1765, Hebrew professor. He continued in the office for more than twenty years. He died in July, 1804. He published a Hebrew Grammar (8vo., 1763); the Scripture Account of the Schechinah (1794); the Scripture History, relating to the Overthrow of Sodom and Go morrha, and to the Origin of the Salt Sea, or Lake of Sodom (1796); translation of the first book of Young's Night Thoughts into Latin; Carmina Sacra, quæ Latine Græceque condidit America (1789). He also wrote a Chaldee and English Dictionary, which is in manuscript in the library of Harvard college. SEYBERT, doctor Adam, was born in Philadelphia, in May, 1773, and received his academical and medical education in the university of Pennsylvania. In 1793, he went to Europe, and pursued his professional studies in Paris, London, Edinburgh and Göttingen. He became an intimate friend of professor Blumenbach The sciences of chemistry and mineralo |