Book XIV. Miscellaneous Societies

676. ABC Friends, The.—A society whose avowed scope was the education of children, its real object the liberty of man. They called themselves members of the ABC, letters which in French are pronounced abaissd; but the abased that were to be raised were the people. The members were few, but select. They had two lodges in Paris during the Restoration. Victor Hugo has introduced the society in Les Hisdrables, part iii. book iv.

677. Abelites.—A Christian sect, existing in the neighbourhood of Hippo, in North Africa, in the fourth century. The members married, but abstained from conjugal intercourse, because, as they maintained, Abel had lived thus, since no children of his are mentioned. To maintain the sect, they adopted children, male and female.

A sect having the same name existed in the middle of the last century, who professed to imitate Abel in all his virtues. They had secret signs, symbols, passwords, and rites of initiation. Their principal meetings were held at Greifswald, near Stralsund, at which they amused themselves with moral and literary debating.

678. Academy of the Ancients.—It was founded at Warsaw by Colonel Toux de Salverte, in imitation of a similar society, and with the same name, founded in Rome towards the beginning of the sixteenth century. The object of its secret meetings was the cultivation of the occult sciences.

679. Almusseri.—This is an association similar to that of "Belly Paaro," found among the negroes of Senegambia and other parts of the African continent. The rites of initiation bear some resemblance to the Orphic and Cabiric rituals. In the heart of an extensive forest there rises a temple, access to which is forbidden to the profane. The receptions take place once a year. The candidate feigns to die. At the appointed hour the initiated surround the aspirant and chant funereal songs; whereupon he is carried to the temple, placed on a moderately hot plate of copper, and anointed with the oil of the palm a tree which the Egyptians dedicated to the sun, as they ascribed to it three hundred and sixty-five properties. In this position he remains forty days this number, too, constantly recurs in antiquity his relations visiting him to renew the anointing, after which period he is greeted with joyful songs and conducted home. He is supposed to have received a new soul, and enjoys great consideration and authority among his tribe.

680. Anonymous Society.—This society, which existed for some time in Germany, with a grand master resident in Spain, occupied itself with alchymy.

681. Anti-Masonic Party.—In 1826 a journalist, William Morgan, who had been admitted to the highest masonic degrees, published at New York a book revealing all their secrets. The Freemasons carried him off in a boat, and he was never afterwards seen again. His friends accused the Masons of having assassinated him. The latter asserted that he had drowned himself in Lake Ontario, and produced a corpse, which, however, was proved to be that of one Monroe. Judiciary inquiries led to no result. Most of the officers, it is said, were themselves Masons. The indignation caused by the crime and its non-punishment led to the formation, in the State of New York, of an Anti-Masonic party, whose object was to exclude from the public service all members of the masonic fraternity. But the society soon degenerated into an electioneering engine. About fifty years after the occurrence, Thurlow Weed published, from personal knowledge, precise information as to Morgan's assassination by the Freemasons. His grave was discovered in 1881 at Pembroke, in the county of Batavia, State of New York, and in the grave also was found a paper, bearing on it the name of a Freemason called John Brown, whom, at the time, public rumour made one of the assassins of Morgan. To this latter a statue was erected at Batavia in 1882. Certain American travellers, indeed, asserted having, years after, met Morgan at Smyrna, where he taught English; but their assertions were supported by no proofs.

682. Anti-Masons.—This was a society founded in Ireland, in County Down, in 181 1, and composed of Roman Catholics, whose object was the expulsion of all Freemasons, of whatever creed they might be.

683. Apocalypse, Knights of the.—This secret society was formed in Italy in 1693, to defend the Church against the expected Antichrist. Augustine Gabrino, the son of a merchant of Brescia, was its founder. On Palm-Sunday, when the choir in St. Peter's was intoning the words, Quis est iste Rex Gloricc f Gabrino, carrying a sword in his hand, rushed among the choristers, exclaiming, Ego sum Rex Gloria. He did the same in the church of San Salvatore, whereupon he was shut up in a madhouse. The society, however, continued to flourish until a wood-carver, who had been initiated, denounced it to the Inquisition, which imprisoned the knights. Most of them, though only traders and operatives, always carried a sword, even when at work, and wore on the breast a star with seven rays and an appendage, symbolising the sword seen by St. John in the Apocalypse. The society was accused of having political aims. It is a fact that the founder called himself Monarch of the Holy Trinity, which is not extraordinary in a madman, and wanted to introduce polygamy, for which he ought to be a favourite with the Mormons.

684. Areoiti.—This is a society of Tahitian origin, and has members throughout that archipelago. They have their own genealogy, hierarchy, and traditions. They call themselves the descendants of the god Oro-Tetifa, and are divided into seven (some say into twelve) degrees, distinguished by the modes of tattooing allowed to them. The society forms an institution similar to that of the Egyptian priests; but laymen also may be admitted. The chiefs at once attain to the highest degrees, but the common people must obtain their initiation through many trials. Members enjoy great consideration and many privileges. They are considered as the depositaries of knowledge, and as mediators between God and man, and are feared as the ministers of the taboo, a kind of excommunication they can pronounce, like the ancient hierophaiits of Greece or the court of Rome. Though the ceremonies are disgusting and immoral, there is a foundation of noble ideas concealed under them; so that we may assume the present rites to be corruptions of a formerly purer ceremonial. The meaning that underlies the dogmas of the initiation is the generative power of nature. The legend of the solar god also here plays an important part, and regulates the festivals; and a funereal ceremony, reminding us of that of the mysteries of antiquity, is performed at the winter solstice. Throughout Polynesia, moreover, there exists a belief in a supreme deity, Taaroa, Tongola, or Tangaroa, of whom a cosmogonic hymn, known to the initiated, says: "He was; he was called Taaroa; he called, but no one answered; he, the only ens, transformed himself into the universe; he is the light, the germ, the foundation; he, the incorruptible; he is great, who created the universe, the great universe."

685. Avengers, or Vendicatori.—A secret society formed about 11 86 in Sicily, to avenge public wrongs, on the principles of the Vehm and Beati Paoli. At length Adiorolphus of Ponte Corvo, grand master of the sect, was hanged by order of King William II. the Norman, and many of the sectaries were branded with a hot iron.

686. Belly Paaro.—Among the negroes of Guinea there are mysteries called "Belly Paaro," which are celebrated several times in the course of a century. The aspirant, having laid aside all clothing, and every precious metal, is led into a large wood, where the old men that preside at the initiation give him a new name, whilst he recites verses in honour of the god Belly, joins in lively dances, and receives much theological and mystical instruction. The neophyte passes five years in absolute isolation, and woe to any woman that dares to approach the sacred wood!After this novitiate the aspirant has a cabin assigned to him, and is initiated into the most secret doctrines of the sect. Issuing thence, he dresses differently from the others, his body being adorned with feathers, and his neck showing the scars of the initiatory incisions.

687. Califomian Society.—Several Northern Californian tribes have secret societies, which meet in a lodge set apart, or in a sweat-house, and engage in mummeries of various kinds, all to frighten their women. The men pretend to converse with the devil, and make their meeting-place shake and ring again with yells and whoops. In some instances one of their number, disguised as the master-fiend himself, issues from the lodge, and rushes like a madman through the village, doing his best to frighten contumacious women and children out of their senses. This has been the custom from time immemorial, and the women are still gulled by it.

688. Cambridge Secret Society.—In 1886 a number of young men formed the "Companions of St. John" secret society, under the leadership of the Rev. Ernest John HerizSmith, M.A., Fellow of Pembroke College. In 1896 it was supposed to number upwards of one thousand members. The primary and avowed object was to inculcate High Church principles and confession; its real object to be a member of a secret society. They took an oath; the candidate had his hands tied, knelt at a table, had his eyes bandaged, and took a vow to obey the head of the society in all things, and never to mention anything relating to the society except to a member. If he disobeyed he was sent to his room, and tied to a table leg. They wore for some time a badge with the letters L and D (Love and Duty); afterwards they wore it concealed under their clothes, whence the members were named "Belly-banders." Whether this society still exists, or whether ridicule has killed it, we cannot say.

689. Charlottenburg, Order of.—This was one of the numerous branches grafted on the trunk of the Union of Virtue.

690. Church Masons.—This is a masonic rite, founded in this country during this century, with the scarcely credible object of re-establishing the ancient masonic trade-unions.

691. Cougourde, The.—An association of Liberals at the time of the restoration of the Bourbons in France. It arose at Aix, in Provence, and thence spread to various parts of France. Its existence was ephemeral. Cougourde is French for the calabash gourd.

692. Druids, Modern.—This society, the members of which pretend to be the successors of the ancient Druids, was founded in London in 1781. They adopted masonic rites, and spread to America and Australia. Their lodges are called groves; in the United States they have thirteen grand groves, and ninety-two groves, twenty-four of which are English, and the remainder German. The number of degrees are three, but there are also grand arch chapters. The transactions of the German groves are printed, but those of the English kept strictly secret. In 1872 the Order was introduced from America into Germany. The Order is simply a benefit society.

693. Duk-Duk.—A secret association on the islands of New Pomerania, originally New Britain, whose hideously masked or chalk-painted members execute justice, and collect fines. In carrying out punishment they are allowed to set houses on fire or kill people. They recognise one another by secret signs, and at their festivals the presence of an uninitiated person entails his death. Similar societies exist in Western Africa (see 723).

694. Egbo Society.—An association said to exist among some of the tribes inhabiting the regions of the Congo. Egbo, or Ekpe", is supposed to be a mysterious person, who lives in the jungle, from which he has to be brought, and whither he must be taken back by the initiates alone after any great state ceremonial. Egbo is the evil genius, or Satan. His worship is termed Obeeyahism, the worship of Obi, or the Devil. Ob, or Obi, is the old Egyptian name for the spirit of evil, and devil-worship is practised by many barbarous tribes, as, for instance, by the Coroados and the Tupayas, in the impenetrable forests between the rivers Prado and Doce in Brazil, the Abipones of Paraguay, the Bachapins, a Caffre tribe, the negroes on the Gold Coast, and firmly believed in by the negroes of the West Indies, they being descended from the slaves formerly imported from Africa.

In the ju-ju houses of the Egbo society are wooden statues, to which great veneration is paid, since by their means the society practise divination. Certain festivals are held during the year, when the members wear black wooden masks with horns, which it is death for any woman to see. There are three degrees in the Egbo society; the highest is said to confer such influence that from ^1000 to ,1500 are paid for attaining it.

695. Fraticelli.—A sect who were said to have practised the custom of self-restraint under the most trying circumstances of disciplinary carnal temptation. They were found chiefly in Lombardy; and Pope Clement V. preached a crusade against them, and had them extirpated by fire and sword, hunger and cold. But they were guilty of a much higher crime than the one for which they were ostensibly persecuted; they had denounced the tyranny of the popes, and the abuses of priestly power and wealth, which of course deserved nothing less than extermination by fire and sword!

696. Goats, The.—About the year 1770 the territory of Limburg was the theatre of strange proceedings. Churches were sacked, castles burnt down, and robberies were committed everywhere. The country people were trying to shake off the yoke feudalism had imposed on them. During the night, and in the solitude of the landes, the most daring assembled and marched forth to perpetrate these devastations. Then terror spread everywhere, and the cry was heard, "The Goats are coming!" They were thus called, because they wore masks in imitation of goats' faces over their own. On such nights the slave became the master, and abandoned himself with fierce delight to avenging the wrongs he had suffered during the day. In the morning all disappeared, returning to their daily labour, whilst the castles and mansions set on fire in the night were sending their lurid flames up to the sky. The greater the number of malcontents, the greater the number of Goats, who at last became so numerous that they would undertake simultaneous expeditions in different directions in one night. They were said to be in league with the devil, who, in the form of a goat, was believed to transport them from one place to another. The initiation into this sect was performed in the following manner: In a small chapel situate in a dense wood, a lamp was lighted during a dark and stormy night. The candidate was introduced into the chapel by two godfathers, and had to run round the interior of the building three times on all-fours. After having plentifully drunk of a strong fermented liquor, he was put astride on a wooden goat hung on pivots. The goat was then swung round, faster and faster, so that the man, by the strong drink and the motion, soon became giddy, and sometimes almost raving mad; when at last he was taken down, he was easily induced to believe that he had been riding through space on the devil's crupper. From that moment he was sold, body and soul, to the society of Goats, which, for nearly twenty years, filled Limburg with terror. In vain the authorities arrested a number of suspected persons; in vain, in all the communes, in all the villages, gibbet and cord were in constant request. From 1772 to 1774 alone the tribunal of Foquemont had condemned four hundred Goats to be hanged or quartered. The society was not exterminated till about the year 1780.

697. Grand Army of the Republic.—A secret society founded after the Civil War in the Northern States of America, to afford assistance to indigent veterans and their families. The Order is a purely military one; its chief is called the Commandant-General, the central authority the National Camp, and subordinate sections are styled Posts. In 1887 the society counted 370,000 members.

698. Green Island.—A society formed at Vienna in 1855. The language used at their meetings was a parody on the knightly style as it was supposed to have been; its object was merely amusement. The society reckoned many literary men of note among its members. Whence it took its name is not clear, but it appears to have been a revival of the Order of Knights founded in 1771. See infra, under "Knights, Order of."

699. Harnyari.—A secret society, dating from 1848, among Germans in North America. They pretended to be descended from an ancient German order of knighthood, and possess about two hundred lodges, with 16,000 members. The diffusion of the German language is one of their chief objects. But why surround themselves with the mist of secrecy but from a childish love for mysterymongering?

700. Hemp-smokers, African.—At Kashia-Calemba, the capital of the natives of Bashilange-Baluba, in Africa (lat. 3 6', long. 21 24'), a sacred fire is always kept up in the central square by old people, appointed for the purpose, who also have to cultivate and prepare for smoking the chiamba (Cannabis indica); it is known in Zanzibar as Changi or Chang. It is smoked privately, and also ceremonially as a token of friendship, and is also administered to accused persons as a species of ordeal. As the symbol of friendship, it is considered as a religious rite, known as "Lubuku," practised by an organisation, of which the king is $$ex officio## the head; a social organisation only indirectly of political importance. Its rules, signs, and working are secret; its aims and objects unknown to outsiders; its initiatory rites have never been witnessed by an uninitiated person, much less by any European. Certain external evidences of its inward nature are however sufficiently obvious to all who care to investigate the subject. Chiamba-smoking has a most disastrous effect on both the health and wealth of its devotees.

A dark inference of its true nature may be drawn from the lax, and indeed promiscuous, intercourse between the sexes. Another indication of its licentiousness is afforded by the customs observed at the marriages of its male members, and repeated for three successive nights, in which all decency is outraged in the most revolting and most public way imaginable. The initiatory rites are performed generally by the king, or by Meta Sankolla, the present king's sister, on an islet in the Lulua, an affluent of the Sankoro River, a short distance above Luluaburg, a European station on the top of a hill 400 feet above the river. The public smoking is begun by the chief or senior man present placing the prepared weed in the "Kinsu dhiamba," or pipe, and after smoking a little himself, passing it on to the man next to him. The pipe consists of a small clay bowl, inserted in the larger end of a hollow gourd, the smaller end of which has a large aperture, against which the smoker places his mouth and inhales the smoke in great gulps, till his brain is affected, and he becomes for a time a raving madman.

701. Heroine of Jericho.—This degree is conferred, in America, exclusively on Royal Arch Masons, their wives and widows. Its ritual is founded on the story of Rahab, in the second chapter of the Book of Joshua. The first sign is in imitation of the scarlet line which Rahab let down from the window to assist the spies to make their escape. It is made by holding a handkerchief between the lips and allowing it to hang down. The grand hailing sign of distress is given by raising the right hand and arm, holding the handkerchief between the thumb and forefinger, so that it falls perpendicularly. The word is given by the male heroine (not the candidate's husband) placing his hand on her shoulder and saying, "My Life," to which the candidate replies, "For yours." The male then says, "If ye utter not," to which the candidate answers, "This our business." The word Rahab is then whispered in the lady's ear. The latter swears never to reveal this grand secret. She is told that llahab was the founder of the Order, but it was most probably invented by those who were concerned in the murder of William Morgan (681), who, by swearing their female relatives to conceal whatever criminal act perpetrated by Masons might come to their knowledge, hoped to protect themselves.

702. Human Leopards.—A black secret society in the country near Sierra Leone, who indulge in cannibalism, buying young boys, feeding them up, and then killing, baking, and eating them. They also attack travellers, and, if possible, kill them for the same purpose. Three members of the society were hanged in the Imperi country, a British colony, on the 5th August 1895, for this crime. Dressed in leopard skins, they used to secrete themselves in the bush near a village and kill a passer-by, to be eaten at a cannibal feast. One of those three men had been a Sunday-school teacher at Sierra Leone. His conversion to Christianity had evidently not been very profound. Cannibalism is as prevalent on the east coast of Africa as on the west, but in the former, where the natives eat father and mother and any other relations as soon as they grow old, it has a sort of sacramental meaning, the fundamental idea being that the eater imbibes the properties of the person eaten. At the meeting of the British Association in September 1896, Mr. Scott Elliott read a paper on the Human Leopards.

703. Hunters, The.—In 1837, after the first Canadian insurrection, a society under the above title was formed, whose object was to bring about a second insurrection. The United States supported them. MacLeod, one of the insurgents of Upper Canada, came to St. Albans, the centre of the society's operations, and was initiated into all the degrees, which he afterwards promulgated through Upper Canada. There were four degrees the Hunter, the Racket, the Beaver, and the Eagle. This last was the title of the chief, corresponding with our rank of colonel; the Beaver was a captain, commanding six Rackets, every Racket consisting of nine men; the company of the Beaver consisted of seventy affiliates or Hunters. Every aspirant had to be introduced by three Hunters to a Beaver, and his admission was preceded by fear-inspiring trials and terrible oaths. Though the society lasted two years only, it distinguished itself by brave actions in the field; many of its members died on the scaffold.

704. Hustanawer.—The natives of Virginia gave this name to the initiation they conferred on their own priests, and to the novitiate those not belonging to the priesthood had to pass through. The candidate's body was anointed with fat, and he was led before the assembly of priests, who held in their hands green twigs. Sacred dances and funereal shouts alternated. Five youths led the aspirant through a double file of men armed with canes to the foot of a certain tree, covering his person with their bodies, and receiving in his stead the blows aimed at him. In the meantime the mother prepared a funeral pyre for the simulated sacrifice, and wept her son as dead. Then the tree was cut down, and its boughs lopped off and formed into a crown for the brows of the candidate, who during a protracted retirement, and by means of a powerful narcotic called visocean, was thrown into a state of somnambulism. Thence he issued among his tribe again and was looked upon as a new man, possessing higher powers and higher knowledge than the non-initiated.

705. Indian (North American) Societies.—Nearly all the Indian tribes who once roamed over the vast plains of North America had their secret societies and sacred mysteries, but as the different tribes borrowed from one another religious ceremonies and symbols, there was great similarity between them all, though here and there characteristic signs or tokens distinguished the separate tribes. Dancing with all of them was a form of worship from the aborigines of Hispaniola to those of Alaska, as, in fact, it was with all savage nations, whether African, American, or Polynesian. The Red Indian tribes all had their medicine-huts and men, their kivas, council-rooms, or whatever name they gave to what were really their religious houses. Most tribes kept up a sacred fire, which was extinguished once a year, and then relighted. The sacred dogmas and rites of the Indians of the Gulf States bore so close a resemblance to those of the ancient Jews, that it was long seriously contended by ethnologists and historians that they were the Lost Tribes!

The Cherokees, Delawares, and Chippewas kept records on sticks, six inches in length, and tied up in bundles, which were covered with devices and symbols, which were called Kepnewin when in common use, and Keknowin when connected with the mysteries of worship. The most remarkable record was that contained in the Walum-Olum, or red score; it contains the creation myth and the story of the migrations of the tribes, represented in pictorial language. Such pictographs are owned by every tribe. The Ojibwas have produced some very elaborate ones, showing the inside of the medicine-lodge filled with the presence of the Great Spirit, a candidate for admission standing therein, crowned with feathers, and holding in his hand an otter-skin pouch; the tree with the root that supplies the medicine; the goods offered as a fee for admission; an Indian walking in the sky, a drum, raven, crow, and so on.

The Iroquois mysteries were elaborate, but are not well known; but it appears they were instituted to console Manabozko for the disappearance of Chibiabos, who afterwards was made ruler of the dead the parallel in this case to Persephone is as curious as is the similarity of the instrument used in the Kurnai initiation to the Greek poyti/So? (72). The Iroquois were originally made up of five different tribes, which afterwards were increased to seven, and their national organisation was based, not on affinity, but on an artificial and arbitrary brotherhood, having signs and countersigns resembling those of modern secret societies. The secret associations of the Dakotas were more numerous and more marked than those of the Iroquois, but some of them were mere social societies, while others were simply religious. Miss Alice Fletcher, who has lived among them, and the Rev. J. 0. Dorsey, testify to the number of societies among them, but to their secrets they were not admitted. Mr. Frank Gushing was, in 1883, initiated into the secret societies of the Zunis; Dr. Washington Matthews has given us descriptions of the sacred ceremonies of the Navajos, and Captain R. G. Bourke of the snake-dance of the Moquis. Dr. Franz Boos has described the customs of the Alaskans, and shown that there are many societies among them, some of which require that a person should be born into them to be a member. In 1890 the Sioux ghost-dance attracted much attention. But what of all these Indian mysteries which in recent years have been endowed with a factitious interest and importance? They may have a special attraction for the comparative ethnologist; to the general reader they merely convey the conviction that from China to Peru, and from the Arctic to the Antarctic Pole, man is everywhere ruled by the same instincts, fears, and aspirations, which reveal themselves in the same customs, beliefs, and religious rites.

706. Invisibles, The.—We know not how much or how little of truth there is in the accounts, very meagre indeed, of this society, supposed to have existed in Italy in the last century, and to have advocated, in nocturnal assemblies, atheism and suicide.

707. Jehu, Society of.—This society was formed in France during the Revolution, to avenge its excesses by still greater violence. It was first established at Lyons. It took its name from that king who was consecrated by Elisha to punish the sins of the house of Ahab, and to slay all the priests of Baal; that is to say, the relations, friends, and agents of the Terrorists. Ignorant people called them the Society of Jesus, though this name scarcely suited them, since they spread terror and bloodshed throughout France. The society disappeared under the Consulate and the Empire, but reappeared in 1814-15 under the new name of "Knights of Maria Theresa," or "of the Sun," and by them Bordeaux was betrayed into the hands of the English, and the assassins of the Mayor of Toulouse at Bordeaux, of General Ramel at Toulouse, and of Marshal Brune at Avignon, were members of this society.

708. Karpokratians.—A religious society founded by Karpokrates, who lived in the time of the Emperor Adrian at Alexandria. He taught that the soul must rise above the superstition of popular creeds and the laws of society, by which inferior spirits enchain man, and by contemplation unite with the Monas or highest deity. To his son Epiphanes a temple was erected after his death on the island of Cephalonia. The sect, in spite of its moral worthlessness, continued to exist to the sixth century; the members recognised each other by gently tickling the palm of the hand they shook with the points of their fingers.

709. Klobbergoll.—Associations on the Micronesian Islands, living together in houses apart, and bound to accompany their chiefs on their war expeditions, and perform certain services for them. There are on these islands also female clubs, the members of which attend at festivities given to foreign guests, and render them various services.

710. Knights, the Order of.—A satirical order to ridicule mediaeval knighthood, founded curiously enough by Frederick von Gone 1 , a Knight of the Strict Observance, who himself believed in the descent of the Freemasons from the Knights Templars. It was instituted at Wetzlar in 1771. The members assumed knightly names; thus Gothe, who belonged to it, was Gotz von Berlichingen. They held the "Four Children of Haimon" to be symbolical, and Gothe wrote a commentary thereon. The Order was divided into four degrees in sarcastic derision of the higher degrees of spurious masonry, called, (i) Transition, (2) Transition's Transition, (3) Transition's Transition to Transition, (4) Transition's Transition to Transition of Transition. The initiated only could fathom the deep meaning of these designations!

711. Know-Nothings.—This was an anti-foreign and nopopery party, formed in 1852 in the United States of America, and acting chiefly through secret societies, in order to decide the Presidential election. In 1856 it had almost become extinct, but came to life again in 1888, having reestablished secret lodges throughout the country, but being especially strong in New York and California. It then held large meetings for the purpose of renominating for the presidential post Major Hewitt, who maintained that all immigrants ought to live in the States twenty-one years before they could vote. They were, however, defeated, General Harrison being elected.

712. Ku-Klux-Klan.—A secret organisation under this name spread with amazing rapidity over the Southern States of the American Union soon after the close of the war. The white people of the South were alarmed, not so much by the threatened confiscation of their property by the Federal Government, as by the nearer and more present dangers to life and property, virtue and honour, arising from the social anarchy around them. The negroes, after the Confederate surrender, were disorderly. Many of them would not settle down to labour on any terms, but roamed about with arms in their hands and hunger in their bellies, whilst the governing power was only thinking of every device of suffrage and reconstruction by which the freedmen might be strengthened, and made, under Northern dictation, the ruling power in the country. Agitators came down among the towns and plantations; and organising a Union league, held midnight meetings with the negroes in the woods, and went about uttering sentiments which were anti-social and destructive. Crimes and outrages increased; the law was all but powerless, and the new governments in the South, supposing them to have been most willing, were certainly unable to repress disorder. A real terror reigned for a time among the white people; and under these circumstances the Ku-Klux started into existence, and executed the Lynch-law, which alone seems effective in disordered states of society. The members wore a dress made of black calico, and called a "shroud." The stuff was sent round to private houses, with a request that it should be made into a garment; and fair fingers sewed it up, and had it ready for the secret messenger when he returned and gave his preconcerted tap at the door. The women and young girls had faith in the honour of the "Klan," and on its will and ability to protect them. The Ku-Klux, when out on their missions, also wore a high tapering hat, with a black veil over the face. The secret of the membership was kept with remarkable fidelity; and in no instance, it is said, has a member of the Ku-Klux been successfully arraigned and punished, though the Federal Government passed a special Act against the society, and two proclamations were issued under this Act by President Grant as late as October 1871 , and the habeas corpus Act suspended in nine counties of South Carolina. When the members had a long ride at night, they made requisitions at farmhouses for horses, which were generally returned on a night following without injury. If a company of Federal soldiers, stationed in a small town, talked loudly as to what they would do with the Ku-Klux, the men in shrouds paraded in the evening before the guard-house in numbers so overwhelming as at once reduced the little garrison to silence. The overt acts of the Ku-Klux consisted for the most part in disarming dangerous negroes, inflicting Lynch-law on notorious offenders, and above all, in creating one feeling of terror as a counterpoise to another. The thefts by the negroes were a subject of prevailing complaint in many parts of the South. A band of men in the Ku-Klux costume one night came to the door of Allan Creich, a grocer of Williamson's Creek, seized and dragged him some distance, when they despatched and threw him into the Creek, where his body was found. The assassins then proceeded to the house of Allan's brother, but not finding him at home, they elicited from his little child where he was staying. Hereupon they immediately proceeded to the house named; and having encountered the man they sought, they dealt with him as they had dealt with his brother Allan. It appears that Allan had long been blamed for buying goods and produce stolen by the negroes, and had often been warned to desist, but without avail. The institution, like all of a similar nature, though the necessity for its existence has ceased to a great extent, yet survives in a more degenerate form, having passed into the hands of utter scoundrels, with no good motive, and with foul passions of revenge or plunder, or lust of dread and mysterious power alone in their hearts. Thus in November 1883 seven members of the society, the ringleaders being men of considerable property, were found guilty at the United States Court, Atalanta, Georgia, of having cruelly beaten and fired on some negroes for having voted in favour of an opposition candidate of the Yarborough party in the Congressional election. They were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.

713. Kurnai Initiation.—The Kurnai, an Australian tribe, performed rites of initiation into manhood, somewhat similar to those of the 0-Kee-Pa (725), as did also all the Tasmanian tribes. But details are not known; the nature of the rites is only inferred from the fact that all young men examined by Europeans were found to be deeply scarified on the shoulders, thighs, and muscles of the breast. The Kurnai mysteries are chiefly referred to here because of the curious parallel they offer in the use of an instrument resembling the po/i/So?, which was one of the sacred objects in the Eleusinian mysteries (72). The Kurnai call the instrument the turndun; it is a flat piece of wood, fastened by one end to a thong, for whirling it round, and producing a roaring noise, to warn off the women. For a woman to see it, or a man to show it her, was, by native law, death to both. It is not unknown in England; we call it a whizzer or bull-roarer. A similar instrument is used by the Kafirs of South Africa, where it is used for just its two principal Australian purposes, namely, for rain-making, and in connection with the rites of initiation to warn the women off. The bull-roarer was also in use in New Zealand. In Australia it is known by the names of witarna and muyumkar.

714. Liberty, Knights of.—A sect formed in 1820 in France against the government of the Bourbons. Its independent existence was brief, as it was soon merged in that of the Carbonari.

715. Lion, Knights of the.—This was one of the transformations assumed in Germany in the last century by Masonic Templars.

716. Lion, The Sleeping.—This was a society formed in Paris in 1816, with the object of restoring Napoleon to the throne of France. The existing government suppressed it.

717. Ludlam's Cave.—A comic society, formed at Vienna in 1818, and so named after a somewhat unsuccessful play of Oehlenschlager. The members were called bodies; candidates, shadows. The latter underwent a farcical examination, and if found very ignorant, were accepted. Many literary men belonged to it; but though their professed object was only amusement, the society was in 1826 suppressed by the police of Vienna.

718. Mad Councillors.—This comical order was founded in 1809 by a Doctor Ehrmann of Frankfort-on-the-Main. Diplomas, conceived in a ludicrous style, written in Latin, and bearing a large seal, were granted to the members. Jean Paul, Arndt, Goethe, Iffland, had such diplomas; ladies also received them. On the granting of the hundredth, in 1820, the joke was dropped.

719. Magi, Order of the.—Is supposed to have existed in Italy in the last century, as a modification of the Rosicrucians. Its members are said to have worn the costume of Inquisitors.

720. Mahdrdjas.—This is an Indian sect of priests. It appears abundantly from the works of recognised authority written by Maharajas, and from existing popular belief in the Vallabhacharya sect, that Vallabhacharya is believed to have been an incarnation of the god Krishna, and that the Maharajas, as descendants of Vallabhacharya, have claimed and received from their followers the like character of incarnations of that god by hereditary succession. The ceremonies of the worship paid to Krishna through these priests are all of the most licentious character. The love and subserviency due to a Supreme Being are here materialised and transferred to those who claim to be the living incarnations of the god. Hence the priests exercise an unlimited influence over their female votaries, who consider it a great honour to acquire the temporary regard of the voluptuous Maharajas, the belief in whose pretensions is allowed to interfere, almost vitally, with the domestic relations of husband and wife. The Maharaja libel case, tried in 1862 in the Supreme Court of Bombay, proved that the wealthiest and largest of the Hindoo mercantile communities of Central and Western India worshipped as a god a depraved priest, compared with whom an ancient satyr was an angel. Indeed, on becoming followers of that god, they make to his priest the offering of tan, man, and dhan, or body, mind, and property; and so far does their folly extend, that they will greedily drink the water in which he has bathed. There are about seventy or eighty of the Maharajas in different parts of India. They have a mark on the forehead, consisting of two red perpendicular lines, meeting in a semicircle at the root of the nose, and having a round spot of red between them. Though not a secret society, strictly speaking, still, as their doings were to some extent kept secret, and their worst features, though proved by legal evidence, denied by the persons implicated, I have thought it right to give it a place here.

721. Mano Negra.—This association, the Black Hand, in the south of Spain, is agrarian and Socialistic, and its origin dates back to the year 1835. It was formed in consequence of the agricultural labourers having been deprived of their communal rights, the lands on which they had formerly had the privilege to cut timber and pasture their cattle having been sold, in most instances, far below their value, to the sharp village lawyers, nicknamed caciques, who resemble in their practices the gombeen men of Cork, though these latter do not possess the political influence of the former. The caciques, though they bought the land, in many instances had not capital enough to cultivate it, hence the agricultural labourer was left to starve, a condition which led to many agrarian disturbances. The members of the society were bound by oath to punish their oppressors by steel, fire, or poison; incendiarism was rife. The association was strictly secret; to reveal its doings by treachery or imprudence meant death to the offender. The society had a complete organisation, with its chiefs, its centres, its funds, its secret tribunals, inflicting death and other penalties on their own members, and on landlords and usurers, such as the caciques. The members, to escape detection, often changed their names; they corresponded by cipher, and had a code of precautions, in which every contingency was provided against. From 1880 to 1883 the society was particularly active, especially in Andalusia, which induced the Spanish Government to take the most severe repressive measures against it. Many trials of members took place in 1883. The rising was a purely Spanish one; it was absolute hunger which drove the Spanish peasant into the hands of native agitators. Foreign anarchists endeavoured to utilise the movement, but had little influence on it.

722. Melanesian Societies.—The groups of islands stretching in a semicircle from off the eastern coast of Australia to New Caledonia, including New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and also the Fiji Islands, all abound with secret societies, which, however, have nothing formidable in them, since all their secrets are known; the people join, but laugh at them; their lodges are their clubs, chiefly devoted to feasting; strangers are admitted to them as to inns; they exclude women, though on the Fiji Islands there are societies which admit them. Young men are expected to be initiated; those who are not, do not take a position of full social equality with those who are members. When the ceremonies and doctrines were as yet mysteries, outsiders thought that the initiated entered into association with the ghosts of the dead, a delusion strengthened by the strange and unearthly noises heard at times in and around the lodges, and the hideously-disguised figures, supposed to be ghosts, which appeared to the "dogs outside." Now it is known that the ghosts are merely members, wearing strangely-decorated hats made of bark and painted, which hats cover the whole head and rest on the shoulders, while the mummers are dressed in long cloaks, made of leaves, and shaped in fantastic designs. It is also known that the noises which used to frighten the natives are produced by a flat smooth stone, on which the butt-end of a fan of palm is rubbed, the vibration of which produces the extraordinary sound. At the ceremony of initiation the usual pretence of imparting secret knowledge is gone through on a par with that imparted in some societies nearer home, and, as with the latter, it is all a question of fees, though in some societies there is also some rougher ceremony to be submitted to; thus in that called welu, the neophyte has to lie down on his face in a hole in the ground, cut exactly to his shape, and lighted cocoanut fronds are cast upon his back. He cannot move, and dare not cry; the scars remain on his back as marks of membership. The neophyte, when initiated, remains goto, that is, secluded for a number of days in some societies for one hundred days during which time he has to attend to the oven and do the dirty work of the lodge. Learning the dances, which the initiated on certain festivals perform in public, as particularly pleasing to their gods, seems to be the principal item of the instruction received in the sanctuary. The number of societies, as already stated, is very large, and they are known by various names. The New Britain Society is called Duk-Duk (693); that of Florida, Matambala; that of the Banks Islands, Tamate; that of the Northern New Hebrides, Qatu; that of Fiji, Nanga. The ghosts supposed to be present are called duka; in Florida the consultation of the ghosts is known as paluduka. The lodge is called Salagoro; it is usually situate in some retreat near the village, in the midst of lofty trees, and must not be approached by women; masked figures guard the path to it, which is marked by bright orange-coloured fruits stuck on reeds, and the customary soloi taboo marks, forbidding entrance. The members of different societies are distinguished by particular badges, consisting of leaves or flowers, and to wear such a badge without membership is a punishable offence.

723. Mumbo-Jurribo.—We have seen (687) that there is a Calif ornian society, whose object it is to keep their women in due subjection. Among the Mundingoes, a tribe above the sources of the river Gambia, a somewhat similar association exists. Whenever the men have any dispute with the women, an image, eight or nine feet high, made of the bark of trees, dressed in a long coat, crowned with a wisp of straw, and called a Mumbo-Jumbo, or Mamma Jambah, is sent for. A member of the society conceals himself under the coat and acts as judge. Of course his decisions are almost always in favour of the men. When the women hear him coming they run away and hide themselves, but he sends for them, makes them sit down, and afterwards either sing or dance, as he pleases. Those who refuse to come are brought by force, and he whips them. Whoso is admitted into the society has to swear in the most solemn manner never to divulge the secret to any woman, nor to any one not initiated. To preserve the secret inviolable, no boys under sixteen years of age are admitted. About 1727 the King of Jagra, having a very inquisitive wife, disclosed to her the secret of his membership, and the secrets connected therewith. She, being a gossip, talked about it; the result was, that she and the king were killed by the members of the association.

724. Odd Fellows.—This Order was founded in England about the middle of the last century. The initiatory rites then were of the usual terrifying character we have seen practised in the ancient mysteries, accompanied by all the theatrical display intended to overawe the candidate, who had to take the oath of secrecy. The Order has its signs, grips, words, and passwords; one word was Fides, which was uttered letter by letter; one sign was made by placing the right hand on the left breast, and at the same time pronouncing the words, "Upon my honour." Another sign was made by taking hold of the lower part of the left ear with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand. What the signs, grips, and passwords now are, it is impossible to tell, since these, as the only secrets of the Order, are kept strictly secret. Every half-year a new password is communicated to the lodges. In 1819 the Order was introduced into the United States. There] are three degrees: the White, Blue, and Scarlet; there is also a female degree, called Rebecca, and High Degrees are conferred in "Camps." The Odd Fellows in the lodges wear white aprons, edged with the colours of their degree; in the camps they wear black aprons similarly trimmed. Since the American prosecutions of the Freemasons, which also affected the Odd Fellows, the oath of secrecy is no longer demanded (see 741).

725. O-Kee-Pa.—A religious rite, commemorative of the Flood, which was practised, by the Mandans, a now extinct tribe of Red Indians. The celebration was annual, and its object threefold, viz.: (i) to keep in remembrance the subsiding of the waters; (2) to dance the bull-dance, to insure a plentiful supply of buffaloes (though the reader will see in it an allusion to the bull of the zodiac, the vernal equinox); and (3) to test the courage and power of endurance of the young men who, during the past year, had arrived at the age of manhood, by great bodily privations and tortures. Part of the latter were inflicted in the secrecy of the "Medicinehut," outside of which stood the Big Canoe, or Mandan Ark, which only the "Mystery-Men" were allowed to touch or look into. The tortures, as witnessed by Catlin, consisted in forcing sticks of wood under the dorsal or pectoral muscles of the victim, and then suspending him by these sticks from the top of the hut, and turning him round until he fainted, when he was taken down and allowed to recover consciousness; whereupon he was driven forth among the multitude assembled without, who chased him round the village, treading on the cords attached to the bits of wood sticking in his flesh, until these latter fell out by tearing the flesh to pieces. Like the ancient mysteries, the 0-Kee-Pa ended with drunken and vicious orgies. The Sioux at Rosebud Agency, in Dakota, still practise the same barbarous rites, but in a milder form.

726. Pantheists.—An association, existing in the last century in this country and in Germany; Bolingbroke, Hume, and other celebrities belonged to it. Its object was the discussion of the maxims contained in Toland's "Pantheisticon." John Toland was born in Ireland about 1670, and was a Deistical writer, who anticipated, two centuries ago, the "higher criticism" of the present day in his "Christianity not Mysterious." His writings attracted much attention here and in Germany, which country he repeatedly visited. As his teaching was considered atheistical, its followers had to study it secretly. The members of the association met at the periods of the solstices and of the equinoxes, and the profane, and even the servants, were rigorously excluded from the meetings.

727. Patriotic Order Sons of America.—This Order was organised in Philadelphia in 1847. It suspended operations during the Civil War, but at its conclusion it was reorganised, and now counts over 200,000 members. The aims and objects of the Order are the teaching of American principles; born Americans only are admitted. Its lodges are called camps. It is a benefit society, and, like all similar associations, has no secrets, but simply endeavours, by certain symbols and signs of recognition, to impress on their members their principles and brotherhood.

728. Phi-Beta-Kappa.—The Bavarian Illuminati, according to some accounts, spread to America. Students of universities only are admitted to the Order. The password is __ __ __; philosophy is the guide or rule of life. The three letters forming the initials of the Greek sentence were chosen as the name of the society, whose object is to make philosophy, and not religion, the guiding principle of man's actions. The Order was introduced into the United States about the year 1776. It had its secret signs and grips, which, however, were all made public, when about the year 1830 the society ceased from being a secret one: the sign was given by placing the two forefingers of the right hand so as to cover the left corner of the mouth, and then drawing it across the chin. The grip was like the common shaking of hands, only not interlocking the thumbs, and at the same time gently pressing the wrists. The jewel or medal, always of silver or gold, and provided at the candidate's expense, is suspended by a pink or blue ribbon. On it are the letters Ph, B, and K, six stars, and a hand. The stars denote the number of colleges where the institution exists. On the reverse is S. P. for Societas Philosophise, and the date December 5, 1776, which indicates the time of the introduction of the Order into the States.

729. Pilgrims.—A society whose existence was discovered at Lyons in 1825, through the arrest of one of the brethren, a Prussian shoemaker, on whom was found th printed catechism of the society. Though the Pilgrims am, ^d above all at religious reform, yet their catechism was modelled on that of the Freemasons.

730. Police, Secret.—Whilst revolutionaries and disaffected subjects formed secret associations for the overthrow of their rulers, the latter had recourse to counter-associations, or the Secret Police. In France it was very active in the early part of the last century, but chiefly as the pander to the debaucheries of the Court. For political purposes women of loose morals were employed by preference. Thus a-famous procuress, whose boudoirs were haunted by diplomatists, a Madam Fillon, discovered and frustrated the conspiracy of Cellamare, the Spanish ambassador in 1718 at the court of the Eegent (Philippe d'Orle'ans, who governed France during the minority of Louis XV.), which was directed against the reigning family, in favour of the Duke of Maine. The ambassador was obliged to leave France. From the chronique scandaleiise of those times it is evident that the police were always closely connected with the ladies of easy virtue, whom they employed as their agents. Towards the end of the eighteenth century the police were secretly employed in preventing the propagation of philosophical works, called bad books. The Revolution abolished this secret police as immoral and illegal; but it was, as a political engine, re-established under the Directory, to which the expelled royal family opposed a counter-police, which, however, was discovered in the month of May 1800. Napoleon, to protect himself against the various conspiracies hatched against him, relied greatly on the secret police he had established; but there is no doubt that the mad proceedings of Savary, Duke of Rovigo, Napoleon's last chief of police, hastened the downfall of the Empire. Under Louis Philippe again the secret police had plenty of work to do, in consequence of the many secret societies, whose machinations we have already described (597).

In Prussia also the secret police was very active from 1848 to the Franco-Prussian war, during which its chief duty was to protect the King of Prussia, his allied princes, and Bismarck against the attempts at assassination which were then so rife. How the secret police had plenty of occupation in Russia, where it was known as the "Third Division," we have seen in the account of the Nihilists. In this country a secret police has never been tolerated; it is opposed to the sentiment of the people, who always connect it with agents provocateurs.

We have seen (693) that a kind of secret police exists in New Pomerania and Western Africa.

731. Portuguese Societies.—During the early part of this century various secret societies with political objects were formed in Portugal, but as they never attained to any importance or permanence, it will be sufficient to mention the names of three of them: the Septembrists, Chartists, and Miguellists, the latter founded in favour of Don Miguel, who for a time occupied the throne of Portugal.

732. Purrah, The.—Between the river of Sierra Leone and Cape Monte, there exist five nations of Foulahs-Sousous, who form among themselves a kind of federative republic. Each colony has its particular magistrates and local government; but they are subject to an institution which they call Purrah. It is an association of warriors, which from its effects is very similar to the secret tribunal formerly existing in Germany, and known by the name of the Holy Vehm (206); and on account of its rites and mysteries closely resembles the ancient initiations. Each of the five colonies has its own peculiar Purrah, consisting of twenty-five members; and from each of these particular tribunals are taken five persons, who form the Grand Purrah or supreme tribunal.

To be admitted to a district Purrah the candidate must be at least thirty years of age; to be a member of the Grand Purrah, he must be fifty years old. All his relations belonging to the Purrah become security for the candidate's conduct, and bind themselves by oath to sacrifice him, if he flinch during the ceremony, or if, after having been admitted, he betray the mysteries and tenets of the association.

In each district comprised in the institution of the Purrah there is a sacred wood whither the candidate is conducted, and where he is confined for several months in a solitary and contracted habitation, and neither speaks nor quits the dwelling assigned to him. If he attempt to penetrate into the forest which surrounds him, he is instantly slain. After several months' preparation the candidate is admitted to the trial, the last proofs of which are said to be terrible. All the elements are employed to ascertain his resolution and courage; lions and leopards, in some degree chained, are made use of; during the time of the proof the sacred woods resound with dreadful bowlings; conflagrations appear in the night, seeming to indicate general destruction; while at other times fire is seen to pervade these mysterious woods in all directions. Every one whose curiosity excites him to profane these sacred parts is sacrificed without mercy.

When the candidate has undergone all the degrees of probation, he is permitted to be initiated, an oath being previously exacted from him that he will keep all the secrets, and execute without demur all the decrees of the Purrah of his tribe, or of the Grand and Sovereign Purrah.

Any member turning traitor or rebel is devoted to death, and sometimes assassinated in the midst of his family. At a moment when a guilty person least expects it, a warrior appears before him, masked and armed, who says: "The Sovereign Purrah decrees thy death." On these words every person present shrinks back, no one makes the least resistance, and the victim is killed. The common Purrah of a tribe takes cognisance of the crimes committed within its jurisdiction, tries the criminals, and executes their sentences; and also appeases the quarrels that arise among powerful families.

It is only on extraordinary occasions that the Grand Purrah assembles for the trial of those who betray the mysteries and secrets of the Order, or rebel against its dictates; and it is this assembly which generally puts an end to the wars that sometimes break out between two or more tribes. From the moment when the Grand Purrah has assembled for the purpose of terminating a war, till it has decided on the subject, every warrior of the belligerent parties is forbidden to shed a drop of blood under pain of death. The deliberations of the Purrah generally last a month, after which the guilty tribe is condemned to be pillaged during four days. The warriors who execute the sentence are taken from the neutral cantons; and they disguise themselves with frightful masks, are armed with poniards, and carry lighted torches. They arrive at the doomed villages before break of day, kill all the inhabitants that cannot make their escape, and carry off whatever property of value they can find. The plunder is divided into two parts; one part being allotted to the tribe against which the aggression has been committed, whilst the other part goes to the Grand Purrah, which distributes it among the warriors who executed the sentence.

When the family of the tribes under the command of the I'urrah becomes too powerful and excites alarm, the Grand Purrah assembles to deliberate on the subject, and almost always condemns it to sudden and unexpected pillage; which is executed by night, and always by warriors masked and disguised.

The terror and alarm which this confederation excites amongst the inhabitants of the countries where it is established, and even in the neighbouring territories, are very great. The negroes of the bay of Sierra Leone never speak of it without reserve and apprehension; for they believe that all the members of the confederation are sorcerers, and that they have communication with the devil. The Purrah has an interest in propagating these prejudices, by means of which it exercises an authority that no person dares to dispute. The number of members is supposed to be about 6000, and they recognise each other by certain words and signs.

733. Pythias, Knights of.—This Order was instituted shortly after the American Civil War in 1864 at Washington, whence it soon spread through the United States. Its professed object was the inculcation of lessons of friendship, based on the ancient story of Damon and Pythias. It calls itself a secret organisation, but in reality is only an ordinary benefit society, though it may have a secret object, since it has within itself a "uniform rank," which in its character is essentially military. The drill has been so revised as to bring it into perfect harmony with the tactics of the United States army; the judges at the competitive drills of the order are officers of the United States army. This "uniform rank" counts upwards of 30,000 members.

734. Rebeccaites.—A society formed in Wales about 1843, for the abolition of toll-bars. Like the Irish White-Boys the members dressed in white, and went about at night pulling down the toll-gates. Government suppressed them. The supposed chief of the society was called Rebecca, a name derived from the rather clever application of the passage in Genesis xxiv. 60, "And they blessed Eebekah, and said unto her . . . Let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate thee."

735. Redemption, Order of.—A secret and chivalrous society, which in its organisation copied the order of the Knights of Malta. Its scope is scarcely known, and it never went beyond the walls of Marseilles, where it was founded by a Sicilian exile.

736. Red Men.—In 1812, during the war between England and the United States, some patriotic Americans founded a society with the above title. They took its symbolism from Indian life: the lodges were called tribes; the meeting-places, wigwams; the meetings, council fires, and so on. On festive occasions the members appeared in Indian costume. A great many Germans, settled in America, joined the society, but being looked down upon by the thoroughbred Yankees, the Germans seceded and founded an order of their own, and called it the "Independent Order of Red Men." In both societies there are three degrees the English has its Hunters, Soldiers, and Captains; the German is divided into the Blacks, Blues, and Greens. There are higher degrees conferred in "camps." The two societies count about forty thousand members. After the cessation of the war with England (1814) the societies lost their political character, and became mere benefit societies, which they now are.

737. Regeneration, Society of Universal.—It was composed of the patriots of various countries who had taken refuge in Switzerland between 1815 and 1820. But though their aims were very comprehensive, they ended in talk, of which professed patriots always have a liberal supply on hand.

738. Saltpetrers.—The county of Hauenstein,in the Duchy of Baden, forms a triangle, the base of which is the Rhine from Sackingen to Waldshut. In the last century the abbot of the rich monastery of St. Blasius, which may be said to form the apex of the triangle, exacted bond-service against the Hauensteiners. This they resented; a secret league was the result. From its leader, Fridolin Albiez, a dealer in saltpetre, it took the name of Saltpetrers. The abbot, supported by Austria in 1755, finally compelled them to submit, though the sect was revived at the beginning of this century to oppose reformatory tendencies in church and school. Mutual concessions in 1840 put an end to the strife and to the society. In Tirol the Manharters, so called after their leader, Manhart, had the same object in view resistance to Reformation principles and were successful in attaining them, they being warmly supported by the Pope.

739. Sikh Fanatics.—The Sikhs Sikh means a disciple, or devoted follower first came into notice in 1510 as a religious sect. Their prophet was Nanuk. Two centuries afterwards Guru Govindu developed a more military spirit; he added the sword to their holy book, the "Granth." From 1798 to 1839 the Sikhs were at the zenith of their power. Their distinguishing marks were a blue dress, because Bala Ram, the brother of Krishna, is always represented as wearing a blue dress, with long hair and beard; every man had to carry steel on his person in some form. The ordinary Sikh now dresses in pure white. All the sect were bound in a holy brotherhood called the Khalsa (meaning the saved or liberated), wherein all social distinctions were abolished.

The fierce fanatical Akalis were soldier-priests, a sombre brotherhood of military devotees, chiefly employed about their great temple at Amritsar (meaning the fountain of immortality). They initiate converts, which is done by ordering the neophyte to wear blue clothes, by being presented with five weapons a sword, a firelock, a bow and arrow, and a pike. He is further enjoined to abstain from intercourse with certain schismatic sects, and to practise certain virtues. As, according to tradition, Govindu, when at the point of death, exclaimed, "Wherever five Sikhs are assembled, there I shall be present," five Sikhs are necessary to perform the rite of initiation. The Sikhs may eat flesh, except that of the cow, which is a sacred animal to them as well as to the Hindus.

The phase of Sikh fanaticism which revealed its existence in 1872 by the Kooka murders may be traced to the following sources: The movement was started a good many years since by one Earn Singh, a Sikh, whose headquarters were fixed at the village of Bainee, in the Loodhiana district. His teaching is said to have aimed at reforming the ritual rather than the creed of his countrymen. His followers, moreover, seem to have borrowed a hint or two from the dancing dervishes of Islam. At their meetings they worked themselves into a sort of religious frenzy, which relieved itself by unearthly bowlings; and hence they were generally known as the "Shouters." Men and women of the new sect joined together in a sort of wild war-dance, yelling out certain forms of words, and stripping off all their clothing, as they whirled more and more rapidly round. Ram Singh himself had served in the old Sikh army, and one of his first moves was to get a number of his emissaries enlisted into the army of the Maharajah of Cashmere. That ruler, it is said, would have taken a whole regiment of Kookas into his pay; but for some reason or another this scheme fell to the ground. Possibly he took fright at the political influence which his new recruits might come in time to wield against him or his English allies. Ram Singh's followers, however, multiplied apace; and out of their number he chose his lieutenants, whose preaching in time swelled the total of converts to something like 100,000. Of these soubahs, or lieutenants, some twenty were distributed about the Punjab. The great bulk of their converts consisted of artisans and people of yet lower caste, who, having nothing to lose, indulged in wild dreams of future gain. Their leader's power over them appears to have been very great. They obeyed his orders as cheerfully as the Assassins of yore obeyed the Old Man of the Mountain. If he had a message to send to one of his lieutenants, however far away, a letter was entrusted to one of his disciples, who ran full speed to the next station, and handed it to another, who forthwith left his own work, and hastened in like manner to deliver the letter to a third. In order to clinch his power over his followers, Earn Singh contrived to interpolate his own name in a passage of the "Granth" the Sikh Bible which foretells the advent of another Guru, prophet or teacher. But, whatever the teachings of this new religious leader, there is reason to think that his ultimate aim was to restore the Sikhs to their old supremacy in the Punjab by means of a religions revival; and he stirred up the religious fervour of his followers by impressing on them that their war was a war against the slayer of the sacred cow, which to their European conquerors of course is not sacred, and has ceased to be so to many natives of India. But the insurrection was quickly suppressed. The whole band, which never numbered three hundred, was literally hunted down, and the ringleaders blown from guns. This may appear severe punishment; but it is to be borne in mind that though the number of insurgents who were taken with arms in their hands was only small, they had behind them a body of nearly ioo,OOO followers, bound together by one common fanaticism, who had to be taught by very prompt and severe action that our power in India is not to be assailed with impunity.

The Sikhs are divided into numerous sects, the most important being the Govind Sinhi community, comprehending the political association of the Sikh nation generally. The Sikh sect, as a religious and secret one, is rapidly diminishing.

740. Silver Circle, Knights of the.—A secret organisation formed in the Rocky Mountains in 1893 against the suspension of silver coinage. The Knights threatened, in case the Sherman Law should be repealed, to compel Colorado to leave the American Union and unite with the republic of Mexico, which is a silver coinage country. The western states were at that time honeycombed with secret societies deliberating the question of secession. Many of these societies were armed organisations, and were, it is said, in the habit of holding moonlight meetings for purposes of drill. The members had secret signs and passwords to recognise one another in public. But the repeal of the Sherman Act in August 1893 crushed their hopes, and caused the collapse of the society.

741. Sonderbare Gesellen.—German societies, formed on the model of the English Odd Fellows, whose name they took, and of which the above is a literal translation. They now call themselves Freie Gesellen (Free Brethren), or Helfende Brlider (Helping Brethren). But, unlike their English prototypes, who have no other secrets than their signs, grips, and passwords, the German Gesellen are closely connected with Freemasonry, which, as we have seen, is not so colourless abroad as it is here, and they proclaim themselves an institution for the deliverance of nations from priests, superstition, and fanaticism. The Order was introduced into Germany in 1870, and gradually into Switzerland, France, Holland, Mexico, Peru, Chili, Sweden, Spain, and even some Polynesian islands, so that now it counts upwards of fifty grand lodges and nearly eight thousand lodges, exclusive of English ones (724).

742. Sopkisiens.—"The Sacred Order of the Sophisiens," or Followers of Wisdom, was founded by some French generals engaged in the expedition to Egypt (1798-99), and was to a certain extent secret. But some of its pursuits oozed out, and were to be found in a book, partly in MS. and partly printed, the title of which is "Melanges relatifs l'ordre sacre des Sophisiens, e'tabli dans les Pyramides de la Republique franqaise," in 410. (See No. 494 in the catalogue of Lerouge.) Where is the book now?

743. Star of Bethlehem.—This Order claims a very ancient origin, having, it is alleged, been founded during the first century of the Christian era. In the thirteenth century it was an order of monks called Bethlehemites, closely identified with the Church of the Nativity built by the Empress Helena in the year 330, in the centre of which is the grotto of the Nativity, where a star is inlaid in the marble floor in commemoration of the star which shone over Bethlehem. The Order was introduced into England in 1257, and soon became a benevolent order, and members were called Knights of the Star of Bethlehem. Women were admitted to membership in 1408. In 1681 it was introduced into America by Giles Cory, of ye City of London, but fanaticism soon drove it out of that continent, for in September 1694 the grand commander was cruelly put to death "for holding meetings in ye dead hours of ye night." It was reintroduced into New York in 1869 by A. Gross of Newcastle-on-Tyne. In 1884 the members dropped the title of Knights, and the original name of Order of the Star of Bethlehem was reassumed.

744. Thirteen, The.—To Balzac's fertile imagination we are indebted for the book entitled Les Treize, the fictitious story of a society of thirteen persons who during the First Empire bound themselves by fearful oaths, and for objects the author dare no more reveal than the names of the members, mutually to support one another. The work consists of three tales, the first being the most interesting for us, since it pretends to record the stormy career of Ferragus, one of the associates, and chief of the Devorants spoken of in the French Workmen's Unions (369). A society of thirteen (not secret) has recently been founded in London, in imitation, I assume, of a society formed in 1857 at Bordeaux for the same purpose as the London one, namely, by force of example to extirpate the superstition regarding the number thirteen, of which very few persons know the origin. In the ancient Indian pack of cards, consisting of seventy-eight cards, of which the first twenty-two have special names, the designation of card xiii. is "Death," and hence all the evil influences ascribed to that number!

745. Tdbaccological Society.—When in 531 Theodora from a ballet girl had become the wife of the Emperor Justinian I., she wished to be surrounded by philosophers, especially the expounders of Pythagoras. But for once the philosophers stood on their dignity, and declined imperial patronage. This led to their persecution, and the closing of their schools and academies; they were not allowed to hold meetings. But Pythagoreans must meet, hence they met in secret, first in a ruined temple of Ceres on the banks of the Ilissus, and afterwards in an octagonal temple, built by one of them, at the foot of Mount Hymettus. They called themselves Pednosophers, which in a philologically incorrect manner they interpreted as meaning "Children of Wisdom." For their symbol they adopted the anemone, which flower was said to have sprung from the blood of Adonis, wounded by a wild boar so philosophy arose afresh from philosophy persecuted by superstition. At first women and children were admitted, but they were told part only of the secret, whatever it was. The sign was crossing the arms on the breast, so that the index finger touched the lips. The sacred word was theus-theos, "Hope in God." The chief of the Order was known to but a few members by his real name; to the rest he passed under a pseudonym. There were different degrees in the Order, which perpetuated itself until 1672 in various countries, England included. In this year Charles II. prohibited all secret societies, and the Pednosophers changed their name to Tobaccologers, and adopted the tobacco plant as their emblem, its red flower suggesting to them philosophy persecuted by Justinian and others. At their meetings they discussed chiefly academical subjects; in fact, modern academies owe to them their origin. Many men of note belonged to the Order, which was divided into four degrees the glamour of secrecy must be kept up to the last! The members in the lodge wore a triangular apron. Towards the end of the last century the Order declined in this country, and its papers, its records, and mysteries eventually fell into the hands of the French Marquis d'Etanduere, who left them to his son, at whose death they were examined by a M. Doussin, to whom he had left them; and this M. Doussin thereupon reconstituted the society at Poitiers in 1806, where it continued till about the year 1848. The tobacco plant, its culture and manufacture, were the subjects of symbolical instructions, and for the real names of the towns where lodges existed, the names of localities famous for fine sorts of tobacco were substituted. Persons known to belong to the society popularly went by the designation of snufftakers.

746. Turf, Society of the.—When the failure of the Carbonaro conspiracy, and especially its non-success in its attempt on Macerata (562), led to the temporary suppression of the Carbanaro society, the youths of Italy, who had hoped to distinguish themselves by fighting and driving the Austrian out of Italy, felt sorely disappointed. The more rational ones submitted to the inevitable, and returned to peaceful occupations. But the more hot-headed and restless members of the society sought outlets for their exuberant spirits in forming associations of various kinds, and sometimes of the most objectionable character. Such a one was the Compagnia della Teppa, or Turf Society, which arose at Milan in iSiS. ?????

Two derivations of the name of the society are given.

The members of the society wore plush hats, and it was a regulation that this plush was to be cut as short and as smooth as turf. The other, and more probable, origin of the name is the fact that the members held their meetings at first on the lawns of beautiful turf in the Piazza Castello at Milan. Their pursuits may be described as a revival of Mohocking; they bound themselves to beat every man they met in the streets after dark, which practice, however, was chiefly resorted to against men having handsome wives, whom members of the society wished forcibly, or with consent, to disgust with their husbands or abduct from their homes; and a certain amount of ridicule attaching to the infliction of such a beating, the victims in most cases made no public complaint. Of course, in many cases it was the Turfists who got the worst of the encounter. The Austrian police shut its eyes to all these proceedings, of which, through its spies, it was fully cognisant, on the principle that it was better these young men should vent their overflow of spirits, their physical and mental energies, on such follies, and even on criminal exploits, than employ them in political schemes and pursuits, which would be certain to be directed against Austrian rule and rulers. The society might have subsisted longer than it did had it not grown foolhardy by long impunity. What at last compelled the police to interfere was as follows:

There lived in the Via Pennacchiari a dwarf known by the nickname of Gasgiott, who earned his living by artificialflower making. He was of a violent and quarrelsome temper, but thought himself a great favourite with the women; none of them, he fancied, could withstand him. One night, as some members of the Teppa happened to be in the Via Pennacchiari, a girl complained to one of them, Milesi (the author of the MS. consulted by Rovani?), a man of athletic proportions, that Gasgiott had grossly insulted her. Milesi bestowed on the dwarf a sound thrashing, and carrying him to an inn, where Baron Bontempo, the chief of the Teppa, was waiting for him, suggested shutting up the dwarf, with scanty food, for some time in the country to "cool his blood," which was done. But one idea suggests another: the capture of one dwarf led to a regular hunt after the species, and in a short time about a dozen of them were shut up in a mansion belonging to Baron Bontempo, called Simonetta, and situate outside the walls of Milan. Then another thought suggested itself to the members of the Teppa.

Among the fine pretences with which they sought to justify their questionable proceedings was the allegation that it was their duty to redress wrongs of which the law took no cognisance. Now, they argued, there are every year hundreds of men, young men, just entering life, and married men with families, ruined through the wiles and the extravagance of designing women, whom the law cannot touch for the injuries they have inflicted on their victims. Many women, notorious for such conduct, some of them ladies of position, and connected with aristocratic families, were then living at Milan. It struck the Turfists they would be suitable companions for the imprisoned dwarfs. The idea was carried out. About ten ladies were by treachery or force brought to Simonetta, and there shut up with the dwarfs. The orgy that ensued, says Rovani, could only be described by the pen of an Aretino. But it is easy to understand that a number of ladies, so entrapped, would not quietly submit to such abduction or the advances of the dwarfs. The authors of the mischief were only too glad to release them on the very next day, and the dwarfs also. As all the prisoners had been brought to the mansion by roundabout ways, and in close carriages, and were takenaway in the same manner, they had no clue to the position of their prison; but a scheme like this could not be carried out without a good many persons being let into the secret; the ladies who had been carried off cried aloud for vengeance, and many young men, belonging to respectable families, who had joined the society from curiosity, or, as they fancied, to increase their own importance, seeing the dangerous practices in which they had involved themselves, were ready to give information. The police could no longer shut its eyes and pretend ignorance, and so one morning, in the year 1821, more than sixty members of the society were arrested, and, for want of more suitable accommodation, at first imprisoned in the convent of St. Mark, whence some were sent to Szegedin and Komorn, or drafted into the army. Many others were arrested afterwards; some of the members made their escape, having been warned beforehand. Thus the society collapsed, between three and four years after its foundation.

The members recognised one another by the one saluting the other with both hands joined, whereupon the other put his right hand to his side, as if going to place it on the hilt of his sword. There were only two degrees, that of captain and that of simple brother; the former was bound to initiate four new members. General meetings were always held in the same place, special ones in different localities, which were constantly changed. The society was, moreover, divided into two grand centres, the centre of Nobles and that of Commoners.

747. Utopia.—A society founded at Prague in the fifties, and which had such success that in 1885 it reckoned eightyfive lodges in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, and other countries. A council of the league was held at Leipzig in 1876, and another at Prague in 1883. The president of every lodge is called Uhu (screech-owl); at manifestations of joy they cry "Aha!" and at transgressions against the laws of Utopia, "Oho!" The members are divided into three degrees: Squires, Younkers, and Knights; guests are called Pilgrims. The German name of the society is Allschlaraffia; Schlaraffenland in German means the "land of milk and honey," the land of Cocagne, where roast-pigeons fly into your mouth when you open it, and roasted pigs run about the streets with knife and fork in their backs. From the name, the character of the society may be inferred.

748. Wahdbees.—This sect, the members of which attracted considerable attention in 187 1, on account of their suspected connection with the murders of Chief-Justice Norman at Calcutta, and of Lord Mayo in 1872, has the following origin: About 1740 a Mohammedan reformer appeared at Nejd, named Abdu'l Wahab, and conquered great part of Arabia from the Turks. He died in 1787, having founded a sect known as the Wahabees. The word Wahab signifies a Bestower of Blessings, and is one of the epithets of God, and Abdul Wahab means the servant of the All Bountiful. The Wahabees took Mecca and Medina, and almost expelled the Turk from the land of the Prophet. But in 1818 the power of these fierce reformers their doctrine being a kind of Islam Socinianism, allowing no title to adoration to Mohammed waned in Arabia, to reappear in India under a new leader, one Saiyid Ahmad, who had been a godless trooper in the plundering bands of Amir Khan, the first Nawab of Tonk. But in 1816 he went to Delhi to study law, and his fervid imagination drank in greedily the new subject. He became absorbed in meditation, which degenerated into epileptic trances, in which he saw visions. In three years he left Delhi as a new prophet, and journeying to Patna and Calcutta, was surrounded by admiring crowds, who hung upon his accents, and received with ecstasy the divine lesson to slay the infidel, and drive the armies of the foreigner from India. In 1823 he passed through Bombay to Rohilkhand, and having there raised an army of the faithful, he crossed the land of the Five Rivers, and settled like a thundercloud on the mountains to the northeast of Peshawur. Since then the rebel camp thus founded has been fed from the head centre at Patna with bands of fanatics, and money raised by taxing the faithful. To account for such success, the reader will have to bear in mind that in Mohammedan countries a doctor of civil law, such as Saiyid Ahmad was, may hold the issues of peace or war in his hands, for with Mohammedans the law and the gospel go together, and the Koran represents both. Akbar, the greatest Mohammedan monarch, was nearly hurled from the height of his power by a decision of the Jaunpur lawyers, declaring that rebellion against him was lawful. And the Wahabee doctrine is, that war must be made on all who are not of their faith, and especially against the British Government, as the great oppressor of the Mohammedan world. Twenty sanguinary campaigns against this rebel host, aided by the surrounding Afghan tribes, have failed to dislodge them; and they remain to encourage any invader of India, any enemy of the English, to whom they would undoubtedly afford immense assistance. Though the general impression in England and India seems to be that the murder of Mr. Norman is not to be attributed to a Wahabee plot, yet so little is known of the constitution, numerical strength, and aims of the secret societies of India, that an overweening confidence in the loyalty of the alien masses as the Times curiously enough terms them on the part of the English residents in India, is greatly to be condemned, for there still exists an active propaganda of fanatic Wahabees at great Mussulman centres; and though the vast Mussulman community throughout India look on the fanatics with dislike or indifference, yet they need careful lookingafter by Government ("Cyclopaedia of India," by SurgeonGeneral Edward Balfour. Three vols. London, 1885).

A few lines higher up we referred to secret societies of India; from among these we may specially mention the Mina robber settlement at Shahjahanpur, which town formed part of the possessions of the Rohilla Patans, whose dominion was overthrown by the British in 1774. The Minas are the descendants of Rohilla chiefs, and the district they occupy being the centre of a small tract of land, entirely surrounded by independent native states, affords them refuge and ready means of escape when pressed by the British police. And they are doubtless fostered and protected by the minor chiefs and head-men of native states, who share the spoil. They are supposed to form a corporation somewhat similar to the Garduna (306-311). It has been suggested that the Minas, possessing a splendid physique and animal courage, the very qualities needed for such a purpose, should be utilised in frontier and border forces, as the Mazbis, a similar marauding tribe, were utilised and reclaimed.