nicipal bodies of Kilkenny and Irishtown-separate corporations, existing within the limit of one city, and the boundaries of whose respective jurisdictions had never been marked out or defined by an authority to which either was willing to bow. Their struggles for precedency, and for the maintenance of alleged rights invaded, commenced A. D, 1377, and were carried on with truly feline fierceness and implacability till the end of the 17th century, when it may be fairly considered that they had mutually devoured each other to the very tail, as we find their property all mortgaged, and see them each passing by-laws that their respective officers should be content with the dignity of their station, and forego all hope or salary until the suit at law with the other " pretended corporation" should be terminated, and the encumbrances thereby caused removed with the vanquishment of the enemy. Those who have taken the story of the Kilkenny cats in its literal sense have done grievous injustice to the character of the grimalkins of the "fair critic," who are really quite as demure and quietly disposed a race of tabbies as it is in the nature of any animal to be.

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JUDICIAL DEFINITION OF RIOT. What constitutes a riot" was defined in the Lycoming Fire Insurance Company, vs. Schwenk, Pennsylvania Supreme Court, June 14, 1880. This was an action on a fire policy. A breaker at a coal mine was set on fire at night by a party of men, who fired several shots, drove the watchman away, and then burned down the breaker. Held, that this was a riot within the provisions of the policy of insurance. The court said:

"We are decidedly of the opinion that in the foregoing testimony every element of the riot is found, whether at common law or under an act of 1705. There was the unlawful assemblage of three or more persons, combined together to perpetuate an outrageous and violent crime. The commission of the crime was immediately preceded by numerous discharges of fire-arms. Two peaceable citizens, engaged in watching, and protecting the premises, placed there for that purpose, were compelled to flee therefrom in terror of their lives. The crime was arson, one of the most odious known to the criminal law. It was committed at a late hour of the night, when the great majority of persons are abed and asleep and least prepared to defend themselves or their property. It is an offence having a more natural and necessary tendency to put whole communities in fear and terror than almost any other. In this instance it was accompanied by the voices of men calling for wood and oil with which to apply the fire, by the loud and appalling noise of exploding weapons of destruction, and the criminals themselves were a band of men whose numbers could not be determind on account of the darkness of the night. For a court,

in charging a jury, to speak of such an occurrence as anything less than a riot of a most marked and distinct character would be simply to mislead them." CAXTON, New York City.

What is the Shem-hammephorash?

This is a vocalized Hebrew word which was applied to the Tetragrammaton (four-lettered-name) of the Greeks, "because," says Mackenzie, "all other names of God are derived from His works, while this is derived from His substance, indicating his self-existent essence." McClintock & Strong, in their "Cyclopædia," under this word give quite a full and technical resumé of this cabalistic word, from which a portion of this reply is prepared.

The Hebrew letters are equivalent to SH M-H MM PH R SH, which are vocalized as Shem-hammephorash-meaning the peculiar name of God. By this expression the name of God written IHVH, but since the time of the Reformation, i. e. from the time that Christians began to study Hebrew, it is pronounced according to its accompanying vowelpoints Jehovah. Before entering upon the explanation of the word it will be well to review what is said concerning that name of God. Jerome, who was not only acquainted with the language, but with the tradition, of the Jews, says, in Prologus Galeatus:

"Nomen Domini tetragrammun (i. e. IHVH) in quibusdam Græcis voluminibus usque hodie antiquis expressum literis invenimus."

And in the 136th letter to Marcellus, where he treats of the ten names of God, Jerome says:

"Nonum (sc. nomen Dei) est tetragrammaton, quod anekphoneton, i. e. ineffabile, putaverunt, quod his literis scribitur lod, E, Vau, E. Quod quidam non intelligentes propter elementorum similitudinem, quum in Græcis libris repererint, Pi Pi legere consueverunt" (Opp. ed. Vallarsi, 1, 131; III, 720).

Similar is the statement found in a fragment of Evagrius treating of the ten Hebrew names of God, that the ineffable Tetragram, which katachrestikos is pronounced by the Jews adonai, by the Greeks kúrios, according to Exodus XXVIII, 36, was written on the plate of the highpriest hagiasma kurio IIIIII [in some codices pi pi].... toútois graphómenon tois stoichéiois ioth ep ouau iep IIIIII, ho Theos (cf. Cotelerius, Monum. Eccl. Græcæ, III, 216, by Vallarsi, III, 726; Lagarde, Onomastica Sacra, p. 205, sq.) Almost the same we find in Origen, Onomasticon (cf. Lagarde, loc. cit.). From these statements we see that at, or before, the time, of Jerome there were already Greek MSS. of the Old Testament in which the Tetragram was written with Hebrew letters which were regarded as the Greek uncial letters IIIIII. Such a mistake was only possible when the Hebrew square alphabet was used.

When, in the last quarter of the last century, the attention of many of the learned was again called to the Syriac translation of the Septuaginta by the Bishop Paul of Tela, they found in many places the Hebrew name of God, which otherwise is expressed by the Greek kúrios and the Syriac MRIA, represented by PHI PHI. It was, however, more surprising that in the main MS. of this version in the celebrated Codex Syro- Hexaplaris Ambrosianus at Milan, in the notes on Isaiah, the Hebrew word IHVH was found for the Syriac. The connection between the Greek III III and this IHVH was soon perceived, but not in a correct manner, so that in 1835 Middeldorpf, in his edition of Codex Syro-Hexaplaris, could but explain it as :

"Ita ut inscius quidam librarius, Cod. Syr. Hexaplarem describens, sed sensum Græci illius II I II I haud perspicens Græcum characterem II loco Hebraici H positum esse opinaretur, quemadmodum I loco Hebr. 1, ideoque Syriace IHVн scriberet."

Bernstein, in reviewing Middeldorpf's edition, quoted a scholium of Bar-Hebræus, which gives us the following interesting notice:

"The Hebrews call the glorious name of God SH M M PH RSH which is IнVн, and dare not to pronounce it with their lips, but read and speak instead, to those who listen, ADNI (AODNAI). Since the seventy translators retained the Hebrew nomenclature, the Greeks fell into an error and believed that these two letters were Greek, and read it from the left to the right, and hence the name IIIIII was formed, and thus IHVH, which designates the Eternal Being, was changed into IIIIII, which yields no sense at all. The Yod of the Hebrews is like the Iota of the Greeks, and the He of the Hebrews has the form of the Pi of the Greeks (II). Hence, in the Syriac copies of the Septuaginta, we find every where the name MRIA (i. e. where ADNI stands for kúrios IHVH), with pi pi written above."

On this scholium Bernstein remarks that SHM PHR SH corresponds to the Rabbinic SH MH MPH R SH, Shem-hammephorash. Bernstein, in his lexicon, writes:

"PH RISH is one who discerns, or separates, hence SH M PH R SH is a discerning, or separating, or an especial name, nomen, separatum, secretum, occultum."

Schroeter, in his edition of Bar-Hebræus, explains SH M PHRSH by nomen, distinctum, singulare. But Bar-Hebræus tells us only what he found in Jacob of Edessa, who has a whole scholium entitled:

"Scholium on the Singular and Distinguished Name which is found in the Syriac Holy Writings translated from the Greek, and which is called among the Jews SHM PH RSH."

From this scholium, which Nestle published in the "Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft," 1878, XXXII, 465, sq., and

which purports to give what Jewish tradition believed concerning this name, we see that it means the separated, i. e. singular name of God-a view also adopted by Nestle himself. But a review of the different opinions will show that there is a great difference as to what the meaning of the word SH H M PH R SH is. Some translate it by nomen explicitum, others by nomen separatum (comp. Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. s. v.); Petrus Galatinus, De Arcanis Catholicæ Veritatis, 11, 18, by separatum i. e.:

"Sejunctum et distinctum ab aliis omnibus Dei nominibus, et soli Deo proprie conveniens."

Reuchlin in the third book of De Arte Cabalistica, explains it by nomen expositorium; Munk, le nom distinctement prononcé; Geiger, der ausdruckliche Name; Levy, der deutlich ausgesprochene Name.

In settling the question all must depend on the meaning of PHRSH, whether it means only "to separate," or whether it occurs also in the sense of "to pronounce distinctly." In the latter sense it occurs very often, especially in the Targum and Talmud, as Dr. Fürst has shown against Dr. Nestle in "Z. d. d. m. G.," 1879, xXXIII, 297, claiming that PHUR SH ATH HSHM is only the Aramaized form for the words HVCHIR ATH HS Hм, "to pronounce distinctly the name of God."

In the Mishna (Yoma, vi, 2), we are told that both the priests and people, when they heard SHM HM PH R SH, on the Day of Atonement, they fell to the ground; and we are also told that the voice of the high-priest, when he pronounced the name, on the Day of Atonement, was heard as far as Jericho.

Whatever may be the meaning of this word in a philological point of view, Jewish tradition ascribed to it great power. By means of the Shem-hammephorash Christ is said to have performed his miracles; and Moses is said to have slain the Egyptians by the same means.

Practically, Shem-hammephorash is a cabalistic word among the Rabbinical Jews, who reckon it as of such importance that Moses spent forty days on Mount Sinai in learning it from the angel Saxael. It is not, however, the real word of power, but a representation of it. The rabbins differ as to whether the genuine word consisted of twelve, or forty-two, or seventy-two letters, and try by their gematria, or cabalistic arithmetic, to reconstruct it. They affirm that Jesus stole it from the Temple, and by its means was enabled to perform many wonderful works. It is now lost, and hence, according to the rabbins, is the reason of the lack of power in the prayers throughtout the house of Israel.. They declare if any one were able rightly and devoutly to

pronounce it, he would by this means be able to create a world. It is alleged, indeed, that two letters of the word inscribed by a cabalist on a tablet and thrown into the sea raised the storm which, A. D. 1542, destroyed the fleet of Charles V. They say, further, that if you write this name on the person of a prince, you are sure of his abiding favor. The rationale of its virtue is thus described by Mr. Alfred Vaughan in his "Hours with the Mystics":

"The Divine Being was supposed to have commenced the work of creation by concentrating on certain points the primal, universal Light. Within the origin of these was the appointed place of our world. Out of the remaining luminous points, or foci, he constructed certain letters-a heavenly alphabet. These characters he again combined into certain creative words, whose secret potency produced the forms of the material world. The word Shem-hammephorash contains the sum of these celestial letters, with all their inherent virtue, in its mightiest combination."

"There is a name of God the Father, says Nimrod, and of the Theanthorpe (God-Man) exprest in the three letters I, or Y, O, and the Vau, Iow, or Yow YOWHIS. The nominative does not occur unless in composition as IUPITER, but the genitive Jovis sometimes obtained the place of a nominative. This name the Greeks used to invoke in their distress, crying Iou, Iau, and Io, and from it the names Io, Ion, Ione, Iaon, Iao, and Ioo were formed, as probably was also that of Iauan or Iawhan (Vau-Han), son of Japhet. The virgins who preserved the fire of Vesta were admitted into the College by the High Priest, in the name of Ioo. Sacredotem vestalem quæ sacra faciat. This name was acknowledged for his own by the Divine Person who conversed with Moses; and soon after the Jews returned from their sojourn in Chaldæa, and had fallen into the heathenish errors of Rabbinism, they revered it with the most grovelling superstition. They accounted it a profane action to utter this word, by which means they unavoidably lost, and do not pretend to possess, the mode of pronouncing it. They superstitiously call it the Tetragramaton, that is, the four letters; yet in our characters it is written Jehovah. It is spelt with the four letters Iod, Hè, Vau, and Hè, which makes Ihèouhè, if the Hè is taken for an aspirated E; but if, as I suppose, it be no more than an aspirate, it will make Ihouh, a word susceptible of articulate pronunciation, although that pronunciation would probably be corrupted by substituting a short vowel for the final aspiration, Ihoua. The anointing of Jehu by Elijah seems to be a symbol of the baptism of the Lord by him who came in the power of Elijah, and that name seems to be the same as Jehovah."

"Lilith was said to have been created at the same time and in the same way as Adam; and when the two met they instantly quarrelled about the headship which both claimed. Adam began the first con