ered by a fall. It is often merely a succession of openings through the several floors of the building, which are generally uninclosed, and the source of frequent accidents.

FAMILY. This word is often used to denote a man's wife and children, especially the latter. Hence the phrases, "a man of family," "have you any family?" and in the West, "How is your father's family?" FAMILY ROOM. This term is applied, in the West, to a room generally occupied by the mother and young children to the exclusion of visitors and strangers.

To FAN OUT. To make a show at an examination, alluding probably to the peacock spreading his tail. This term originated at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where for years it was local; but it is now gradually finding its way through the country.

FANCIES. Fancy stocks, which see below.

Yesterday was a blue day in Wall street: the fancies looked down, and the bears looked up. Stock Report, N. Y. Herald.

FANCY STOCKS. A species of stocks which are bought and sold to a great extent in New York. Unlike articles of merchandise, which may be seen and examined by the dealer, and which always have an intrinsic value in every fluctuation of the market, these stocks are wholly wrapped in mystery; no one knows any thing about them, except the officers and directors of the companies, who, from their position, are not the most likely men to tell you the truth. They serve no other purpose, therefore, than as the representative of value in stock gambling. Nearly all the fluctuations in their prices are artificial. A small fluctuation is more easily produced than a large one; and as the calculations are made on the par value, a fluctuation of one per cent. on stock worth $20 a share, is just five times as much on the amount of money invested as it would be on a par stock. Consequently, if a "Flunkie can be drawn in, he may be fleeced five times as quick in these as in good stocks. A Week in Wall Street, p. 83.

FANDANGO. (Spanish.) A lively dance. In Texas, New Mexico, and California, this term is applied to a ball or dance of any sort.

FARALLON. (Spanish, pron. farayón.) A small pointed island in the sea. The meaning of this geographical term, applied to islands on the California coast, has puzzled many.

FARZINO, or FARZINER. A vulgar contraction of far-as-I-know, extensively used through New England and New York, including Long Island.

Gen. And what kind of characters are the Count and Countess ?

Doolittle. Why, I han't been here such a despud while, as to have larnt myself much about the matter. But by hearsay, they are a topping sort of people, and pretty much like the Boston folks, full of notions. At times, he is obstropulous. He may be a straight-going critter, farzino, manwards; but in his dealings with t' other sex, he is a little twistical. — D. Humphreys, Yankee in England.

FAST. That lives at a rapid rate; dissipated. A flash word.

Mr. Cephas Bubble is undeniably the fastest young man in the market; for he 's not only ashamed of his parentage and birthplace, but he is actually ashamed he was ever a boy. - Miss Wellmont, Substance and Shade, p. 108.

Fast books, like fast men, soon exhaust their constitutions. —Norton's Literary Gazette.

FAT-PORK TREE. A name of the Coco-Plum.

Barbadoes.

FEAST. A corruption of the Dutch vies, nice, fastidious. "I'm feast of it," is a literal translation of the Dutch Ik ben er vies van, i. e. I am disgusted with, I loathe it. A New York phrase, mostly confined to the descendants of the Dutch.

TO FEATHER. A friend has reminded me of this colloquial word, which is used in some parts of New England to denote the appearance of curdled cream, when it rises upon the surface of a cup of tea or coffee, in the form of little flakes, somewhat resembling feathers. We say, "The cream feathers."

Pickering.

FEDERAL. Founded upon or formed by a league, treaty, or compact, between independent States. The government of the United States is a federal government, as being formed by the union of several independent States, each surrendering a portion of its power to the central authority. A federal is strictly distinguishable from a national government (though in the United States the terms are often used indiscriminately), the latter being properly an aggregation of individual citizens. The Constitution of the United States is pronounced by Mr. Madison to be neither a national nor a federal constitution, but a composition of both. — Federalist, No. 39.

FEDERAL CITY. Washington, as the seat of government. FEDERAL CURRENCY. The legal currency of the United States. Its coins are the gold eagle of ten dollars; the double eagle, twenty dollars; half and quarter eagles of proportionate value. The silver dollar of one hundred cents, its half, quarter, tenth, and twentieth parts. The coin of ten cents value is called a dime; that of five cents, a half-dime. The lowest coin in common use was the copper, now supplanted by the nickel cent. Half-cent coins have been made, but few or none of late years. In the commercial cities and along the sea-board, Spanish coins of a dollar and

the fractional parts of a dollar were very common, and passed currently for their original value, until the act of February 21, 1857, which, by reducing the value of the quarter, eighth, and sixteenth of a dollar by twenty per cent., caused the foreign coinage to be suddenly withdrawn from the currency.

Previous to the adoption of our federal currency, pounds, shillings, and pence were used. But these denominations became unstable in value, in consequence of the great depreciation which took place in the papermoney issued by the colonies.

In the year 1702, exchange on England was 333 per cent. above par; and silver and gold bore the same relative value to paper-money. The depreciation in the latter continued to increase until, in the year 1749, £1,100 currency was only equal to £100 sterling, or eleven for one. In 1750, a stop was put to the further depreciation of the money of the province of Massachusetts by a remittance from England of £183,000 sterling, in Spanish dollars, to reimburse the expense the province had been at in the reduction of Cape Breton in the old French war. The depreciated money was then called in, and paid off at the rate of a Spanish dollar for forty-five shillings of the paper currency. At the same time a law was made fixing the par of exchange between England and Massachusetts at £133 currency for £100 sterling, and six shillings to the Spanish dollar.

The difference of exchange, or depreciation of the paper-money, regulated in the same manner the currencies of the other colonies. Throughout New England, as has been before stated, it was six shillings to the dollar of 4s. 6d. sterling. In New York, eight shillings, or about seventyfive per cent. depreciation. Pennsylvania, 7s. 6d., or about sixty-six per cent. depreciation. In some of the Southern States it was 4s. 6d. to the dollar, and accordingly no depreciation. In Halifax currency, including the present British provinces, it was five shillings to the dollar, or about eleven per cent., etc. etc.

In consequence of the above-named diversity in the colonial currencies, in New England the Spanish real of one eighth of a dollar, or 12 cents, is called a ninepence; in New York, a shilling; in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, elevenpence or a levy; and in many of the Southern States, a bit. The half real, of the value of one sixteenth of a dollar, is called in New York a sixpence; in New England, fourpence ha'penny, or simply fourpence; in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, a fip; and in Louisiana, a picayune. The disappearance of the coins from circulation will probably soon cause these names to fall likewise into disuse. FEDERALISTS. An appellation in America given to the friends of the Constitution of the United States, at its formation and adoption; and to the

political party which favored the administration of President Washington.- Webster.

TO FEDERALIZE. To unite in compact, as different States; to confederate for political purposes.-Webster.

FEED. Used as a noun, for grass; as, "tall feed," i. e. high grass.

To FEEL. To feel to do a thing is an expression commonly used by some clergymen, for to feel inclined, to be disposed to do it.

FEET. There are people who consider it witty to use this plural instead of its singular foot.

FEEZE.

When I was a feet high, I was my mammy's joy,
The ladies all caressed me, and called me pretty boy.
They said I was a beauty, my face it was complete,
Except this tarnal ugly nose, but it stuck out a feet.

Western Melodies.

"To be in a feeze," is to be in a state of excitement. Larcenie is the felonious taking away of another man's personal goods without his knowledge or insight, yet without making any assault upon his person or putting him into a fease. · Code of Laws of Rhode Island, 1647.

Some years ago, we remember, New York was in its annual feeze about mad dogs, and the public mind was somewhat exercised touching the best method of doing murder upon the unhappy canines.-N. Y. Commercial Advertiser, Oct. 16, 1848. When a man's in a feeze, there's no more sleep that hitch. -Sam Slick in England, ch. 2.

Southern.

FELLOW or BLACK FELLOW. A black man. FELLOW-COUNTRYMAN. One belonging to the same country, a compatriot. This has been censured as an American pleonasm, like play-actor, inasmuch as good English usage has conferred this meaning on the word countryman alone. (See Pickering, sub voce.) Still the want of a more definite expression has been felt in England as well as in this country; and the term fellow-countryman, as distinguished from countryman, rustic, as the French compatriote and German landsmann are distinguished from paysan and landmann, has long been used in America, and in England has been adopted and sanctioned by such authorities as Southey and Lord Brougham.

FELLOWSHIP. Companionship; consort; society.-Johnson. With us it is often used in religious writings and discourses, instead of the word communion, to denote "mutual intercourse or union in religious worship, or in doctrine and discipline."

TO FELLOWSHIP. A verb formed from the preceding noun. To fellowship with is to hold communion with; to unite with in doctrine and

discipline. This barbarism appears with disgusting frequency in the reports of ecclesiastical conventions, etc., and in the religious newspapers generally. Mr. Pickering, in the Supplement to his Vocabulary, said he had just become acquainted with the word. The following is the first example which he gives:

We considered him heretical, essentially unsound in the faith; and on this ground refused to fellowship with him. —Address to the Christian Public, Greenfield, 1813.

If the Christian Alliance could not fellowship with the Southern slaveholders for gain, they ought to say so outright.—Speech at the Christian Alliance Conference, May 8, 1847.

It is also used actively without the preposition, as in the following examples:

How can we expect the fellowship of the preachers of the reformation? I do not expect it, because our fellowship was predicated upon a vain uniformity of belief. If it were, I could never have fellowshipped them? - Rev. J. B. Ferguson's Discourse. We therefore fellowship him in taking a course of preparatory studies for the Christian ministry. — Board of Madison University, New York, Jan. 1, 1840. FEMALE. A person of the female sex, a woman or girl. There has been much said of the use and abuse of this word, and whether it is proper to designate women by it. Doctor Johnson thus defines female: "A she; one of the sex that brings forth young." Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, in speaking of the word, has the following remarks (we do not indorse her grammatical criticism): "Where used to discriminate between the sexes, the word female is an adjective. We do not object to the term when used necessarily, as an adjective; but many writers employ the word as a noun, which, when applied to woman, is improper, and sounds unpleasantly, as referring to an animal. To illustrate: almost every newspaper we open, or book we read, will have sentences like these: 'A man and two females were seen, etc.,' 'A gentleman was walking with a female companion,' "The females were much alarmed,' 'A female child,' etc. Now why is such a style of writing tolerated? Why is the adjective, which applies to all female animals, used as the noun designating woman? It is inelegant as well as absurd. Expressed correctly, thus, A man and two women,' etc., 'A gentleman and a lady,' 'The women were alarmed,' 'A little girl.' Who does not see and feel that these last sentences are in better taste, more correct in language, and more definite in meaning? We call on our sex, on women, to use pen and voice to correct the error of language which degrades them by the animal epithet only."

In the House of Delegates in Maryland, in a debate "on the passage of the bill to protect the reputation of unmarried females," the title was amended by striking out the word "females," and inserting "women," as the word "female" was an Americanism in that application. - Baltimore Patriot, March, 1839.

FEN. A prohibitory exclamation used by boys in their games; as, "Fen