er without observing the
decent and customary reticences of theft. To effect a change of
ownership with the candid concomitance of a brass band. To wrest the
wealth of A from B and leave C lamenting a vanishing opportunity.

POCKET, n. The cradle of motive and the grave of conscience. In
woman this organ is lacking; so she acts without motive, and her
conscience, denied burial, remains ever alive, confessing the sins of
others.

POETRY, n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the
Magazines.

POKER, n. A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to
this lexicographer unknown.

POLICE, n. An armed force for protection and participation.

POLITENESS, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.

POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of
principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the
superstructure of organized society is reared. When we wriggles he
mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.
As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being
alive.

POLYGAMY, n. A house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with
several stools of repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which
has but one.

POPULIST, n. A fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found
in the old red soapstone underlying Kansas; characterized by an
uncommon spread of ear, which some naturalists contend gave him the
power of flight, though Professors Morse and Whitney, pursuing
independent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed out that had he
possessed it he would have gone elsewhere. In the picturesque speech
of his period, some fragments of which have come down to us, he was
known as "The Matter with Kansas."

PORTABLE, adj. Exposed to a mutable ownership through vicissitudes of
possession.

His light estate, if neither he did make it
Nor yet its former guardian forsake it,
Is portable improperly, I take it.

Worgum Slupsky

PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They
are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed
with garlic.

POSITIVE, adj. Mistaken at the top of one's voice.

POSITIVISM, n. A philosophy that denies our knowledge of the Real and
affirms our ignorance of the Apparent. Its longest exponent is Comte,
its broadest Mill and its thickest Spencer.

POSTERITY, n. An appellate co