urite. He especially owed his celebrity and fortune to his
idea of crossing Niagara Falls on a tight-rope, 1100 ft. long, 160 ft.
above the water. This he accomplished, first in 1859, a number of times,
always with different theatric variations: blindfold, in a sack,
trundling a wheelbarrow, on stilts, carrying a man on his back, sitting
down midway while he made and ate an omelette. In 1861 Blondin first
appeared in London, at the Crystal Palace, turning somersaults on stilts
on a rope stretched across the central transept, 170 ft. from the
ground. In 1862 he again gave a series of performances at the Crystal
Palace, and elsewhere in England, and on the continent. After a period
of retirement he reappeared in 1880, his final performance being given
at Belfast in 1896. He died at Ealing, London, on the 19th of February
1897.

BLOOD, the circulating fluid in the veins and arteries of animals. The
word itself is common to Teutonic languages; the O. Eng. is _blod_, cf.
Gothic _bloth_, Dutch _bloed_, Ger. _Blut_. It is probably ultimately
connected with the root which appears in "blow," "bloom," meaning
flourishing or vigorous. The Gr. word for blood, [Greek: aima], appears
as a prefix _haemo-_ in many compound words. As that on which the life
depends, as the supposed seat of the passions and emotions, and as that
part which a child is believed chiefly to inherit from its parents, the
word "blood" is used in many figurative and transferred senses; thus "to
have his blood," "to fire the blood," "cold blood," "blood-royal,"
"half" or "whole blood," &c. The expression "blue blood" is from the
Spanish _sangre azul._ The nobles of Castile claimed to be free from all
admixture with the darker blood of Moors or Jews, a proof being supposed
to lie in the blue veins that showed in their fairer skins. The common
English expletive "bloody," used as an adjective or adverb, has been
given many fanciful origins; it has been supposed to be a contraction of
"by our Lady," or an adaptation of the oath common during the 17th
century, "'sblood," a contraction of "God's blood." The exact origin of
the expression is not quite clear, but it is certainly merely an
application of the adjective formed from "blood." The _New English
Dictionary_ suggests that it refers to the use of "blood" for a young
rowdy of aristocratic birth, which was common at the end of the 17th
century, and later became synonymous with "dandy," "buck," &c.; "bloody
dru