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when inducted into office, and were called the anointed of the Lord, to show that their persons were sacred, and their office from God. In the Old Tes tament, also, the prophecies respecting the Redeemer style him, on account of his royal descent and dignity, Messias, that is, anointed. The custom of anointing priests, still exists in the Roman Catholic church, and that of anointing kings in Christian monarchies.

the government, or a private annuity office, agrees, for a certain sum advanced by the purchaser, to pay a certain sum annually, in yearly, quarterly or other periodical payments, to the person advancing the money, or some other annuitants named by him, during the life of the annuitant; or the annuity is granted to the annuitant, his heirs and assignees, during the life of some other person, or during two or three joint lives, or during the life of the longest liver or survivor among a number of persons named The Greeks and Romans, particularly the former, in the act or agreement whereby the annuity is raised. anointed themselves after the bath, and thus gave a If a person, having a certain capital, and intend-yellow color to the body. Perhaps in order to imiing to spend this capital and the income of it during tate this color, perhaps to make the figure look his own life, and leave no part to his heirs, could softer, and to deprive it of the harsh white color, know precisely how long he should live, he might they often oiled their statues. The combatants who loan this capital at a certain rate during his life, and, took part in their public games, anointed themselves, by taking every year, besides the interest, a certain in order to render it more difficult for their antagoamount of the capital, he might secure the same nists to get hold of them. annual amount for his support during his life, in such a manner, that he should have the same sum to spend every year, and consume precisely his whole capital during his life. But, since he does not know how long he is to live, he agrees with an annuity office, or with government, to take the risk of the duration of his life, and agree to pay him a certain annuity during his life, in exchange for his capital, which he proposes to invest in this way.

ANNUNCIATION. The delivery of a message, particularly the angel's message to the Virgin Mary, concerning the birth of our Saviour.

ANODYNES. Medicines used to mitigate pain and to procure sleep. As the pain may arise from very different causes, the means for counteracting it must be very different. Thus, for instance, a pain may be produced by inflammation; and, in this case, cooling means, lukewarm poultices, sometimes even bleeding and purging, will be proper anodynes. At other times, they should be of the inflammatory kind; for instance, in debility of the nerves, cramps, or spasms. In the stricter sense, we understand by anodynes, such remedies as lessen the susceptibility to painful impressions, by diminishing the susceptibility of the nerves. In early times, when the doctrines of poisons and antidotes was inore attended to than any other part of medicine, the soothing qualities of many simples was also more closely observed, and a particular class was formed in this way. As this property existed to a high degree in opium, then already in use, it not only obtained the first place in this class of simples, but the name anodyne was given to all mixtures containing it. The use of anodynes is proper only when the cause of pain cannot be removed, or not so soon as its violence requires, or where the pain itself is more imperious than the cause which produces it; for example, when it prevents a favorable crisis, by rendering the patient unable to sleep.

ANOINTING. From time immemorial, the nations of the East have been in the habit of anointing themselves, for the sake of health and beauty; and to anoint a guest, was to show him one of the highest marks of respect. In the Mosaic law, and several ancient religions, a sacred character was attached to the anointing of the garments of the priests, and things belonging to the ceremonial worship. The Jewish priests and kings were apointed

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ANOMALY or ANOMALOUS. Irregular, out of rule, deviating from the general method or analogy of things. It is applied, in grammar, to words deviating from the common rules of inflection; and, in astronomy, to the seeming irregular motions of the planets.

ANT. The history of a tribe of insects so long celebrated for their industry and frugality, and for the display of that sagacity which characterizes some of the higher orders of animals, is peculiarly calculated to occupy the attention of modern naturalists. Ants possess the remarkable peculiarity of a threefold distinction of sex; a circumstance which is met with in no other order of the animal kingdom, and, which appears, as far as observation has extended, to be totally excluded from the plan of the vegetable creation. Besides the males and females, there exists an apparently intermediate order of neuters, which are also denominated laboring or working ants. The neuters, thus exempted from every sexual function, exercise, on the other hand, all the offices necessary for the existence and welfare of the community to which they belong. It is they who collect supplies of food, who explore the country for this purpose, and seize upon every animal substance, whether living or dead, which they can lay hold of, and transport to their nest. It is they who construct every part of their dwelling place, who attend to the hatching of the eggs, to the feeding of the young, and to their removal, as occasion may require, to different situations favorable to their growth and developement; and who, both as aggressors and as defenders, fight all the battles of the commonwealth, and provide for the safety of their weaker and more passive companions. Thus all the laborious and perilous duties of the state are performed solely by this description of ants, who act the part of helots in these singularly constituted republics of insects.

Ants appear to be endowed with a greater share of muscular strength than almost any other insect of the same size. Of this we have sufficient proofs in the vivacity of their movements, the incessant toil which many undergo, the great loads which they are seen to carry, often exceeding ten or twelve times their own weight, and the agility which they exert in making escape from danger. They also possess considerable acuteness of smell, a sense which appears to be useful not only in directing

them to their food, but also, as Bonnet first remarked, in enabling them to follow by the scent the track of their companions. If the end of the finger be passed two or three times across the line of their march, so as to brush off the odorous particles with which the ants who have already passed that way may have impregnated the track, those who follow immediately stop on arriving at the place where the experiment had been made, and afterwards direct their course irregularly, till they have passed over the space touched by the finger, when they soon find the path, and proceed with the same confidence as before.

These insects are chiefly carnivorous although they also feed on vegetable substances. They will attack other insects when alive; either devouring their victim on the spot, or dragging it a prisoner into the interior of a nest. The rapidity with which they consume, and, in fact anatomize, the carcass of any small bird or quadruped that happens to fall in their way, is well known, and furnishes an easy method of obtaining natural skeletons of these animals, by placing their dead bodies in the vicinity of a populous ant-hill. In hot climates, where they multiply to an amazing extent, their voracity and boldness increase with their numbers. Bosman, in his description of Guinea, states that, in one night, they will devour a sheep, leaving it a fine skeleton; while a fowl is for them only the amusement of an hour. In these situations they will attack even living animals of considerable size. Rats and mice often become their victims. The sugar ants of Granada cleared every plantation which they visited of rats and other vermin, which they probably effected by attacking their young. Poultry, and other small stock, could not be raised without the greatest difficulty; and, the eyes, nose, and emunctories of the bodies of dying or dead animals, were instantly covered with them. They generally, indeed, begin their attacks on the most sensible parts, which have the finest cuticle; and, accumulating in great numbers about the nostrils, destroy the animal by interrupting respiration. Negroes with sores had difficulty in keeping the ants from assailing them. Their power of destruction keeping pace with their increase of numbers, it is hardly possible to assign limits to either; and the united hosts of this diminutive insect have often been formidable to man himself.

A story is related by Prévost of an Italian missionary, resident in Congo, who was awaked by his negroes in great alarm at the house being invaded by an immense army of ants, which poured in like a flood, and before he could rise had already mounted upon his legs. They covered the floor and passages, forming a stratum of considerable depth. Nothing but fire was capable of arresting their progress. He states that cows have been known to be devoured in their stalls by these daring devastators. Smith, in his voyage to Guinea, reports that at Cape Corse the castle was attacked by legions of ants, who were preceded by thirty or forty, apparently acting as guides. It was at daybreak when they made this incursion, entering first by a chapel, on the floor of which some negro servants were lying. Assailed by this new enemy, they fled with precipitation, and gave the alarm to their master, who, on awaking, could hardly recover from his astonishment at beholding the advancing multitude, which exten

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ded for a quarter of a mile before him. There was not much time for deliberation; and a happy expedient was adopted of putting a long train of gunpowder across the line of their march, and extending it to their flanks, which had already begun to deploy, and, setting fire to the whole, millions were destroyed at one blow; which so intimidated the rest, that the whole army retreated in disorder, and did not renew the attack.

Descriptions of ant-hills of immense size abound in books of travellers who have visited tropical regions. Mr. Campbell observed in the district of Albany, at the Cape of Good Hope, an ant-hill, five feet high, and twelve in circumference. In the forests of Guinea, it is stated, that they may be found from fifteen to twenty feet in height; and, that, when viewed from a distance on these widely extended savannas, they resemble the rude huts of the savages; but they contain a race more ferocious than the savage or the tiger himself, and cannot be approached by men without the utmost danger of being devoured.

ANTARCTIC. In astronomy this is the name of a circle of the sphere, which is opposite to the artic or northern pole. It is nearly twenty-three and a half degrees distant from the south pole, which is called the antarctic pole.

ANT-EATER. An animal of South America, that has a large slender tongue, which it allows to get covered with ants, and then quickly draws it in. ANTECEDENT. The word in grammar to which the relative refers. Thus, in the expression, God, whom we adore, the word God is the antecedent.

ANTEDILUVIANS. This is a general name for all mankind, who lived before the flood, and so includes the whole of the human race from Adam to Noah, and his family. One of the most extraordinary circumstances which occurs in the antediluvian history, is the vast length of human lives in those first ages, compared with our own. Few persons now arrive at eighty or a hundred years, whereas before the flood they frequently lived to near a thousand. Some have imagined that the ages of those first men might possibly be computed, not by solar years, but months; an expedient which reduces the length of their lives rather to a shorter period than our own. But for this there is not the least foundation; besides, many absurdities would thence follow--Such as their begetting children at about six years of age, as some of them in that case must have done, and the contracting of the whole interval between the creation and the deluge to considerably less than two centuries, even according to the largest computation which can be made.

Josephus, the Jewish historian, and some Christian divines, are of opinion, that before the flood, and sometime after, mankind in general did not live to such a remarkable age, but a few beloved of God, such as the patriarchs mentioned by Moses. They reason in this manner; though the historian records the names of some men whose longevity was singular, yet that is no proof that the rest of mankind attained to the same period of life, more than that every man was of a gigantic stature, be

cause he says, in those days there were giants in the earth. Besides, had the whole of the antediluvians lived so very long, and increased in numbers in proportion to their age, before the flood of Noah, the earth could not have contained its inhabitants, even supposing no part of it had been sea. And had animals lived as long, and multiplied in the same manner, as they have done since, they would have consumed the whole produce of the globe, and the stronger would have extinguished many species of the weaker. Hence they conclude, that for wise and good reasons, God extended only the lives of the patriarchs, and a few besides, to such an extraordinary length. But most writers maintain the longevity of mankind in general in the early world, not only upon the authority of sacred, but likewise profane history.

The antediluvian world was in all probability stocked with a much greater number of inhabitants than the present earth either actually does, or perhaps is capable of containing or supplying. This seems naturally to follow, for the great length of their lives, which exceeding the present standard of life in the proportion at least of ten to one, the antediluvians must accordingly in any long space of time have doubled themselves, at least in about the tenth part of the time in which mankind do now double themselves.

As to the customs, policy, and other general circumstances of the antediluvians, we can only form conjectures. The only thing we know as to their religious rites is, that they offered sacrifices, and that very early, both of the fruits of the earth and of animals; but whether the blood and flesh of animals, or only their milk and wool, were offered, is a disputed point.

The antediluvians seem to have spent their time rather in luxury and wantonness, to which the abundant fertility of the first earth invited them, than in discoveries or improvements, which probably they stood much less in need of than their successors. Some authors have supposed astronomy to have been cultivated by the antediluvians, though this is probably owing to a mistake of Josephus; but it is to be presumed that the progress they made therein, or in any other science, was not extraordinary; it being even very doubtful whether letters were so much as known before the flood.

As to their politics and civil constitutions, we have not so much as any circumstances whereon to build conjecture. It is probable that the patriarchal form of government, which certainly was the first, was set aside when tyranny and oppression began to take place, much sooner among the race of Cain than among that of Seth. It seems also that their communities were but few, and consisted of vastly larger numbers of people than any formed since the flood; or rather it is a question, whether, after the union of the two great families of Cain and Seth, there were any distinctions of civil societies, or diversity of regular governments at all. It is more likely that all mankind then made but one great nation, though living in a kind of anarchy, divided into several disorderly associations; which, as it was almost the natural consequence of their having in all probability but one common language, so it was a circumstance which greatly contributed to that general corruption which otherwise perhaps could not have so universally overspread the antediluvian

world. And for this reason chiefly, as it seems, so soon as the posterity of Noah were sufficiently increased, a plurality of tongues was miraculously introduced, in order to divide them into distinct societies, and thereby prevent any such total depravation for the future.

ANTELOPE. This animal, of which there are many varieties, is smaller than the goat. Its form is slender and graceful; and its horns are spiral and twisted. The color is brown on the back, and white under the belly. They inhabit hot mountainous countries, and bound from rock to rock with an agility that excites astonishment in the spectator. In Africa and Asia they are very numerous. In Asia there is a species of antelope which bears the name gazel, and such is the brightness and beauty of its eyes that they furnish similes to the poet, and to call a woman gazel-eyed is to pay her one of the handsomest of compliments. The disciple raised to life at Joppa was supposed to have been called Tabitha, that is, Dorcas, or the antelope, from the beauty of her eyes. The sacred writers took their similes from such objects as were before the eyes of the people to whom they addressed themselves. The speed of Asahel is beautifully compared to that of the Tzerbi, and the Gadites were said to be as swift as the antelopes upon the mountains.

Antelopes feed exclusively on vegetable food, and their flesh is regarded as a luxury when obtained in the proper season. Against their numerous enemies, they have no resort but in flight, and, swift as this is, it cannot save them from the unremitted pursuit of the jackal, or the insidious prowling of the tiger. Lions, leopards, ounces, and other carnivorous tyrants lie in ambush for them at their drinking places; and man, aided by dogs and falcons, contributes his share to their destruction.

ANTHEM. A hymn sung in alternate parts; but in modern usage, a sacred tune or piece of music set to words, taken from the Psalms or other parts of Scripture, first introduced into church service in the reign of Elizabeth.

ANTHESTERION.

In ancient chronology, the sixth month of the Athenian year. It contained twenty-nine days, and answered to the latter part of our November and beginning of December. It had its name from the festival anthestria kept in it.

ANTHOLOGION. This is the title of the service-book used in the Greek Church. It is divided into twelve months, containing the offices sung throughout the year, on the festivals of our Saviour, the Virgin, and other remarkable saints.

ANTHOLOGY. A discourse of flowers, or a selection of beautiful passages from various authors. It is also the name given to collections of epigrams taken from several Greek poets.

ANTHRACITE. This is the name of one of the most valuable kinds of mineral coal. It has been found in several European countries, where, owing to its limited extent and other causes, its use appears to be but little known. In the United States it occurs in the greatest abundance, and within the last

that the barbarous practice of eating human flesh,
should have been so generally adopted.
The Cyclops, the Lestrygones, and Scylla, are all
represented by Homer as cannibals. According to
Herodotus, among the Essedonians and Scythians,
when a man's father died, the neighbors brought sev-
eral beasts, which they killed, mixed up their flesh
with that of the deceased, and made a feast. Among
the Massagetæ, when any person grew old, they
ness they buried him, esteeming him unhappy. The
same author assures us also, that several nations in
the Indies killed all their old people and their sick,
to feed on their flesh. He adds, that persons in
health were sometimes accused of being sick, to af-
ford a pretence for devouring them. According
to Sextus Empiricus, the first laws that were made
were for the preventing this barbarous practice,
which the Greek writers represent as universal be-
fore the time of Orpheus.

ten years, has acquired a high degree of importance. Its difficult combustibility was, at first, an obstacle to its introduction; but, this has been obviated by the construction of furnaces and grates suited to its use. It is now very largely used in all the maritime parts of the United States, not only for manufacturing purposes, in which its utility is immense, but in the warming of apartments, both private and public; and its cheapness, the intensity and equability of heat it produces, together with its perfect safety, and free-killed him and ate his flesh; but if he died of sickdom from all disagreeable smoke and smell, give it a decided preference over every other species of fuel. In Pennsylvania, the anthracite coal formation is known to cover a tract of country many miles in width, extending across the two entire countries of Luzerne and Schuylkill. At Mauch Chunk, on the Lehigh river, eight hundred men were employed in digging coal, in the year 1825, in which time seven hundred and fifty thousand bushels were sent to Philadelphia. The anthracite region, throughout the limits above named, is explored with but very little labor, being situated in hills from three hundred to six hundred feet above the level of neighboring rivers and canals, and existing in nearly horizontal beds, from fifteen to forty feet in thickness, covered only by a few feet of gravelly loam. It has been computed that this coal bed contains a surface of three hundred square miles; and, if it has a depth of only ten yards, the whole number of cubic yards would be ten thousand millions. As a cubic yard contains more than a ton of coal, it is obvious, that there are at least in this bed ten thousand millions of tons. Hence, allowing five tons annually to each family, there is coal enough in this bed to supply a population like that now in the United States, at least, five hundred years.

ANTHROPOLOGY. A discourse upon human nature. It sometimes is applied to designate the speculations and inquiries that have obtained Concerning the varieties of the human race.

Of the practice of anthiopophagi in later times, we have the testimonies of all the Romish missionaries who have visited the interior of Africa, and even some parts of Asia. When America was first discovered, this practice was found to exist; or, which is perhaps as probable, the Mexicans were accused of it, in order to furnish a more plausible pretext for the cruelties inflicted on them by their conquerors.

It appears pretty certain, from Dr. Hawksworth's account of the voyages to the South Seas, that the inhabitants of New Zealand, a country unfurnished with the necessaries of life, eat the bodies of their enemies. It appears also to be very probable, that both the wars and anthiopophagi of these savages take their rise from irresistible necessity, and owe their continuance to the dreadful alternative of destroying each other by violence or perishing by hunger.

Mr. Marsden, informs us that this horrible custom is practised by the Battas, a people in the island of Sumatra. They do not eat human flesh, says he, as a means of satisfying the cravings of nature, owing to a deficiency of other food; nor is it sought after as a gluttonous delicacy, as it would seem among the New Zealanders. The Battas eat it, as a species of ceremony; as a mode of showing their detestation of crimes, by an ignominious punish ment; and as a horrid indication of revenge and insult to their unfortunate enemies. The objects of this barbarous repast are the prisoners taken in war, and offenders convicted and condemned for capital crimes.

ANTHIOPOPHAGI. The scientific name of eannibals, or such as feed on human flesh. It is with difficulty we can bring ourselves to believe, that such monsters ever existed; and, yet there is scarcely any fact more fully established by the coneurring testimony both of ancient and modern authors. There is an evident propensity to deal in what is marvellous, monstrous, and uncommon; and to this principle we owe many of those improbable stories, which never had any foundation but in the imagination of the narrator. We are therefore justified in entertaining a considerable degree of skep- It may be said, that whether the dead body of an ticism, with regard to all such accounts as contradict enemy be eaten or buried, is a matter perfectly inour experience, and shock our reason and our feel- different. But whatever the practice of eating huings. At the same time, it must be confessed, that man flesh may be in itself, it certainly is relatively, there is nothing so barbarous and revolting to our and in its consequences, most pernicious. It manfeelings, but may be exemplified in the history of ifestly tends to eradicate a principle which is the human nature; and the anthenticated instances of chief security of human life, and more frequently depraved taste, and monstrously perverted judg- restrains the hand of the murderer than the sense ment, may serve to render us less incredulous, even of duty or the dread of punishment. Even if this with regard to the most improbable details. All horrid practice originates from hunger, still it must history, sacred and profane, clearly attests, that the be perpetuated from revenge. Death must lose feelings of nature have been so perverted, that pa- much of its horror among those who are accustomrents have yielded up their children to the flames ed to eat the dead; and where there is little horror or the knife of a heathen priest, in hopes of propitia- at the sight of death, there must be less repugnance ting an angry demon. Need we then be surprised to murder.

ANTICLIMAX. This is a figure in rhetoric, whereby, in an enumeration of circumstances, the writer begins with the most important, and descends to others of less consequence.

ANTIDOTES Are medicines which prevent or cure the effects of deleterious substances, either taken into the stomach, or externally applied to the human body.

Of those poisons which generally prove mortal, when swallowed, the principal are, arsenic, corrosive sublimate, glass of antimony, verdigris, and lead. Mineral poisons apparently attack the solid parts of the stomach; and, by eroding its substance, occasion death. Antimonials rather injure the nerves, and destroy by producing convulsions. Most vegetable poisons seem to operate in this manner; but fatal accidents more frequently happen from the former.

water, gently alkalised, ought to be drunk in abundance.

Though lead may not be considered as corrosive poison, its effects are nevertheless deleterious, and may be corrected by the remedies already suggested, namely, by drinking large quantities of acidulated liquors, or solutions of the liver of sulphur, and completing the cure by gentle laxatives; but, in the commencement of the complaint, drastic purgatives should be carefully avoided.

The poisonous effects of mineral acids may be counteracted by the administration of calcined magnesia. M. Desgranges relieved a soldier in the agonies of death, who had swallowed a glass of the sulphuric acid, or oil of vitriol, by prescibing the following antidote, viz. a dram and a half of the carbonate of magnesia dissolved in a tea-cupful of pure water. This dose produced excessive vomiting. He repeated the magnesia in the quantity of half a dram every half hour, giving at intervals a solution of gum arabic and sugar, till the cure was accomplished.

In the year 1777, M. Navier advised large quantities of milk to be administered to persons who had swallowed arsenic; a metal, the virulence of which To obviate the ill effects of opium, emetics should is effectually counteracted by this liquid, as it allays be given as speedily as possible. If the first symp the irritation of the viscera, and prevents the in- toms only appear, which are the same as those of flammation of the intestines. The patient is after- intoxication, the following emetic will be of service, wards directed to take a dram of the liver of sulphur, viz. Simple spear-mint water and oxymel of squills, in a pint of warm water; but when this cannot be of each one ounce, and half a scruple of ipecacuanprocured, he may substitute a gently alkaline lixivi-ha: frequent draughts of water-gruel should be given, um, or soap-water, a solution of iron in vinegar, or to assist the operation. If the poison has been any other acid, or even a portion of ink, if nothing swallowed in a liquid state, which may be ascertainelse can be readily procured. The cure may be ed from the smell of the first discharge, four or five completed by the constant use of milk and warm vomitings may be sufficient; but if in a solid form, sulphureous waters. two or three more must be procured, by giving fresh doses. Should the symptoms continue violent, it will be necessary to increase the quantity of the medicines, in proportion to the urgency of the case, and the strength of the patient. The principal object to be kept in view, according to Dr. Seaman, is, to produce such a degree of irritation, as may counteract the narcotic effects of this deleterious drug. Hence it is very useful to stimulate the nostrils with spirits of hartshorn, and to apply friction with salt over the whole body.

The remedies most suited to obviate the effects of corrosive sublimate, are different preparations of the liver of sulphur, which decomposes or resolves the mercurial salt; and, by the addition of the alkali to the acid, forms an inoffensive neutral salt. Acids, therefore, even of the mildest kind, are fatal, if applied to counteract this poison, as they render it more active: thus, even lemonade, or treacle, are pernicious, as they contribute to increase pain and danger. Common salt dissolved in water, readily precipitates the mercury, and thereby greatly abates its virulence. This article being always ready, it ought to be resorted to preferably to any other; especially as, when taken in a large quantity, it operates as an emetic, or carries off the mercury by stool.

Volatile and fixed alkaline salts and spirits, also precipitate mercury, such as spirits of hartshorn, or sal ammoniac, salt of tartar, wormwood, &c.; but, as these can seldom be obtained on an emergency, the following articles may be substituted, viz. potashes dissolved in warm or cold water; but the lixivium should not be too strong. When pot-ashes are not at hand, warm water may be strained through ashes of bean-stalks, broom, straw, or any other vegetable that can be most readily burned. White or black soap should be injected by way of clyster, and likewise dissolved in all the water that is drunk.

Those poisons which may be called culinary, are perhaps the most destructive; because they are generally the least suspected. No vessels, therefore, which contain copper in their composition, should be used in cookery, &c. In cases where the poison of verdigris has been recently swallowed, emetics should first be given; and afterwards cold

Lemon juice, a solution of white vitriol, and other acid substances, have long been considered as effectual antidotes against opium; but they do not af ford sufficient security.

As we seriously advise all persons in this unfortunate situation, immediately to avail themselves of medical assistance, it would be needless to expatiate farther on the subject: we shall only observe, that there is a remedy at once simple and effectual for all kinds of poisons, to be found near every cottage, as well as in the palaces of the great. This is pure water, which, when taken at an early period, and in sufficient quantity, has the beneficial tendency of diluting and neutralizing most of the poisons introduced into the stomach.

ANTIDONIS. Among the Greeks there was instituted a method, on certain occasions with peculiar ceremonies, of exchanging estates, which was called antidonis. When a person was nominated to an office, the expense of which he was unable to support, he had recourse to the antidonis; that is, he was to seek some other citizen of better substance than himself, who was free from this and other offices; in which case the former was excused. In case the person thus substituted denied himself to

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