13. The Persian slingers were a part of the light-armed soldiers. Their armor consisted of a shield, a sling, and stones, or other missiles. The stone or missile was placed upon a leather disk, held by two strings, and then rapidly whirled, and just at the right time one string was dropped and the missile projected with great force through the air. Some of the missiles thus thrown weighed no less than an Attic pound, and Seneca reports that the motion was so vehement that the leaden bullets were frequently melted. These slingers were enabled to use either hand, and it is stated that they obliged their sons to strike their food from a pole before eating it.
14. The now familiar expression, “War even to the knife,” was the reply of the Spanish patriot Palafox, the governor of Saragoza, to the summons of the French to surrender, at the siege of that city in 1808. Lord Byron uses the same expression in the first canto of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
15. The singular effect upon the men of the eating of honeycombs, as described by Xenophon, was occasioned by the peculiar properties given to the honey, owing to its being extracted by the bees from narcotic plants. The honey of Trebizond, at the present day, when eaten, causes headache and vomiting, and possesses poisonous qualities, supposed to be derived from the rhododendron, azalea pontica.
Correct replies to all the questions for further study in the December number of The Chautauquan have been received from the Niles, Mich., circle, through the secretary, Mrs. J. S. Tuttle; Mrs. S. D. Lloyd, president, Mrs. Marion McKinney, secretary, Mrs. J. P. Henry and Mrs. F. R. Snyder, of the Arcola, Ill., circle; Rev. R. H. and Mrs. M. A. Howard, Saxonville, Mass.; Miss Maggie V. Wilcox, 605 North Thirty-fifth street, West Philadelphia, Pa.; Mrs. Nellie M. Rumsey, president of the Albert Lea, Minn., local circle; Miss Mary D. Eshleman, 821 Chestnut street, Philadelphia, Pa., and A. U. Lombard, Columbus, O.
C. L. S. C. ROUND-TABLE.[J]
“HOW TO CONDUCT LOCAL CIRCLES.”
Dr. Vincent: First of all, good friends, don’t let the idea prevail anywhere that the local circle is indispensable to the work of the C. L. S. C. There are individual readers who are unable to attend a local circle, who do all the work that is required by the C. L. S. C. successfully. When the idea obtains, as it often does, that to be a good C. L. S. C. member one must attend the local circle, people who would otherwise read to profit, and read through the entire course, become discouraged and give it up. Some of our very best students never saw a local circle, or knew anything about it. They are their own local circle.