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In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed... No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. Preface to 1828 Dictionary
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CARCASS, n.
CARCASS, n. An iron case or hollow vessel, about the size of a bomb, of an oval figure, filled with combustible and other substances, as meal-powder, salt-peter, sulphur, broken glass, turpentine, &c., to be thrown from a mortar into a town, to set fire to buildings. It has two or three apertures, from which the fire blazes, and the light sometimes serves as a direction in throwing shells. It is equipped with pistol-barrels, loaded with powder to the muzzle, which explode as the composition burns down to them. This instrument is probably named from the ribs of iron that form it, which resemble the ribs of a human carcass.
A
dead body, whether of man or beast; a corpse; now commonly the
dead body of a beast.
He turned to see the carcass of the
lion. This kept thousands in the town whose
carcasses went into the great pits by cartloads. The living body; -- now commonly used
in contempt or ridicule.
"To pamper his own
carcass." South.
Lovely her face; was ne'er so fair a creature. The abandoned and decaying remains of
some bulky and once comely thing, as a ship; the skeleton, or the
uncovered or unfinished frame, of a thing.
A rotten carcass of a boat. A hollow case or shell,
filled with combustibles, to be thrown from a mortar or howitzer,
to set fire to buldings, ships, etc.
A discharge of carcasses and
bombshells. | ||||||||