Page:EB1911 - Volume 15.djvu/950

Rh KOSHER, or  (Hebrew clean, right, or fit), the Jewish term for any food or vessels for food made ritually fit for use, in contradistinction to those pasul, unfit, and terefah, forbidden. Thus the vessels used at the Passover are “kosher,” as are also new metal vessels bought from a Gentile after they have been washed in a ritual bath. But the term is specially used of meat slaughtered in accordance with the law of Moses. The schochat or butcher must be a devout Jew and of high moral character, and be duly licensed by the chief rabbi. The slaughtering—the object of which is to insure the complete bleeding of the body, the Jews being forbidden to eat blood—is done by severing the windpipe with a long and razor-sharp knife by one continuous stroke backwards and forwards. No unnecessary force is permitted, and no stoppage must occur during the operation. The knife is then carefully examined, and if there be the slightest flaw in its blade the meat cannot be eaten, as the cut would not have been clean, the uneven blade causing a thrill to pass through the beast and thus driving the blood again through the arteries. After this every portion of the animal is thoroughly examined, for if there is any organic disease the devout Jew cannot taste the meat. In order to soften meat before it is salted, so as to allow the salt to extract the blood more freely, the meat is soaked in water for about half an hour. It is then covered with salt for about an hour and afterwards washed three times. Kosher meat is labelled with the name of the slaughterer and the date of killing.

KÖSLIN, or, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Pomerania, at the foot of the Gollenberg (450 ft.), 5 m. from the Baltic, and 105 m. N.E. of Stettin by rail. Pop. (1905), 21,474. The town has two Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, a gymnasium, a cadet academy and a deaf and dumb asylum. In the large market place is the statue of the Prussian king Frederick William I., erected in 1824, and there is a war memorial on the Friedrich Wilhelm Platz. The industries include the manufacture of soap, tobacco, machinery, paper, bricks and tiles, beer and other goods. Köslin was built about 1188 by the Saxons, and raised to the rank of a town in 1266. In 1532 it accepted the doctrines of the Reformation. It was severely tried in the Thirty Years’ War and in the Seven Years’ War, and in 1720 it was burned down. On the Gollenberg stands a monument to the memory of the Pomeranians who fell in the war of 1813–15.

 KOSSOVO, or Kosovo, a vilayet of European Turkey, comprising the sanjak of Uskub in Macedonia, and the sanjaks of Prizren and (q.v.) in northern Albania. Pop. (1905), about 1,100,000; area, 12,700 sq. m. For an account of the physical features of Kossovo, see and. The inhabitants are chiefly Albanians and Slavs, with smaller communities of Greeks, Turks, Vlachs and gipsies. A few good roads traverse the vilayet (see ), and the railway from Salonica northward bifurcates at Usküb, the capital, one branch going to Mitrovitza in Albania, the other to Nish in Servia. Despite the undoubted mineral wealth of the vilayet, the only mines working in 1907 were two chrome mines, at Orasha and Verbeshtitza. In the volume of its agricultural trade, however, Kossovo is unsurpassed by any Turkish province. The exports, worth about £950,000, include livestock, large quantities of grain and fruit, tobacco, vegetables, opium, hemp and skins. Rice is cultivated for local consumption, and sericulture is a growing industry, encouraged by the Administration of the Ottoman Debt. The yearly value of the imports is approximately £1,200,000; these include machinery and other manufactured goods, metals, groceries, chemical products and petroleum, which is used in the flour-mills and factories on account of the prohibitive price of coal. There is practically no trade with Adriatic ports; two-thirds of both exports and imports pass through Salonica, the remainder going by rail into Servia. The chief towns, Usküb (32,000), Prizren (30,000), Koprülü (22,000), Ishtib [Slav. Stip] (21,000), Novibazar (12,000) and Prishtina (11,000) are described in separate articles.

In the middle ages the vilayet formed part of the Servian Empire, its northern districts are still known to the Serbs as Old Servia (Stara Srbiya). The plain of Kossovo (Kossovopolje, “Field of Blackbirds”), a long valley lying west of Prishtina and watered by the Sibnitza, a tributary of the Servian Ibar, is famous in Balkan history and legend as the scene of the battle of Kossovo (1389), in which the power of Servia was destroyed by the Turks. (See : History.)

 KOSSUTH, FERENCZ LAJOS AKOS (1841– &emsp;&emsp; ), Hungarian statesman, the son of Lajos Kossuth, was born on the 16th of November 1841, and educated at the Paris Polytechnic and the London University, where in 1859 he won a prize for political economy. After working as a civil engineer on the Dean Forest railway he went (1861) to Italy, where he resided for the next thirty-three years, taking a considerable part in the railway construction of the peninsula, and at the same time keeping alive the Hungarian independence question by a whole series of pamphlets and newspaper articles. At Cesena in 1876 he married Emily Hoggins. In 1885 he was decorated for his services by the Italian government. His last great engineering work was the construction of the steel bridges for the Nile. In 1894 he escorted his father’s remains to Hungary, and the following year resolved to settle in his native land and took the oath of allegiance. As early as 1867 he had been twice elected a member of the Hungarian diet, but on both occasions refused to accept the mandate. On the 10th of April 1895 he was returned for Tapolca and in 1896 for Cegléd, and from that time took an active part in Hungarian politics. In the autumn of 1898 he became the leader of the obstructionists or “Independence Party,” against the successive Szell, Khuen-Haderváry, Szápáry and Stephen Tisza administrations (1898–1904), exercising great influence not only in parliament but upon the public at large through his articles in the Egyetértés. The elections of 1905 having sent his party back with a large majority, he was received in audience by the king and helped to construct the Wekerle ministry, of which he was one of the most distinguished members.

See Sturm, The Almanack of the Hungarian Diet (1905–1910), art. “Kossuth” (Hung.) (Budapest, 1905).

 KOSSUTH, LAJOS [] (1802–1894), Hungarian patriot, was born at Monok, a small town in the county of Zemplin, on the 19th of September 1802. His father, who was descended from an old untitled noble family and possessed a small estate, was by profession an advocate. Louis, who was the eldest of four children, received from his mother a strict religious training. His education was completed at the Calvinist college of Sárospatak and at the university of Budapest. At the age of nineteen he returned home and began practice with his father. His talents and amiability soon won him great popularity, especially among the peasants. He was also appointed steward to the countess Szápáry, a widow with large estates, and as her representative had a seat in the county assembly. This position he lost owing to a quarrel with his patroness, and he was accused of appropriating money to pay a gambling debt. His fault cannot have been very serious, for he was shortly afterwards (he had in the meantime settled in Pesth) appointed by Count Hunyady to be his deputy at the National Diet in Pressburg (1825–1827, and again in 1832). It was a time when, under able leaders, a great national party was beginning the struggle for reform against the stagnant Austrian government. As deputy he had no vote, and he naturally took little share in the debates, but it was part of his duty to send written reports of the proceedings to his patron, since the government, with a well-grounded fear of all that might stir popular feeling, refused to allow any published reports. Kossuth’s letters were so excellent that they were circulated in MS. among the Liberal magnates, and soon developed into an organized parliamentary gazette (Orszagyulesi tudositasok), of which he was editor. At once his name and influence spread. In order to increase the circulation, he ventured on lithographing the letters. This brought them under the official censure, and was forbidden. He continued the paper in MS., and when the government refused to allow it to be circulated through the post sent it out by hand. In 1836 the Diet was dissolved. Kossuth continued the agitation by reporting in letter form the debates of the county assemblies, to which he thereby gave a political 