Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/524

Rh 502 M I R M I S on the back of which is a group of Aphrodite and Eros in repoussee. It was found in Crete. But most of the Greek mirrors and mirror- cases having artistic designs are from Corinth. One bears the name of the artist, Aa-oAAas Itroiti (engraved, Arch. Zeitung, 1862, pi. 166, fig. 1). Archaic art (about 500 B.C.) is represented by a mirror in the British Museum from Sunium in Attica. The mirror itself is quite plain, but the stand is composed of a draped female figure, above whose head float two cupids. From Etruria there is a comparatively small number with archaic incised designs. It may be concluded that the luxury of mirrors enriched with incised designs was not freely in dulged before 400 B.C. in Etruria and never to any extent in Greece. A special centre of incised mirrors was the Latian town of Pneneste (Palestrina), and it is of interest in regard to some of the mirrors found there that they have inscriptions in early Latin. Artistically they have a purely Greek character. Plain mirrors are found wherever Greek and Roman civilization spread, and it may be seen from a specimen found in Cornwall, now in the British Museum, that the Celtic population of England had adopted the form and substance of the mirror from their conquerors. This specimen is enriched with a Celtic pattern incised. The shape of the handle testifies to native originality. Mirrors were used in Greece, perhaps rarely, for divination, as appears, for example, from Pausanias (vii. 21, 5), the method being to let the mirror down into a well by means of a string till it reached close to the surface of the water. When it was pulled up after a little it was expected to show the face of the sick person on whose behalf the ceremony was performed. This was at Patras. The principal publications on ancient mirrors are Gerhard, Etruskische Spiegel, Berlin, 1843-67, 4 vols., containing 430 plates; for the Greek mirrors, Mylonas, &quot;Eivi.Ka. (caroTTTpo, Athens, 1876, and Dumont, Bullet, de Corresp. Ifelle n., 1877, p. 108; see also Friederichs, Kleinere Kunst und Industrie im Alterthum, DUssel- dorf, 1871, p. 18 sq. and Marquardt and Mommsen, Handbuch der romischen Alterthiimer, vii. pt. 2, p. 670. (A. S. 11.) MfRZAPUR, a district in the North- Western Provinces of India, lying between 23 51 30&quot; and 25 31 N. lat., and between 82 9 15&quot; and 83 36&quot; E. long., is bounded on the N. by Jaunpur and Benares, on the E. by Shahabad and Lohardaga, on the S. by Sargiijd, state, and on the W. by Allahabad and Rewah state, and has an area of 5217 square miles. It is crossed from east to west by the Vindhya and Kaimur ranges. A central jungly plateau connects these, and separates the valley of the Ganges from that of the Son. The population in 1872 was 1,015.203 (males, 520,496; females, 494,707), of whom 949,644 were Hindus, 64,809 Mohammedans, and 750 Christians. The non-Asiatic population numbered 623. Only three towns had a population exceeding 5000 : Mirzapur, 67,274; Chanar, 10,154; and Ahraura, 9091. Out of a Govern ment-assessed area of 3048 square miles, 1313 are cultivated, 497 cultivable waste, and 1238 uncultivable. The part of Mirzapur which lies north of the Vindhyas is very highly cultivated and thickly peopled, but the rest of the district consists largely of ravines and forests, with a very sparse population. Local manu factures comprise carpets of a superior description, brass ware, and shellac. The East Indian Railway traverses the district, along the right bank of the Ganges, for a distance of 32 miles. The climate is slightly warmer and damper than that of districts farther north and east. The mean annual rainfall is 427 inches. MIKZAPTJR, chief town and administrative headquarters of the above district, is situated on the south bank of the Ganges, 56 miles below Allahabad (25 9 43&quot; N. lat., 82 38 10&quot; E. long.). The population in 1872 was 67,274, of whom 55,917 were Hindus and 11,053 Mo hammedans. Up to quite recent years Mirzapur was the largest mart in upper India for grain and cotton ; but of late its commercial importance has rapidly decreased, owing to the establishment of through railway communica tion with Bombay via Jabalpur, and the rise of Cawnpore to the position of a mercantile centre. The river front, lined with stone ghats or flights of stairs, and exhibiting numerous mosques, Hindu temples, and dwelling-houses of the wealthier merchants, with highly decorated facades and richly carved balconies and door-frames, is handsome ; but the interior of the town is mainly composed of mud huts. The manufacture of shellac gives employment to about four thousand persons ; brass ware and carpets are also made. The imports consist of grain, sugar, cloth, metals, fruit, spices, tobacco, lac, salt, and cotton ; the same articles, with manufactured lac-dye, shellac, and ghi, are exported. MISDEMEANOUR. &quot; The word misdemeanour,&quot; says Russell (On Crimes, vol. i. chap, iv.), &quot; is applied to all those crimes and offences for which the law has not provided a particular name.&quot; Stephen, in his Digest of the Criminal Law, adopts the following mode of distinguishing between misdemeanour and other crimes. &quot; Every crime is either treason, felony, or misdemeanour. Every crime which amounts to treason or felony is so denominated in the defini tions of crimes hereinafter contained. All crimes not so denominated are misdemeanours.&quot; It is customary to speak of misdemeanour as implying a less degree of crime than felony (see FELONY). &quot; Misdemeanours,&quot; observes Russell in the passage already cited, &quot;have been sometimes termed misprisions ; indeed the word misprision, in its larger sense, is used to signify every considerable misdemeanour which has not a certain name given to it in the law, and it is said that a misprision is contained in every felony whatsoever, so that the offender may be prosecuted for misprision at the option of the crown.&quot; Misprision, in a more restricted sense (or negative misprision), is the concealment of an offence. Positive misprisions are contempts or misdemeanours of a public character, e.g., mal-administration of high officials, contempt of the sovereign or magistrates, &c. The rule as to punishment, when no express provision has been made bylaw, is that &quot;every person convicted of a misdemeanour is liable to fine and imprisonment without hard labour (both or either), and to be put under recognizances to keep the peace and be of good behaviour at the discretion of the court&quot; (Stephen s Digest, art. 22). By 28 & 29 Viet, c. 67 prisoners convicted of misdemeanour and sentenced to hard labour shall be divided into two divisions, one of which shall be called the first division, and when a person convicted of misdemeanour is sentenced to imprisonment without hard labour the court may order him to be. treated as a first-class misdemeanant, who shall not be deemed a &quot; criminal prisoner &quot; within the meaning of that Act. The Prison Act, 1877 ( 40, 41), requires prisoners con victed of sedition or seditious libel, or attached for contempt of court, to be treated as misdemeanants of the first class. In New York and some other States of the American Union the legislature has defined felony as any crime which is or may be punishable with death or imprisonment in a State prison, all other crimes being misdemeanours. MISHNAH. The Mishnah, in the most familiar appli cation of the name, is the great collection of legal decisions by the ancient rabbis which forms in each Talmud the text on which the Gemara rests, and so is the fundamental document of the oral law of the Jews. The question What is Mishnah? was asked, however, as early as the latter part of the 1st or the early part of the 2d century, though in a somewhat different sense and for a somewhat different purpose. 1 It will be answered in the course of this article in all its bearings. 1. Name. Rabbinic tradition has fixed the pointing Mishnah ( n $?P) by giving its status constrvctus as Mishnath. Although the word Mishnah is not found in the Bible, it is no doubt a classical Hebrew term, signi fying something closely akin to Mithneh (which term occurs more than once there), as may be seen on comparing Mikvah with Mikveh, Miknah with Afikneh, Maalah with Ma l aleh, and Mar ah with Mar eh, each two of which are, however they may vary in practical application, un questionably synonymous terms. The practical signifi cations of Mishnah are seven in number : (1) repeti tion, i.e., tradition : 2 as such it is the equivalent of the 1 See T. B., Kiddushin,^a. 2 The root Shanoh (i&quot;lit&amp;gt;), from which Mishnah is immediately de rived, is not merely, as is often thought, to learn, to teach, but to repeat ; and it is in reality this last meaning which underlies the two former.