Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/553

Rh M I S M I T 527 1803. In 1804 Congress divided the territory into two portions. The northern part, commonly called Upper Louisiana, was taken j&amp;gt;ossession of in March 1804. In June 1812 Missouri was organ ized as a Territory, with a governor and general assembly. The lirst governor (1813-1820) was William Clarke. In 1818 Missouri applied for admission to the Union as a State. Two years of bitter controversy followed, which convulsed the country and threatened the dissolution of the Union. This controversy followed a resolution introduced into Congress which had in view an anti-slavery restriction upon the admission of Missouri to the Union. This was at last settled by the adoption of the &quot;Missouri compromise,&quot; which forbade slavery in all that portion of the Louisi ana purchase lying north of 36 30 except in Missouri, and on 19th July 1820 Missouri was admitted to the Union. A conven tion to frame a constitution had already been called, and the constitution then adopted remained without material change until 1865. The first general assembly under the constitution met in St Louis in September 1820, and Alexander M Nair was chosen governor in August. The seat of government was fixed at St Charles in 1820, and removed to Jefferson City, the present State capital, in 1826. The first census of the State was taken in 1821, when the number of inhabitants was found to be 70,647, of whom 11,254 were slaves. In the Black Hawk war in 1832, the Florida war in 1837, and the Mexican war in 1846 Missouri volunteer troops did their share of the work. In the troubles in Kansas, and the bitter discussion upon the question of slavery, Missouri was deeply involved. A strong feeling in favour of secession showed itself in many parts of the State. Governor Jackson, in his inaugural address on the 4th of January 1861, said that Missouri must stand by the slaveholding States, whatever might be their course. The election of a majority of Union men, however, as delegates to a convention called to consider the affairs of the nation, showed that public sentiment was hostile to secession, and the convention adjourned without committing the State to the secession party. United States troops were soon gathered at St Louis, and forces were also sent to Jefferson City, and to Rolla. Governor Jackson fled from the capital, and summoned all the State troops to meet him at Booneville. General Lyon defeated these troops, 17th June 1861, and soon most of the State was under the control of the United States forces. The State conven tion was reassembled. This body declared vacant the offices of governor, lieutenant-governor, and secretary of state, and filled them by appointment. The seats of the members of the legislature were also declared vacant. Governor Jackson soon issued a pro clamation declaring the State out of the Union, and Confederate forces were assembled in large numbers in the south-western part of the State. General Lyon was killed at the battle of Wilson s Creek near Springfield, and General Fremont, commanding the department of the west, decreed martial law throughout the State. For a year matters were favourable to the Confederates, and at the opening of 1862 their troops held nearly half the State ; but in February a Federal force under General Curtis drove General Price into Arkansas. He returned in 1864, and overran a large part of the State, but was finally forced to retreat, and but little further trouble arose in Missouri during the war. Missouri furnished to the United States army during the war 108,773 troops. In 1865 a new constitution was adopted by the people. In 1869 the XV. Amendment to the United States constitution was adopted by a large majority. In 1875 still another State constitution was drawn up by a convention called for that purpose, and ratified by the people, and is now the fundamental law of the State. (M. S. S.) MISTLETOE l ( Viscum album, L.), a species of Viscum, of the family Loranthacese. The whole genus is parasitical, and seventy-six species have been described ; but only the mistletoe proper is a native of Europe. It forms an ever green bush, about 4 feet in length, thickly crowded with (falsely) dichotomous branches and opposite leaves. The leaves are about 2 inches long, obovate-lanceolate, yellowish green ; the dioecious flowers, which are small and nearly of the same colour but yellower, appear in February and March ; the fruit, which when ripe is filled with a viscous semitransparent pulp (whence birdlime is derived), is almost always white, but there is said to be a variety with red fruit. The mistletoe is parasitic both on deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs, and &quot; it would be difficult to 1 Greek ifia or J{&amp;lt;{j, hence Latin viscum, Italian vischio or visco, and French yui. The English word is the Anglo-Saxon mistdtan, Icelandic mistelteinn, in which tan or teinn means a twig, and mistel may be associated either with mist in the sense of fog, gloom, because of the prominence of mistletoe in the dark season of the year, or with the same root in the sense of dung (from the character of the berries or the supposed mode of propagation). say on what dicotyledonous trees it does not grow&quot; (Loudon). In England it is most abundant on the apple tree, but rarely found on the oak. The fruit is eaten by most frugivorous birds, and through their agency, particu larly that of the thrush (hence missel-thrush or mistle- thrush), the plant is propagated. (The Latin proverb has it that &quot;Turdus malum sibi cacat&quot;; but the sowing is really effected by the bird wiping its beak, to which the seeds adhere, against the bark of the tree on which it has alighted.) The growth of the plant is slow, and its dura bility proportionately great, its death being determined generally by that of the tree on which it has established itself. See Loudon, Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, vol. ii. p. 1021 (1838). The mistletoe so extensively used in England at Christmas tide is largely derived from the apple orchards of Normandy. Pliny (H. N., xvi. 92-95; xxiv. 6) has a good deal to tell about the viscum, a deadly parasite, though slower in its action than ivy. He distinguishes three &quot;genera.&quot; &quot;On the fir and larch grows what is called stclis in Eubcea and hyphcar in Arcadia. &quot; Viscum, called dryos hyphear, is most plentiful on the esculent oak (quercus), but occurs also on the robur, Prumis sylvestris, and terebinth. Hyphear is useful for fattening cattle if they are hardy enough to withstand the purgative effect it produces at first ; viscum is medicinally of value as an emollient, and in cases of tumour, ulcers, and the like; and he also notes it &quot;conceptum fceminarum adjuvare si omnino secum habeant.&quot; Pliny is also our authority for the reverence in which the mistletoe when found growing on the robur was held by the Druids. The robur, he says, is their sacred tree, and whatever is found growing upon it they regard as sent from heaven and as the mark of a tree chosen by God. Such cases of parasitism are rare, and when they occur attract much attention (est autem id rarum admodum inventu et repertum magna religione petitur), particularly on |the sixth (day of the) moon, with which their months and years and, after the lapse of thirty years, their &quot;ages &quot; begin. Calling it in their own language &quot;all heal&quot; (omnia sanantem), after their sacrifices and banquets have been duly prepared under the tree, they bring near two white bulls whose horns are then for the first time bound. The priest clothed with a white robe ascends the tree, cuts [the mistletoe] with a golden hook; it is caught in a white mantle. They then slay the victims, praying God to prosper His gift to them unto whom He has given it. Prepared as a draught, it is used as a cure for sterility and a remedy for poisons. The mistletoe figures also in Scandinavian legend as having furnished the material of the arrow with which Baldur (the sun-god) was slain by the blind god Hbder. Most probably this story had its origin in a particular theory as to the meaning of the word mistletoe. MITAU (the Lettish Jelgava), a town of Russia, capital of the government of Courland. It is situated 27 miles by rail to the south-west of Riga, on the right bank of the river Aa, in a fertile plain which rises only 12 feet above sea-level, and which probably has given its name to the town (Mitte in der Aue). At high water the plain and sometimes also the town are inundated. Mitau is surrounded by a canal occupying the place of former fortifications. Another canal was dug through the town to provide it with water; but this now receives the sewage, and water is brought in cars from a distance of 3 miles. Though so near Riga, Mitau has quite a different character. It has regular broad streets, bordered with the low pretty mansions of the German nobility who reside at the capital of Courland either to enjoy the social amusements for which Mitau is renowned or to provide education to their children. Mitau is well provided with educational institutions. A gym nasium occupies a former palace of the dukes of Courland, and has a rich library; and there are about forty other schools. The town is also the seat of a society of art and literature, of a natural history society, which has a good local museum, and of the Lettish Literary Society. The old castle of the dukes of Courland, which has witnessed so many conflicts, was destroyed by the Duke Biron, who erected in its place a spacious palace, now occupied by the governor and the courts. Mitau has 22,200 inhabitants, mainly Germans, but including also Jews (about 6000), Letts (5000), and Russians. Manufactures are few, those