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HOMER the theory that the curative properties of drugs and medicinal agents are represented and illustrated by their effect upon a healthy person. The theory of homeopathy was first propounded by Dr. Samuel Hahneman about the end of the 18th century in Germany, and, though for some years it had few adherents, it has in later times gained a large following and a recognized place among reputable and scientific medical schools. The essentials in which homeopathy differs in practice from allopathy may be briefly stated. It condemns the commixture of several drugs in one prescription. When two or more medicines are required, they are given alternately, with a considerable interval between. It has always avoided as unnecessary and injurious the “heroic” treatments: blistering, blood-letting, severe purgatives, salivation by mercury etc. Particular attention is paid to diet, exercise, habits and other hygienic helps to recovery. It believes that doses given may be smaller than the old-fashioned practice made them. The first American homeopathic physician was Dr. Hans B. Gram, by parentage a Dane, who in 1825 practiced in New York city.  Ho′mer, the greatest name in epic poetry, has come down to us as, unfortunately, little better than a name, and many theories of the origin of the Homeric poetry hardly leave us even the name. The traditions agree in making Homer an Asiatic Greek, probably born at Smyrna about 850 B. C. He is represented as blind and as reciting his poems from place to place. All scholars agree that the poems were not written, but handed down from memory, as there is little evidence that in Greece writing was practiced at so early a period. One theory of their authorship is that they are the work or compilation of a company of poets or Homeric guild, who composed, collected and handed down in this form these legends of early history. The Iliad and the Odyssey are sometimes referred also to different writers and sometimes to early and later periods of Homer's genius. They are the greatest epics of any age; the Iliad is called the “beginning of literature.” Tennyson called Homer “the Ionian father of the rest.” The Trojan War is the event celebrated, and the story, if not strictly historical, is based on the real life of the people. The poems of Homer have been translated into all the languages of Europe, among the best English translations being those of Pope, Bryant, Butcher, Lang and Palmer. “You have given us a very pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but it is not Homer,” said Evelyn or Pepys. See Studies on Homer by Gladstone and Lectures on the Translation of Homer by Matthew Arnold.  Homer, Winslow, an American artist, was born at Boston, Feb. 24, 1838. He obtained notice by two pictures entitled

Home, Sweet Home and The Last Goose at Yuletown. He pursued his studies in Paris, and won recognition as an artist of originality. Among his pictures are Prisoners from the Front; Eating Watermelon; Flowers for the Teacher; and three marine paintings: Northeaster; Stormbeaten; and Wood's Island by Moonlight. The last gained the medal of honor at the exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts at Philadelphia in 1896. His other successful work includes among genre subjects Cotton Pickers, A Visit from the Old Mistress and, in marines, The Life Line, Launching the Boat and The Maine Coast, the latter a remarkably fine production.  Home′stead Laws refer, in the United States, not to homes in general, but to family residences which are held under certain definite statutes and obligations. The purpose of these restrictions is to preserve the home as far as possible from falling entirely into the hands of creditors. The homestead laws, which are passed not by the state legislature but by the federal government, are directed rather towards encouraging the closer settlement of rural districts by means of grants of the public land made upon easy terms. The first federal act of this kind was passed in 1862; and since this time some 90,000,000 acres of the public lands have been divided for homesteads. Heads of families, or American citizens over 21 years of age, may be granted as much as 160 acres of public land on condition that the holder should agree to live upon it for five years, make certain improvements, and pay certain small registration fees. It seems to be historically true that the stoutest backbone which a nation can have consists of a large body of small landholders.

Although almost all the states have laws to exempt portions of the homestead property from being seized by creditors, it is not intended that these exceptions shall overthrow the rights of creditors according to the common law. The courts have a good deal of freedom, being allowed to decide according to the spirit and purpose of the homestead laws and the common law. The amount of property which may be exempted commonly varies from 80 to 160 acres of land, and from $1,000 to $2,000 worth of improvements and personal property.  Homestead, Pa., a manufacturing borough in Allegheny County, on the Monongahela River, seven miles southeast of Pittsburg and on the Pennsylvania and Pittsburg and Lake Erie railroads. It is the focus of extensive iron, steel, glass and firebrick works and foundry products, its chief establishment being the mammoth steel-manufacturing plant of the U. S. Steel Corporation. Here, in the summer of 1892, there was a menacing industrial