642 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



either the hand or foot of the one they wish to 

 salute and rub their faces against it ; while 

 Yemen persons of rank permit their fingers to 

 be kissed, after long refusal. 



Nihilism. The term "Nihilist" was prob- 

 ably first used by the Russian novelist Tur- 

 geneff , and was given to the party now known 

 as Nihilists in derision, because its members 

 sought the destruction of all existing order 

 and government without proposing and appar- 

 ently without intending to substitute any de- 

 fined scheme or organization in its place. The 

 earliest advocate of this doctrine was Michael 

 Bakunin, who, as early as 1847, advocated a 

 Russian republic, and in 1868 founded the 

 "International Alliance of Revolution," a 

 secret society having for its object a popular 

 uprising against all monarchical governments. 

 This society was undoubtedly the parent of the 

 many secret organizations that have since 

 sprung into existence throughout Europe. 

 Though Alexander II. introduced a much more 

 liberal policy than any of his predecessors, it 

 came so far short of the desires of the party of 

 progress that the spirit of discontent seemed 

 stimulated, and the existence of a revolution- 

 ary conspiracy was proved in 1877, when, after 

 a great trial lasting eighteen months, 135 per- 

 sons out of 183 arrested were found to belong 

 to such an organization. In 1878, when Vera 

 Sassulitch shot General Trepoff, chief of the 

 secret police, the Nihilists began to attract at- 

 tention as a really formidable society. Her ac- 



quittal was followed by a series of outbreaks 

 and assassinations which were only checked after 

 the Czar himself had fallen at the hands of a 

 Nihilist assassin. The doctrines and objects 

 of the .Nihilists must be taken from the decla- 

 rations of their leaders. Bakunin, in a speech 

 at Geneva in 1868, announced that he was the 

 bearer of a new gospel, whose mission was to 

 destroy the lie at the beginning of which was 

 God. Having got rid of this belief, the next 

 lie to be destroyed was right, a fiction invented 

 by might to strengthen her power. " Our first 

 work," he said, " must be destruction of every- 

 thing as it now exists, the good and the bad ; 

 for, if but an atom of this old world remains, 

 the new will never be created." 



Bacteria is the name given to certain 

 forms found in animal and vegetable fluids be- 

 cause of their shape, and is derived from a 

 Greek word meaning a club. They are mere 

 points of organized matter, and constitute the 

 lowest form of organic life. They are found 

 in the sap of plants, in the blood of man and 

 of the lower animals, and are abundant in 

 eggs. They bear an important part in healthy 

 as well as morbid processes, in the ripening of 

 fruit as well as decay. They also exist in sus- 

 pension in the air, and the festering of an open 

 sore is occasioned by the entrance of bacteria 

 from the surrounding air. They also act as 

 powerful organic ferments in the transforma- 

 tion of starch into sugar, of sugar-cane into 

 glucose, etc. 



Temperature and Rainfall of Foreign Cities. 



* in Southwestern Assam. It is the wettest place in the world. In 1861 the rainfall there reached 905 inches, 

 NOTE. The mean annual temperatuie of the globe is 50 Fahrenheit. The average rainfall is 36 inches. 



