PENSIONS 



PENTATEUCH 



35 





widows whose private incomes may exceed a certain 

 scale which is tixed by the Admiralty. These pen- 

 sions in ordinary cases range from 120 to '40 a 

 year. In the case of officers killed in action their 

 widows, however, may receive a maximum pension 

 of 200 a year. Compassionate allowances to chil- 

 dren may be continued in the case of sons until 

 they attain the age of eighteen, anil of daughters 

 until they marry or attain the age of twenty-one, 

 but no longer, except in very special cases. These 

 allowances vary from 5 to 20 a year. Gratuities, 

 pensions, and compassionate allowances are made 

 to widows and children of petty officers and men 

 at the discretion of the Admiralty, but there is no 

 fixed scale. 



The Pension System of the United States presents 

 two peculiar features, in the almost entire absence 

 of a civil list, and the non-recognition of long 

 service as a ground for pension. Generally speak- 

 ing, pensions are "ranted only for active service in 

 time of war, and therefore the beneficiaries are the 

 survivors (or their widows and children) of the 

 armies of volunteers and conscripts who took part 

 in the country's several wars. What are called 

 ' service pensions ' have been granted to survivors 

 of the War of the Revolution (under Act of 1818 ; 

 the last pensioner under this act died in 1867, aged 

 101, but the last Revolutionary pensioner under a 

 special act, not till 1869. aged 109), the War of 1812 

 (under Act of 1871), and the Mexican War (under 

 Act of 1887), or to their widows (37 survived in 

 1888). But the hulk of the United States pensions 

 are 'invalid pensions,' for total or partial disable- 

 ment from wounds or disease contracted in the 

 military or naval service ; the widows and minor 

 children under sixteen years of age of those who 

 hare died from such wounds or disease ; or, in the 

 event of no such widows or minor children surviv- 

 ing, then the dependent mothers, fathers, or minor 

 brothers and sisters of officers or men so dying. 

 The pensions, which range from $24 to $2000 per 

 annum, are graded, and many specific wounds and 

 disabilities are scheduled and pnced. Thus, where 

 the regular aid and attendance of others is required, 

 from $50 to $72 a month is paid ; where the ticneti- 

 ciary is incapacitated for manual labour, $30 a 

 month ; for the loss of a hand or foot, or total deaf- 

 ness, $30, but of lioth feet or hands, or both eyes, 

 672 a month ; and for amputation at the shoulder 

 or hip joint, $45. Widows of privates receive $12 a 



i tli ; dependent relatives the same ; children $2 



each, but it the widow does not survive they receive 

 their pension jointly. Widows or dependent rela- 

 tives of officers receive from $15 to $30 a month. 

 The pension of widows ceases when they marry. 

 For the administration of the pension system an 

 independent bureau was created in 1833; since 

 1849 it has been a bureau of the Department of the 

 Interior. Under the commissioner, who is ap- 

 pointed by the president, there are nearly 2000 

 (lemons employed in the settlement of claims for 

 pensions; ami besides there are nearly 3000 sur- 

 geons throughout the country engaged to examine 

 applicant*. The following figures show plainly 

 enough the enormous growth of the American 

 pension system. In 1862 the disbursement* slightly 

 exceeded' $790,000, in 1872 they exceeded 

 $30,000,000, in 1882 $54,000,000, in 1889 $87,000,000, 

 in 1897 the total was $139,949,717 (the pensioners 

 iiiiinlieriiig 976,014), and from 1866 to 1897 the 

 amount aggregated $2, 106,904,041 ; while under the 

 l)e|>eiident Pension Law passed inJune 1890,460,282 

 '1, inns were, received in three months. In 1897 pen- 

 sions consumed over one-third the revenues of the 

 republic (while 500,000 claims were still awaiting 

 Mjndioai ion . and the Spanish American war (1898) 

 gave rise to numerous claims for disabilities. It may 

 be added that, by an Act of 1882, widows and minor 



children of keepers or crew of a life-saving or life- 

 boat station who perish in or from injuries received 

 through the life-saving service are given the full 

 pay of the deceased for two years. 



Pentacle, or PENTAGRAM, a five-pointed figure 

 of the form shown on the annexed illustration, 

 which occurs on old Greek coins, 

 and was used as a symbol of 

 mystery, perfection, or of the uni- 

 verse by Pythagoreans, Neoplato- 

 nists, and Gnostics. It occurs on 

 Abraxas Stones (q.v. ), and was used 

 as the device of various secret socie- 

 ties, some of them masonic, and hence appears in 

 ecclesiastical architecture (as at Rouen). The 

 ' wizard pentagram ' was, in the middle ages, a 

 symbol powerful in repelling evil spirits, and is 

 familiar to readers of Goethe's Faust. On the 

 doors of cow-houses it was held to keep off witches. 

 The pentacle, also called pentalpha, is often 

 confused with the hexagram, composed of y\[ 

 two equilateral triangles, which was also A.A 

 used as a magic symbol in astrology, al- 

 chemy, and cabalistic lore. See CIRCLE (MAGIC). 



Penta'crinns. See CRINOIDEA. 



Pentamerone, a famous collection of fifty 

 folk-tales (Naples, 1637), written in the Neapolitan 

 dialect, by Giambattista Basile, which are supposed 

 to be told during five days by ten old women for 

 the entertainment of a Moorish slave who has 

 usurped the place of the rightful princess. An 

 admirable German translation (enriched by notes) 

 by Felix Liebrecht appeared at Breslau in 1846. 

 Thirty -one of the stories were translated by J. E. 

 Taylor ( 1848) ; Sir Richard Burton printed a com- 

 plete English translation in 1893 ( 2 vols. ) ( For the 

 Decameron and the Heptameron, see BOCCACCIO, 

 MARGARET OF NAVARRE ). The Pentameron stories 

 are of the greatest value to thestndentof folk-tales. 



PentamerilS Beds, in Geology, a name for- 

 merly applied to the upper and lower Llandovery 

 rooks, owing to the abundance of the brachiopods 

 called Pentamerus. See SILURIAN SYSTEM. 



Pentapolis. See CYRENAICA. 



Pentateuch, a Greek word (pentateuchos) 

 meaning 'the five-volume*! (book),' is the name 

 used by Origen to denote what the Jews of his 

 time called ' the law ' ( Torah ) or, mpre fully, ' the 

 five-fifths of the law.' The same word was adopted 

 into the Latin by Tertullian. ' The five books of 

 Moses' as a designation of the Pentateuch was 

 first made current in the Western Church at a con- 

 siderably later period by Jerome and Rufinus ; but 

 a Jewish writer (Josephus) had long before stated 

 that the first five liooks of the Old Testament 

 canon 'belong to Moses.' The Greek names by 

 which the five books are now known Genesis, 

 Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers (Arithmoi), Deuter- 

 onomy have come to us from the Septuagint 

 through the Vulgate Latin. Along with the book 

 of Joshua these five really form one continuous 

 work, now usually referred to by modern scholars 

 as the Hexateuch, the present division of the 

 Hexatench having been made by a comparatively 

 late editor. The Mosaic authorship of tne Penta- 

 teuch is nowhere affirmed in the books themselves, 

 hut it is suggested by certain obvious phenomena 

 in various parts of them, though contradicted by 

 others ; ami it had begun to be held before the 

 Jewish canon was closed ('the law of Moses,' 

 Dan. ix. 11, 13; 'the book of Moses,' 2 Chron. 

 xxv. 4, xxxv. 12). It soon became a fixed ecclesias- 

 tical tradition and a tacitly established point of 

 Christian orthodoxy, and those who doubted or 

 denied it were generally held to be, and in fact often 

 were, hostile to Christianity (Hobbes, Spinoza i. 



