SKINNER 



SKOBELEFF 



489 



well-developed legs, Seps with very weak legs, 

 Nessia with rudimentary legs, Acontias with nt 

 legs are representative genera. In many there are 

 well-developed bony scutes beneath the rounded 

 scales. See LIZARDS. 



Skinner, JOHN, the author of 'Tullochgorum, 

 was born in the parish of Birse, Aberdeenshire, 

 3d October 1721, the son of the schoolmaster there. 

 He graduated at seventeen at Aberdeen, taught 

 in the parish schools at Keninay and Monymusk 

 ( where he left the Presbyterian for the Episcopal 

 Church), and in 1740 went as private tutor to 

 Shetland, where he married the daughter of the 

 Episcopal clergyman. In 1742 he was ordained a 

 deacon, and placed at Longside, where he minis- 

 tered for sixty-four years. In 1746 his house was 

 pillaged and his chapel burned by the Hanoverian 

 soldiery, although Skinner was no Jacobite, and was 

 one of the few who, so far as he could, complied 

 with the terms of the Toleration Act for which, 

 however, he had to receive the aljsolution of his 

 bishop, the church at large regarding compliance 

 as sin. The Act of 1748 he and his people evaded 

 for the most part, and in 1753 he was imprisoned 

 for six months. At some period before 1789 he 

 became dean of the diocese ; and he died at Aber- 

 deen, in his son's house, 16th June 1807. 



Skinner is remembered only by a few songs. He pub- 

 lished An Ecclesiastical Hiitory of Scotland (2 vols. 

 1788), and several controversial writings; and other 

 works appeared posthumously, including those wrought 

 oat after the theory of John Hntchinson (q.v.). His 

 Poem* were collected in 1809 (3d ed. 1859), the best being 

 ' The Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn ' and ' TuUochgornm ' 

 praised by Burns, in a friendly letter to Skinner ( 1787 ), 

 as 'the best Scotch song Scotland ever saw.' See the 

 Life by the Rev. Dr Walker (2d ed. 1883). 



His son, JOHN SKINNER, Primus of Scotland, 

 was born at Longside, 17th May 1744, in 1753 

 shared his father's imprisonment, and graduated at 

 Aberdeen at the age of sixteen. In 1763, when 

 only nineteen for the same reason ag in the case 

 of Dr^Chalmers, because he was 'a lad of pregnant 

 parts' he was ordained and placed in charge of 

 Ellon, with a stipend of 25 a year, eked out by 

 farming. Eleven years later he was called to 

 Alxjrdeen, where by 1776 his congregation had so 

 increased as to compel his removal to a larger 

 house at Longacre, where the upper floor as usual 

 was fitted up ae a 'meeting-house' the large 

 ' upper room ' in which Dr Seabury was consecrated 

 in 1784. Ity this time Skinner had l>een made 

 coadjutor-bishop (1782), and in 1787 he became 

 bishop of the diocese, and in 1788 primus. The 

 death of Prince Charles Edward, whicn occurred in 

 this last yt-ar, was the solution of the churclrs 

 Jacobite difficulty ; and the leading part in obtain- 

 ing the Relief Act of 1792 fell to the primus. 

 Skinner proved a wise and successful administrator, 

 and his great influence was exerted invariably for 

 the real good of the church. He died on 13th July 

 1816, and was succeeded as bishop by his son. See 

 the Life by Dr Walker ( 1887). 



Skipton. a market-town in the West Riding of 

 Yorkshire, is finely situated in the broad and fertile 

 valley of the Aire, 26 miles NW. of Leeds. The 

 capital of Craven, it is a gray-looking place, with 

 manufactures of cotton and woollen goods, and is 

 an important station on the Midland line. The 

 castle, once the chief seat of the Cliffords (q.v.), is 

 of two periods, the reigns of Edward II. and Henry 

 VIII., and is partly a ruin, partly inhabited. The 

 church has some interesting monuments ; and there 

 are also a public hall ( 1861 ), a grammar-school 

 ( 1548 ; rebuilt in 1876-77 at a cost of 12,000), and 

 a saline spring. Bolton Abbey (q.v.) is 6 miles 

 HisUnt. Pop. (1851)4962; (1891) 10,376. See 

 W. H. Dawnon'c History of Skipton ( 1882). 



Skirret (Sium Sisarum), a perennial plant of 

 the natural order Umbelliferse, a native of China 

 and Japan, but which has long been cultivated in 

 gardens in Europe for the sake of its roots, which 

 are tuberous and clustered, sometimes 6 inches 

 long, and of the thickness of the finger. They are 

 sweet, succulent, and nutritious, with a somewhat 

 aromatic flavour, and when boiled are a very agree- 

 able article of food. A kind of spirituous liquor is 

 sometimes made from them. Good sugar can also 

 be extracted. Skirret was at one time more cul- 

 tivated in Britain than it is at present, although 

 there seems to be no good reason for its having 

 fallen into disrepute. Worledge called it the 

 'sweetest, whitest, and most pleasant of roots.' 

 It is propagated either by seed or by very small 

 offsets from the roots. It has a stem of 2 to 3 feet 

 high ; the lower leaves pinnate, with oblong ser- 

 rated leaflets, and a heart-shaped terminal leaf, the 

 upper ones ternate with lanceolate leaflets. 



Skittles, a game usually played in a covered 

 shed, called a skittle-alley, about 60 feet in length. 

 The skittles are made of hard wood of the shape 

 shown at A in the fig., and they are placed upon 



a 



the floor of the shed in the order shown at a. The 

 player, standing at 6, trundles a wooden missile, 

 shaped like a small, flat cheese, from 7 to 14 Ib. in 

 weight, and tries to knock down the whole of the 

 skittles in as few throws as possible. The game is 

 very similar to the American bowls, which is played 

 with ten pins arranged in the form of a triangle ; 

 and the missile, a round wooden ball, is rolled along 

 a carefully constructed wooden floor. The game of 

 skittles (Kegel) with round balls is zealously played 

 in most parts of Germany, but with great local 

 variations. Thus in Silesia there are sometimes 

 fifteen or seventeen pins, though the usual number is 

 nine ; and in some places the round balls have holes 

 in them for the fingers of the player so that they 

 are thrown rather than trundled. Sometimes the 

 pins have different forms and values, one being 

 called the king; and there are many ways of 

 arranging them. The game seems to be of ancient 

 Germanic origin, and to have come from Germany 

 to the Netherlands, England, and France. It is 

 described by Hugo von Trim berg, rector of a 

 monastery at Bamberg in the second half of the 

 13th century (when there were only three pins). 

 The old English game was called Kails (Sir Philip 

 Sidney has Keels; in Scotland Kyles all derived 

 from the German Kepel), and was played, not with 

 a ball or disc, but with a short club according to 

 Strutt, with a 'sheep's leg-bone.' There is a 

 learned monograph on the game by Rothe ( Halle, 

 1879). See also BOWLS. 



SkobeleflT, MICHAEL DMITRIEVITCH, Russian 

 soldier, born in 1841, entered the Russian guards 

 when twenty, fought through the war of the Polish 

 rising (1863), and in 1866 was called to join the 

 general staff. During the years 1871-75 he was on 

 active duty in Asia, preparing for and then taking 

 part in the conquest of Khiva and conquering 

 Khokand. In the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 

 lie bore a conspicuous part : in the stormings of 

 Plevna he commanded the left wing and entered 

 ihat position at the head of his army corps ; and 

 ie took prisoners the so-called Shipka army of the 

 Turks and captured Adrianople. In 1880 he was 



