i33 



MAHOGANY: ECONOMICAL USES. 



MAIZE. 



434 



' Hidimbabadha,' ' Brahmavilapa," ' Sundas and Upasunda,' and Tilot- 

 tama,' by Bopp, Berlin, 1824. 4. 'Diluvium cum tribus aliis Maha- 

 bharati prastantissimis episodiia,' by Bopp, Berlin, 1829. 



MAHOGANY : ECONOMICAL USES. This wood was first known 

 in England in 1724, when Dr. Gibbons, a physician residing in King 

 Street, Covent Garden, received a few planks from his brother, a 

 captain in the West India trade. After much trouble, occasioned by 

 the wood being too hard for the tools generally used by carpenters and 

 cabinet makers, a candle-box and a bureau were made, and excited 

 much admiration for the beauty of the wood. The fact became known, 

 more planks were procured, and the cabinet-maker employed realised 

 a ^fortune by making articles of furniture in mahogany. From that 

 year this wood began to supersede walnut and pear-tree in the houses 

 of the rich. 



The mahogany forests are chiefly in Cuba and Central America. 

 The tree grows to so large a size, that logs of six or seven tons are 

 frequently imported. The cost is chiefly made up of the expenses 

 incident to the conveyance of such vast masses to the shipping ports, 

 in countries where roads are few and the means of traction defective. 

 The season for cutting commences in August. The men work in 

 gangs of from fifty to a hundred each, under a huntsman to search 

 out the best trees, and a captain to regulate operations. They deter- 

 mine on a sufficient number of trees to employ the whole gang during 

 the season. Each tree is cut about ten or twelve feet from the ground, 

 a stage being erected on which the men stand. The trunk is preferred 

 for large timbers, but the branches for more beautiful grain, knots, 

 curls, &c. The men live meanwhile in some sort of temporary village 

 near a river, and construct a road from thence to the spot where the 

 trees lie, often through dense forests of other kinds of wood, such as 

 the bullet-tree, iron-wood, red-wood, and sapodilla. Their labour is 

 exceedingly heavy, for many miles of road have often to be made, by 

 clearing away the underwood with cutlasses, lopping down the trees 

 with the axe, destroying the larger trunks by fire, levelling hillocks, 

 and blasting rocky ground. By about December the roads are made : 

 and the mahogany trunks are cut crosswise into logs, each of such size 

 that a bullock-train can draw it. The largest log ever cut in Honduras 

 is said to have been 17 feet long, 57 inches broad, 64 inches deep, and 

 15 tons weight ; on account of its beauty and value it was left ot 

 unusually large size, and additional oxen were set apart to draw it. 

 When reduced to logs by cross-cutting, the mahogany is brought from 

 the round to the square shape, by the axe. These operations being 

 finished by March, the two dry months of April and May are employed 

 in dragging the timber to the river. The trucks employed require each 

 seven pairs of oxen and two drivers ; and the logs are placed upon them 

 by being dragged up a temporary inclined platform. To avoid the 

 great heat of the sun in that climate, the loading and carrying are 

 conducted at night, by torchlight. Arrived at the river, the logs are 

 set afloat ; and when the rainy season of June has commenced, they 

 are floated down to Belize or some other fort, the gangs rowing down 

 in flat-bottomed canoes, and guiding the logs in their course. 



When brought to England or any other market, the price varies 

 extremely, being dependent partly on the size of the logs and partly 

 on the beauty of the wood. When a log is fine enough to be cut up 

 into broad and beautiful veneers, it will bring a high price. Some 

 years ago Messrs. Broadwood, the eminent pianoforte manufacturers, 

 gave a higher price than has ever been known before or since for three 

 logs of mahogany : namely, 2000J. Each log was 15 feet long by about 

 38 inches square. When cut into veneers of an eighth of an inch, the 

 wood was peculiarly beautiful, susceptible of receiving the highest 

 polish ; and when polished, it reflected the light in a very varied 

 manner, like the surface of a crystal. The general figure of the grain 

 resembled the ripple or small waves of water gently moved by the 

 wind ; and on this account the wood, which for twenty years was 

 employed for veneering some of the more costly pianofortes, obtained 

 in the factory the name of ocean-wood. In this special example, the 

 wood was Honduras mahogany ; but in the general state of the market 

 the Spanish is a finer kind, and brings a higher price. As a sort of 

 average, Spanish mahogany is in logs about 10 feet long by 20 to 26 

 inches square; while Honduras is 12 to 18 feet long, and from 2 to 4 

 feet square. Specimens of Honduras mahogany have come to market 

 from which planks 7 feet in width could be cut. African mahogany 

 twists more than Spanish or Honduras, and is inferior to them in most 

 qualities except hardness. Mahogany warps less, and holds glue 

 better, than most other kinds of wood, and on these accounts is much 

 valued for cabinet work, besides its largeness of size and beauty of 

 appearance. 



From a paper read before the Society of Arts in 1859, by Mr. 

 Leonard Wray, it appears that there are eight kinds of wood which are 

 ranked ' first class ' at Lloyd's as employed in shipbuilding ; twenty 

 others are ranked as ' second class/ including mahogany. The finest 

 quality of mahogany is too costly to be used for the large timbers ol 

 ships, while the cheaper qualities are not good enough. That good 

 mahogany is a magnificent wood for shipbuilding is, however, well 

 known. A Spanish 80-gun ship, built of mahogany, was captured by 

 the English in 1757 ; and her timbers, more than a century old, were 

 found to be perfectly sound. Her Majesty's beautiful steam yacht, 

 ' Victoria and Albert,' is built almost wholly of mahogany ; and there 

 i* an increasing use of this kind of timber by shipbuilders. 



ARTS AND SO. DIV. VOL. T. 



The uses of the mahogany tree for other purposes than its timber 

 are too few to need description here. 



MAIL (from the French maille), strictly " the mesh of a net," but 

 applied in a collective view to defensive armour formed of iron rings or 

 round meshes. Boyer, in his French dictionary, translates maille "a 

 little iron ring." In the ancient armour the habergeon and hauberk 

 were called coats of mail. [ARMOUR.] Mail or malle was also the 

 name given to a bag or small sack, at first probably because made of 

 net-work ; since applied likewise to the portmantle or portmanteau. 



MAIM (in law, " mayhem ") is an injury done to the body of a man 

 by forcibly depriving him of the use of some member serviceable in 

 fight, as a means either of defence or offence, and permanently 

 disabling him from offering such an effectual resistance to further 

 attacks upon his person as he otherwise might have done ; as if a foot, 

 hand, or finger, or a joint of the foot or hand, be struck off or made 

 crooked or weakened, or if a bone of the head be removed, or a fore- 

 tooth broken or displaced, or if an eye be beaten out, or if any other 

 bodily injury be inflicted whereby the party is rendered less capable of 

 making a vigorous defence. But destruction of a jaw-tooth, of an ear, 

 or of the nose, or of other members, the loss of which does not 

 interfere with the means of defence or offence, does not amount to 

 mayhem. The distinction however is by statutory alterations in the 

 law rendered of little importance. 



Mayhem was formerly punished by inflicting the same privation 

 upon the offender which he had caused to the party maimed. It was 

 afterwards punishable by fine and imprisonment, as an aggravated 

 trespass. But now, by 7 Wm. IV. and 1 Viet., c. 85, to stab, cut, or 

 wound, if with intent to murder, is a capital felony, and if with intent 

 to maim, disfigure, or disable, is a felony punishable by transportation 

 for life, or for not less than 15 years, (for which penal servitude is now 

 substituted) or by imprisonment not exceeding three years. The 

 statute 9 & 10 Viet., c. 25, makes it a felony to maim by the malicious 

 explosion of gunpowder or other explosive substance ; so also by the 

 same statute it is a felony maliciously to cause any gunpowder or 

 explosive substance to explode, or to send to any person any danger- 

 ous or noxious thing, or to throw any corrosive fluid or other 

 destructive substance at any person with intent (inter alia) to maim, 

 and these offences are now punishable by penal servitude for life, or 

 imprisonment for three yearg. 



Concurrently with these proceedings in the name of the crown, for 

 the purposes of public justice, the party injured is entitled to com- 

 pensation in the shape of damages, to be recovered in an action of 

 trespass; and where the damages found by the jury are not commen- 

 surate to the injury sustained, the court may increase them upon 

 inspection of the mayhem. 



MAINTENANCE is defined to be when a man maintains a suit or 

 quarrel to the disturbance or hindrance of right; and if he who 

 maintains another is to have by agreement part of the land or debt, &c. 

 in suit, it is called Champerty. Maintenance was an offence at common 

 law, and has also been the subject of several statutes. By the 32 Hen. 

 VIII., c. 9, no person shall bargain, buy or sell, or by any means obtain 

 any pretensed rights or titles to any lands, unless he who bargains or 

 sells, or his ancestors, or they by whom he claims the same, have been 

 in possession thereof, or of the reversion or remainder thereof, or taken 

 the rents and profits thereof, by the space of a year next before the 

 bargain or sale, on pain of the seller forfeiting the whole value of the 

 lands so bargained or sold, and the buyer, knowing the same, also 

 forfeiting the value of such lands. The professed object of the statute 

 was to prevent the inquietness, oppression, and vexation which the 

 preamble mentions as the consequence of the buying of titles and 

 pretended rights of persons not being in possession of the lands sold. 

 By the 8 & 9 Viet. c. 106, rights of entry may however be assigned or 

 charged by deed. 



A man may assign his interest in a debt after he has instituted a 

 suit for its recovery, and such assignment of itself is not maintenance. 

 But if the assignment be made on condition that the assignee prosecute 

 the suit, or if the assignee give the assignor any indemnity against the 

 costs of the suit, already incurred or to be incurred, this makes it 

 maintenance. 



(Comyn's Digest, ' Maintenance.') 



MAINTENANCE, SEPARATE. [SETTLEMENT.] 



MAIZE, or Indian Corn, is a plant commonly cultivated in the 

 warmer parts of the world, where it answers a purpose similar to that 

 of wheat in more northern countries. It is the Zea Mays of botanists, 

 a monoecious grass, of vigorous growth, with stems not more than two 

 feet high in some varieties, and reaching the height of eight or even 

 ten feet in others. The leaves are broad, and hang down from large 

 rough sheaths which surround the stem. The male flowers grow in 

 loose, terminal, compound racemes, standing clear of the leaves ; the 

 females are arranged in numerous rows on a spike, which, is wrapped 

 round by several folds of sheathing bracts, which press upon the grains 

 and give them the flattened figure they eventually acquire when ripe. 

 Each grain has a long thread-like style, which projects beyond the 

 enveloping Kkeaths; and as there are some hundreds of them upon 

 each spike, the whole form a long tassel, which looks as if made of 

 silk. The ripe grains are regularly arrayed one over the other in rows, 

 are compressed at the sides, flattened at the apex, and of various 

 colours. Their most common colour is pale yellow ; some are white, 



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