GARROTE 



2396 



GARY 



21, 1835, was dragged through the streets of 

 Boston and lodged in jail for his own safety. 

 He visited Great Britain in 1833 in the further- 

 ance of his crusade ; and in 1865, after the total 

 abolition of slavery in the United States, he 

 was presented by his friends with the sum of 

 $30,000 as a national testimonial. A bronze 

 statue has been erected in Boston in his honor. 



GARROTE, garotc', or go, rot' . In Spain 

 and Portugal in former days people condemned 

 to die were dressed in black and attended by 

 a procession of priests were conducted to a 

 public place of execution. After a criminal 

 was seated, an iron collar, called a garrote, 

 which was fastened to an upright post behind 

 him, was placed on his neck and tightened by 

 a screw until he was strangled. This was a 

 very painful and inhuman punishment, for the 

 man who screwed the collar did not always 

 do it rapidly enough to kill the victim quickly. 

 This revolting method is employed very little 

 at present, for life sentence in chains is suc- 

 ceeding it in those countries as the penalty for 

 murder. 



GARTER, ORDER OF THE. In 1349 King Ed- 

 ward III of England established this Order of 

 knighthood, which has become the most fa- 

 mous in Europe. The story is told that while 

 the king was dancing with the Countess of 

 Salisbury at a great court ball she lost her 

 garter, and as he picked it up to hand to her 

 he saw several persons smile and indulge in 

 remarks. This made him angry, and he ex- 

 claimed in French, "Shame to him who evil 



INSIGNIA OF 

 THE ORDER 



(a) The Gar- 

 ter ; (ft) the 

 Star, worn on 

 breast. 



thinks.'' Then he added that he would make 

 the little blue garter "so glorious that every- 

 one would wish to wear it." Whether or not 

 the story is true, the Order was founded, and 

 only twenty-five members besides the king 

 were at first admitted. 



The emblem of the Order is a dark blue 

 garter edged in gold, on which are printed the 

 words which the king spoke, Honi soit qui mal 



y pense. The garter is worn on the left leg 

 below the knee, on all ceremonial occasions. 

 After the Order was reorganized in 1831, the 

 membership was increased by including the 

 Prince of Wales and descendants of George I 

 and any foreign rulers who might be selected. 

 There were several patron saints of the Order, 

 but Saint George was considered the special 

 patron, so the name, "The Order of Saint 

 George," is a term sometimes used to refer to 

 the Order. Recently the membership has 

 numbered about fifty. 



GARTER SNAKE, a general term which is 

 applied to various small serpents, the best- 

 known species being the ordinary garter snake 



GARTER SNAKE AND FAMILY 



found in the United States, Southern Canada 

 and the lowlands of Mexico and Guatemala. 

 The length of the adult snake is about three 

 feet, of which from one-fourth to one-fifth be- 

 longs to the tail. The coloring varies in dif- 

 ferent localities. Although its bite is harmless, 

 it will assume a threatening pose when at- 

 tacked. Its strength and courage make it a 

 successful adversary of many small animals 

 whose superior size would seem to give them 

 the advantage. It is partial to grassy places 

 and the borders of streams where mice, toads 

 and fish abound. The young are produced 

 alive, from ten to twenty at a time, and are 

 carefully guarded, the mother allowing some 

 of them to enter her mouth for protection 

 when threatened by danger. 



GARY, ga'ri, ELBERT HENRY (1846- ), 

 formerly a judge of the state courts of Illinois, 

 later head of the United States Steel Corpora- 

 tion and of the International Steel Associa- 

 tion, America's greatest industrial group. 



When he was corporation counsel of the city 

 of Chicago and president of the Chicago Bar 

 Association he helped to organize the Federal 

 Steel Company, a two-hundred-million-dollar 

 merger, and became its president. A few years 



