NOYES 



NUISANCE 



"The ninth month" it was called, for that was 

 originally its place in the year; and from the 

 Latin word novcm, meaning wine, has come the 

 present name. Later, when two extra months 

 were added, November became what it is to- 

 day, the eleventh in -the series, but its name 

 was never changed. At one time, however, a 

 change was suggested. July had been renamed 

 for Julius Caesar, August for Augustus Caesar, 

 and a subservient senate offered to call the 

 eleventh month after Tiberius Caesar, but he 

 declined, saying "What will you do if you have 

 thirteen emperors?" 



The number of days in the month has not 

 been so constant. Originally there were thirty, 

 then twenty-nine, and again thirty-one, but 

 from the time of Augustus it has had thirty 

 days, as at present. 



Its Part in the Year's Activities. As nature 

 seems to be holding its breath, so many of the 

 out-of-door activities are at a standstill. The 

 harvesting season is over, the crops are secure 

 in the barns, and thus there comes each year 

 a repetition of that experience of the Pilgrims 

 which resulted in the proclamation of the first 

 Thanksgiving. In the United States this is the 

 outstanding festival of the month, but in 

 Canada, where crops are gathered somewhat 

 earlier, Thanksgiving Day falls in October. 

 See THANKSGIVING DAY. 



Of the sports, the one which seems to belong 

 specifically to November is football. The ex- 

 citing scrimmages which would be too violent 

 in the earlier months seem to warm the blood 

 not only of the contestants but of the specta- 

 tors as well, for scores of thousands of people in 

 the United States and Canada sit through the 

 game and feel no discomfort from the frosty 

 air. 



NOYES, noyz, ALFRED (1880- ), one of 

 the foremost English poets of to-day. His 

 work combines a straightforward manliness with 

 the simple vision of a child, that joyous op- 

 timism which refuses to admit that sordid ap- 

 pearances represent the truth and delights in 

 an old-fashioned fairyland. His earlier works, 

 among them the Flower of Old Japan, Forest 

 of Wild Thyme and Tales of the Mermaid 

 Tavern, made little effort to interpret our own 

 times, but The Wine Press, inspired by the 

 Balkan War, A Belgium Christmas Eve and 

 other recent verse are the poet's protest against 

 war. His work shows great technical skill, but 

 although he is fond of sudden changes of 

 meter, he does not indulge in the unconven- 

 tionality characteristic of many current poets. 



Alrivd Moves was born in Staffordshire in 

 1880, and studied at Exeter College, Oxford. In 

 1913 he delivered a course of lectures at the 

 Lowell Institute, Boston, on The Sea in English 

 Poetry. The same year he received the degree 

 of Doctor of Letters from Yale University. 

 Afterwards, till 1916, he was a visiting professor 

 at Princeton. 



N-RAYS, the name given to a form of radia- 

 tion discovered by the French physicist Blond- 

 lot in 1903, while experimenting with X-rays. 

 N-rays will pass through such solid substances 

 as wood, paper and metals, but will not pene- 

 trate rock salt, platinum or water. They are 

 said to be present in sunlight, and in the light 

 given by a Welsbach burner, an ordinary gas 

 flame or white-hot metal. 



Another French experimenter, Dr. Charpen- 

 tier, also declared that N-rays were given off 

 by living plants and animals, and that these 

 rays were visible and more or less brilliant ac- 

 cording to the part of the body most active. If 

 these observations were accepted, it would fur- 

 nish grounds for a physiological theory of 

 mental telepathy. But other scientists than 

 Blondlot have been unable to obtain N-rays, 

 and therefore question their existence. See 

 ROENTGEN RAYS. 



NU'BIA, a name now given to a great por- 

 tion of what was formerly called Ethiopia, ex- 

 tending on both banks of the Nile River from 

 Egypt to Abyssinia. On the east it is bounded 

 by the Red Sea, on the west by the Desert of 

 Sahara, but here it has no clearly defined geo- 

 graphical limits. Except in the valley of the 

 Nile the country consists only of desert. Sua- 

 kin, on the Red Sea, is the only town of any 

 commercial importance. The country was sub- 

 ject to Egypt until the revolt of the Mahdi in 

 1885, when it was overrun by Sudanese. It was 

 restored to Egypt by Lord Kitchener's cam- 

 paigns of 1896 and 1898, at which time he re- 

 ceived the popular name, Kitchener of Khar- 

 tum. The two best-known towns are Khartum 

 and Omdurman, though they are of little im- 

 portance. 



NUISANCE, nu'sans, in law, such a use of 

 private or public property or such personal 

 conduct as will work damage to another. For 

 example, a slaughterhouse in a residential sec- 

 tion of a city would be a nuisance, because 

 its foul odors would render adjoining houses 

 uninhabitable. Boisterous conduct, especially at 

 unseasonable hours of the night, so that it pre- 

 vents those in the neighborhood from sleeping, 

 is a nuisance. The location is a strong factor 



