ODD FELLOWS 



4341 



ODE 



turning it inside out, but it is said that the 

 hideous appearance of the animal is so terrify- 

 ing that a victim is usually rendered helpless. 



THE COMMON OCTOPUS 



The Chinese and Italians, who seek the octopus 

 for food, catch the animal by running a pointed 

 stick through the body. 



For description of the class to which the octopus 

 belongs see the article CEPHALOPODA. 



ODD FELLOWS, INDEPENDENT ORDER OF, a 

 benevolent and fraternal order which is in 

 many ways akin to Freemasonry (see MA- 

 UY), but which has several distinctive fea- 

 tures. As to its origin there is uncertainty, 

 though it was founded in England, probably 

 not before the eighteenth century. The idea 

 of mutual relief and benefit to members, cardi- 

 nal features of the order, attained great popu- 

 larity, and various branches or lodges grew up 

 in different cities of England, each of which 

 refused to admit the superior rank of any 

 other. In time adjustments were made, but it 

 was not until 1814 that the Manchester Unity 

 of the Indi -prudent Order of Odd Fellows waa 

 finally organized. This society, which has 

 branches in various countries but has no pres- 

 ent connection with the order in the United 

 States, has about 1,332,000 members. 



The American Order. Odd Fellowship in tin- 

 United States dates from IM'.t, \\hrn Wa-hmn- 

 ton Lodge was organized m Baltimore. Tin- 

 became in the next year a subordinate lodge in 

 the Manchester Unity, and other lodges which 

 were established in the United States in tin 

 following years assumed a hk. p<> 

 1843, hov affiliation with the Knnh>h 



lodge ceased, and the United States grand lodge 

 reserved for itself the right to erect lodges in 



Europe. For a time the Canadian branch had 

 a separate charter, but after 1852 the society 

 in Canada was merged with the grand lodge of 

 the United States. 



Objects. The Order of Odd Fellows adheres 

 to the rites, passwords and grips which are 

 characteristic of all secret societies, hut its pri- 

 mary purpose is, as it always has been, ben< 

 lent. Since 1830 the society has paid out in 

 i funds nearly $170,000,000, to 1917. This 

 includes no life insurance, for which there is 

 provision. Several of the symbols of the so- 

 ciety are well known the three links, repre- 

 senting friendship, love and truth; the skull 

 and crossbones, speaking of mortality, and the 

 eye, which represents the omniscience of God. 



The subordinate lodge confers three degrees, 

 and when a man has attained the highest of 

 thrse he becomes eligible to membership in an 

 encampment, which in its turn confers three 

 degrees, the Patriarchal, Golden Rule and 

 Royal Purple; the first-named is an English 

 degree. Since 1884 there has existed a military 

 or uniformed degree, the Patriarch Militant, to 

 which are eligible holders of the Royal Purple 

 degree. 



Women who are related to Odd Fellows a re- 

 admitted to a Rebekah lodge, which was or- 

 ganized in 1851, and which had, in 1916, 1,670,- 

 597 members. The Independent Order of Odd 

 Fellows, which has grand lodges in Australia, 

 Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden 

 and Switzerland, had, in 1916, a total member- 

 ship of 1,606,546 in the Tinted States. 



Consult Ford's Symbolism of Odd Fellowship; 

 Stevens' Cyclopedia of Fraternities. 



ODE, the name given by the Greeks to any 

 poem that was sung to a musical accompani- 

 ment. Two forms of odes were common among 

 the Greeks, that in which the stanzas were 

 regular and uniform, and that in which irregu- 

 lar divisions, known as strophe and antistmphe. 

 were intended to be sung by two choirs an>v 

 ing each other. The famous odes of Sappho 

 \\. ie of the former kind, those of Pindar of the 

 latter, while Horace's odes followed those of 

 Sappho rather than those of Pindar. 



In modern poetry the ode is not usually m- 

 trnd.-d to be sung, though it is classed with 

 lyric poetry. It is. in gem -nil. rather long, dig- 

 mlied in subject-matin- and iti stylo, and ad- 

 dressed to some person or thine. Although 

 strophe and antistrophc idea in not present in 

 modern ode, there is in Knglish, as there 

 was in Greek, a regular and an irregular style 

 of ode. Shelley's Ode to a Skylark, Bryant's 



