OMNIBUS BILL 



4376 



ONEIDA COMMUNITY 



trate: Many people believe that the howling 

 of a dog near a sick person is a bad omen. 

 Other illustrations are plentiful. No intelligent 

 person of to-day believes in omens. 



OM'NIBUS BILL. An omnibus is a con- 

 veyance for the accommodation of many peo- 

 ple; by analogy, then, when a bill comprising 

 several measures that have little, or nothing, 

 in common is introduced in a legislative assem- 

 bly it is sometimes spoken of as an omnibus 

 bill. This name was first applied in the United 

 States Congress as a term of derision to the 

 proposed Compromise of 1850, designed to set- 

 tle a number of questions in dispute between 

 the North and the South as to the extension 

 of slavery and the treatment of fugitive slaves. 



The entire theory of bills of this nature is 

 faulty; when a number of unrelated items are 

 crowded into one bill it is impossible to give 

 each the measure of consideration it deserves. 

 The constitutions of most states and provinces 

 provide, therefore, that a single statute shall 

 relate to one topic only, and that this must be 

 clearly set forth in the title. 



OMSK, awmsk, the capital of the province of 

 Akmolinsk, and the former capital of West 

 Siberia. It is situated on the Trans-Siberian 

 Railway, at the junction of the Om and Irtisch, 

 280 miles southeast of Tobolsk, and is one of 

 Russia's most important military stations in Si- 

 beria. Its fortress, constructed in 1766, is the 

 strongest in West Siberia. The governor-gen- 

 eral resides in Omsk, and the city has various 

 manufactures and mining works. There are 

 several military schools, and in these many of 

 the famous Cossack regiments are trained (see 

 COSSACKS). The trade is largest in brandy and 

 tobacco. Population, 1913, 135,800. 



ONEGA, one'ga, LAKE, a lake in the govern- 

 ment of Olonetz, in Northern Russia, next to 

 Ladoga the largest lake in Europe. It has an 

 area of 3,764 square miles, which is about one- 

 ninth that of Lake Superior or one-half that of 

 Lake Ontario. It is 125 feet above sea level 

 and has been navigated by steamboats since 

 1832, for it is free from ice from May to De- 

 cember. Fishermen and lumbermen live on its 

 numerous islands. Lake Onega discharges by 

 the Svir River into Lake Ladoga ; a canal along 

 the south shore connects that river with the 

 Vytegra, and the Vytegra is in turn connected 

 with the Volga and the Dvina by canals. 



ONEIDA, oni'da, a tribe of North American 

 Indians who belonged to the confederation of 

 Iroquoian tribes known as the Five (later Six) 

 nations (see FIVE NATIONS). Their home origi- 



nally was along the shores of Oneida Lake in 

 New York state. They were about the only 

 tribe among the Iroquoians who fought with 

 the Americans during the War of Independence. 

 For this reason the other tribes of the Iroquois, 

 led by Joseph Brant (which see), attacked 

 them, and they sought refuge in the American 

 settlements until the war ended. Some re- 

 turned to their former homes after the war was 

 over and others emigrated to the Thames River 

 district in Ontario. Most of the tribe settled 

 upon the reservation on Green Bay, Wisconsin, 

 early in the nineteenth century, and adopted 

 the customs of civilization. They now number 

 about 3,000; about two-thirds of these live in 

 Wisconsin, a few in New York state and about 

 800 in Ontario. 



Their proper name, Oneyotka-ono, meaning 

 people of the stone, refers to a granite boulder 

 on the shore of Oneida Lake, near the place 

 where their original village stood. 



ONEIDA COMMUNITY, a cooperative set- 

 tlement founded at Oneida, N. Y., in 1848, by 

 John Humphrey Noyes, and now owning many 

 successful manufacturing plants. In the early 

 years of its existence the Oneida Community 

 was religious and communistic in its character. 

 Its members believed in various peculiar inter- 

 pretations of the New Testament, as advanced 

 by Noyes, among others the possibility of Chris- 

 tians living absolutely free from sin and owning 

 all things in common. These ideas caused them 

 to be known as Perfectionists, or Bible Com- 

 munists. They looked upon themselves as a 

 big family; followed a plan of mutual criti- 

 cism; considered one kind of work worth just 

 as much as any other; gave women the same 

 rights as men, and made the support and edu- 

 cation of children the affair of the Community 

 as a whole. 



Their ideas of marriage were unusual. They 

 did not believe in a legal bond, and they 

 branded the permanent union of one man and 

 one woman as a form of idolatry. ''Complex 

 marriage" was the name given to their system. 

 These radical beliefs aroused strong opposition 

 on the part of the orthodox churches, which 

 caused the Community to move from Putney, 

 Vt., where it originated, to Oneida. Here it 

 became exceedingly prosperous through the in- 

 vention of a steel game-trap by one of its 

 members. Factories were built not only to 

 manufacture these traps and various kinds of 

 steel chains, but for fruit and vegetable can- 

 ning and the manufacture of sewing and em- 

 broidery silk. 



