SQUID 



5517 



SQUINTING 



concerns in their own way." It is exceedingly 

 doubtful if such a doctrine would ever have 

 been proposed or given support if Congress had 

 not been face to face with the problem of the 

 extension of slavery into the territory acquired 

 from Mexico. The North, as a whole, was op- 

 posed to the extension of slavery into the terri- 

 tories, while the South was almost unanimous 

 in its favor. Both North and South were in- 

 clined to regard the theory of squatter sover- 

 eignty as a happy solution, which relieved the 

 states and Congress of a difficult problem. 



In the Compromise of 1850 the principle 

 seems to have been recognized, because of the 

 omission of reference to slavery in Utah and 

 New Mexico, and in the Kansas-Nebraska Bill 

 of 1854 it was expressly adopted as a basis. 

 Soon afterwards, however, the doctrine was re- 

 pudiated by the South, and in the election of 

 1860 it caused a split in the Democratic party, 

 the Northern wing nominating for President 

 Stephen A. Douglas, who had been for ten 

 years the foremost advocate of popular sover- 

 eignty, while the Southern wing, demanding 

 that Congress take vigorous action to defend 

 slavery in the territories, nominated John C. 

 Breckinridge. With the close of the War of 

 Secession and the abolition of slavery, the 

 question lost all political significance (see PO- 

 LITICAL PARTIES). 



The terms squatter sovereignty and popular 

 sovereignty originally had different meanings, 

 and their confusion in United States history is 

 unfortunate. A squatter was a settler who oc- 

 cupied land without having acquired legal title 

 to it, and the old doctrine of "squatter sover- 

 eignty," dating from colonial times, gave him 

 legal title after a certain period of years, if the 

 rightful owner did not appear and enter a pro- 

 test. Many of the early settlers in Kansas, 

 Nebraska and other states west of the Missis- 

 sippi River were squatters. The remoteness of 

 the land from other settlements, together with 

 the difficulties of determining and acquiring 

 title, gave many an emigrant the chance to 

 pick out and occupy a tract of land that suited 

 him, without taking the trouble to locate the 

 previous owner. Thus popular sovereignty was 

 associated with the squatters of Kansas and 

 Nebraska, and the name squatter sovereignty 

 became a synonym in more general use than 

 the correct term, popular sovereignty, or sover- 

 eignty inhering in the people. W.F.Z. 



SQUID, skwid, a large group of sea mollusks 

 having internal shells and ten movable arms 

 about the mouth. The common squid, which 



inhabits the coast waters from Maine to South 

 Carolina, is typical of the family. It has a long, 

 pointed body, with two fins at the posterior end, 

 united at the back. Two of its ten arms are 

 longer than the other eight, but all have rows of 

 sucking organs. It has a large head and a mouth 

 equipped with two horny jaws and a rasping 

 tongue. The body of the squid is spotted with 

 several different tints, and it can change its 

 color at will to correspond with its environ- 

 ment. Like others of its family it has an ink 

 bag from which it ejects a dark fluid to discolor 

 the water when fleeing from an enemy. Aided 

 by their sucking disks and movable arms, the 

 squids successfully prey on small fish, and they 

 themselves are eaten by fish, eels, dolphins and 

 sea birds. 



The common squid is from eight to twenty 

 inches in length, but there are giant specimens 

 off the Newfoundland coast with bodies from 

 eight to ten feet long and tentacles attaining a 

 reach of forty feet. Sailors tell nearly unbe- 

 lievable stories of squids having sucking disks 

 as large as dinner plates. These giant sea ani- 

 mals are eaten by whales. 



SQUILL, skwil, the name of several plants 

 with bulbous roots, belonging to the lily family. 

 A species which grows in countries around the 

 Mediterranean produces bulbs sometimes 

 weighing four pounds and of medicinal value. 

 They are collected in August. The outer husk 

 is removed and the bulb is sliced and dried in 

 the sun. The drug made from these bulbs is 

 generally used in the forms of syrup and the 

 tincture of squill. It stimulates the heart and 

 has decidedly irritating qualities, affecting par- 

 ticularly the stomach, intestines and bronchial 

 tracts, and for this reason it cannot be given 

 alone. Squill is sometimes used in chronic 

 bronchitis, but never in the acute disease. Its 

 use is decreasing, because its irritant qualities 

 overbalance the good it may do. 



SQUINTING, skwint'ing, or STRABIS- 

 MUS, strabiz'mus, that defect of the eyes 

 which is the affliction of persons said to be 

 cross-eyed. Under normal conditions the two 

 eyes can be directed toward an object with the 

 same axis of vision. There are four muscles 

 which make this possible attached above and 

 below and on each side of the eyeball. Injury 

 to one or more of these muscles causes the af- 

 fected eye to turn out of its normal position. 

 Sometimes both eyes are affected. That form 

 of squint is most common in which the eye or 

 eyes seem to be looking at the nose. The 

 trouble is remedied by an operation or by fit- 



