BtJT 



BUT 



furnish the city with the necessary cattle, 

 and to take care of preparing- and t nding 

 their flesh. The suarii provided hogs ; 

 the pecuarii, or boarii, other cattle, espe- 

 cially oxen ; and under these was a subor- 

 dinate class, whose office was to kill, call- 

 ed lanii, and carnifices. 



To exercise the office of butcher 

 among- the Jews, with dexterity, was of 

 more reputation than to understand the 

 liberal arts and sciences. They have a 

 book concerning shamble-constitution ; 

 and in case of any difficulty, they apply 

 to some learned Rabbi for advice : nor 

 was any allowed to practise this art with- 

 out a licence in form ; which gave the 

 ian, upon evidence of his abilities, a 

 power to kill meat, and others to eat 

 what he killed ; provided he carefully 

 read every week for one year, and every 

 month the next year, and once a quarter 

 during his life, the constitution above 

 mentioned. 



In London, the furnishing of butcher's 

 meat is separated into different trades. 

 We have carcass-butchers, who kill the 

 meat in great quantities, and sell it to 

 others, who retail it among their custom- 

 ers. Besides these there are salesmen, 

 who attend the market at Smithfield, 

 and who act between the carcass butcher 

 and the breeder and feeder of cattle in 

 the country. The butchers were incor- 

 porated into a company in the third year 

 of James I. 



BUTCHER bird, in ornithology. See LA- 

 xius. 



BUTCHER'S broom, in botany. See Rus- 

 cus. 



BUTEA, in botany, a genus of the 

 Diadelphia Decandria class and order. 

 Calyx slightly two-lipped ; corolla with 

 a very long lanceolate banner : legume 

 compressed, membranaceous ; one-seed- 

 ed at the tip. Two species ; viz. Fron- 

 dosa and Superba, found on the coast of 

 Coromandel. 



BUTLER, the name anciently given to 

 an officer in the court of France, being 

 the same as the grand echanson, or great 

 cup-bearer of the present times. 



BUTLER, in the common acceptation of 

 the word, is an officer in the houses of 

 princes and yreat men, whose principal 

 business is to look after the wine, plate, 

 &c. 



BUTLERAGE oficine, is a duty of two 

 shillings for every ton of wine imported 

 by merchants strangers ; being a compo- 

 sition in lieu of the liberties and free- 

 doms granted to them by kin John and 

 Edward I. by a charter called chartamer- 

 catoria. Butlerage was originally the only 



custom that was payable upon the im- 

 portation of wines, and was taken and re- 

 ceived by virtue of the regal prerogative, 

 for the proper use of the crown. But for 

 many years past, there having been grant- 

 ed by" parliament subsidies to the kings 

 of England, and the duty of butlerage not 

 repealed, but confirmed, they have been 

 pleased to grant away to some nobleman, 

 who, by virtue of such grant, is to enjoy 

 the full benefit and advantage thereof, 

 and may cause the same to be collected 

 in the same manner that the kings them- 

 selves were formerly wont to do. The 

 name was derived from the circumstance 

 of the duty being formerly paid to the 

 king's butler. 



BUTMENTS, in architecture, a mass 

 of stone or brick-work, on or against 

 which the feet of arches rest. 



BUTT, in commerce, a vessel or mea- 

 sure of wine, containing four hogsheads, 

 or two hundred and fifty-two gallons. 



BUTT, or BUTT -ends, in the sea-lan- 

 guage, are the fore-ends of all planks un- 

 der water, as' they rise, and are joined 

 one end to another. Butt-ends in great 

 ships are most carefully bolted; for if 

 any one of them should spring or give 

 way, the leak would be very dangerous 

 and difficult to stop. 



BUTTER, a fat unctuous substance, 

 prepared from milk, by heating or churn- 

 ing it. It was late before the Greeks 

 appear to have had any notion of butter ; 

 their poets make no mention of it, and 

 yet are frequently speaking of milk and 

 cheese. The Romans used butter no 

 otherwise than as a medicine, never as a 

 food. The ancient Christians of Egypt 

 burnt butter in their lamps instead of oil ; 

 and in the Roman churches it was an- 

 ciently allowed during Christmas time, to 

 burn butter instead of oil, on account of 

 the great consumption of it otherways. 

 See MILK. 



BUTTER, is a name given in the old che- 

 mistry to several metallic muriates, on 

 account of their texture when newly pre- 

 pared. According to this system, there 

 are the butters of antimony, arsenic, bis- 

 muth, and tm. They all agree in the fol- 

 lowing particulars : they are formed by 

 sublimation ; their texture is no> unlike 

 that of butter in warm weather ; they are 

 decomposable by being dropped into 

 pure water, a precipitation of white ox- 

 ide taking place. There are likewise ve- 

 getable butters, a term ap, lied to those 

 vegetable expressed oils, that require a 

 greater heat than that of the atmosphere 

 to keep the mm a fluid slate: of these, the 

 palm oil is best known : a sinuiar oil may 



