The Devil’s Dictionary994 terms |
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- Tree
- n. A tall vegetable intended by nature to serve as a penal
apparatus, though through a miscarriage of justice most trees bear
only a negligible fruit, or none at all. When naturally fruited, the
tree is a beneficient agency of civilization and an important factor
in public morals. In the stern West and the sensitive South its fruit
(white and black respectively) though not eaten, is agreeable to the
public taste and, though not exported, profitable to the general
welfare. That the legitimate relation of the tree to justice was no
discovery of Judge Lynch (who, indeed, conceded it no primacy over the
lamp-post and the bridge-girder) is made plain by the following
passage from Morryster, who antedated him by two centuries:
While in yt londe I was carried to see ye Ghogo tree, whereof
Trauvells in ye Easte
I had hearde moch talk; but sayynge yt I saw naught remarkabyll in
it, ye hed manne of ye villayge where it grewe made answer as
followeth:
”Ye tree is not nowe in fruite, but in his seasonne you shall
see dependynge fr. his braunches all soch as have affroynted ye
King his Majesty.”
And I was furder tolde yt ye worde “Ghogo” sygnifyeth in yr
tong ye same as “rapscal” in our owne.