Post Mortem
after death, as a post-mortem examination, i. e., one made after the death of a person, in order to ascertain the cause of death either in the interests of science, or for the ends of justice.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Single-source entries: P (95)
These 8 listings are so strange that each appears in only one of the 7 encyclopedias we compared. They include such classics as Post Mortem, Post Obit, Postal Service.
Post Obit
a bond given as security for the repayment of a sum of money to a lender on the death of some specified person, from whom the borrower has expectations. Such loans in almost every case carry high, if not usurious, rates of interest, and generally the borrower binds himself to pay a much larger sum than he receives, in consideration of the risk which the lender runs in case of the borrower dying before the person from whom he has expectations.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Post-Pliocene
in geology, in the etymological sense, more modern than the Pliocene, i. e., embracing all the deposits from the end of the Pliocene till now; but Lyell, who introduced the term, restricts it to the older of these, applying the term Recent to the others.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Postal Service
the regulation of communication between different parts of a country, or different countries, including especially the forwarding and delivering of letters, newspapers and small packages, and the establishment of a registry system for the transfer of money and the transaction of other financial business. In some countries the use of the telephone and the telegraph forms a part of the postal service. Though letter conveyance is the primary work of the postoffice, many other branches of business have been assumed by it. The word "post" has its particular application from the posts, or stages, at which on the roads of the Roman empire couriers were maintained for the purpose of conveying news and despatches. Postal Union. - Under the terms of a treaty concluded at Berne, Oct. 9, 1874, the object of which was to secure uniformity in the treatment of correspondence, and the simplification of accounts, as well as the reduction of rates within certain limits, and whose provisions were carried into operation generally July 1, 1875, the whole of Europe, the United States, Egypt, British India, and all the colonies of France were at the outset, or shortly thereafter, included in the union and many other countries and colonies have since joined it. The international accounts in respect of postages are based on a month's return of correspondence taken every third year. United States. The beginnings of a postal service in the United States date Photo, Brown Brothers Enc. Vol. 7-p. 324 © Underwood & Underwood
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Postel, Guillaume
A visionary of the sixteenth century, Precipitation born in the diocese of Avranches. He was so precocious that at fourteen years of age he was made master of a school. It is said that he was in the habit of reading the most profound works of the Jewish rabbis, and the vivacity of his imagination threw him into constant troubles, from which he had the greatest difficulty in extricating himself. He believed that he had been called by God to re-unite all men under one law, either by reason or the sword. The pope and the king of France were to be the civil and religious heads of his new republic. He was made Almoner to a hospital at Venice, where he came under the influence of a woman called Mère Jeanne, who had visions which had turned her head. Because of his heterodox preachings, Postel was denounced as a heretic, but latterly was regarded as merely mad. After having travelled somewhat extensively in the East, and having written several works in which he dealt with the visions of his coadjutor, he retired to the priory of St. Martin-des-Champs at Paris, where he died penitent in 1581.
Only in An Encyclopaedia of Occultism
Posters
a bill or placard, printed or illustrated, conspicuously exhibited to convey a message to the public. The practice of using placards for public information had its vogue among both the Greeks and Romans, but the invention of printing gave the custom a development which has kept pace with modern civilization. In several cities of Europe it was the practice in the 17th century to affix theatrical announcements to the rails and posts in the streets, and in Paris the color of the poster indicated the theater. The posters sometimes consisted of letterpress large and bold enough to catch the public eye; sometimes the posters had representations of characters and scenes from the play. The colored poster, as we now know it, was developed by Chéret, the lithographer, in Paris, who issued the first example of his skill in 1866. The circus and the theater have had the chief hand in the development of the pictorial poster, which, by the representation of stage characters, ballet girls, children, and animals, has attained a high level of art. The French poster designers, among them Grasset, Toulouse-Lautrec, Willette, Forain, Guillaume, Schwaebe, and Gossard, have given France first place in the art, but the art has attained a great development in the United States, and men like Penfield and Bradley gave it the impetus which has carried it into every field of advertising that allows pictorial representation.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia
Posthumous Letters
Many investigators of psychic science, members of the Society for Psychic Research and others, have left sealed letters, whose contents are known only to the writer. On the death of the writer, and before the letter shall have been opened, an attempt is made by a medium to reveal the contents. By this means it is hoped to prove the actuality or otherwise of spirit communication, for, since only the writer knows what the letter contains, it is presumed that on his death this knowledge can only be communicated through his discarnate spirit. This hypothesis certainly overlooks the fact that the information might be telepathically acquired during the writer's lifetime by a still living person, and so conveyed to the medium. As yet, however, hypotheses are premature, for no attempt of the kind has met with striking success.
Only in An Encyclopaedia of Occultism
Posting
traveling by means of horses hired at different stations on the journey, system established in England as early as the reign of Ed ward II.
Only in Collier's New Encyclopedia