September Massacres
in French history, September, 1792, is noted for a series of murders perpetrated by the frantic mobs of Paris. Danton, fearing, it is said, that the opposition of the royal forces might result in the liberation of many royalists confined in prison, turned the places of confinement over to self-constituted committees or mobs of extreme revolutionists. These tribunals summoned great numbers of prisoners into their presence, held a brief mock inquiry, then dispatched them into the courtyard to be shot, sabred, and disposed of by infuriated executioners. Hundreds of helpless prisoners were butchered in the massacres of September. See Danton ; French Revolution
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Septembrists
in French history, the name given to the agents in the massacre which took place in Paris on Sept. 2, 1792, during the French Revolution. SEPTICÆMIA, or SEPTÆMIA, in pathology, a state of the blood without secondary abscesses, a kind of pyæmia with intense fever, and great constitutional disturbance from blood poisoning. The antiseptic researches of Lister and of Pasteur have done much to counteract septicæmia.
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Septuagesima
the third Sunday before Lent, so called because it is about 70 days before Easter.
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Sequence
a series of things following in a certain order or succession; specifically, a set of cards immediately following each other in the same suit, as an ace, two, three and four. In music, the recurrence of a harmonic progression or melodic figure at a different pitch or in a different key to that in which it was first given. A tonal or diatonic sequence is when no modulation takes place. A chromatic or real sequence takes place when the recurrence of a phrase at an exact interval causes a change of key. In the Roman ritual, a rhythm sometimes sung between the Epistle and the Gospel. At first it was merely a prolongaper tion of the last note of the Alleluia, but afterward appropriate words were substituted. When the Roman Missal was revised in the 16th century, only four of the existing sequences were retained: Victinæ Paschali, for Easter; Veni, Sancte Spiritus, for Pentecost; Lauda, Sion, for Corpus Christi; and the Dies Iræ, for Masses of the Dead. The Stabat Mater, for the Feast of the Seven Dolors, is of . later date
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Sequin
a gold coin of Venice. It was first issued about 1280 and was minted by successive doges during the continuance of the republic. The intrinsic value was about $2.18. The reverse side bore a figure of Christ; the obverse represented St. Mark blessing the banner of Venice held by a kneeling doge. During the great days of Venice the sequin was the world coin of commerce.
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Sequoia National Park
a region made public property in 1890 in order to safeguard the splendid groves of sequoia trees which are there found. The number of groves in this park are twelve, and the number of large trees exceed 12,000, having a minimum diameter of 10 feet. The park was established by the acts of Sept. 25 and Oct. 1, 1890. The area includes 161,597 acres. The valleys, rivers, and forested slopes in this park combine to make up a picture of great beauty. Tourists in great number visit it each year, coming by way of Visalia, on the Southern Pacific and Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé railroads, and then to Lemon Cove, going 40 miles by stage coach to the park. The trees belong to the Sequoia genus that showed themselves first in the cretaceous beds of Greenland and in the American Potomac group, as well as later in the Tertiary of Europe and America, resembling those still extant in California. They are collaterally related to the Swedenborgia of the Jurassic, which grew to great heights in earlier ages.
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Seraglio
se-ral'yo, the official palace of the sultan at Constantinople. The word is Italian, meaning inclosure. The sultan's seraglio incloses a number of government buildings and a mosque, as well as his private home or harem in which his many wives live. Entrance to the seraglio is gained by means of a lofty gate known as the Sublime Porte, a name applied often to the sultan himself. See Constantinople ; Turkey
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Serajevo
a city in Jugo - Slavia, formerly the capital of the Austrian ; pop. about province of Bosnia, situated on both ; pop. (1919) banks of the Miljaka, 122 miles S. W. of Belgrade. The principal industries of ramifications the town consist of textile mills and metal ware factories. Iron mines and mineral springs are found in the vicinity. The name of the city, however, is generally associated with the assassination of the heir apparent to the throne of Austria-Hungary, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, which took place there on June 28, 1914. Pop. (1919) 50,000.
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Serapeum
. See Memphis
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Serenade
music performed in the open air at night; often, an entertainment of music given in the night by a lover to his mistress under her window; or music performed as a mark of esteem and good-will toward distinguished persons. The name is also given to a piece of music characterized by the soft repose which is supposed to be in harmony with the stillness of night. The Italian name Serenata is now applied to a cantata having a pastoral subject, and to a work of large proportions, in the form to some extent of a symphony.
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Seres
a town of Greece, in the former vilayet of Saloniki; on a tributary of the Struma or Karassu; 45 miles N. E of Saloniki; lies in a wide and fertile plain containing upward of 300 villages; is the seat of a Greek archbishop; and is the most important trading town in the interior of Macedonia. It has a castle, numerous mosques, Greek churches, baths, benevolent institutions, manufactures woolen and cotton goods, gourd-shaped water flasks, and exports cotton, rice, tobacco, and grain.
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Sereth
an important affluent of the Danube. It rises in the Carpathians in Bukowina, flows through Rumania, and joins the Danube 5 miles above Galatz after a course of 300 miles. Parts of the regions through which it flows saw much fighting between the Russian and Austro- German armies during the World War.
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