Wapenshaw
wop-in-shaw, a Scottish term meaning literally a weapon show. It was customary in early times for the able-bodied inhabitants of each district to appear at an appointed place well armed. The meet differed from our colonial muster day in that it was held not so much for military exercise as for the purpose of showing their weapons and proving to the satisfaction of their military leader that they were prepared in case of war. Games, wrestling matches, and hilarity were the order of the day. Under the influence of the Covenanters, wapenshaws were discontinued as tending to convivial habits and ungodliness. See Hundreds
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Wapentake
or WAPENTAC, a name formerly given in some of the N. shires of England, and still retained in Yorkshire, to a territorial division of the county corresponding to the hundred of the S. counties. The word means "weapon-touching" and refers to the custom of the chiefs of a particular district meeting at a certain day at a specified spot, when the head chief alighting from his horse, raised his spear in the air, and the inferior chiefs, also on foot, touched this spear with their lances, and so acknowledged their fealty.
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War Department
one of the departments of the executive branch of the United States Government, headed by the Secretary of War, who is a cabinet official. The chief officers under the Secretary of War are the Chief of the General Staff Corps, Chief of the Militia Bureau, Adjutant General, Inspector General, Judge Advocate, Quartermaster al. Under General, ral, and Surgeon General. the Bureau of Insular Affairs, the War Department administers the Philippine and Porto Rican governments, and the Dominican receivership. John W. Weeks of Massachusetts was appointed Secretary of War in 1921.
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War Labor Policies Board
a union of bureaus under the Secretary of Labor during the war with matters of employment, housing, wage adjustments, and the like. It was formed in May, 1918, as the result of advice given by an advisory labor council called together for that purpose. The duty of the board was to co-ordinate the industrial services represented by the numerous other organizations that were assisting the Government. Its aim was to standardize conditions of employment, to investigate questions involving wages, hours, the distribution of labor and the arrangement of working conditions. Committees were formed on inquiry, Government contract clauses, recruiting, exemption of skilled labor, centralization of industrial statistics, and the like . It succeeded in establishing a national system of labor exchanges, and in standardizing wages in several important industries. It was dissolved in February 1919, its staff having been greatly reduced by that time, and the funds necessary for its support not being forthcoming, when the Labor Appropriations Bill failed to pass.
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War Risk
a name given by insurance men to policies written on property perty obnoxious to destruction or damage by reason of a war then being waged; applied generally to marine insurance. WAR RISK INSURANCE. Following its entrance in the World War, the United States undertook to perfect plans for the insurance of soldiers. Such a plan was finally adopted on October 6, 1917. This provided compensation and insurance for soldiers. By the terms of the measure, which provided for insurance, any person, male or female, in active military service, might take out insurance in multiples of $500 for any sum between $1,000 and $10,000. By March 15, 1918, over 1,500,000 persons in the army and navy had been insured for over $12,000,000,000, and by the end of the year, over 4,000,000 persons had been insured, for about $37,000,- 000,000. Up to May, 1919, death awards for insurance amounting to $785,613,500 had been paid to 102,286 beneficiaries. In addition to the life insurance phase of the war risk plan, there were compensation and disability benefits, ranging in amounts from $1,000 to $10,000. Practically 95 per cent. of the personnel of charmy pendent and nursin nursing corps, with an average figure of $8,700, had taken out insurance. Arrangements were made following the close of the war for the transference of these premiums for regular life insurance of different kinds. premiums
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War Zones
those areas of the high seas which were officially designated as dangerous by the belligerent countries during the World War. Immediately after the outbreak of hostilities it be- Germans had came obvious that the strewn the waters of the North Sea with mines. In retaliation, and to prevent the escape of raiders from German ports, the British Admiralty announced in October, 1914, that it would have to follow "a mine-laying policy in certain A few months later these areas." "areas" were made to include the whole of the North Sea, with the exception of certain lanes of safety, along which British war vessels guided friendly neutrals. In February, 1915, Germany proclaimed all the waters about the British Isles a war zone, with no safety lanes, announcing that all vessels entered this at the risk of being sunk without area warning. In January, 1917, Germany extended this zone down to include the French coasts in the Mediterranean, altogether including an area of over a million square miles.
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Warburg
FELIX M., an American banker, born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1871. He was educated in the public and high schools of his native town, came to America in 1894 and was naturalized in 1900. In 1895 he married a daughter of the late Jacob H. Schiff, becoming in the following year a member of the latter's banking firm, Kuhn, Loeb & Company, New York. He was vice-president of the New York Foundation, president of the Federation of Jewish Charities, chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee of funds for Jewish war sufferers, and a director or trustee of numerous charitable and educational societies and institutions, to which he contributed freely of his time and money.
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Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844-), an American poet and novelist. She was the daughter of Austin Phelps and was married in 1888 to Herbert D. Ward. Her first work was The Gates Ajar, published in 1868. It attracted wide attention, and is believed to have had considerable influence on the prevailing views concerning the future life. It was followed some years later by Beyond the Gates and The Gates Between. Other writings are Men, Women, and Ghosts, The Story of Avis, Hedged In, and Songs of the Silent World. Mrs. Ward's style is original, vigorous, and usually impressive. She has something to say and says it well, although at times her writing is more intense and highly wrought than her subject seems to require.
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