Custom

Chapter 4 looks at ‘custom’ from the point of view of the Poor who by and large saw it as a vital part of who they were and where they lived. Between 1833 and 1840 the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ sought to ban the annual bull-running in the Lincolnshire market town of Stamford. The rougher end of Stamford, including the magistrates’ bench, resisted. The nicer end stayed neutral, at least in public. Metropolitan liberals, meanwhile, pressed for a ban with the powerful backing of the Home Office, the NSPCA, and a young Queen. The issue was finally resolved by a court judgment backed by Dragoons and detachments of the Metropolitan Police who finally stopped the running in 1840. On the face of it, this was a simple matter of whether to torture or not to torture a bull. But the chapter takes Stamfordians at their word in their claim that the sport was an ancient custom, that custom was part of the constitution, and that the constitution was a vital part of their identity as free men and women (women featured prominently). Custom and practice was ingrained in the everyday lives of the people. ‘Being the People’ at festivals and fairs was a political as well as a sporting performance with a strong physical presence and plenty of showing off.

Self-Supporting Card Plot in «The Queen of Spades»

The success of a card secret arises not only due to the knowledge of the cards themselves but also due to an implied treaty between a bearer and receiver of a gift. We reconstruct the conditions of this treaty T1 that describe the transmission of this secret from Saint-Germain to the countess and from her to Chaplitsky. As a result, a receiver of such a gift becomes its potential bearer. Further, not only the knowledge of concrete cards and the conditions of the treaty are transmitted along the chain but also the ability itself to such a transmission (the property of hereditability). Only one conditions of treaty T1 is explicated in the text – this is the prohibition of further gambling. The other conditions are recovered according to the logic of the plot. In doing so, we find a so-called «hidden plot» that ensables us to explain the Chaplitsky’s story and relate it to the motif of receiving a heritage. At the same time, this finding explains why the countess opened her mystery just to Chaplitsky (but not to other young people). This is because both of them found themselves in the situation when a rich relative had a possibility to cover a card debt but denied to do it. The presence of the mechanism in which the card secret is transmitted from one generation to another, makes a card plot self-supporting. When the countess’s ghost opens the secret to Germann, the initial conditions change, so instead of treaty T1 that was in force in the previous cases, now a new treat T2 becomes relevant. We analyze the difference between T1 and T2 and how the violation of T2 leads Germann to the failure. Marriage between Germann and Lizaveta Ivanovna, necessity of which was claimed by the ghost, is important not only for the countess’s ghost itself but also for fantastic forces that sent the ghost to Germann. In case of the marriage, Germann could transmit the card secret to his children and thus continue the card plot. We also suggest an interpretation of a new condition in T2 which was absent from T1 – to stake no more than 1 card per day. This gave possibility for Germann to fulfill the condition about marriage before the end of game. As he ignored this condition (not given explicitly but tacitly assumed), fantastic forces, correspondingly, also ignore theirs. They intruded in the game giving rise to his failure. Replacing the image of a young queen with that of an old woman corresponds to previous actions of Germann himself who preferred to seek for a card secret instead of love of the countess's pupil and did not change this state of affairs. Our reasonings generalize essentially a recent key observation made by V . S. Listov about the motif of inheritance in this Pushkin work.

Effects of Queen Cell Size and Caging Days of Mother Queen on Rearing Young Honey Bee Queens Apis mellifera L.

This study aims to investigate the effect of queen cell size (9.4 mm, 9.6 mm, 9.8 mm and 10.0 mm) and mother queen caged time (0 day, 2 days and 4 days) on rearing young queens without grafting larvae. The birth weight, ovarian tubes, thorax length and width were significantly increased with the increasing diameter of queen cell size. The expression level of Vitellogenin (Vg) in young queen ovaries was also up-regulated with the increased queen cell size diameter. These results indicate that the queen cell size can strongly affect the rearing queen quality and reproductive ability. Moreover, the weight, length and width of laying eggs rose with the mother queen caging time, and young queens reared with the hatched larvae from these eggs were also increased in terms of birth weight, ovarian tubes, thorax length and width. Furthermore, the expression level of Vg in reared queen ovaries was also up-regulated with the caged time. These results reveal that the caged time of queens could significantly influence egg size and their relative queen quality.

RENÉ DESCARTES AND CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN: OBSESSION WITH REASON AND PASSION FOR SOVEREIGNTY

The article describes and comments on a number of epistolary documents pertaining to the last journey of René Descartes and specifically to his enigmatic relations with Queen Christina. Those relations were conducted at first as a kind of “epistolary novel” and may be regarded as one of the examples of a dialogue between a thinker and a ruler. As the historical tradition clearly indicates, the relationship ended in a radical rift between power and philosophy. It is important for us to understand why Descartes, who had shunned all the temptations of power throughout his life, so recklessly succumbed to the charms of the “northern Minerva” and agreed to assume the role of court philosopher even though his whole way of life, as well as his philosophy, argued against such a choice. The author traces out a series of hypotheses. First, what was dominant in the relationship between Descartes and Christina was not so much the mostly rational framework of a “philosopher” encountering a “sovereign” but a sort of confrontation between two obsessions: the thinker’s arrogant trust in the omnipotence of an absolute reason that nevertheless had its blind spots, and the untrammelled will of sovereign power on which the young queen based her existence. Second, turning to some of the themes in Descartes’ own philosophical thought and in particular to the “malin génie” from Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), one may infer that this rather literary or even poetic figure at some point took the form of a kind of “femme fatale” that preoccupied the philosopher’s thinking and filled his life with an existential turmoil which contributed to his fatal decision to go to Sweden. The ultimate conclusion is that the “Souverain Bien” for the philosopher was the rare opportunity for his thinking to reign supreme; but by succumbing to the temptation to serve the Empress, he betrayed himself. The “souverain Bien” for the ruler lay in autocracy as such, and specifically in a devotion to herself as the embodiment of the administration of power.

Granulosa Cell Tumor In A Spayed Young Queen

A four years old cat was presented to Clinic of Obstetrics and Gynaecology with complaints of weakness, inappetency, vomiting and estrus signs although it was spayed. Blood tests, radiography and ultrasonography revealed abdominal mass and uterine stump which were then removed surgically. Multilobular mass was defined as solid granulosa cell tumor (GCT). Increase of estrogen (E2) and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) values were detected on the 10th postoperative day. On the 40th postoperative day, the cat was brought to Internal Medicine Clinic with the complaints of weakness, inappetency and cachexia. Anemia, leucocytosis, uremia, hyperglycemia, sensitiveness and pain in the right abdomen were determined. A tumor was detected in the liver by radiography and ultrasonography and was suspected to be GCT metastasis. Despite medical therapy, the cat died after four months. In conclusion; retained ovarian tissue after erroneous ovariohysterectomy may cause, regular estrus signs and GCT development. Even if GCTs are removed by surgical approach, they have metastatic potential that deteriorates the prognosis. Evaluating IGF-1 and E2 in the short postoperative term are beneficial for determining the metastatic potential of GCTs.

The Queen Who Flew: A Fairy Tale

NCE upon a time a Queen sat in her garden. She was quite a young, young Queen; but that was a long while ago, so she would be older now. But, for all she was Queen over a great and powerful country, she led a...