TUMBLE-BUG. The Dung-beetle, called in England Tumble-dung.

It is strange, my hearers, that we mortals should be so attached to this mundane sphere of ours. .. With all its frauds and deceptions, we cling to it, as it turns upon its axis, like a tumble-bug to his ball, when it accidentally rolls down hill.— Dow's Sermons, Vol. I. p. 211.

TO TUMР. Probably an Indian word. It means to draw a deer or other animal home through the woods, after he has been killed. "We tumped

the deer to our cabin." Maine.

TUMPLINE. A strap placed across the forehead to assist a man in carrying a pack on his back. Used in Maine, where the custom was borrowed from the Indians.

TUM-TUM. A favorite dish in the West Indies, made by beating the boiled plantain quite soft in a wooden mortar. It is eaten like a potato pudding, or made into round cakes and fried. Carmichael's West Indies, Vol. I. p. 183.

TUNA. (Span.) The fruit of the Pitahaya, or Indian Fig.

Excellent pulque is made here, and a beverage expressed from the juice of the tuna, which I tasted for the first time. - Ruxton's Adventures, p. 69.

TUPELO. See Pepperidge.

TURKEY. A drunken man is sometimes said to have "got a turkey on his back." Perhaps the allusion is to his having won one at a raffle in a drinking-place.

TURN OF MEAL. A quantity of grist sent to mill. Tennessee.

TURNER. (Germ.) A gymnast.

TURPENTINE STATE. The State of North Carolina, so called from the quantity of turpentine obtained from its pine forests.

TWISTICAL. Tortuous, perverse. A factitious word.

He may be straight going, farzino, manwards; but in his dealings with t'other sex, he is a leetle twistical, according to their tell. I would n't make a town talk of it.-D. Humphreys, The Yankee in England.

TO TWITCH. To draw timber along the ground by a chain. Used by lumbermen in Maine.

TYPO, a contraction of typographer. A name sometimes given to compositors in a printing office. Comp. Jour.

When a boy, the writer became acquainted with an old bookworm of a man who was in possession of a manuscript written in 1714-1716, by two ambitious typos, entitled, "The Desultory Meditations of Two London Printers."— The Printer, Dec. 1858.

U.

UGLY. Il-tempered, vicious. A term applied both to men and animals. It is local in England, and colloquial in the United States.

The questions of the spies were answered in a sullen, swaggering manner; so much so that Captain Caldwell at once remarked to his men, in a low tone and in English, that these fellows looked ugly and fighty. - Kendall's Santa Fé, Vol. I. p. 133.

UMBRELLA-TREE. (Magnolia tripetala.) The popular name of this tree in the Southern States; from the large leaves closely arranged around the ends of its branches.

UNCLE. Used in the Middle and Southern States in accosting an elderly colored man.

UNCLE SAM. The cant or vulgar name of the United States government;

sometimes called Brother Jonathan. It is used as "John Bull" is in England. Mr. Frost, in his Naval History of the United States, gives the following account of the origin of the name:

"Immediately after the last declaration of war with England, Elbert Anderson of New York, then a contractor, visited Troy, on the Hudson, where was concentrated, and where he purchased, a large quantity of provisions, beef, pork, etc. The inspectors of these articles at that place were Messrs. Ebenezer and Samuel Wilson. The latter gentleman (invariably known as Uncle Sam') generally superintended in person a large number of workmen, who, on this occasion, were employed in overhauling the provisions purchased by the contractor for the army. The casks were marked 'E. A.-U. S.' This work fell to the lot of a facetious fellow in the employ of the Messrs. Wilson, who, on being asked by some of his fellow-workmen the meaning of the mark (for the letters U. S., for United States, were then almost entirely new to them), said, he did not know, unless it meant Elbert Anderson and Uncle Sam' alluding exclusively, then, to the said Uncle Sam' Wilson. The joke took among the workmen, and passed currently; and Uncle Sam' himself, being present, was occasionally rallied by them on the increasing extent of his possessions.

Many of these workmen being of a character denominated food for powder,' were found, shortly after, following the recruiting drum, and pushing toward the frontier lines, for the double purpose of meeting the enemy and of eating the provisions they had lately labored to put in good order. Their old jokes accompanied them, and before the first campaign ended, this identical one first appeared in print; it gained

favor rapidly, till it penetrated and was recognized in every part of the country, and will, no doubt, continue so while the United States remain a nation."

Mr. Wilson died in Troy, New York, in August, 1854, at the age of eighty-four years; and the Albany Argus, in noticing his death, referred to the circumstance above stated as the origin of the popular soubriquet of Uncle Sam.

For I have loved my country since

My eye-teeth filled their sockets,
And Uncle Sam I reverence,
Partic'larly his pockets.

J. R. Lowell, Biglow Papers.

UNCOMMON. Uncommonly, very. This adverbial use of the word is heard in the vulgar speech of both England and America.

It struck me with astonishment to hear people huzzaing for me; and took me so uncommon unexpected, as I had no idea of attracting attention. - Crockett, Tour Down East, p. 17. UNCONSCIONABLE. Enormous ; vast. A low word. Johnson. Used adverbially at the West, as in the following example :

"That's an unconscionable slick gal of your'n," says I; and it did tickle his fancy to have her cracked up, 'cause he thought her creation's finishin' touch- -So did I!-Robb's Squatter Life.

UNDER CONVICTION. To be under conviction (scil. of sin), is a common expression, applied to a person who feels a remorse for sins committed, and is desirous to be received into the pale of the church.

A chaplain at one of our state prisons was asked by a friend how his parishioners were. "All under conviction," was the answer. -Newspaper.

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. The means of conveyance by which fugitive slaves are enabled to escape to the free States and Canada.

It is probable that nothing has awakened more bitterly the animosity of the slaveholding community than the existence, in the Northern States, of an indefinite yet very energetic institution, known as the underground railroad. — Mrs. Stowe, Dred. Vol. II. p. 302.

He [Connelly] regarded the underground railroad as a peculiarly Southern institution, taking away from the South every year thousands of the most intelligent, restless, and desperate negroes, who would do infinitely more mischief if kept there.— N. Y. Tribune, June, 1858.

And now, if we may believe the promises made by the Democrats for two years past, we are on the eve of a political millennium. . . . There is to be no more "agitation" of the slavery question. The underground railroad is to suspend running, and rejoicing hosts of negroes are to return from the bleak wilds of Canada to the luxurious delights of life on the plantation. — Albany Evening Journal, Dec. 1857. UNDERPINNERS. The legs, which in English flash language are called pins.

UNION. In a political sense, the connection between the States of North America; also the body of States so connected.

Do the people of the South consider the present Union of these States as an evil in itself, and a thing that it is desirable we should get rid of under all circumstances? There are some, I know, who do; but I am satisfied that an overwhelming majority of the South would, if assured that this government was hereafter to be conducted on the true principles and construction of the Constitution, decidedly prefer to remain in the Union rather than incur the unknown costs and hazards of setting up a separate government. - Speech of Hon. J. H. Hammond, Oct. 27, 1858.

To UP JIB. To be off. A sailor's phrase, much used in familiar language in Nantucket.

UP TO THE HUB. To the extreme point.

The figure is that of a vehicle sunk in the mud up to the hub of the wheels, which is as far as it can go. "You've hearn tell of the bank and tariff questions?" "Yes," replied the new editor of the Eagle newspaper.

"Well, hoss, we expect you to be right co-chuck up to the hub on them thar questions, and pour it into the enemy in slashergaff style." —Robb, Squatter Life, p. 31. For my part," said Abijah, grimly, "if things was managed my way, I shouldn't commune with nobody that did n't believe in election up to the hub.” - Mrs. Stowe, Dred. Vol. I. p. 311.

UPLAND COTTON, as opposed to Sea Island, is not necessarily raised on high ground; but even near the sea the fibre is shorter than that produced in the limited region known as Sea Island.

UPPER CRUST. The higher circles; the aristocracy.

I want you to see Peel, Stanley, Graham, Shiel, Russell, Macauley, old Joe, and so on. They are all upper crust here.- Sam Slick in England.

THE UPPER TEN THOUSAND, or simply, THE Upper Ten. The upper circles of New York, and hence of other large cities. A phrase invented by N. P. Willis.

"

The Biscaccianti troupe commence their season of Italian opera at the Chestnut to-morrow night. The seats for the first night are already many of them engaged; and engaged too by the very cream of our upper ten;" while the moderate democratic prices of admission which have been wisely adopted, will invite large slices of the honest and hearty masses.— - Letter from Philad. N. Y. Herald.

Researches in some of the upper ten districts

Reveal the most painful and startling statistics,

Of which let me mention only a few

In one single house, on the Fifth Avenue.

Butler, Nothing to Wear.

UPPERTENDOM. The aristocracy; people of fashion. Comp. Japonicadom. His rich relatives were always in such a panic lest uppertendom should discover that their cousins lived in an unfashionable part of the town, dined at one o'clock, and noticed trades-people and mechanics. - Fanny Fern.

At a ball for the benefit of the poor was a commingling of uppertendom with lowertwentydom an avalanche of exclusiveness in a torrent of mobocracy. - Doesticks,

p. 131.

Mr. Duganne, in his poem entitled "Parnassus in Pillory," speaking of N. P. Willis, says:

Gad! what a polish uppertendom gives

This executioner of adjectives;

This man who chokes the English worse than Thuggists,

And turns the trade to trunk-makers or druggists.

UPSET PRICE. At public auctions an article is sometimes "set up," or "started," by the auctioneer at the lowest price at which it can be sold. This is called the upset price.

TO USE UP. To exhaust, wear out.

Moving on the first day of May in New York has used me up worse than building forty acres of stonewall. Maj. Downing, May Day in New York.

Well, being out night arter night, she got kinder used up and beat out, and unbeknownst to me used to take opium. Sam Slick, Human Nature, p. 192.

Hans has been really ill; five days down with severe pains of the limbs, have left him a "little weak," which with him means well used up. — Kane, Arctic Expedition, Vol. II. p. 100.

V.

VACHER. (French.) The stock or cattle keeper on the prairies of the South-west. His duty is also to break wild horses, to run cattle, and to brand calves.

TO VAMOSE. (Span. vamos, let us go.) in the sense of to depart, decamp, be off.

sion.

Used, in the South-west chiefly,

A curious grammatical perver

I couldn't stand more than this stanza, coming from a street voice compared with which the notes of a hand-saw are positively dulcet, and I accordingly vamosed. ·N. Y. Mirror, May, 1848.

Yankee Sullivan's house, corner of Frankfort and Chatham streets, is in a dangerous condition; its foundation walls having been partially undermined for the purpose of excavating a cellar. Its occupants received some very ominous premonitions of a downfall early yesterday morning, and forthwith vamosed with their baggage. -Journ. of Commerce, June, 1848.

Madame Anna Bishop gave, on Monday evening last, a spirited exhibition, and not exactly of the vocal powers, for which she is celebrated, but of the woman's temper, of which she has undoubtedly her due portion. The saloon was duly lighted up, and very soon after the doors were opened a respectable number of ladies and gentlemen took their seats. But the Madame appears to have been dissatisfied at the number, and before waiting to see if others would assemble, the audience was unceremoniously dismissed, the lights blown out in a huff, and Madame and Mon