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SUPERSTITION 172 SUPREME COUNCIL beginning of a journey or any enterprise on Friday; the passing under a raised ladder, etc. SUPPURATION, a morbid process which gives rise to the formation of pus, one of the destructive terminations of the inflammatory action. The phenom- ena of suppuration are thus described: The inflammatory leucocytes, instead of developing into fiber cells and forming tissue, become developed into pus glob- ules, and the exudation breaks down more or less completely into a creamy fluid called pus, which consists of these globules floating in serum, the liquor puris. Suppuration in the interior of the body usually terminates in the for- mation of an abscess; but in some cases the matter is diffused through the in- terstices of the part, and is termed dif- fuse inflammation. SUPREMACY, PAPAL, the authority, partly spiritual and partly temporal, which the Pope, as Bishop of Rome and successor of St. Peter, claims to exercise over the clergy, and, throujgh them, over the laity, of the whole world. The devel- opment of this supremacy dates from the time when Christianity became the State religion of the Roman empire under Con- stantine. Its influence was great in England under the Norman kings, and reached its highest point in the reign of John (1199-1216), from which period it began to decline, and received its death blow from the Act of Supremacy, in the reign of Henry VIII. SUPREMACY, ROYAL, the supremacy in the Church of England, as by law established, of the temporal power in all causes purely temporal, and in the tem- poral accidents of spiritual things. By an act of Henry VIII the king was de- clared to be the "only supreme Head on earth of the Church of England," though it was expressly declared that he did not "pretend to take any power from the successors of the apostles that was given them by God." In the same year (1535) Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More were beheaded for denying the royal claim. On the accession of Elizabeth the title was kept in the back- ground; but the supremacy of the sov- ereign in all causes, as well ecclesiastical as civil, was asserted. The royal suprem- acy was one of the main causes of the Civil War in the 17th century; it re- ceived a check at the Revolution of 1688, which enforced toleration of Noncon- formity, but in the latter half of the 19th century more than one clergyman was committed to prison for disobeying the ruling of the law courts in ecclesiastical matters. SUPREME COUNCIL OF THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE. In January, 1919, when the representatives of the Allied Powers and those nations which had been associated with them in the war against the Central Empires, as- sembled in Paris to draft the terms of peace, the delegates of the four powers, England, the United States, France and Italy, assumed the function of a com- mittee to arrange preliminaries. Later, the delegates of Japan were allowed to join this conclave. This supreme council became known as the Big Five, or, more officially, as the Council of Ten. It at once began its task of arranging pre- liminaries; decisions and communiques were issued in its name, and it drafted the rules which were later to guide the main conference. It also assumed the power to fix the representation of the various states which were to participate. Its sessions were held in secret and its proceedings carefully withheld from, the public. The members of the Council were : Representing the United States, Presi- dent Woodrow Wilson; Robert Lansing, Secretary of State; Henry White, ex- Ambassador to Rome and Paris; Col. Edward M. House, and General Tasker H. Bliss. Representing Great Britain, David Lloyd George, British Premier; Andrew Bonar Law, Arthur James Balfour, Viscount Milner, and George Nicoll Barnes. Representing France, Georges Clemen- ceau, French premier; Stephen Pichon, Louis-Lucien Klotz, Andre Tardieu and Jules Cambon. Representing Italy, Vittorio Orlando, Italian Premier, Baron Sonnino, and Antonio Salandra. Representing Japan, Marquis Saionji, Baron Makino, Viscount Chinda, K. Mat- sui and H. Ijuin. The decisions of the Council regarding representation at the conference caused considerable dissatisfaction among the smaller nations. As an instance, Bel- gium, which had borne the brunt of the German attack, was allowed only two delegates, whereas Brazil, which had not actively participated in hostilities, was allowed three delegates. Because of the protest of the Belgian representatives Belgium was finally allowed the same number of delegates as Brazil. Other smaller nations likewise found cause for protest, but the Council showed itself dis- posed to yield in their favor and conces- sions were made, whereby the smaller nations were allowed joint and separate representation. After the withdrawal of President Wilson and his party from the peace ne-