to be thrown, either from the balconies and windows to the carriages, or vice versa. Other days are set apart for the throwing of "corian- loli," as they are termed, little round pellets about the size of a pea made of plaster, and manufactured and sold in enormous quantities. These coriandoli are supposed to represent comfits, which tradition declares to have been the only things thrown in the olden time be fore the spirit of carnival was, as is supposed, spoiled and vulgar ized by the influx of strangers from the north. But the reader has already seen that the flinging of dust, flour, and disagreeable things of all sorts had to be repressed at a very early time. At the present day the principal fun seems to consist in flinging down bushels on bushels of these plaster coriandoli on the passers in the streets, mainly in the Corso, from the balconies, and in the return fire of these from the cars which pass up and down the Corso. These cars are huge machines, of which a large waggon forms the basis, built up sometimes in the form of a ship, or a castle, or other such device, and made gay-looking with garlands and abundant bright coloured calico. Some dozen or so of young men, generally in uni form fancy dresses, stand on these machines, and work hard at returning, with such best vigour and activity as they may, the pelt ing they endure from the balconies. The ladies are mainly the occupants of these. All are masked ; those who are prudent wear masks of wire gauze, for a handful of these coriandoli vigorously and dexterously thrown point blank into the face is not an attack to be despised. Meanwhile everybody shrieks at the top of his voice, the masks affect a counterfeit and high falsetto note, with which they invariably address the unmasked and each other. Then at a given signal begins the running of the barberi, or riderless horses. Some ten of them are led to the starting place in the Piazza del Fopolo, with loosely hanging little spiked machines, contrived to act as spurs, hanging to their sides, and crackers attached to them, which are tired at the moment of starting. A gun gives the signal for the compact crowd in the Corso to make a lane for the horses to run through.
By the aid of the police and soldiers this is more or less satisfac torily accomplished, and the horses dash through it, the crowd closing behind them as they run. Rarely, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say never, does a Carnival pass without two or three accidents, frequently fatal ones, in consequence of incautious persons getting knocked down by the rushing horses. The race is run in about two minutes. The winning " post is a sheet hung across the street at the spot hence called Riprcsa dci Barberi, in the Piazza di Venezia. The prizes consist, as in olden time, of certain standards of velvet, gold lace, and the like, called "palio," which are after the race paraded through the Corso. In these days sums of money, 300 or 400 francs, are usually added by the municipality. The price of these prizes was formerly furnished by the Jews, as has been seen. And popular tradition says that the Jews were permit ted to furnish the horses and prizes as a concession to humanity, in lieu of running themselves in propria persona. It is undoubtedly true that they were so compelled to run. But it would seem that they did not do so exclusively, other categories of persoiis, as the boys, the youths, the old men, having done the same. These races of the barberi were abolished in the year 1874, but were re-estab lished in 1876, in accordance with the wishes of a large portion of the Romans. It remains to mention the peculiar diversion of the Moccolctti (tapers), which takes place immediately after sunset on Shrove Tuesday. Everybody in the streets, in the balconies and windows, and in the carriages, carries a taper, and everybody en deavours to extinguish the tapers of his neighbours, principally by means of flapping with handkerchiefs, and keep his own alight. All the other features of a modern carnival are common to all the principal Italian cities, but the Moccolctti and the Barberi are peculiar to Rome. The fun ends by burning at midnight on Shrove Tuesday a colossal figure supposed to represent the carnival. These are the public and out-door aspects of carnival. But besides this all the theatres have masked balls, called Vcglwni (from Viyilare, watch or keep awake, Veglia, a vigil, or keeping awake ; the addition of the intensitive termination one gives the word the signi fication of " a great keeping awake," i.e., a festival to last nearly all night). In all classes of society also carnival is deemed the especial season for balls, and for festivities of all kinds.
Of the other Italian cities, besides Rome, Venice used in old times to be the principal home of carnival. But small remains of it are to be seen there now. A stage, gny with coloured draperies and gas, set up by the municipality in the great square of St Mark, on which a few masked and dominoed figures go and dance to music provided by the town, constitutes pretty well the whole of the once celebrated carnival of Venice. Turin, Milan, Florence, Naples, all put forth competing "programmes" for the carnival, all induced by the same motive, the good of trade. The institution has become every where a matter of pure money-getting speculation. Milan and Naples aro now the most active competitors with Rome in this re spect. In old times Florence was conspicuous for the licentious ness of its carnival; and the Canti Carnascialcschi, or Carnival Songs, of Lorenzo de Medici remain still, though a somewhat rare book, to shew to what extent that licence was carried.
CARNIVORA, or Flesh-eating Animals, is the name employed to designate the important order of Mammals which contains the dogs, cats, hyaenas, weasels, bears, badgers, and others. By some zoologists the Carnivora are divided into the Pinnipedia, or aquatic carnivora, as the seals and walrus, and the Fissipedia, which are mostly terrestrial, as the dogs, cats, &c. By others again the Pinnipedia are regarded as possessing characters sufficiently distinctive to justify their being placed in a separate order of Mammals. See Mammalia.
CARNOT, Lazare Nicolas Marguerite (1753-1823), was born at Nolay in Burgundy, May 13, 1753. After receiving a good mathematical education in his native province, he was admitted as an officer of the engineer corps under the patronage of the prince of Conde" ; and he was beginning to gain some reputation as an author by means of a prize eulogy on Vauban, two mathematical essays, and a number of verses of no great value, when the Revolution drew him into political life. In 1791 he was returned to the National Assembly for the Pas de Calais, and it was not long before he became a member of the Committee of Public Safety under Robespierre. He took a leading part in the most revolutionary measures ; before his election he had addressed a paper to the Assembly proposing the seizure of the property of the church, and he now proposed to arm 30,000 sans-cidottes with pikes, and to destroy all the citadels in France, and voted for the overthrow of the nobility and the execution of the king. His genius, however, was more military than political ; he effected an important improvement in the discipline of the army, and his activity and spirit contributed materially to the successes of the Republic. One of his chief exploits was the victory of Wattigni es, where he led in person, and headed a charge on foot. In 1794, after the fall of Robespierre, Carnot had to defend his colleagues, Collot d Herbois and Birure, from the charge of complicity with the crimes of their leader, and himself only escaped arrest through the glory of his military services. He based his defence on the argument that no member of the Committee was to be held responsible for the deeds of any of the others, since pressure of business made it necessary to sign orders with 3ut staying to learn their contents ; and, though the excuse is far from sufficient, it was probably true that Carnot, amid the unceasing toils of a minister of war, was not aware of many of the atrocities which were committed. In 1795 he became one of the five directors of the Republic, and it was now that he projected his famous Plan for the Invasion of England, by landing two armies simultaneously on the coasts of Sussex and Yorkshire. But not long after he was proscribed, and compelled to take refuge in Germany. Here, though under the protection of a monarch, he pub lished his Mcmoire Justificatif, in which he declares himself the "irreconcilable enemy of kings." On the downfall of the Directory he returned to France, and became minister of war, but he soon resigned this office, consistently refusing to consent to the election of Napoleon as consul for life , and on the abolition of the tribunate in 1806 he retired into private life, became an active member of the Institute, and devoted himself to the pursuit of science. After the Russian campaign, believing that the independence of France depended upon the success of its emperor, he offered his services to Napoleon, and was made governor of Antwerp, which he defended till the abdication in 1814. He was still faithful to the Republic, and his revolutionary Mcmoirc au Roi did powerful service to the anti -royalist cause. On Napoleon s return from Elba, Carnot was made minister of war, but the time was past for carrying out the vigorous measures which he proposed. On the overthrow of the empire he retired first to Warsaw, and then to ff, where he died in 1823.
