POETRY, n. A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the
Magazines.
POKER, n. A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to
this lexicographer unknown.
POLICE, n. An armed force for protection and participation.
POLITENESS, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.
POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of
principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the
superstructure of organized society is reared. When we wriggles he
mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice.
As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being
alive.
POLYGAMY, n. A house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with
several stools of repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which
has but one.
POPULIST, n. A fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found
in the old red soapstone underlying Kansas; characterized by an
uncommon spread of ear, which some naturalists contend gave him the
power of flight, though Professors Morse and Whitney, pursuing
independent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed out that had he
possessed it he would have gone elsewhere. In the picturesque speech
of his period, some fragments of which have come down to us, he was
known as "The Matter with Kansas.
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