The Sun. — 1845-09-22 (London, England)

POLITICAL DICTIONARY.  ADULTERATION, a very important branch of commercial industry. Though adulteration has been prohibited by several Acts of Parliament, it is a species of manufacturing skill which improves whatever it is employed upon. It turns the humble cabbage-leaf into the wholesome cheroot, and converts the coculus Indicns, the quassia, the liquorice, into porter, or some other equally popular beverage. Sand is elev ted into sugar ; sloe leaves arc exalted into tea ; and alum takes its place 1::) the side of flour as an ingredient in the great staff of all our existences. The statutes against adulteration, being regarded as a check on the progress of science, are usually disregarded by that great and glorious character, the British merchant. It is, perhaps, a patriotic preference for the productions of his native land, which induces the English cigar-dealer to seek the Savoy of Great Britain rather than the weed of Bengal ; and the same feeling no doubt actuates the tea-merchant when he looks fur a profit—sloe and sure—from the suburban hedges. ADVOCATE, from the Latin words ad, to, and vocare, to call ; because an advocate is at the call of any one who needs his services. The early Roman advocates professed to plead gratuitously, but some of them were soon detected in taking fees indirectly, by making no i charge, but " leaving t to the generosity" of their employers. Clients were "expected" to give something to the advocate, and were doubtno considered to have acted shabbily if they shirked it ; so that at last a regular charge was made, and some of the Roman barristers used to receive so much a head from as many as chose to take shares in these joint-stock advocates. At length the gentlemen of the Roman long-robe became so greedy, chat it was found necessary to limit their fees, the maximum of which was fixed at ten thousand sestertii, which the classical student may at his leisure reduce to six an 1eightpences. The advocates were paid generally in asses, or brass, and they paid those asses their clients usually in the same metal. The fees were always payable before the cause was pleaded ; and it was a rule that if the ad vocate died, or did not, or could not, or would not, attend to his duties, the sum he had received was in no case to be given back again. "No money returned" was the motto of the Roman as well as of the English  barrister. AGENT, is a-gent acting for another gent, and is derived from the Latin word opens, doing, because an agent is often doing his principal. AGRARIAN LAWS related to the public lands ; and Spurius Cassius, who was called spurious to distinguish him from the genuine Cassius, was the first poor man's friend who proposed an agrarian law ; for which piece of patriotism be was tried, condemned, and put to death in no time. Subsequently, Sempronius Gracchus, who was the Lord Ashley of his day, carried an agrarian law founded on the small allotment system ' • and he was murdered in an election row, as a reward for his good intentions. His brother, Caius Gracchus, who wished to see the poor settled on their land, got settled himself, in a shindy, when putting up for the tribuneship. Other Roman radicals passed agrarian laws, but Radicalism was so unfashionable that its adherents got assassinated very rapidly. The professed object of the agrarian law was to divide the public land among the poor, so that every Roman should grow his own cabbage, as the people of Cos reared their own lettuces.