Breech

“ They are made with one barrel and a magazine, on the principle of the repeating rifle, thus doing away with the escape of gas that takes place in revolvers between the chamber and the barrel.
Automatic pistols are so constructed that the force of the recoil is utilized to open the breech, extract the empty case, cock the pistol, reload the chamber with the top cartridge from the magazine, and close the breech, leaving the pistol ready to fire on again pressing the trigger. ”

“ Bruch (3.) , feminine, neuter, ‘breeches,’ from MidHigh German bruoch, Old High German bruoh (hh) , feminine, ‘breeches covering the hip and upper part of the thigh’ (akin to Anglo-Saxon brêc, English breech) ; compare the corresponding Anglo-Saxon brôc, plural brêc, English breeches, Middle Low German brôk, Dutch broek, Old Icelandic brók, ‘breeches.’ It has been asserted that the common. Teutonic brôk- has been borrowed from the equivalent Gallic-Latin brâca (likewise Romance, compare Italian brache, French braies) ; but Anglo-Saxon brêc, ‘rump,’ shows that Bruch contains a Teutonic stem ”

“ Mounting quickly to a step midway on the staircase, the breeches-maker was followed by many others, who, eager to gain view of so desperate a conflict and to see the final harrying of the prey, pulled one another down from the coveted vantage-point, trampling on the weaker ones that fell. ”

“ A FIGHT FOR THE BREECHES.
Sung by Mr. Potts, Theatrical Pavilion, Glasgow.
I’ve often heard Will’s wife declare,
That she the breeches, Sirs, would wear;
And though her husband would resist,
For them she'd fight with nails and fist,
⁠To gain, to gain the breeches.
One day as they were at it driving,
(Who would he master they were striving)
A single rap came to the door,
And for a while they did give o’er
⁠Fighting, fighting, fighting for the breeches.
Will ope’d the door, the business asked;
When he who knocked poor Will thus tasked,
“The master of this house I want!” ”

“ Breadth “in painting is a term which denotes largeness, space, vastness,” &c. (Consult J. B. Pyne “On the Nomenclature of Pictorial Art,” Art Union, 1843.)
Breccia, It. A conglomerate used by the ancients in architecture and sculpture.
Breeches (breac Celtic, braccæ Lat.) . The word breeches in its present acceptance was first used towards the end of the 16th century; previously, breeches were called hose, upper socks, and slop. (See Bombards and Braccæ.) ”

“ How, then, was the Devil dressed?
Oh! he was in his Sunday's best;
His coat was red, and his breeches were blue,
And there was a hole where his tail came through. ”

“ Breach, is on opening or gap made in a wall or rampart, with either cannon or mines, sufficiently wide for a body of troops to enter the works, and drive the besieged out of it.
Practical breach, is that where men may mount, and make a lodgment, and should be 15 or 20 feet wide.
Capital of a work, is an imaginary line which divides that work into two equal parts.
Capital of a bastion, a line drawn from the angle of the polygon to the point of the bastion, or from the point of the bastion to the centre of the gorge. ”

“ The animal fell as if thunderstruck, without a single motion; and, for myself, with my knees almost as high as my chin, I found myself a horseback across a corpse! I was saved! I uttered a triumphant cry, which was responded to by the colonel, and which the abyss re-echoed with a hollow sound, as if it felt that its prey had escaped from it. I quitted the saddle, sat down between the wall and the body of my horse, and vigorously pushed with my feet against the carcass of the wretched animal, which rolled down into the abyss. ”

“ At that instant—almost, it seemed, before the gleam of the blaze had faded from my eyes—there was a dull, dead sound, as of some heavy body falling upon the floor, which shook beneath me as I lay. I sprang to a sitting posture and groped at my side for my gun; my notion was that some wild beast had leaped in through the open window. While the flimsy structure was still shaking from the impact I heard the sound of blows, the scuffling of feet upon the floor, and then—it seemed to come from almost within reach of my hand, the sharp shrieking of a woman in mortal agony. ”

“ We had some difficulty at first in finding the breach, as we had entered the ditch opposite to a ravelin, which we mistook for a bastion. I tried first one side of it and then the other, and seeing one corner of it a good deal battered, with a ladder placed against it, I concluded that it must be the breach, and calling to the soldiers near me to follow, I mounted with the most ferocious intent, carrying a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other; but, when I got up, I found nobody to fight with, except two of our own men, who were already laid dead across the top of the ladder. ”

“ Towards midnight, Santugo (whom, with Lascelles, I had left in charge of the breach) aroused me from a nap I was snatching, rolled up in my cloak and ensconced under the lee side of a parapet.
"Signor, we have had an alert," said he; "a movement is taking place amongst the enemy: they will be in the breach in five minutes." ”

“ Would the enemy on the opposite bank fire into us and drown us all? Every moment we expected a flash of musketry or a roar of cannon. We did not know that a ruse had been played on the pickets on the other side; that a boatload of our soldiers had crossed farther up and in the darkness caught every one of them without firing a shot. One only got away. Who knew how soon all of Braggs' army might be alarmed and upon us? ”

“ Behold thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open to thy enemies, the fire shall devour thy bars.
3:14. Draw thee water for the siege, build up thy bulwarks: go into the clay, and tread, work it and make brick.
3:15. There shall the fire devour thee: thou shalt perish by the sword, it shall devour thee like the bruchus: assemble together like the bruchus, make thyself many like the locust.
3:16. Thou hast multiplied thy merchandises above the stars of heaven: the bruchus hath spread himself and flown away. ”

“ He shrieked aloud in the agony of despair--the torch fell from his trembling hand into the dark waters that gurgled at his feet, and, flashing for a moment upon their inky surface, expired with a hissing sound, that fell like a death-warning upon his ear. The wind, which had been scarcely felt during the day, began to rise with the flowing of the tide, and now drove the tumultuous waves with hoarse and hideous clamor into the cavern. Every moment increased the violence of the gale that howled and bellowed as it swept around the echoing roof of that rock-ribbed prison ”

“ Were I a Father, I should take a particular Care to preserve my Children from these little Horrours of Imagination, which they are apt to contract when they are young, and are not able to shake off when they are in Years. I have known a Soldier that has enter'd a Breach, affrighted at his own Shadow; and look pale upon a little scratching at his Door, who the Day before had march'd up against a Battery of Cannon. There are Instances of Persons, who have been terrify'd, even to Distraction, at the Figure of a Tree or the shaking of a Bull-rush. ”

“ A breach is indeed an awful mound of6 dilapidation to look on, or rather a heap of disagreeable rubbish, particles of which sparkle brightly in the sun beams, while the whole seems to the amateur easy of ascent, but the wary veteran knows it to be a deceitful slope, re-entrenched from behind, and most probably cut off from all communication with the interior of the town. ”

“ No, no, William. Blaze is a term they use when they cut a slice of the bark off the trunk of a tree, just with one blow of a sharp axe, as a mark to find their way back again. They do not blaze every tree, but about every tenth tree as they go along, first one to the right, and then one to the left, which is quite sufficient; and it is very little trouble, - they do it as they walk along, without stopping. ”

“ The stones, darts, and arrows flew in showers upon the besieged, and many fell beneath the deadly strokes; yet others pressed forward to take their places, and in their turn poured fire and stones and pieces of iron upon the besiegers, who worked beneath their hurdles. ”

“ All about were evidences of a furious struggle; small sprouts of poison-oak were bent and denuded of leaf and bark; dead and rotting leaves had been pushed into heaps and ridges on both sides of the legs by the action of other feet than theirs; alongside the hips were unmistakable impressions of human knees.
The nature of the struggle was made clear by a glance at the dead man's throat and face. ”

“ Give me man to man, and sword to sword. I hate unfairness in anything; and I do not think this practice, though often adopted, will stand the test of scrutiny in the eye of justice.
We breached a corner bastion of the town, the base of which ran down into the river, on the banks of which we could approach the breach out of sight, and pounce upon it unobserved, and out of the reach of their cannon and small arms. All was impatience to get to work. The breach seemed fit for storming. ”

“ Meseems, this breach is a snare and the proverb says, “Prudence is the half of cleverness.” Now prudence requires that I examine this breach and see if there be ought therein that may lead to perdition; and covetise shall not make me cast myself into destruction.’ So he went up to the breach and examining it warily, discovered a deep pit, lightly covered (with boughs and earth) , which the owner of the vineyard had dug, thinking to trap therein the wild beasts that laid waste his vines. ”

“ There were lights upon the roadway, lights a long way below at the water's edge on Breach Candy, and there was a light twinkling far out on the Arabian Sea. But in the house behind him all was dark. He had come to an abode of desolation and mourning; and his heart sank and he was attacked with forebodings. ”

“ He stated that a man with a wound, which he explained to mean a cut, would go and stand in the well within the wall, and there he would untie the rag that had been used to tie up the wound and would wash the wound with it: then he would tie up the wound with a fresh rag and hang the old one on the tree. The more respectable people whom I questioned talked more vaguely, and only of tying a rag to the tree, except one who mentioned a pin being thrown into the well or a rag being tied to the tree. ”

“ It is almost folly to attempt to effect a practicable breach in a fort built of such materials. The crust you knock off the face of a bastion or curtain, forms a great barrier to your approach to a solid footing. Young engineers are too apt to judge, from the appearance of the fallen mud, that the breach is practicable; when, the first step the storming-party takes, they find they sink up to their necks in light earth. ”

“ The first object which strikes the attention, and excites admiration, upon opening and investigating the hills of the termites, is, the conduct of the armed species, or soldiers; when a breach is made by a pick-axe, or hoe, they instantaneously sally forth in small parties round the breach, as if to oppose the enemy, or to examine the nature of the attack, and the numbers increase to an incredible degree as long as it continues; parties frequently return as if to give the alarm to the whole community, and then rush forth again with astonishing fury. ”

“ At last it grew too dark to fight. Then away to our left and rear some of Bragg’s people set up “the rebel yell.” It was taken up successively and passed round to our front, along our right and in behind us again, until it seemed almost to have got to the point whence it started. It was the ugliest sound that any mortal ever heard—even a mortal exhausted and unnerved by two days of hard fighting, without sleep, without rest, without food and without hope. ”

“ At length, a brisk breeze sprang up in the north-west, and the battle cloud rolled heavily away before it from the field, disclosing, not only the relative positions of the opposing forces, but the awful picture of carnage that every where strewed the blackened earth. ”

“ That I was mad I could no longer doubt, yet recognized a ground of doubt in the conviction. Of fever I had no trace. I had, withal, a sense of exhilaration and vigor altogether unknown to me—a feeling of mental and physical exaltation. My senses seemed all alert; I could feel the air as a ponderous substance; I could hear the silence.
A great root of the giant tree against whose trunk I leaned as I sat held inclosed in its grasp a slab of stone, a part of which protruded into a recess formed by another root. The stone was thus partly protected from the weather, though greatly decomposed. ”

“ In the case of the wreck in question, the Wendron Tinners had the advantage over their Breage brethren in the matter of distance, and thus were able more quickly to fall upon the spoil, break up the unfortunate ship, and rifle the unhappy castaways of their belongings. Like the true artists they were in the art of appropriating the property of others, they worked quickly, and ere much time had elapsed they had reached the great ash tree of Cury on their journey home laden with spoil. ”

“ There was a sudden roar as of flame from the very mouth of the pit, and for the space of a single second all grew light as day. A blinding flash passed across my face, and there was heat for an instant that seemed to shrivel skin, and flesh, and bone. Then came steps, and I heard Colonel Wragge utter a great cry, wilder than any human cry I have ever known. The heat sucked all the breath out of my lungs with a rush, and the blaze of light, as it vanished, swept my vision with it into enveloping darkness. ”

“ The well of Slaine lay to the west of Magh Tuireadh to the east of Loch Arboch. And Diancecht and his son Octruil and his daughter Airmed used to be singing spells over the well and to be putting herbs in it; and the men that were wounded to death in the battle would be brought to the well and put into it as dead men, and they would come out of it whole and sound, through the power of the spells. And not only were they healed, but there was such fire put into them that they would be quicker in the fight than they were before. ”