most famous generals of their time, the Duke of Parma, Maurice of Orange, the Marquis Spinola, Dumouriez, and Pichegru, etc., are connected. It was the residence for a time of the exiled Charles II. of England, and it was in the Declaration of Breda that he promised liberty of conscience, a general amnesty, etc., on his restoration. Pop. about 28,000.
BREECH, in firearms and ordnance, the rear portion of a gun; the portion behind the chamber; in shipbuilding, the Duter angle of a knee timber; the inner angle is the throat.
BREECHES, a garment worn by men, covering the hips and thighs, and reaching to the knees. (Pantaloons, or trousers, are sometimes erroneously given this name.)
BREECHES BIBLE, a name given to a Bible printed in 1579; and so called from the reading of Gen. iii: 7: "They sowed figge tree leaves together and made themselves breeches." Wyclif's version contains the same words.
BREECH LOADER, a firearm in which the charge is introduced at the rear in-stead of at the muzzle. The use of breach loaders goes back to the 16th century; indeed, it is probable that that form of arm is about as old as the muzzle loader.
BREECH LOADING, made to be loaded at the breech. Breech-loading gun or cannon, a gun or cannon made to be loaded at the breech instead of the muzzle.
BREECH PIN, in firearms, a plug screwed into the rear end of a barrel, forming the bottom of the charge chamber. Otherwise called a breech plug or breech screw.
BREECH SCREW, in firearms, the plug which closes the rear end of the bore of a firearm barrel. The parts are known as the plug, the face, the tenon, the tang, and the tangscrew hole.
BREECH SIGHT, the hinder sight of a gun. In conjunction with the front sight, it serves to aim the gun at an object. It is graduated to degrees and fractions, their length on the scale being equal to the tangents of an arc having a radius equal to the distance between the front and rear sights. The front sight is merely a short piece of metal screwed into the gun, usually at the muzzle, but sometimes between the trunnions, or on one of the rimbases, with its upper edge parallel to the bore of the gun. The rear sight may be detached, having a circular base fitting the base of the gun, or may slide through a slotted lug, and be retained at any given height by a set screw. The breech sight, the tangent scale and the pendulum are merely different forms of this device.
BREEDS (bra-dā'), a river in Cape Colony, rises in the Warm-Bokkeveld, and flows chiefly in a S. E. direction through the district of Zwellendam, entering the Indian Ocean at St. Sebastian's Bay, about 60 miles N. E. of Cape Agulhas, the most southerly point of Africa.
BREEDING, the art of improving races or breeds of domestic animals, or modifying them in certain directions, by continuous attention to their pairing, in conjunction with a similar attention to their feeding and general treatment. The sum of desirable qualities in particular races has been increased in two ways. Individual specimens are produced possessing more good qualities than can. be found in any one specimen of the original stock; and from the same stock many varieties are taken characterized by different perfections. When, however, an effort is made to develop rapidly, or to its extreme limit, any particular quality, it is always made at the expense of some other quality, or of other qualities generally, by which the intrinsic value of the result is necessarily affected. High speed in horses, for example, is only attained at the expense of a sacrifice of strength and power of endurance. So the celebrated merino sheep are the result of a system of breeding which reduces the general size and vigor of the animal, and diminishes the value of the carcass. Much care and judgment, therefore, are needed in breeding, not only in order to produce a particular effect, but also to produce it with the least sacrifice of other qualities.
BREED'S HILL, a slight elevation in the Charlestown district of Boston, Mass., about 700 yards from Bunker Hill. Although the famous engagement of June 17, 1775, is known as the Battle of Bunker Hill, most of the fighting was done on Breed's Hill. Here was located the American redoubt, against which the British made their three historical charges, and here Warren fell. The Bunker Hill monument stands on Breed's Hill.
BREHON LAWS, designation of the ancient laws of the Irish, from an Irish word signifying judges. It is supposed that some of the written collections of these laws, which still exist, are of great antiquity; as old, perhaps, as the earlier ages of the Christian era. Prior to the
