Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 12.djvu/430

watchmaking institute, a lucclianical school, vari- ous secondary and industrial schools, besides pos- sessing industrial, scientific, and art museums, and a library. The streets are lifjhtud by elec- tricity. The chief industry is watchmaking, for which the town has long been famed. Popula- tion, in 1900, 12,000.

LOCO (Sp., crazy) DISEASE. A disease of shec|), horses, and occasionally cattle, caused by certain species of Astragalus, a genus of the nat- ural order Leguminosic, popularly known as loco or crazy weeds, and widely distributed over the grazing ranges of the Rockj' Mountains, where they occasion extensive losses. The most com- mon species are Astragalus nioUissinnis and Astragalus spicatus. The disease may be called a pernicious habit, which is readily acquired by healthy animals through imitation of locoed ani- mals, consisting in the persistent search for and almost exclusive feeding upon loco-weeds. Ani- mals that have once contracted the habit and are confined in fields or pastures free from loco- weeds in order to effect a cure soon return to the

LOCO-WEED. old habit when turned out to range. They are therefore of no value as range stock. The' first efVects are stimulant, but continued use produces opposite results. The disease may appear in an acute or a chronic form. In the acute form the animal manifests signs ot vertigo, moves about in circles, champs the jaws, and seems to be more or less deaf and blind. Death may occur within three days. In the chronic form the ani- mal may linger for months or even years, losing flesh, exhibiting nuiscular incoiirdination and various nervous symptoms, finally becoming un- able to walk, and dying of starvation or exhaus- tion. Locoed sheep sometimes <<l)cd the lleece. Locoed horses generally stand by themselves on the range; usually move about very little during the later stages; sometimes they do not drink oftener than once in two or three weeks; fre- quently they are unsteady and stiff and unduly frightened by ordinary objects; and w'hen driven may run away at any time without apparent rea- son. No medicinal treatment for loco disease has been discovered, but potassium permanganate may be administered in acute cases to oxidize and destroy the poisonous alkaloid contained in loco- weeds. Locoed sheep should be confined in feed- ing corrals and fattened upon alfalfa and roots for market; locoed horses may develop, under judicious feeding, into valuable work-animals. All animals addicted to eating loco-weeds should be .separated friJiu their companions in order to check the spread of the habit.

LOCO-FOCO (from Lat. locus, place + focus, hearth, fire; formed on the analogy of locomotive, ignorantly supposed to mean 'self-moving'). In American political history, the name ajiplied originally to the radical or Equal Rights faction of the Democratic I'arty in New Vork .State, in 183.5-37, but afterwards used by the Whigs to designate the Democratic Party generally, throughout the nation. The system of granting bank diarters in New York by special legislation for each case had given rise not only to favorit- ism and partisan.ship, but to bribery, purcha.sc, and open fraud. The activity in chartering new banks in 1834-35, caused by the certainty that the United States Bank would not be rechartereil, increased the scandal, and at la.st aroused sour' of the New York City Democrats to action. Dur- ing the summer of 1835 several meetings were held for the purpose of effecting an organization, which, at the approaching election, should support only candidates declaring their opposition to special bank legislation and its attendant evils. A mass meeting of this faction was held at Tammany Hall on October 29, 1835, to act upon the report of a special nominating committee. The regular or Tammany Democrats, entering by the back stairs, attem])ted to control the meeliiiu'. but, finding the opposition too strong, turned out the gas and retired, leaving the reformers in darkness. The victors, however, were well provided with candles, which they lighted with loco-foco, or friction matches, and proceeded to act on the nominations. The incident of the lights was seized u|jon by the Democratic press, which derisively dubbed the anti-monopolists 'Loco-Focos.' In January, 1830, a county convention was held at which the new party took the name of the Equal Kiglits Parly, and adnpted a statement of rights, in which it declared among other things that no legislature had the right to exempt corporations by special charters from the operation of any law, or to grant them special jirivileges, and that paper money was a vicious circulating medium and gold and silver the only safe and constitutional currency. In the spring elections of 1836 the party nominated candidates for mayor and aldermen, who polled over 3000-votes. On September I5th following a State convention was held at Utiea which nominated candidates for Governor and Lieutenant-ftovernor. In New York City, Congressional, Senatorial, and Assembly nominations were made. The Whigs indorsed four of the nominees and they were elected. In the spring city elections of 1837 the party held the balance of power, the vote cast for their mayoralty candidate throwing the city government into Whig hands. A second State convention held at Litica in September. 1837, framed a new State constitution, one of the features of which was the provision for an elective judiciary. President Van Buren's message to the special session of Congress that met in that same month, by adopting almost the identical ground*