Word: pith
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...line, "lesser breeds without the Law"; "This line is always good for a snigger in pansy-left circles. It is assumed as a matter of course that the 'lesser breeds' are 'natives,' and a mental picture is called up of some pukka sahib in a pith helmet kicking a coolie. In its context the sense of the line is almost the exact opposite of this. The phrase 'lesser breeds' refers almost certainly to the Germans, and especially the pan-German writers, who are 'without the Law' in the sense of being lawless...
...first course in a two-week Harvard Brechfest, A Man's a Man much resembles a glass of orange juice: acid, topped with froth, filled with stray bits of pith, and innocent of dramatic structure. Though technically clumsy, the Kirkland House production of this laboriously didactic work has its moments of low humor and sardonic truth. Its faults, for the most part, stem from the Brechtian bric-a-brac with which director Peter Weil has burdened the show...
Will Ye No Come Back? "We work hard and we play hard," explained a Royal Marine. Between shows and rehearsals, there are boots to black, pith helmets to repaint, ostrich feathers and bearskins to comb. It is Silvo-Polish and elbow grease that keep the buttons blinding bright, treacle that caulks the bagpipe bags and keeps them from cracking. The shows are work too. One of the Scots Guards pipers blew so hard one night he had to be hospitalized with a suspected hernia, but gamely returned to action the next day's matinee-fitted out in a truss...
...through the year until the big tent went up again. And what they waited for most was the instant when a trim, 5-ft. 6-in. man, dressed in spotless white shirt and breeches with soft leather belt, bounded into the spotlight of the center ring and doffed his pith helmet. Then, whip in his right hand, a steel-reinforced chair plus blank-loaded pistol in his left, he would summon the first ferocious cat into the cage...
...prison. A slight man with greying hair and steel-rimmed spectacles, ailing from diabetes and a heart attack, he was lifted to his feet by three guards, hung slackly against them for a few seconds. Then he walked slowly by himself across the sparse grass, murmuring responses to the pith-helmeted Roman Catholic priest who accompanied...