An administrative entity operated by an incalculable multitude of political parasites, logically active but fortuitously efficient. This commonwealth's capitol's corridors view, So thronged with a hungry and indolent crew Of clerks, pages, porters and all attaches Whom rascals appoint and the populace pays That a cat cannot slip through the thicket of shins Nor hear its own shriek for the noise of their chins. On clerks and on pages, and porters, and all, Misfortune attend and disaster befall! May life be to them a succession of hurts; May fleas by the bushel inhabit their shirts; May aches and diseases encamp in their bones, Their lungs full of tubercles, bladders of stones; May microbes, bacilli, their tissues infest, And tapeworms securely their bowels digest; May corn-cobs be snared without hope in their hair, And frequent impalement their pleasure impair. Disturbed be their dreams by the awful discourse Of audible sofas sepulchrally hoarse, By chairs acrobatic and wavering floors -- The mattress that kicks and the pillow that snores! Sons of cupidity, cradled in sin! Your criminal ranks may the death angel thin, Avenging the friend whom I couldn't work in. K.Q.

A state; a body politic consisting of a certain number of men, united, by compact or tacit agreement, under one form of government and system of laws.

Hunt (1842) Landmark ruling of the Massachusetts supreme court establishing the legality of labor unions.

A free association of sovereign states comprising Britain and a number of its former dependencies once part of the British empire. These states have chosen to maintain ties of friendship and practical cooperation with Britain and acknowledge the British monarch as the symbolic head of their association.

Specifically, the form of government established on the death of Charles I., in 1649, which existed under Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard, ending with the abdication of the latter in 1659.

a government without a king whose power rests in Parliament and a council of state b

Refers to the Commonwealth General Government Sector (unless stated otherwise).

republic established after Oliver Cromwell's victory in the English civil war in 1649; lasted until the monarchy was restored in 1660