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MISHMI—MISPRISION
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and in 1839 St Joseph Iron Works, with its two additions, and Indiana City were incorporated as one town named Mishawaka—the name of an Indian village formerly occupying a part of the present site. Mishawaka was chartered as a city in 1899.


MISHMI, a hill-tribe on the frontier of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The Mishmis occupy the hills from the Dihong to the Brahmakund, in the north-eastern corner of the Brahmaputra valley. In 1854 M. Krick and M. Bourry, two French missionaries, were murdered in the Mishmi country, but their death was avenged by a small expedition which took the murderer prisoner. In 1899 another British expedition was sent against the Mishmis, owing to the murder of some British subjects.


MISIONES, a territory of northern Argentina, bounded N. by Paraguay and Brazil, E. and S. by Brazil and W. by Paraguay and the Argentine province of Corrientes. Its boundary lines are formed by the upper Parana and Iguassú rivers on the N., the San Antonio and Pequiry-guassu streams on the E. and the Uruguay River on the S. Area, 11,282 sq. m.; pop. (1904, estimate), 38,755, chiefly Indians and mestizos. The territory is a region of roughly-broken surfaces, divided longitudinally by low mountains, called the Sierra Iman and Sierra Grande de Misiones, which form the water-parting for many small streams flowing northward to the Paraná and southward to the Uruguay. The greater part of the country is covered with forest and tropical jungle. The climate is sub-tropical, the temperature ranging from 40° to 95° F. The soil is described as highly fertile, but its products are chiefly confined to yerba mate or Paraguay tea (Ilex paraguayensis), tobacco and oranges and other fruits. Communication with the capital is maintained by two lines of steamboats running to Corrientes and Buenos Aires, but a railway across Paraguay from Asunción is planned to Encarnación, opposite Posadas. Some of the Jesuit missions of the 17th and 18th centuries were established in this territory, and are to-day represented by the lifeless villages of Candelaria, Santa Ana, San Ignacio and Corpus along the Paraná River, and Apóstoles, Concepción, and San Javier along the Uruguay. Posadas (estimated pop. in 1905, 8000), the capital, on the Paraná, officially dates from 1865. It was also a Jesuit settlement called Itapua, though the large mission of that name was on the Paraguayan side of the river. It is at the extreme west of the territory, and is the terminal port for the steamers from Corrientes.


MISKOLCZ, capital of the county of Borsod, Hungary, 113 m. N.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900), 40,833. It is situated in a valley watered by the Szinva in the east of the Bükk mountains, and opens towards the south to the plain of the Sajó, an affluent of the Hernád. Miskolcz is a thriving town, and among its buildings are a Roman Catholic church of the 13th century in Late Gothic style, a Minorite convent, and Greek Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist churches. It manufactures snuff, porcelain, boots and shoes, and prepared leather, and has both steam and water mills. It trades in grain, flour, wine, fruit, cattle, hides, honey, wax and agricultural products, while four well attended fairs are held annually. About 5 m. west of the town in the Szinva valley is Diósgyör (pop. 11,520), which possesses important iron-works, and the ruined castle of Diósgyör, formerly a shooting residence of the kings of Hungary. About 4 m. to the south-west of Miskolcz are the baths of Tapolcza, containing warm springs. To the south-west of the town lies Onod (pop. 2087), to the south of which, on the banks of the Sajó, is the heath of Mohi or Muhi, famous as the scene of the great defeat of the Hungarians by the Mongols in 1241. About 85,000 Hungarians fell, and the whole country was devastated for the next two years by the Mongolian hordes. During the 16th and 17th centuries Miskolcz suffered much from the Ottomans, and from the troops of George Rákóczy and Emeric Tökölyi. In 1781, 1843, and 1847 it was devastated by fire, and on the 30th of August 1878 a great portion of the town was ruined by a terrific storm.


MISPICKEL, a mineral consisting of iron sulpharsenide, FeAsS; it contains 46% of arsenic, and is of importance as an ore of this element. It is known also as arsenopyrite or arsenical pyrites (Ger. Arsenikkies): mispickel is an old name of German origin, and in the form Mistpuckel was used by G. Agricola in 1546. The crystals are orthorhombic, with angles similar to those of marcasite; they are often prismatic in habit, and the prism M is usually terminated by the deeply striated faces of an obtuse dome r. Twinning is not uncommon, the twin-planes M (110) and g (101) being the same as in marcasite. The colour of the mineral is silver-white or steel-grey, with a metallic lustre, but it is often tarnished yellow; the streak is greyish-black. The hardness is 51/2–6, and the specific gravity 5·9–6·2.

Mispickel occurs in metalliferous veins with ores of tin, copper, silver, &c. It is occasionally found as embedded crystals, for example, in serpentine at Reichenstein, Silesia. In Cornwall and Devon it is associated with cassiterite in the tin-lodes, but is also found in the copper-lodes: well crystallized specimens have been obtained from the neighbourhood of Tavistock, Redruth and St Agnes. Mispickel is the principal source of arsenious oxide or the “white arsenic” of commerce (see Arsenic). The chief supplies are from Cornwall and Devon, and Freiberg in Saxony, and from Canada and the United States.

Danaite is a cobaltiferous variety of mispickel, containing up to 9% of cobalt replacing iron; it was first noticed by J. F. Dana in 1824 at Franconia in New Hampshire. This variety forms a passage to the species glaucodote, (Co, Fe)AsS, which is found as well-developed orthorhombic crystals in copper ore at Hakansboda in Ramberg parish, Vestmanland, Sweden. Other species belonging to this isomorphous group of orthorhombic minerals are marcasite (FeS2), löllingite (FeAs2), safflorite (CoAs2) and rammelsbergite (NiAs2).  (L. J. S.) 


MISPRISION (from O. Fr. mesprendre, mod. méprendre, to misunderstand), a term in English law, almost obsolete, used to describe certain kinds of offence. Writers on criminal law usually divide misprision into two kinds (a) negative, (b) positive.

(a) Negative misprision is the concealment of treason or felony. By the common law of England it was the duty of every liege subject to inform the king’s justices and other officers of the law of all treasons and felonies of which the informant had knowledge, and to bring the offender to justice by arrest (see Sheriffs Act 1887, s. 8). The duty fell and still falls primarily on the grand jurors of each county borough or franchise, and is performed by indictment or presentment, but it also falls in theory on all other inhabitants (see Pollock and Maitland, Hist. Eng. Law, ii. 505). Failure by the latter to discharge this public duty constitutes what is known as misprision of treason or felony (see 3 Co. Inst., 139).

Misprision of Treason, in the words of Blackstone, “consists in the bare knowledge and concealment of treason, without any degree of assent thereto, for any assent makes the party a principal traitor.” According to Bracton, de Coronâ, seq. 118, failure to reveal the treason of another was in itself high treason, but statutes of 1551–1552 and 1554–1555 made concealment of treason misprision only. Most of the statutes regulating procedure on trials for treason also apply to misprision of treason. The punishment is loss of the profit of the lands of the offender during life, forfeiture of all his goods and imprisonment for life. These punishments are not affected by the Forfeiture Act 1870.

Misprision of Felony is the concealment of a felony committed by another person, but without such previous concert with, or subsequent assistance of the offender, as would make the concealer an accessory before or after the fact. The offence is a misdemeanour punishable on indictment by fine and imprisonment.

(b) Positive misprision is the doing of something which ought not to be done; or the commission of a serious offence falling short of treason or felony, in other words of a misdemeanour of a public character (e.g. maladministration of high officials, contempt of the sovereign or magistrates, &c.). To endeavour to dissuade a witness from giving evidence, to disclose an examination before the privy council, or to advise a prisoner to stand mute, used to be described as misprision's (Hawk. P. C. bk. I. c. 20).