Materials
Tarring and feathering was often presented in literature humorously as a punishment inflicting public humiliation and discomfort, but not serious injury. This is hard to understand if the tar used were the material now most commonly referred to as "tar", which has a high melting point and would cause serious burns to the skin. However, the "tar" used then was pine tar, a completely different substance, with a much lower melting point. Some varieties were liquid at room temperature.
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Famous quotes containing the word materials:
“Though the hen should sit all day, she could lay only one egg, and, besides, would not have picked up materials for another.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In daily life what distinguishes the master is the using those materials he has, instead of looking about for what are more renowned, or what others have used well.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If our entertainment culture seems debased and unsatisfying, the hope is that our children will create something of greater worth. But it is as if we expect them to create out of nothing, like God, for the encouragement of creativity is in the popular mind, opposed to instruction. There is little sense that creativity must grow out of tradition, even when it is critical of that tradition, and children are scarcely being given the materials on which their creativity could work”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)