ODD FELLOW, a member of the In dependent Order of Odd Fellows, a secret fraternal society instituted in Eng land in the 18th century, and now having extensive lodges in Great Britain, Aus tralia, Denmark, Switzerland, the United States, etc. Its organization is in lodges and encampments, grand lodges, grand encampments, and the Sovereign Grand Lodge of the World, and good moral character and belief in a Supreme Being are the requisite for membership. The first lodge in the United States was es tablished in 1819; the grand lodges of the United States reported in 1914 a membership of 1,508,791. Pennsylvania, 137,751; New York, 126,294; Illinois, 105,062; Ohio, 87,788; Indiana, 87,044, etc. The Rebekah lodges admit to mem bership female relatives of the male members. There is also an organization of colored Odd Fellows, entitled the "Grand United Order of Odd Fellows of America." Canada and the maritime provinces have a membership of 100,305. Aus tralia, 45,300. The largest body is the Manchester Unity of Odd Fellows with a membership throughout the British Em pire of 950,000. In the east, including South America, 18 Grand Lodges have been started among 22 nationalities, provinces and territories. In Europe
lodges were founded in Germany 1876, Denmark 1878, Netherlands 1877, Switz erland 1871. In Cuba 1883, Mexico 1882.
ODE, a poem of lyrical character, sup posed to express the poet's feelings in the pressure of high excitement, and tak ing an irregular form from the emotional fervency which seeks spontaneous rhythm for its varied utterance. The Greeks called every lyrical poem adapted to sing ing—hence opposed to the elegiac poem —an ode. The principal ancient writers were Pindar, Anacreon, Sappho, Alcus, among the Greeks, and Horace among the Romans. As employed by English writ ers the ode takes either the Pindaric form of strophe, antistrophe, and epode irreg ularly arranged and contrasted; or, the form of a regular series of regular stan zas. The former style is found in Dry den's "Ode for St. Cecelia's Day," while the latter is seen in Shelly's "Ode to a Skylark." The masters of English poesy who have carried the ode to its highest achievements are Milton, Dryden, Col lins, Grey, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley.