PADUCAH, pit-dina. A city and the county seat of McCracken County, Ky., 48 miles east by north of Cairo, Ill., and 165 miles southeast of Saint Louis, Slo.; at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers, and on the Illinois Central and the Nashville, Chattanooga and Saint Louis railroads (Slap: Kentucky, C 31. It has a United States Government building, hospitals, and public parks. The city is in an agricultural, mineral, and timber region; is tile terminus of several river packet lines; controls large lumber and tobacco interests, besides an important whole sale trade: and has extensive manufactures of lumber products, furniture, brick, potter's ware, tobacco, cotton rope, wagon material, tlour, and foundry and machine shop products. The building of steamboat, is carried on. The government, under a charter of 1893, is vested in a mayor, who holds office for four years, and a council. The school board is indepen dently chosen by popular vote. The electric light plant is owned and operated by the mu nicipality. Paducah was laid out in 1827. incor porated as a village in the following year, and received a city charter in 1856. In September, 1861. it was occupied and fortified by General Grant, and on March 25, 1864, then having a garrison of about S00 men under Hicks, it was unsuccessfully attacked by General Forrest with a force of Population, in 1890. 12.797; in 1900, 19,446.
P/E'AN (Lat., from Gk. 7raiav, paian, hymn in honor of Apollo, from Ilaatv, Paian. Haulm Paion. epithet of Apollo). An ancient Greek
god of healing. Pann appears in Homer and later poets down to ..:Esehylus as a personal god, a divine physician, invoked to cure disease and also to avert threatened destruction from other causes. From the middle of tile fifth century B.C. we hear little of this god, and Rcan becomes a surname of Apollo. as the averter of disease and destruction. The hymn for deliverance, ad dressed probably originally to the god Penn. with its refrain 14) also transferred to the worship of other gods, and became the name for a recognized division of the Greek choral lyric poetry. It was sung either in solemn procession or in a stately dance around the altar, especially of Apollo, though sometimes in connection with the worship of Dionysus, Asclepius. and others. We also find the word used to denote a prayer or hymn accompanying the libation at a sacrifice, or sung to the go& with the libation at the sympo sium or at the marriage feast. As a prayer for safety it was naturally chanted before the battle. and. indeed, before any undertaking where danger was anticipated. The refrain seems also to have become a shout of victory, as expressing thanks giving for deliverance, and thus the P:ean is also the name for the hymn at the processions and the sacrifices in celebration of victory. Con sult: Fairbanks. A Study of the Greek Pawn (New York. 1900) ; ITsener, Gotfernamen (Bonn. ISM).