CHARIVARI, slia'ri/va're.' (Low Lat. ehari rat-into). A French term used to designate a. wild tumult and uproar, produced by the heating of pans, kettles, and dishes. mingled with whis tling, ba‘vling, groans. and hisses, and got up for the purpose of expressing a general dislike to the person against whom it is directed. The etymology of charirari is obscure; the Oermatis translate it by Katzrawasik, the English of •hiell is eater y-a/ding. In France, during the _lges, a charivari was generally raised against persons contract Mg second nuptials. ill which ease the widow was especially assailed. On these sions the participators in it. who were masked, accompanied their hubbub by the singing of satirieal and indeeent verses, and would not cease till the wedding couple had purchased their peace by ransom. Charivari 10 the English concert upon 'marrow-bones and (leav ers.' with which it was customary to attack a married couple who lived in notorious discord. It was also organized against an unequal match —e.g. where there was great disparity in age. In some of the rural districts of the United States a like custom prevails, the instruments of discord being horns, till pans, horse-fiddles, and whistles. The rustic ,:lineriean corruption of the
word `•harivari' is for which a syno nym is •skimmerton.' Similar customs seen] to have existed under difTerent names in all pants of Europe. and sometimes they were of such a licentious and violent character as to require mili tary interference to put them down. Even as early as the Fourteenth Century. the Church found itself forced to threaten punishment, :old coon excommunivation, against these who partici pated in them. In more recent times the chari vari has taken a purely political coloring: as, for example, during the Restoration in France, at which time, however, the popular voice began to seek vent by casting its satirical darts against publie men through the press. the papers of this sort the most famous is the rharirgri. was established in Paris. December 2. lti32, corresponding to the English publication Punch,