PASSPORT 136 PASTON LETTERS without blemish was taken on the 10th, and killed on the 14th, of the month Abib, thenceforward in consequence to be reckoned the first month of the ecclesi- astical year. The blood of the lamb was to be sprinkled on the two side posts and the single upper door post, and the flesh eaten "with unleavened bread and bitter herbs" before the morning (Ex- odus xii: 1-13). That night Jehovah, passing over the bloodstained doors, slew the first born in the Egyptian houses not similarly protected; and, as the emanci- pated Jews that night departed from Egypt, that first passover could have con- tinued only one day. But the festival was to be an annual one. Connected with it was to be a feast of unleavened bread (Exod. xii: 14-20; Num. xxviii: 16). Sometimes the term passover is limited to the festival of the 14th of Abib; some- times it includes that and the feast of unleavened bread also, the two being viewed as parts of one whole (Ezek. xlv: 21). When the Jews reached Canaan, 3very male was required to present him- self before God thrice a year, viz., at the passover, or feast of unleavened bread, at that of "harvest," and that of "in- gathering" (Exod. xxiii: 16). In the Old Testament six passovers are men- tioned as having been actually kept. In modern Judaism no lamb is sacrificed, but the shank bone of a shoulder of that animal is eaten, leaven put away, and other ceremonies observed. PASSPORT, a warrant of protection and authority to travel, granted to per- sons moving from place to place, by a competent authority. In some states no foreigner is allowed to travel without a passport from his government. In Russia and Turkey, in particular, a pass- port is indispensable. Passports to British subjects are granted at the Foreign Office, London. In the United States passports, with description of the applicant, are issued by the State De- partment at Washington. They are issued only to citizens, native born and naturalized. PASTEUR, LOUIS, a French chemist and physicist; born in Dole, Jura, in 1822; educated at Jena University and the Ecole Normale, Paris, where in 1847 he took his degree as doctor. The fol- lowing year he was appointed Professor of Physics in Strassburg, where he de- voted much research to the subject of fermentation; in 1857 he received the appointment of dean in the Faculty of Sciences, Lille; in 1863 he became Pro- fessor of Geology, Chemistry, and Physics at the filcole des Beaux-Arts, Paris; and in 1867 Professor of Chem- istry at the Sorbonne. He became a member of the French Academy in 1882. He has been especially successful in proving the part played by microbes in fermentation and decomposition, in in- troducing a successful treatment of dis- ease in silkworms and cattle, and has achieved great success in his efforts to check hydrophobia by means of inocu- lation. To enable him to deal with this disease under the best conditions a Pas- teur Institute was opened in Paris, where patients are received from all parts of LOUIS PASTEUR Europe. A similar institution, in New York City, has proved very successful. He died in Paris, Sept. 28, 1895. PASTO, a town in the S. W. of Colom- bia, in a fertile valley 8,350 feet above sea-level. Above it rises the volcano of Pasto (14,000 feet above the sea) ; and in 1827 the town was destroyed by an earthquake. Pop. about 20,000. PASTON LETTERS, THE. a collec- tion of letters written by and to mem- bers of the Paston family in Norfolk during the period of the Wars of the Roses. These letters deal freely with the domestic affairs, and all the relations of English popular life in the period in which they were written. An accurate
