In three-handed pinochle the “ melds" are exposed before a card la played, and no player may ' meld ” after he has layed to the first trick. A rule IS sometimes made that an overlooked combination may be scored by the other players Four-handed pinochle IS play ed either with partners or each player for himself.
PINSK, a town of Russia, in the government of Minsk, at the confluence of the Strumen and Pina rivers, 196 m. S.W.
by rail of Minsk. Pop, 27,938, two-thirds being Jews. The
town carries on considerable trade, due to the navigable river
Pina, which connects It with the fertile regions in the basin of the
Dnieper, and, by means of the Dnieper-and-Bug canal, with
Poland and Prussia, while the Oginsky canal connects it with
the basin of the Niemen Pottery, leather, oil, soap and beer
are the chief products of the local industries. The draining of
the marshes around Pinsk was begun by the government in
1872, and by 1897 8,000,000 acres had been drained at an average
cost of 3S. per acre. Pinsk (Pinesk) is first mentioned in 1097 as
a town belonging to Sviatopolk, prince of Kiev. In 1132 it
formed part of the Minsk principality. After the Mongol
invasion of 1239–42 it became the chief town of a separate
principality, and continued to be so until the end of the 13th
century In 1320 it was annexed to Lithuania; and in 1569,
after the union of Lithuania with Poland, it was chief town of
the province of Brest. During the rebellion of the Cossack
chief, Bogdan Chmielnicki (1640), the Poles took it by assault,
killing 14,000 persons and burning 5000 houses. Eight years
later the town was burned by the Russians. Charles XII. took
it in 1706, and burned the town with its suburbs. Pinsk was
annexed to Russia in 1795.
PINSUTI, CIRO (1829–1888), Anglo-Italian composer, was born at Siena, and was educated in music, for a career as a pianist, partly in London and partly at Bologna, where he was a pupil of Rossini. From 1848 he made his home in England, here he became a teacher of singing, and in 1856 he was made a professor at the Academy of Music in London. He became ell Lnown as a composer of numerous favourite songs and
part-songs, as well as of three operas brought out in Italy, and it is by the former that he is still remembered.
PINT (derived probably through Spanish, from Lat. pincta,
picta, a painted or marked vessel), a liquid measure of capacity,
equivalent to 18 of a gallon The imperial British pint=.57 of
a litre, 34.66 cub. in. The United States standard pint=.47
of a litre, 2878 cub. in. The word appears in French as pinte
for a liquid measure as early as the 13th century.
PINTO, ANÍBAL (1825-1884), Chilean president, was born at Santiago, Chile. After a diplomatic training in the legation at Rome he learned the practice of administration as intendente of Concepcion, and from 1871 to 1876 was minister of war and marine under Errázuriz During his term of office as president
(1876 to 1881) Pinto had to deal first with a severe financial crisis, and then to conduct the struggle with Peru and Bolivia, in which he displayed great coolness of judgment and devotion to duty.
PINTO, FERNÃO MENDES (1509-1583), Portuguese adventurer, was born at Montemor-o-Velho, of poor and humble parents, and entered the service of a noble lady in Lisbon, being afterwards for two years page to the duke of Aveiro in Setubal. Desiring to try his fortune in the East, he embarked for India
in 1537 in a fleet commanded by the son of Vasco da Gama, and
for twenty-one years travelled, fought and traded in China,
Tartary, Pegu and the neighbouring countries, sailing in every
sea, while in 1542-1543 he was one of the 'first Europeans to
visit Japan, where he introduced the musket. Though he was
thirteen times a captive and seventeen times sold into slavery,
his gay and dauntless spirit brought him through every misfortune
He was soldier and sailor, merchant and doctor,
missionary and ambassador, moreover, as the friend and travelling
companion of St Francis Xaviei, he lent the apostle of the
Indies the money with which to build the first Jesuit establishment
in Japan. In January 1554 Mendes Pinto was in Goa,
vuaiting for a ship to take him to Portugal, when he took a sudden
resolution to enter the company of Jesus and devote a large part
of the capital he had accumulated to the evangelization of Japan.
The viceroy appointed him ambassador to the king of Bungo
in order to give the mission an official standing, and on the 18th
of April he set sail with the provincial, Father Belchior Nunes.
Owing to bad weather and contrary winds, however, the missioners
did not reach Japan until July 1556, but the success of
the mission represented a notable service to the cause of Christianity
and civilization. On the 14th of November 1 5 56 Father
Belchior and Mendes Pinto began their return voyage and reached
Goa on the 17th of February 1557. During his stay of a twelvemonth
there, the latter left the company, being dispensed from
his vows for want of vocation at his own request, though a
modern authority states that he was expelled because he was
found to be a marrano, i.e. to possess Jewish blood. He finally
returned to Portugal on the 22nd of September 1558, and settled
at Pragal near Almada, where he married and wrote his famous
book, the Peregrination; the MS., in fulfilment of his wishes,
was presented by his daughter to the Casa Pia for penitent
women in Lisbon, and it was published by the administrators
in 1614. When Philip II. of Spain came to Portugal as its
king, he listened with pleasure to the account of Mendes
Pinto's travels, and by letter of the 15th of January 1583
gave him a pension for his services in the Indies. But
the reward came too late, for the great traveller died on the
8th of July.
In the light of our present-day knowledge of the East, Pinto is regarded as having been on the whole a careful observer and truthful narrator, but this was not always the case Some witty countryman of his own parodied his name into Fernzio, mentes? Mintol (“ Ferdinand, do you lie? I do!”), and the English dramatist Congreve only expressed the general opinion of the unlearned when he wrote in Love for Love “ Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude.” It must be remembered that Pinto wrote the Peregrinatzon long subsequent to the events he records, and this fact and a certain fertility of imagination sufficiently account for inexactitudes. Furthermore, as the book was only published posthumously, he never had the opportunity of correcting the proofs. Some of his most marvellous stories are expressly given on the authority of writers belonging to the countries he describes; others he tells from hearsay, and Oriental informants are prone to exaggeration. But if he somewhat adorned the truth, he did not wilfully misrepresent it The book itself gives the impression of sincerity, and the editors of the first editio11 bear witness to the probity, good faith and truthfulness of Mendes Pinto as a man. Herrera Maldonado prefaced his Spanish translation of the Peregrinalion (1620) by a lengthy and erudite apology to demonstrate its authenticity, and Castilho has reinforced his arguments by modern testimonies. In the narrative portions of his work Pinto's style is simple, clear and natural, his diction rich, particularly in sea terms, and appropriate to his varying subjects There is an entire absence of artifice about the book, which must always rank as a classic, and it might fairly be argued that Mendes Pinto did for the prose of Portugal what Camoens did for its poetry; this is the more remarkable, because it does not appear that he ever received any education in the ordinary sense. He wrote the book for his children to learn to read by, and modestly excused its literary defects by alleging his rudeness and lack of talent. Tradition has it that the MS. was entrusted to the chronicler Francisco de Andrade for the purpose of being polished in style and made ready for press, but that all he did was to divide it into chapters.
The Peregrznatzon has gone through many editions subsequent to that of 1614, and in 1865 Castilho published excerpts in his Lwrarza Classico portugueza with an interesting notice of Mendes Pinto's life and writings. Versions exist in German (3 editions), French (3 editions), Spanish (4 editions), and in English by Henry Cogan, London (1663, 1692 and-abridged and illustrated, with introduction by Arminius Vambéry-1891). Cogan omits the chapters relating to Mendes Pinto's intercourse with, and the last days of, St Francis Xavier, presumably as a concession to anti-Catholic prejudice.
See Chrisfovao Ayres, Ferndo Mendes Pinto (Lisbon, 1904). Ferndo Mendes Pinto e o Japdo (Lisbon, 1906); also Substdzos: para a bzographza de Ferndo Mendes Pinto by Jordio de Freitas (Coimbra, 1905).
(E. Pr.)
