BLISS

bliss, cornelius newton (1833- ), american merchant and politician, was born at fall river, massachusetts, on the 26th of january 1833. he was educated in his native city and in new orleans, where he early entered his step-father's counting-house. returning to massachusetts in 1849, he became a clerk and subsequently a junior partner in a prominent boston commercial house. later he removed to new york city to establish a branch of the firm. in 1881 he organized and became president of bliss, fabyan & company, one of the largest wholesale dry-goods houses in the country. a consistent advocate of the protective tariff, he was one of the organizers, and for many years president, of the american protective tariff league. in politics an active republican, he was chairman of the republican state committee in 1887 and 1888, and contributed much to the success of the harrison ticket in new york in the latter year. he was treasurer of the republican national committee from 1892 to 1904, and was secretary of the interior in president mckinley's cabinet from 1897 to 1899. blister (a word found in many forms in teutonic languages, cf. ger. _blase_; it is ultimately connected with the same root as in "blow," cf. "bladder"), a small vesicle filled with serous fluid raised on the skin by a burn, by rubbing on a hard surface, as on the hand in rowing, or by other injury; the term is also used of a similar condition of the skin caused artificially, as a counter-irritant in cases of inflammation, by the application of mustard, of various kinds of fly (see cantharides) and of other vesicatories. similar small swellings, filled with fluid or air, on plants and on the surface of steel or paint, &c., are also called "blisters." blizzard (origin probably onomatopoeic, cf. "blast," "bluster"), a furious wind driving fine particles of choking, blinding snow whirling in icy clouds. the conditions to which the name was originally given occur with the northerly winds in rear of the cyclones crossing the eastern states of america during winter.