Chapter Mob to Moloch of M by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Molly Coddle (A). A pampered creature, afraid that the winds of heaven should visit him too roughly; though a male, a Molly; not a valetudinarian, but ever fearing lest he should be so.

Molly Maguires An Irish secret society organised in 1843. Stout, active young Irishmen, dressed up in women's clothes, blackened faces, and otherwise disguised, to surprise those employed to enforce the payment of rents. Their victims were ducked in bog-holes, and many were beaten most unmercifully.

“The judge who tried the murderer was elected by the Molly Maguires; the jurors who assisted him were themselves Molly Maguires. A score of Molly Maguires came forward to swear that the assassin was sixty miles from the spot on which he had been seen to fire at William Dunn, . . . and the jurors returned a verdict of Not Guilty.”- W. Hepworth Dixon: New America, ii. 28.

Molly Mog This celebrated beauty was an innkeeper's daughter, at Oakingham, Berks. She was the toast of all the gay sparks, in the former half of the eighteenth century, and died in 1766, at an advanced age. Gay has a ballad on this Fair Maid of the Inn.
   Molly Mog died at the age of sixty-seven, a spinster; Mr. Standen, of Arborfield, the enamoured swain alluded to in the ballad, died 1730. It is said that Molly's sister Sally was the greater beauty. A portrait of Gay still hangs in the inn.

Molmutius A mythical king of Britain, who promulgated the laws called the Molmutine, and established the privilege of sanctuary. He is alluded to in Cymbeline, iii. 1 (Shakespeare).

Moloch Any influence which demands from us the sacrifice of what we hold most dear. Thus, war is a Moloch, king mob is a Moloch, the guillotine was the Moloch of the French Revolution, etc. The allusion is to the god of the Ammonites, to whom children were “made to pass through the fire” in sacrifice. Milton says he was “worshipped in Rabba, in Argob, and Basan, to the stream of utmost Arnon.” (Paradise Lost, book i. 392-398.)