Futility Closet

What's unusual about CARES and PRINCES?

They're both plural words that become singular when S is added.

Safety lessons for young people, from The Book of Accidents (1831):

"Horses are very dangerous, but most useful animals. To be kicked by them is almost certain death."

"Careless children, in spite of warning, often run across the street when carts and carriages are near, and are knocked down and run over."

"Many children delight in teazing dogs, and without caution go too near them, by which they get miserably torn and mangled."

(More to come.)

Aftermath of a bear attack, Dhaka, Bengal, recounted by a Captain Williamson in The Terrific Register, 1825:

We found her husband extended on the ground, his hands and feet, as I before observed, sucked and chewed into a perfect pulp, the teguments of the limbs in general drawn from under the skin, and the skull mostly laid bare; the skin of it hanging down in long strips; obviously effected by their talons. What was most wonderful was, that the unhappy man retained his senses sufficiently to describe that he had been attacked by several bears, the woman said seven, one of which had embraced him while the others clawed him about the head, and bit at his arms and legs, seemingly in competition for the booty.

"We conveyed the wretched object to a house, where in a few hours, death relieved him from a state, in which no human being could afford the smallest assistance!"

The world's largest family tree belongs to Confucius — his descendants have been carefully cataloged through 2,500 years and more than 80 generations.

This year will see the first published update since 1937. It contains more than 2 million people.

It's possible to have $1.19 and still be unable to make change for a dollar.

"Retarded artistically. Idiotic in other respects." — Teacher's assessment of 12-year-old Keith Moon, Alperton Secondary School, Wembley, 1958

Solution to The Constable's Headache, from Thursday:

Only one answer is free from contradiction: A and C lie and B tells the truth.

Say goodbye to tedious, time-consuming showers with this "simple, economical and portable sanitary bathing apparatus," patented in 1913.

Just fill the bag with soapy water, jump in, and pull the drawstring. Now you can hop a bus, eat succotash, even conduct eulogies while attending to your personal hygiene.

Bonus: "By alternate crouching and rising in the bag or by rolling with the same upon a bed or floor on the part of the bather … the liquid in said bag … may be made to surge in simulation of sea waves and thus afford gratification to said bather."

In February 1959, a search was organized when nine Russian ski hikers failed to return from a trek in the northern Ural Mountains. After six days, their abandoned camp was found in a mountain pass.

All the hikers were dead. Two were found on the opposite side of the pass, near the remains of a fire; three others had died closer to camp, apparently trying to return; and the remaining four were found only three months later, under 4 meters of snow in a nearby stream valley.

Apparently the victims had fled the tent suddenly on the night of Feb. 2, tearing their way out from the inside and running down the mountain. Though the temperature had been around -25° C, all were inadequately dressed, some wearing only underwear. Though the bodies had no external wounds, one showed severe skull damage and two had major chest fractures. One woman's tongue was missing.

In the end, Soviet investigators could conclude only that a "compelling unknown force" had caused the hikers' deaths. That's all that's known.

From an anonymous leaflet, 1894:

A says B lies; B says C lies; C says A and B lie.

Who lies and who tells the truth? I'll give the answer tomorrow.