“There is no worse robber than a bad book.” — Italian saying
Author: Greg Ross
Noli Me Tangere
There is no record that Jesus ever laughed.
U.S.S. Saratoga
In March 1781, the Continental Navy sloop Saratoga was escorting a convoy of merchant ships off Haiti when it spotted two British sails to the west. It overtook and captured the first ship, put an American crew aboard, and set out after the second.
Midshipman Penfield, commander of that crew, was watching the chase when a strong wind arose, requiring his attention. When he raised his eyes again, the Saratoga had vanished. No trace of her was ever found.
Tommy Jones
On the evening of Aug. 4, 1900, 5-year-old Tommy Jones went missing near his grandfather’s farm in Brecon, South Wales. A 29-day search of the surrounding country found no trace of him.
His body was finally discovered on Pen y Fan, the highest mountain in South Wales, at an altitude of 1,300 feet. He had died of exhaustion and exposure. No one knows what led him there.
Strangely, almost the same thing had happened 10 years earlier in Virginia.
Recent History
The oldest U.S. Civil War widow is still alive. Maudie Hopkins was 19 when she married 86-year-old veteran William Cantrell in 1934. She’s 92 today.
“Alliterative Love Letter”
Adored and angelic Amelia, accept an ardent and artless amourist’s affection, alleviate an anguished admirer’s alarms, and answer an amorous applicant’s ardour. Ah, Amelia! all appears an awful aspect. Ambition, avarice, and arrogance, alas! are attractive allurements, and abuse an ardent attachment. Appease an aching and affectionate adorer’s alarms, and anon acknowledge affianced Albert’s alliance as acceptable and agreeable. Anxiously awaiting an affectionate and affirmative answer, accept an admirer’s aching adieu. Always angelic and adorable Amelia’s affectionate amourist, Albert.
— William T. Dobson, Literary Frivolities, Fancies, Follies and Frolics, 1880
The Snail Telegraph
In the early 19th century, French occultist Jacques Toussaint Benoit became convinced that when two snails touch they form a “sympathetic bond” so that, ever afterward, when one is touched the other will respond.
He got financing to build a “snail telegraph,” a dish in which 24 lettered snails were glued in place. Messages could be sent by touching snails in sequence; their partners, glued to an identical dish elsewhere, would then wriggle, conveying the message.
After a demonstration in October 1851, La Presse hailed the invention as a revolution. Benoit’s backers, however, demanded a stricter test — and found that the inventor had disappeared.
In a Word
slockster
n. one who entices away another’s servants
Math Notes
135 = 1 + 32 + 53
175 = 1 + 72 + 53
518 = 5 + 12 + 83
598 = 5 + 92 + 83
“Value of a Long Psalm”
In old times a culprit, when at the gallows, was allowed to select a Psalm, which was then sung, thereby lengthening the chances of the arrival of a reprieve. It is reported of one of the chaplains to the famous Montrose, that being condemned in Scotland to die for attending his master in some of his exploits, he selected the 119th Psalm. It was well for him that he did so, for they had sung it half through before the reprieve came. A shorter Psalm, and he would have been hung.
— Frank H. Stauffer, The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical, 1882