Spell and Summon

This card curiosity is attributed to Lewis Carroll.

Lay down eight cards with these values:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Deuce_(PSF).png

Now add the values in each column, find a card of that value in the deck, and place it on top of the lower card. Aces count as 1, jacks as 11, queens as 12, and kings as 13. Thus in the first column 1 + 2 = 3, so you’d place a 3 on top of the 2.

When you’ve done all four columns, repeat the process, placing a 4 on the 3, etc. If a sum is more than 13, subtract 13 from it (for example, Q + 7 = 19 – 13 = 6). When you’ve exhausted the deck you’ll have four kings in the bottom row. Place each of these piles on the card above it, then take up the packs from right to left.

Turn the deck face down again and deal 13 cards in a circle, making note of which was dealt first. Counting from that card, deal 13 more cards, placing them on every second pile (that is, piles 2, 4, 6, etc.) and continuing around the circle until 13 are dealt. Then deal 13 more cards, one onto each third pile (piles 3, 6, 9, etc.), and finish by dealing the last 13 cards, one onto every fourth pile (4, 8, 12, etc.).

Each pile should now contain four cards. Take them up in order, starting with the first.

Now comes the payoff. Spell aloud A-C-E, dealing a card for each letter and turning the last one face up. It will be an ace. Continue with T-W-O, T-H-R-E-E, and so on up through J-A-C-K, Q-U-E-E-N, and K-I-N-G. In each case the last card will have the rank just spelled — and the full count will precisely exhaust the deck.

(From Robert Morrison Abraham, Winter Nights Entertainments, A Book of Pastimes for Everybody, 1932.)

| Science & Math

The Infallible Seducer

Here’s a foolproof way to get anyone to sleep with you. Ask:

  1. Will you answer this question in the same way that you will answer the next?
  2. Will you sleep with me?

“If she keeps her word,” writes Richard Mark Sainsbury, “she must answer Yes to the second question, whatever she has answered to the first.”

| Science & Math

Reunited

http://books.google.com/books?id=jgQTAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

The son of William Henry Harrison, John Scott Harrison, served two terms in Congress but spent the rest of his life quietly on his farm in Ohio. At his interment there in 1878 it was discovered that an adjoining grave had recently been robbed, so Harrison’s son and nephew traveled to Cincinnati to seek the missing body.

They visited several medical schools but found nothing, and were about to give up when they noticed a tautened rope leading into chute in the dissecting room of the Ohio Medical College. On turning the windlass they brought up a naked body and discovered to their horror that it was Harrison himself, his body stolen somehow from a guarded brick vault less than 24 hours after his burial.

By a curious further coincidence, Harrison’s son Benjamin himself eventually grew up to be president, making John Scott Harrison the only man in history to be both son and father of a U.S. president. But no one knows who stole his body, how, or how it came to be suspended in that dissecting room.

| Death · History

Shipshape

The captain of a freighter was notoriously strict. On one occasion the new first mate, whom he had just hired, became a bit too boisterous after hours, and the captain wrote in the ship’s log, “The first mate was drunk last night.”

The mate was an able, conscientious seaman, and he pleaded with the captain to strike this from the record. He had never been drunk before, he did his job faithfully, and he was off duty when the offense had happened. He begged for leniency, pointing out that such a record would cloud his whole future.

“I can’t help it,” the captain said. “You were drunk last night, and I can’t change the fact. The record must stand.”

Wounded, the mate returned to his duties, and he stood the watch that night without complaint. In the morning he wrote in the log, “The captain was sober last night.”

| Humor

Intruder Alert

http://www.google.com/patents?id=dogjAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Thomas Cane’s “Santa Claus detector,” patented in 1996, combines yuletide spirit with cold-hearted espionage. Kids booby-trap the hearth as shown on Christmas Eve, and if the decorative ribbon is pulled during the night, the stockings light up, giving proof of the fat man’s visit. “This is particularly important to young children, providing reassurance that the child’s good behavior has in fact been rewarded by Santa Claus.”

The patent abstract says that the same technology can be used to monitor the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Presumably they’re working on countermeasures.

| Technology

PG Profanity

In October 1921, Rep. Thomas L. Blanton (D-Texas) was nearly expelled from the House of Representatives for inserting “grossly indecent and obscene language” into the Congressional Record.

Blanton opposed unions; he was quoting an argument between a union and a non-union printer. The offensive passage was called “foul,” “disgusting” and “derogatory to the dignity” of the House; the New York Times reported that it “contained matter so indecent as to cause criminal prosecution if it had gone through the mails in an ordinary way.” Brace yourself — here it is:

G__d D___n your black heart, you ought to have it torn out of you, you u____ s_____ of a b_____. You and the Public Printer has no sense. You k_____ his a____ and he is a d_____d fool for letting you do it.

The expurgations are in the original.

Blanton kept his seat but was censured unanimously by his colleagues. “In the corridor he fell exhausted, striking his head on the marble floor. He rested a few minutes on a couch, refused medical aid, and shuffled to his office, tears running down his face as he forced his way between spectators and members who were leaving the session.”

| Society

Better Homes

http://books.google.com/books?id=bmA4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA51&dq=burgess+%22i+wish+that+my+room+had+a+floor%22&hl=en&ei=ykGWTPOHOoL-8Aafg4mNDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false

I wish that my room had a floor!
I don’t so much care for a door,
But this crawling around
Without touching the ground
Is getting to be quite a bore!

— Gelett Burgess, The Burgess Nonsense Book, 1901

Here’s to the man who invented stairs
And taught our feet to soar!
He was the first who ever burst
Into a second floor.

The world would be downstairs to-day
Had he not found the key;
So let his name go down to fame,
Whatever it may be.

— Oliver Herford, Happy Days, 1917

| Poems