All’s Fair

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:1stBaronetDering.jpg

When his second wife died in November 1628, Sir Edward Dering set his sights on a rich London widow. We know this because for some reason he kept a minute journal of his tactics:

Nov. 20. I adventured, was denied. Sent up a letter, which was returned, after she had read it.

Nov. 21. I inveigled G. Newman with 20s.

Nov. 24. I did re-engage him, 20s. I did also oil the cash-keeper, 20s.

Nov. 26. I gave Edmund Aspull [the cash-keeper] another 20s. I was there, but denied sight.

Nov. 27. I sent a second letter, which was kept. I set Sir John Skeffington upon Matthew Cradock [the widow’s cousin]. The cash-keeper supped with me.

Nov. 28. I went to Mr. Cradock, but found him cold.

Nov. 29. I was at the Old Jewry Church and saw her, both forenoon and afternoon.

Dec. 1. I sent a third letter, which was likewise kept.

Jan. 9. George Newman says she hath two suits of silver plate, one in the country and the other here, and that she hath beds of 100l. the bed!

This went on for five months, with the widow hesitating and Sir Edward plying connections with gifts, wine, and money. In the spring she chose another suitor. Edward did marry again — but he neglected to destroy the journal.

| Society

Twice-Tolled Tails

Mottoes on English bells, collected by John Potter Briscoe in Curiosities of the Belfry, 1883:

  • Fear God and obeai the Qwene. (Artlingworth, Northamptonshire, 1589)
  • Arise and go about your business. (St. Ives, Cornwall)
  • I ring at six to let men know/When too and from thair worke to goe. (Coventry, West Midlands, 1675)
  • A trusty friend is harde to finde. (Passenham, Northamptonshire, 1585)
  • Bee not wise in your owne conceits. (Yardley Hastings, Northamptonshire, 1723)
  • Labour overcometh all things. (Glentham, Lincolnshire, 1687)
  • Rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep. (Orlingbury, Northamptonshire, 1843)
  • When you die/Aloud I cry. (Owmby, Lincolnshire, 1687)
  • I call the quick to church and dead to grave. (Calstock, Cornwall, 1773)
  • When you hear this mournful sound/Prepare yourselves for underground. (Hough-on-the-Hill, Lincolnshire, 1683)

And “Mankind, like us, too oft are found/Possessed of nought but empty sound!” (Bakewell, Derbyshire, 1798)

| Death · Society

“Calamities of Genius”

Homer was a beggar; Plautus turned a mill; Terence was a slave; Boethius died in gaol; Paul Borghese had fourteen trades, and yet starved with them all; Tasso was often distressed for five shillings; Bentivoglio was refused admittance into an hospital he had himself erected; Cervantes died of hunger; Camoens, the celebrated writer of the Lusiad, ended his days in an alms house; and Vaugelas left his body to the surgeons, to pay his debts as far as it would go. In our own country, Bacon lived a life of meanness and distress; Sir Walter Raleigh died on a scaffold. Spencer, the charming Spencer, died forsaken, and in want; and the death of Collins came through neglect, first causing mental derangement. Milton sold his copy-right of Paradise Lost for fifteen pounds, at three payments, and finished his life in obscurity; Dryden lived in poverty and distress; Otway died prematurely, and through hunger; Lee died in the streets; Steele lived a life of perfect warfare with bailiffs. Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield was sold for a trifle to save him from the gripe of the law; Fielding lies in the burying-ground of the English factory at Lisbon, without a stone to mark the spot; Savage died in prison at Bristol, where he was confined for a debt of eight pounds; Butler lived in penury, and died poor; Chatterton, the child of genius and misfortune, destroyed himself.

— The Terrific Register, 1825

| Art · Society

En Garde!

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Jean-L%C3%A9on_G%C3%A9r%C3%B4me_-_Duel_After_a_Masquerade_Ball.jpg

Duel After a Masquerade Ball, by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1857).

For all their romance, duels got a bit silly. English poet Mark Akenside escaped a confrontation with a Counsellor Ballow only because one refused to fight in the morning and the other in the afternoon.

In France in 1843, two young men agreed to a duel using billiard balls at 12 paces. Melfant drew the red ball, warned his adversary, “I am going to kill you at the first throw,” and did precisely that, hitting Lenfant in the forehead.

Magnificently, two Frenchmen fought a duel by balloon over Paris in 1808, ascending from the Tuileries and firing blunderbusses at one another. M. de Grandpré sent a ball through M. Le Pique’s balloon, which plunged, killing him and his second. The lady’s response is not recorded.

| Society

Sack Race

After losing a bet in April 1864, shopkeeper Reuel Gridley carried a 50-pound sack of flour through the little town of Austin, Nev. In a saloon afterward, someone proposed selling the flour at auction for the benefit of wounded Union soldiers. The suggestion was adopted on the spot, and the winning bid, $250, came from a local mill worker.

When Gridley asked where to deliver the sack, the man said, “Nowhere — sell it again.”

Thus was born a unique enterprise: Three hundred people paid a total of $8,000 for the same sack of flour that day, and soon Gridley went on tour through other Nevada mining towns, raising tens of thousands of dollars by selling it repeatedly. By the war’s end he had extended the tour through California, New York, and St. Louis and raised $150,000, a fortune for the time. Mark Twain wrote, “This is probably the only instance on record where common family flour brought three thousand dollars a pound in the public market.”

| History · Society

Ninger Note

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ninger.jpg

Counterfeiting was a lot harder in the old days.

In the 1880s, Emanuel Ninger, known as “Jim the Penman,” drew $50 and $100 bills by hand, spending weeks on each one. Fifty bucks was a lot back then, about $2,000 in today’s money, so the effort was worthwhile. This also meant that his “work” ended up in the hands of rich people, and he actually gained a perverse following who realized the forgeries’ value as works of art.

He drew this note in 1896, just before the Secret Service nabbed him. He’d left a note on a wet bar, and the bartender saw the ink run. Ninger served six months and was forced to pay restitution of $1. He never forged again.

| Art · Crime · Society

“Note How Your Friend Laughs”

It is a well known and easily demonstrated scientific fact that different people sound different vowels when laughing, from which fact a close observer has drawn the following conclusions: People who laugh in A (pronounced as ah) are frank, honest, and fond of noise and excitement, though they are often of a versatile and fickle disposition. Laughter in E (pronounced as ay) is peculiar to phlegmatic and melancholy persons. Those who laugh in I (pronounced as ee) are children or simple-minded, obliging, affectionate, timid, and undecided people. To laugh in O indicates generosity and daring. Avoid if possible all those who laugh in U, as they are wholly devoid of principle.

— Henry Williams, A Book of Curious Facts, 1903

| Oddities · Society

Small World

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_users_en_2007.PNG

Proportions of national populations who are Internet users:

  • Norway: 88 percent
  • United States: 75 percent
  • Canada: 67.8 percent
  • France: 53.7 percent
  • Spain: 43.9 percent
  • Greece: 35.5 percent
  • Peru: 25.5 percent
  • Russia: 19.5 percent
  • South Africa: 11.6 percent
  • India: 3.7 percent
  • Iraq: 0.1 percent
| Society · Technology

“Curious Will”

Among curious bequests to wives, that of John Lambeth, who died in 1791, is conspicuous for its bitterness. After declaring that ‘the strength of Sampson, the genius of Homer, the prudence of Augustus, the patience of Job, the philosophy of Socrates, the subtlety of Hannibal, the vigilence of Hermognes, would not suffice to subdue the perversity of her character,’ he bequeathed to his wife Elizabeth the sum of one shilling!

— Bizarre Notes & Queries, February 1886

| Death · Oddities · Society