Post Haste

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Letter_to_Russia_with_krokozyabry.jpg

In 2002 a Russian student emailed her postal address to a friend in France so that she could send her a Harry Potter book. Unfortunately the French friend’s email program was not set up to display Cyrillic characters; instead, it produced diacritics from the Western character set. Apparently not realizing the error, the French girl copied them down and mailed the package. Postal employees realized what had happened, deciphered the address, and delivered the book successfully. (Thanks, Nicholas.)

Readers of the Strand seemed to delight in torturing the post office. In 1908 one mailed this card, which was delivered successfully, though postal officials said it took them 20 minutes to decipher it:

http://books.google.com/books?id=4ZMkAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

The address reads “Hemhigheses Hemhayary Achhighelel, Teaarhehentea Veehayelelwhy, Oheldee Esteahayteahighhohen Achohyoueshe, Elhighseaachefhighhehelldee, Esteahayefefes.” “The puzzle … is quite an easy matter once the clue is obtained.”

This American letter was mailed late one Sunday night in 1902:

http://books.google.com/books?id=9awvAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

It was delivered correctly the next morning to Alfred Craven of Chattanooga, Tenn., who remarked, “I think it shows the efficiency of our postal service.” The profile is made up of the letters A. CRAVEN.

| Oddities

Limericks

An innocent maiden of Gloucester
Fell in love with a coucester named Foucester;
She met him in Leicester,
Where he merely careicester,
Then the hard-headed coucester just loucester.

There was a young lady of Worcester
Who urcest to crow like a rorcester;
She urcest to climb
Two trees at a time,
But her sircester urcest to borcester.

“There’s a train at 4.04,” said Miss Jenny.
“Four tickets I’ll take. Have you any?”
Said the man at the door,
“Not four for 4.04,
For four for 4.04 are too many.”

A certain young fellow named Beebee
Wished to wed with a lady named Phoebe.
But said he, “I must see
What the clerical fee
Be before Phoebe be Phoebe Beebee.”

| Poems

Alp Pal

tschingel

In 1868, American alpinist W.A.B. Coolidge received a unique gift — Tschingel, a 3-year-old dog with a preternatural passion for mountaineering. Though he was “not at all a dog fancier,” Coolidge began to take her on expeditions, and he watched as she climbed the Torrenthorn (2,998 meters), crossed the Gemmi pass (2,316 meters), and reached the summit of the Blümlisalphorn (3,664 meters) — where she slipped on the final slope and was caught by her collar as she slid toward the Oeschinensee. “She seemed to like it very much,” he wrote, “and, so we thought, the panoramas from tops, running on ahead of us to the summit of a peak, and then running back to encourage us by showing how near we were to the wished-for goal.”

So she joined the team. Over the next 11 years Tschingel and Coolidge climbed 30 peaks and crossed 36 passes. While climbing, she was roped to her companions by a cord passed through her collar; they made leather boots to preserve her feet, but she always kicked them off. As they climbed the Aletschhorn (4,195 meters), Coolidge wrote, “my aunt went up the Sparrhorn to look at us, and we waved Tschingel in the air as a sort of red flag.”

Her greatest conquest was the Breithorn, at 4,171 meters; when she descended from Monte Rosa, some English climbers elected her an “honorary lady member” of the Alpine Club. She died in her sleep in Surrey in 1879.

Forty years later Alpine historian Monroe Thorington visited Coolidge at his home in Grindelwald. “Just when I was leaving, he pointed to the door,” he recalled later. “There on a hook was Tschingel’s collar with the little bangles shining in the sun. Not a word was said, but Coolidge managed something resembling a smile.”

See The Dog of Helvellyn and Nine Lives Left.

| Oddities

Footwork

http://www.google.com/patents/US308467

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe … and presumably she needed to take her kids for a stroll occasionally. Iowa inventory George Clark patented this “child’s carriage” in 1884. The shoe is fitted with a lace cord, h, so that “the child or doll may be placed in the carriage and then held securely in place without danger of falling out.”

“If desired, the carriage may be provided with an umbrella, o.”

| Technology

Us Do Part

The will of John George, of Lambeth, who died in London in June, 1791, contained the following words: ‘Seeing that I have had the misfortune to be married to the aforesaid Elizabeth, who ever since our union has tormented me in every possible way; that, not content with making game of all my remonstrances, she has done all she could to render my life miserable; that heaven seems to have sent her into the world solely to drive me out of it; that the strength of Samson, the genius of Homer, the prudence of Augustus, the skill of Pyrrhus, the patience of Job, the philosophy of Socrates, the subtlety of Hannibal, the vigilance of Hermogenes, would not suffice to subdue the perversity of her character; that no power on earth can change her, seeing we have lived apart during the last eight years, and that the only result has been the ruin of my son, whom she has corrupted and estranged from me; weighing maturely and seriously all these considerations, I bequeath to my said wife Elizabeth the sum of one shilling, to be paid unto her within six months after my death.’

— Albany Law Journal, March 24, 1900

Lieutenant Colonel Nash got even with his wife by leaving the bell ringers of Bath abbey 50 pounds a year on condition that they muffle the bells of said abbey on the anniversary of his marriage and ring them with ‘doleful accentuation from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.’ and on the anniversary of his death to ring a merry peal for the same space ‘in memory of his happy release from domestic tyranny and wretchedness.’

— The Bar, November 1908

| Death · Society

Door Jam

You’re confronted with two doors. One leads to fortune, the other to death, but you don’t know which is which.

The doors are attended by two guards. One always lies, and the other always tells the truth, but again you don’t know which is which.

You can ask one question of one guard. What should you ask?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles

War and Peace

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wellington_Visiting_the_Effigy_of_Napoleon.jpg

The Duke of Wellington contemplates a wax model of the dead Napoleon at Madame Tussaud’s in London. Wellington was one of the exhibition’s first visitors, and this was one of his favorite figures.

Napoleon and Wellington were both born in 1769, and each had four brothers and three sisters. Each was educated at a French military academy, speaking French as a second language, and each lost his father during adolescence. In 1796 Napoleon changed his surname from Buonaparte to Bonaparte; in 1798 Wellington changed his surname from Wesley to Wellesley. Both admired Hannibal above all other military heroes and gave special attention to topography in making war. Both took Caesar’s Commentaries on campaign. Napoleon saw his first action at Toulon in 1793, Wellington in Holland almost precisely a year later. They shared two mistresses, and Wellington’s brother married Napoleon’s brother’s ex-wife’s sister-in-law. Each man received a great early opportunity through the intercession of his brother, and each came to prominence fighting on a peninsula.

“But there the similarities cease,” writes Andrew Roberts in Napoleon and Wellington (2001). “For by the time Wellington gained his first European command of any great note, in Portugal in 1808, Napoleon was already master of the continent.”

When Wellington died in 1852, Tussaud’s successor created a wax figure intended to reflect his visits to the collection. So visitors to Tussaud’s saw the wax figure of a real man who was viewing the wax figure of a real man.

| History

“Bifocal Trouble”

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Graffiti_of_two_smiling_males_somewhere_in_Gda%C5%84sk.jpg

The wise optician smiled and said:
“The upper half to look ahead;
The lower half whereby to read;
And thus one pair is all you need.
Have patience; in a week or two
Bifocals will not trouble you.”

I muttered as I left the shop:
“For distance vision use the top;
The bottom lenses you will need
When you sit down to write or read.”
I raised my right foot high in air
To mount a step which wasn’t there.

The level street became a hill;
I looked at people standing still,
And, since I used the lower glass,
There seemed no room for me to pass.
I turned a corner of the street
And knocked a woman from her feet.

And all that day throughout the town
My eyes kept looking up and down,
“That fellow’s drunk,” I heard men say
As I went reeling down the way.
With those bifocals on my face
The town became a crazy place.

Bifocal troubles curious are:
The far seems near, the near seems far.
You step from heights that ne’er exist,
And jostle folks you should have missed;
Until man grows bifocal-wise
He finds he can’t believe his eyes.

— Edgar Guest

| Poems

Spirit Reading

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:48-aspetti_di_vita_quotidiana_ubriachezza_Taccuino_Sanitatis_Shoes.jpg

In a certain town, 90 percent of the residents drink coffee, 80 percent drink tea, 70 percent drink whiskey, and 60 percent drink gin. No one drinks all four. What percent of the residents drink liquor?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles