Part 3
Burke got a stiff punching in the twenty-eighth, and from then on up to the forty-fifth round the contest was dull and uninteresting. At the end of the forty-eighth Burke was knocked down and was only saved by the call of time for the interval between rounds. The crowd whistled “Home, Sweet Home,” and at midnight many hundreds deserted the clubhouse for home. It was one of the poorest fights that had ever taken place in New Orleans, although both men were in perfect condition.
* * *
THE MAN WHO WAS “SEEN TO DEATH”
Wei Chieh, son of Wei Huan (286-312), was popularly known as “The Jewel” on account of his great beauty. At the age of five his handsome face and graceful form caused the populace to regard him as a supernatural being.
He joined the establishment of the Heir-Apparent of China, but during political troubles it was necessary for him to flee to the city of Nanking where he was exposed to the populace who crowded around him in such numbers and stared so hard that he was actually “seen to death.”
* * *
THE CLOCK OF HEAVEN
If the stars in the northern sky are visible, says _Popular Mechanics_, you can set your watch by them within fifteen minutes of the correct time and without the use of a complicated table. The polestar is considered as the center of a huge clock and the pointer of the Dipper, the hour hand. The numeral six will be below the polestar and twelve above. Taking the time as indicated by the Dipper’s pointers, you can add to that figure the number of months that have elapsed since the first of January to the nearest quarter month. The resulting sum is doubled and subtracted from sixteen and a quarter. If the result is more than sixteen and a quarter, subtract it from forty and a quarter. The answer is time in hours after noon. For instance, it is late September and the pointers of the sky clock correspond to the position of the hour hand at seven o’clock. Eight and three-fourths months have elapsed since New Year’s Day. This is added to seven, making fifteen and three-quarters. Double this is thirty-one and one-half. Subtracting from forty and one-quarter gives eight and three-quarters, or 8:45 P. M.
* * *
PUNISHMENT BY PROXY
In Germany during the nineteenth century all Princes of the blood had their “Prügelknaben”--that is, a boy who was brought up with the young Prince and who was spanked every time the Prince misbehaved.
* * *
MAKING WHOOPEE!
Lord Edward Russell was host at a party where 6,000 men got drunk. A fountain was used as a punch bowl into which 25 hogsheads of brandy were poured, and among the other ingredients used were 25,000 lemons and 1,300 pounds of sugar. London, Oct. 25, 1799.
* * *
THE KING’S ENGLISH
King George I, of England, could not speak one word of English.
* * *
BYE! BYE! BLACK SHEEP
During a storm in Lapleau, France, lightning struck into a sheep fold, killing every black sheep but leaving all the white sheep unharmed.
* * *
WHAT’S IN A NAME
All female rulers named Jane were murdered, became insane, or were deposed.
* * *
ALL THE NAMES OF GOD HAVE FOUR LETTERS
LORD English. JHVH (JeHoVaH) Hebrew. DEUS Latin. DIEU French. ADAT Assyrian. GODT Dutch. GOTT German. GODH Danish. GOTH Swedish. SORU Persian. ALLA Mohammedan. RAMA Hindu. DEVA Sanscrit. DIOS Spanish. ODIN Scandinavian. TEOS Greek. ZEUS Greek mythology. THOR Viking. AMIR Arabic. AMON Egyptian. PAPA Inca. ATON } Canaanish. ADNJ } AGLA Cabalistic. INCA Quechua. BAAL Phoenician. ISTR Persian. DEUS Portuguese. ILLU Syrian. ELAH Aramaic. KAMI } Japanese. SHIN } HAKK } ILAH } Hindustani. EZID } NEBO Chaldean. BRAM Aryan.
DAVID RICE ATCHISON WAS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES ... and slept through his term of office.
This unusual circumstance came about because the inauguration day of Zachary Taylor as President fell on Sunday, March 4, 1849.
President Polk’s term expired at the same time. However, Taylor did not take the oath of office until the next day--Monday, March 5th.
In the meantime, David Rice Atchison--as President pro tempore of the Senate--became the chief magistrate of the nation between the time of Polk’s retirement and Taylor’s inauguration.
This period came immediately after a very trying session in the Senate, and Senator Atchison always said that he slept all during his term as President.
* * *
THE RIVER OF VINEGAR
The Vinegar River (El Rio Vinagre) is found in Colombia in the vicinity of the active volcano Puracé. It is really a part of the Cauca River which rises in the southern part of the country near Ecuador and flows 680 miles north to the Magdalena.
The high acidity of the river is in part attributed to the proximity of the volcano. It contains eleven parts of sulphuric acid and nine parts of hydrochloric acid in every thousand, and is so sour that no fish can live in it.
* * *
THE BOY WITH OWL EYES
Giovanni Galanti, the sixteen-year-old Italian boy who has a peculiar affliction of his eyes which permits him to see at night but not in the day, attracted considerable attention during the month of April, 1928, when he tried to enter this country from Italy. The public health inspectors pronounced the youth a victim of Retinochoraiditis--the scientific term for “Day Blindness,” and refused to give him permission to land.
The boy’s parents live in Hermine, Pa.
* * *
THE BASE-STEALING RECORD
Jimmy Johnston stole 124 bases in one season--the modern record. However, Johnston compiled this high mark with San Francisco in the Pacific Coast League where the season is long. Johnston played in 201 games.
This prize-pilfering performance resulted in Johnston’s going up to the major leagues where he was a star for a number of years with Brooklyn. He is now manager of the Chattanooga Club in the Southern League.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS--AND A DAY
The first hundred years are the hardest, it is said, and Jean Baptiste Mouron, of Toulon, should know. He served a full sentence of “100 years and a day” as a galley slave!
Jean Baptiste Mouron of Toulon was a flaming youth. In 1684, when but 17 years of age, he was convicted of incendiarism and sentenced to the depths of a galley ship to slave his life away. Exactly one hundred years and a day later, a tottering old man shambled unsteadily ashore in the town of Toulon. It was Mouron. He had served his sentence in full--and the world was even with him once more.
It was the common practice of the Mediterranean countries to use convicts to man the oars of their galleys of war. However, Jean Baptiste did not pull an oar for long, as the use of galleys for war purposes had practically ceased at the time of his incarceration. The ships were moored as prison hulks in the different harbors--principally at Marseilles and Toulon, and Mouron was chained to a bench below the decks and left to rot with the ship.
They made the old man like it. Even as Bonnivard did the dungeon of Chillon, Mouron learned to love despair; and years later when Louis XV. suggested that he might go free, the gallant old “galérien” refused to leave his “Hermitage” until one day after a hundred years had passed.
“My very chains and I grew friends, So much a long communion tends To make us what we are:--even I Regained my freedom with a sigh.”
And he died 6 years after.
_Ref.: Memoirs of a Protestant, by Jean Marteilhes._
* * *
THE FIRST HUNDRED CENTURIES ARE THE HARDEST
The first hundred centuries will be harder still, no doubt. At the present time there is a man in jail in Mainz, Germany, attempting to serve out a sentence of 14,975 years.
Otto Nodling, a brewer, was recently found guilty of violating the tax laws in connection with his brewery and was sentenced to pay a fine of 82,000,000 marks with the alternative of a day in jail for every 15 marks of the fine unpaid.
Brewer Nodling declared his inability to pay, and was taken into custody in December, 1927.
He has only about 150 centuries more to serve.
* * *
CONVICTED OF KILLING HIMSELF
Paul Hubert was convicted of first degree murder by a “Cour Correctionelle” of Bordeaux, France, and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to lifelong imprisonment and he was sent to the French penal colony in Guiana.
In 1860, after he had served 21 years in solitary confinement, the Procureur Imperial moved the French Cour de Cassation to review the case. The case was reopened and Hubert acquitted after the highest French Court found that his supposed victim was none other than himself!
The Hubert case is a “cause célèbre,” and a great argument for those who strive to abolish capital punishment.
* * *
THE STING OF DEATH
François de Civille was declared dead in 1562 and was buried. Six hours later--on the intuition of his brother--he was disinterred and revived. He lived seventy years longer, dying at the age of 105 from a cold contracted while “serenading the lady of his heart all night long.”
_From his tombstone in the cemetery of Milano._
* * *
THE MAN WHO HANGED HIMSELF
Radford Williams, an Englishman, was convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged. He mounted the scaffold with firm step, and as a last request, asked to be permitted to spring the death trap himself. He did.
He was buried at the conflux of four roads in the center of London with a stake driven through his heart, “and over him drives forever the uproar of unresting London.”
* * *
LIFE IS LIKE THAT
There are 68 deaths a minute, 97,920 daily, and 35,740,800 annually.
* * *
“TO ERR IS HUMAN”--
“_It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth._”--John Locke.
Or as Josh Billings said: “The trouble with most folks isn’t so much their ignorance, as knowin’ so many things that ain’t so.”
THERE IS NO LEAD IN A LEAD PENCIL. (It is graphite--one of the forms of carbon.)
THERE IS NO CORK IN CORK LEGS. (The name comes from Dr. Cork who invented them.)
A GUINEA PIG IS NOT A PIG NOR DOES IT COME FROM GUINEA. (It is a Rodent and comes from the western coast of South America.)
A BLIND WORM IS NEITHER BLIND NOR IS IT A WORM. (It is a lizard and has two conspicuous eyes.)
GERMAN SILVER CONTAINS NO SILVER. (It is an alloy of copper, nickel, and zinc.)
THE COFFEE BERRY IS NOT A BERRY. (It is a seed.)
A PENTHOUSE IS NOT A HOUSE. (It is a shed attached to a building.)
A STEELYARD IS NOT A YARD NOR IS IT STEEL. (It is a regulator or balance.)
DRESDEN CHINA DOES NOT COME FROM DRESDEN. (It is made in Meissen.)
THERE IS NO RICE IN RICE PAPER. (It is made from pitch or wood pulp.)
THERE IS NO BONE IN WHALE BONE. (It is Baleen, an elastic substance found in the mouth of a whale.)
THERE IS NO TEA IN BEEF TEA. (It is an extract of beef.)
THERE IS NO KID IN KID GLOVES. (They are made of lamb skin.)
A PICKAXE IS NOT AN AXE. (It is a pick.)
TABLE SALT IS NOT SALT. (It is composed of chloride of sodium.)
THERE IS NO SODA IN SODA WATER. (It is water charged with carbonic acid gas.)
A CUTTLE FISH IS NOT A FISH. (It is an octopus.)
PANAMA HATS ARE NOT MADE IN PANAMA. (They are manufactured in Ecuador.)
THE FLYING FOX IS NOT A FOX. (It is a large bat.)
HUDSON BAY IS NOT A BAY. (It is an inland sea.)
THERE IS NO CHAMOIS IN CHAMOIS LEATHER. (It is made from the flesh side of sheep skin.)
THERE IS NO CAMEL’S HAIR IN A CAMEL’S HAIR BRUSH. (The brushes are made from the hair of squirrels.)
FRENCH BEANS DO NOT COME FROM FRANCE. (They are grown in India.)
A TITMOUSE IS NOT A MOUSE. (It is a small bird.)
WORMWOOD IS NOT WOOD--NOR IS IT A WORM. (It is an aromatic bitter plant.)
THE LADY-BIRD IS NOT A BIRD. (It is a beetle.)
A PRAIRIE DOG IS NOT A DOG. (It is a Rodent.)
A WHALE IS NOT A FISH. (It is a Mammal. A Whale is warm-blooded, and suckles its young.)
A HUMMING BIRD HUMS WITH ITS WINGS.
THE SO-CALLED FOUR ELEMENTS--FIRE, WATER, EARTH, AND AIR--ARE NOT ELEMENTS. (They are compounds.)
THE GLASS SNAKE IS NOT GLASS--NOR IS IT A SNAKE. (It is a lizard.)
* * *
CHRIST WAS _NOT_ BORN IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA
He was born about four years before the period when the era began. A mistake in computation by a sixth-century chronologist is responsible for the common and erroneous understanding that Christ’s birth was in the year I.
* * *
AESOP DID _NOT_ WRITE “AESOP’S FABLES”
The famous Fables were written by a Graeco-Italian named Babrius several centuries after Aesop’s death. They should be called “Babrius’ Fables.” Some chroniclers declare that the famous Phrygian fabulist never lived at all. Anyway, the fables he is supposed to have composed are lost. Not one exists today.
Aesop’s repute was wide-spread, and the term “Aesopic” is generally applied to all moral tales having animal characters, thanks to Socrates and later writers who made versions of Babrius’s creations to which they gave Aesop’s name, thus bestowing immortality upon one sage while robbing another of his rightful laurels.
* * *
NERO DID _NOT_ FIDDLE WHILE ROME BURNED
In the first place the “fiddle” was not yet invented. Neither did Nero play any other instrument at the time because he was fifty miles away at his villa in Antium when the fire occurred, and did not return to the city until it was in ashes.
_Tacitus, the historian, is the authority for this statement._
* * *
THE NEEDLE OF THE COMPASS DOES _NOT_ POINT TO THE NORTH POLE
It points to the Magnetic Pole which is 1,500 miles west of the true North Pole.
* * *
THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO POINTS IS _NOT_ A STRAIGHT LINE
Lindbergh proved that when he flew from New York to Paris. Lindy flew what is known as “an arc of the great circle.”
* * *
NAPOLEON--LIKE MOSES--CROSSED THE RED SEA ON DRY LAND
Please accept Napoleon’s own word that he crossed the Red Sea “_à pieds secs_” (on dry foot). He says so in volume 1, page 2, of his _Mémorial de St. Hélène_.
The Miracle of Moses and the hosts of Israel passing over the Red Sea is a non-religious possibility. The point of crossing is near the town of Suez called Bahr es Kolzum (the Sea of Drowning)--Yam Suph in the Bible--and is only a mile wide and naturally shallow, due to sand bars.
The rise and fall of the tide is from five to seven feet. A strong wind blows northwest for nine months of the year, and often has a tremendous influence upon an ebb tide, causing it to vary three feet and more. (It is significant that both the Bible and Napoleon mention a strong prevailing wind.)
A combination of the above facts: wind, tide, sand bars and the narrowness of the Gulf of Suez would indicate that Napoleon told the truth. Besides, a number of Bible critics, both worldly and ecclesiastical, bear out his statement. I refer you to: _Biblical Encyclopedia_ ... under Red Sea; _Egypt_, by Bishop Charles Seymour Robinson, page 85, volume 1, and many others.
I have seen the point of passing myself. It is now about the same distance in width, but has been dredged out in a channel to a depth of thirty-five feet.
SELLING THE WORLD
After the death of Pertinax the Roman World was offered for sale at auction by the all-powerful Prætorian Guard. Didius Salvius Julianus Marcus, a wealthy Roman merchant, outbid all others, and the world was knocked down to him after he paid the equivalent of $5,000,000 in gold on March 28, 193 A.D. The Roman Senate took the oath of loyalty to him.
When the Roman Legions stationed in Great Britain learned of the disgraceful deal they rose in indignation and, under the leadership of General Septimus Severus, hurried to Rome, where Didius was seized, deposed, and beheaded on June 2nd, 193 A.D.
Septimus thereupon became Imperator of Rome.
_See any Roman History or Encyclopedia Britannica under “Didius.”_
* * *
THE GOLDEN MAN
“El Dorado.”
How often have we heard that phrase. It means “the Golden,” and was originally written “El Hombre Dorado”--the Golden Man.
And there is a Golden Man!
Immediately after Columbus discovered the new world a horde of adventurers streamed across the Atlantic to seek their fortunes. Columbus and his men had told wild tales about the lands that they had found and the wild army of Conquistadores that followed them expected to gather wealth with ease. These valiant old Spaniards came with no altruistic motives. They may have carried a cross in one hand but they held a sword in the other, and their motive was more a lust for gold than the love of God.
Among the first tales told them as they reached the Spanish Main, was the story of El Hombre Dorado--the Man of Gold. They were told by the Islanders of the Caribbean that there was a man of pure gold who lived in wondrous splendor somewhere to the south.
These Spaniards were told this story for several reasons ... the most important of which was the impatient desire of the natives to be rid of these strange white men.
The simplest method of ridding themselves of the troublesome white men was to tell them about gold. Gold to the natives of new America meant nothing. Gold had no pecuniary value. To the natives of the new world gold was simply an ornament and they thought the Spanish crazy because this bright metal held such a lure for them.
It was a fetish, they thought, (and they were right) so whenever the bearded white men came down upon them they only pointed southward and hinted about the “Golden Man.” They continually described El Dorado as easy to be reached and situated at no considerable distance. It was like a phantom that seemed to fly before the Spaniards and to call on them unceasingly. It is in the nature of man, wandering on the earth, to figure himself happiness beyond the region which he knows. The shining lure of gold glowed brightly in the darkness of this unknown land. A will o’ the wisp.
But they were not altogether wrong.
There was a Golden Man! “El Hombre Dorado” did exist--and he doubtless exists to this day. The Guatavita Indians near Quito had a religious ceremony in which their King gilded himself with gold dust and went into a lake amid the mountains. Every morning before he made his sacrifice this ruler caused powder of gold to be dusted on over a coating of grease which made him shine in the sun like a true “Hombre Dorado.”
* * *
THE WALKING HALF-MOONS
Around and around, in and out, but always upward goes the ferrocarril of Peru. Soon the river in the Tambo valley comes into view--a strip of Eden amidst Sahara; a long brush-stroke of green on a barren canvas; a vivid testimony to the fatal fact that all Peru needs is a drink of water to make her domain a Paradise.
Upward and onward we go among the burning mountains, which have not tasted a drop of rain in a thousand years, until the highland desert of La Joya comes into view. Looking backward we can sometimes see the silvery sheen of the Pacific glistening in the descending sun some sixty miles away.
TRUE AS AN HOUR-GLASS
Spreading before us are the famous walking half-moons of La Joya. They are crescent-shaped sand dunes ranging from about 100 feet in width to 15 feet in height, and of such exact shape that no human agency could make them mathematically more perfect than the constant winds of this plateau. This unfailing wind is the true explanation of why the dunes creep across the desert in a true northerly course at an even rate of fifty to sixty feet a year.
The wind, always blowing from one direction, blows the ashen colored sand up the convex side of the crescent from whence it drifts down into the hollow side in such perfect and regular fashion that the entire dune seems to creep across the plateau without a single variation in size or shape, and with a movement that marks the years with the same accuracy that an hour-glass marks the hours.
One has to look back but half a mile to see where a dune was fifty years ago when this railroad was built; and if you will look back five miles you can see where it was when the Inca sent messages to his people that strange white men with hair on their faces were coming up from the sea.
I am traveling the same road that Pizarro trod when these very dunes were miles back. How I admire that villainous old fellow! What a man he must have been and what audacious courage he must have had!
The Spanish government had dispatched two vessels to the little island of Gallo, off the coast of Ecuador, where Pizarro and his expedition had stranded, with implicit instructions to bring back every Spaniard they should find still living in that dreary abode. However, Pizarro was not looking for succor--but success! Drawing his sword, he traced a line with it on the sand from east to west. He turned to the south and said, “Friends and comrades, on that side are toil, hunger, nakedness, storm, desertion, and death; on this side, ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its riches; here, home and poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south!”
So saying, he stepped across the line.
Thirteen followed him.
The boat sailed away, leaving this handful of men, without food, without clothing, almost without arms, without knowledge of the land to which they were bound, without a vessel to transport them to the mainland; here on a lonely rock in the ocean they remained with nothing but their avowed purpose of carrying on a crusade against the great empire of the Incas!
The glistening crescents of sand have traveled many miles since the days of Pizarro and his valiant crew--and they will travel many miles before we see their like again.
Thus Pizarro came down to Peru and robbed the Incas.