Sleep Tight!

“For Children Three Years Old,” from Lessons for Children by Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Philadelphia, 1818:

There was a naughty boy; I do not know what his name was, but it was not Charles, nor George, nor Arthur, for those are all very pretty names: but there was a robin came in at his window one very cold morning — shiver — shiver; and its poor little heart was almost frozen to death. And he would not give it the least crumb of bread in the world, but pulled it about by the tail and hurt it sadly, and it died. Now a little while after, the naughty boy’s papa and mamma went away and left him, and then he could get no victuals at all, for you know he could not take care of himself. So he went about to every body — Pray give me something to eat, — I am very hungry. And every body said, No, we shall give you none, for we do not love cruel, naughty boys. So he went about from one place to another, till at last he got into a thick wood of trees; for he did not know how to find his way any where; and then it grew dark, quite dark night. So he sat down and cried sadly; and I believe the bears came and eat him up in the wood, for I never heard any thing about him afterwards.

September 30, 2011September 25, 2011 | Literature

Unquote

“If you start to take Vienna, take Vienna.” — Napoleon

September 30, 2011September 25, 2011 | Quotations

Just Visiting

The residents of Waterloo, Iowa, were surprised to find a 36-foot airship in their midst in April 1897. Constructed of canvas and wood and fitted out with “compressors and generators,” the ship was attended by several “operators” who told the townspeople that they had come from San Francisco. Five thousand Iowans surrounded the machine, but the men forbade them “to inspect the machinery, and any attempt to cross the rope fence … was met with an order to stay out.” When one of the “crew” said that “one man had fallen overboard just before landing,” the townspeople organized a party to search the river for him when they realized that “the entire affair was a joke.” (Des Moines Leader, April 11, 1897)

A rash of airship sightings swept the western United States that month. If the pilots were aliens, they had some endearingly quaint technology — here’s an account from the Houston Daily Post:

Merkel, Texas, April 26. Some parties returning from church last night noticed a heavy object dragging along with a rope attached. They followed it until in crossing the railroad it caught on a rail. On looking up they saw what they supposed was the airship. It was not near enough to get an idea of the dimensions. A light could be seen protruding from several windows; one bright light in front like the headlight of a locomotive. After some ten minutes a man was seen descending the rope; he came near enough to be plainly seen. He wore a light blue sailor suit, was small in size. He stopped when he discovered parties at the anchor and cut the ropes below him and sailed off in a northeast direction. The anchor is now on exhibition at the blacksmith shop of Elliott and Miller and is attracting the attention of hundreds of people.

September 30, 2011September 25, 2011 | Hoaxes

“The Siege of Djklxprwbz”

Before a Turkish town
The Russians came
And with huge cannon
Did bombard the same.

They got up close
And rained fat bombshells down,
And blew out every
Vowel in the town.

And then the Turks,
Becoming somewhat sad,
Surrendered every
Consonant they had.

— Eugene Fitch Ware

A soldier of the Russians
Lay japanned at Tschrtzvkjskivitch,
There was lack of woman’s nursing
And other comforts which
Might add to his last moments
And smooth the final way;–
But a comrade stood beside him
To hear what he might say.
The japanned Russian faltered
As he took that comrade’s hand,
And he said: “I never more shall see
My own, my native land;
Take a message and a token
To some distant friends of mine
For I was born at Smnlxzrskgqrxzski,
Fair Smnlxzrskgqrxzski on the Irkztrvzkimnov.”

— W.J. Lampton

September 29, 2011September 24, 2011 | Poems

Oops

In 1950, Stanford graduate student Robert E. Young realized that two chapters of Henry James’ novel The Ambassadors had been reversed in every American edition since 1903.

“Various discrepancies in facts and time are apparent on careful reading of the chapters in their present order,” he wrote. “On the other hand, the reversal of the two results in the complete elimination of these discrepancies.”

It turned out that the two chapters appeared in the opposite order in the English editions, and many American publishers adopted that order accordingly.

But James himself had not noted any error in revising the American text in 1909, and it’s possible to view that version as correct and the English text as reversed, if one allows for some chronological inconsistency.

The result is that there is no definitive text. “The mishap is particularly ironic,” Young wrote, “in view of the fact that James regarded The Ambassadors as his most perfectly constructed novel, his masterpiece.”

September 29, 2011September 24, 2011 | Literature

Immemorial

http://www.palmbeachbiketours.com/santa-fes-dennis-oleary-who-was-he/ — Image: Ken Steinhoff

New Mexico’s Santa Fe National Cemetery contains 16,000 headstones and only one statue, a life-size sandstone carving of Army private Dennis O’Leary, who died in 1901 at age 23.

Legend has it that O’Leary was stationed at lonely Fort Wingate, where he carved the statue himself, inscribed the death date, and shot himself. Military records show that a Pvt. Dennis O’Leary died of tuberculosis on this date. But then who carved the statue, and why?

September 29, 2011March 20, 2013 | Death · Oddities

Officer Material

Three privates in the Army Air Forces caused some confusion when they showed up at the advanced flying school at Mather Field in California in 1942.

Their names were Admiral C. Allen, General Rudolph Merriweather, and Lieutenant Garnes. (Berkeley Daily Gazette, Oct. 8, 1942)

General L. Phillips and Lieutenant Tisdale were inducted into the Army (as privates) in Knoxville, Tenn., in 1952. (Lubbock Evening Journal, March 20, 1952)

“Private Colonel Underwood found it convenient to drop the title when requesting hotel reservations while on leave,” wrote Elsdon Coles Smith in The Story of Our Names (1970). “He would say, ‘This is Colonel Underwood speaking.’ It usually worked.”

September 28, 2011September 23, 2011 | Language

Dog Tech

With J.R. Richards’ dog exercising device, patented in 1939, your pet can walk himself. Just strap him into the harness above the adjustable treadmill and he can “walk, run or exercise at practically any speed, according to his own desire, and without compulsion, preliminary training or instruction.” (The device is not powered, so the dog controls the pace.)

After his workout, send him through Clem Blafford’s automatic dog washer, below, which will spray him with soapy and then clear water and then blow him dry. “It is undesirable to remove the animal from the housing while it is still wet since the animal in such conditions generally shakes itself vigorously … and this results in the animal handler, the adjacent floor, walls and any others who may be in the vicinity being the recipient of the water.”