The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine

In 1878, neurologist George Miller Beard noted a strange trait among the French-Canadian lumberjacks in the Moosehead Lake area of Maine — they reacted strongly when startled:

  • “One of the jumpers while sitting in his chair with a knife in his hand was told to throw it, and he threw it quickly, so that it stuck in a beam opposite; at the same time he repeated the order to throw it, with cry or utterance of alarm resembling that of hysteria or epilepsy.”
  • “He also threw away his pipe when filling it with tobacco when he was slapped upon the shoulder.”
  • “Two jumpers standing near each other were told to strike, and they struck each other very forcibly.”
  • “One jumper when standing by a window, was suddenly commanded by a person on the other side of the window, to jump, and he jumped straight up half a foot from the floor, repeating the order.”
  • “One of these jumpers came very near cutting his ‘throat’ while shaving on hearing a door slam.”
  • “They had been known to strike their fists against a red-hot stove; they had been known to jump into the fire and into water; they could not help striking their best friend, if near them, when ordered.”
  • “It was dangerous to startle them in any way when they had an axe or knife in their hand.”

The condition, whatever it was, ran in families, chiefly among men, and the jumpers were otherwise “modest, quiet, retiring, deficient in power of self-assertion and push.” Similar cases have since been observed in Malaysia and Siberia, but no one knows whether the disorder is ultimately neurological or psychological.

| Oddities

Air Travel

Remarkable outcome of a London séance, June 3, 1871, as reported in The Spiritual Magazine, July 1:

After a considerable time an object was felt to come upon the table, and when the light was struck their visitor was found to be Mrs. [Agnes] Guppy. She was not by any means dressed for an excursion, as she was without shoes, and had a memorandum book in one hand and a pen in the other. The last word inscribed in the book was ‘onions,’ the ink of which was wet, and there was ink in the pen. When Mrs. Guppy regained her consciousness, she stated that she had been making some entries of expenses, became insensible, and knew nothing till she found herself in the circle.

In his Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects (1696), antiquarian John Aubrey writes that a gentleman of his acquaintance, “Mr. M.,” was burned by the inquisition in Portugal in 1655 “for being brought thither from Goa, in East-India, in the air, in an incredible short time.”

| Oddities

Excelsior!

In 1917, when a young T.S. Eliot was working at Lloyds Bank in London, one of his superiors met the critic I.A. Richards on holiday in Switzerland.

The banker was relieved to hear that Richards thought Eliot a good poet. Some of his colleagues had feared that poetry was a poor grounding for a career in finance, but if the young man really enjoyed his hobby then perhaps it could help him in his work.

In fact, the banker said, “I don’t see why — in time, of course, in time — he mightn’t even become a branch manager.”

| Literature

The Paradox of Future Individuals

Any large-scale change in human behavior will literally change the human race: Because such a change alters the conditions under which individuals are conceived, our grandchildren in one scenario will be different people from those in another. This is particularly true in sweeping policy matters such as the environment, global warming, etc.

This seems to suggest that we needn’t feel guilty about our poor stewardship. The descendants who would benefit by our reform are different from those who will suffer at our neglect–and we owe a duty only to the latter.

| Oddities · Society

Bird’s-Eye Views

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

In 1903, German apothecary Julius Neubronner combined his two hobbies, pigeon fancying and amateur photography, into an innovative new undertaking. He fit a 75-gram camera to a pigeon’s breast and released it 60 miles from its cote. The bird flew home along a predictable route, and a pneumatic mechanism snapped an aerial picture.

A stunned German patent office rejected Neubronner’s first application as impossible, but by 1909 his photos were adorning postcards and winning prizes at the Paris airshow. The image below, of the Schlosshotel Kronberg, made a sensation because the photographer’s wingtips are visible at its edges.

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

| Technology

Jabberwocky Spell-Checked

`Twas billing, and the smithy toes
Did gyre and gamble in the wage:
All missy were the brogues,
And the mime rats outrage.

“Beware the Jabber Wick, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jujube bird, and shun
The furious Bender Snatch!”

He took his viral sword in hand:
Long time the Manxwomen foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tutu tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in offish thought he stood,
The Jabber Wick, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffing through the tulle wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The viral blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And, has thou slain the Jabber Wick?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O crablouse day! Callow! Allay!’
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas billing, and the smithy toes
Did gyre and gamble in the wage;
All missy were the brogues
And the mime rats outrage.

| Language

The Last Wave

On the night of Dec. 12, 1978, the German barge carrier München issued a distress call in the North Atlantic. A week’s search collected four empty life rafts, but the ship itself was never found.

Two months later another ship discovered the München‘s starboard lifeboat. Its supporting pins had been bent, suggesting that a huge force had passed along the München from fore to aft, tearing the boat from its supports.

That boat had hung 20 meters above the waterline. What did the München encounter that night?

| Oddities