Phelim O’More was indicted at a county assize, in Ireland, for a rape.

His defence was ingenious. He gave in proof that he had a garden of beans, in which the prosecutrix committed, nightly, trespasses and depredations.

That having caught her stealing his beans, he declared, if she came again she might expect such consequences as she swore to on trial.

She came, and he kept his word.

The Court were of opinion, that the notice and the trespasses in the bean garden purged the act of felony, by showing consent a priori in the prosecutrix — and the culprit was acquitted.

— Public Advertiser, Aug. 26, 1789

When bootlegger George Remus shot his wife in Cincinnati’s Eden Park in 1927, he claimed temporary insanity and a jury found him not guilty.

When the prosecution then insisted he be committed to an institution, he declared he was sane — as they themselves had just argued. An appeals court set him free.

“The decision is so farcical, such a joke,” he said, “that it makes a sane person laugh.”

Excerpts from the essays of 19th-century schoolboys, from Caroline Bigelow Le Row’s English as She Is Taught, 1887:

“Girls are very stuckup and dignefied in their maner and behaveyour. They think more of dress than anything and like to play with dowls and rags. They cry if they see a cow in afar distance and are afraid of guns. They stay at home all the time and go to Church every Sunday. They are al-ways sick. They are al-ways funy and making fun of boys hands and they say how dirty. They cant play marbels. I pity them poor things. They make fun of boys and then turn round and love them. I dont beleave they ever kiled a cat or any thing. They look out every nite and say oh ant the moon lovely. Thir is one thing I have not told and that is they always now their lessons bettern boys.”

“Timidity is a disease very prevelent among our American women. It is thought by them to be an ornament to their charms. How many young women faint by the sudden appearance of a rat from its hideing place! Oh! they do declare it’s impossible to live where these dreadful creatures make their homes they ask Ma cant she and wont she please to try to secure some remedy so they can be destroyed. You will see the young ladies leap up over stones and steps of great height so as to escape the barks of the dog, if they are walking with a friend of the male kind they will cling to the masculine arm and beseach him to walk so that she might loose sight of that horrible creature known as a dog.”

The high point of the Buckingham Palace switchboard operator’s day is when she puts the Queen through to the Queen Mother. ‘Your Majesty? Her Majesty, Your Majesty.’

— Jerrold M. Packard, The Queen & Her Court: A Guide to the British Monarchy Today, 1981

In 1962, Seattle’s Swedish Hospital began offering kidney dialysis to outpatients. Because the program could accept only 17 patients, it turned to an “admissions and policy committee” made up of largely of laypeople: a minister, a lawyer, a housewife, a labor leader, a state government official, a banker, and a surgeon.

In order to narrow the field of applicants, the committee considered whether a candidate was employed, had dependent children, was educated, had a history of achievements, and had the potential to help others. In its deliberations it would also evaluate the candidate’s personality, his personal merits, and the strengths and weaknesses of his family. “The preferred candidate was a person who had demonstrated achievement through hard work and success at his job,” wrote sociologists Renée Fox and Judith Swazey, “who went to church, joined groups, and was actively involved in community affairs.”

As word spread, observers raised questions about the ethics of the program. In spring 1963, the Seattle Times presented a picture of nine dialysis patients on its cover, with the heading “Will These People Have to Die?” A committee member protested, “We are picking guinea pigs for experimental purposes, not denying life to others.” But in 1972 Congress established federal support for anyone needing dialysis, partly in response to these concerns, and today the “Seattle experience” is remembered as a formative case in bioethics.