Imp Perfect

Apparently bored in 1940, Gerald Tyrwhitt-Wilson sent a note to socialite Sibyl Colefax:

I wonder if by any chance you are free to dine tomorrow night? It is only a tiny party for Winston and GBS. I think it important they should get together at this moment. There will be nobody else except for Toscanini and myself. Do please try and forgive this terribly short notice. Eight o’clock and — of course — any old clothes.

“There was only one thing wrong about this heaven-sent epistle, which was written in longhand,” wrote Beverley Nichols. “The address and the signature were totally illegible. The address looked faintly like Berkeley Square, but it might equally have been Belgrave Square and the number might have been anything from 11 to 101. As for the signature she could not tell whether it was male or female.”

Lady Colefax called everyone she knew, but she never found the source. “There is something almost heroic in the thought of her small, thin, determined figure, sitting in her drawing-room in a hail of bombs, reaching out so desperately for the next rung of the social ladder that, for her, reached to heaven.”

| Hoaxes · Society

The Corruptible Club

In 1926, Mexican physician Luis Cervantes met Concepción Jurado, a 61-year-old schoolteacher who was impersonating a bearded Spanish count at a party. Impressed by her performance, Cervantes convinced Jurado to partake in an ongoing hoax. He invented a character, Count Carlos Balmori, and engaged prominent Mexicans to underwrite the story of Balmori’s wealth and power. Reporters planted stories of the count’s wealth and travels, bankers forged bankbooks, and judges and politicians provided official papers when needed.

Then, each week, Cervantes would choose a victim and stage a “Balmoreada,” a special evening in which the count would approach one guest and offer a fabulous sum in return for a ridiculous favor. He would induce a hacienda owner to shave his beard, a general to lead a revolution against Mexico, a Chilean diplomat to denounce his country, all in return for great wealth.

It’s said that only one guest in 20 refused the offer. As soon as the victim had accepted the proposal, Jurado would reveal her disguise and the dupe was admitted to the club, sworn to secrecy and invited to each future Balmoreada as a guest.

This went on for fully five years, until Jurado’s death of cancer in 1931. The society of the gullible greedy grew to include matadors, bankers, and police officials. Onetime President Plutarco Elías Calles is even said to have attended the meetings. Its members have now dwindled away, but Jurado’s tomb, in the largest cemetery in Mexico City, commemorates it with cartoons of both her personalities.

| Oddities · Society

The Paradox of Loyalty

I feel loyal to someone because of a bond of family, friendship, collaboration, or purpose. I’m moved by an idealistic sense of duty. But in supporting him I’m committing myself to the welfare of an individual person — and that’s practically the opposite of idealism.

“The first assumption casts the loyal agent as praiseworthy from an impartial point of view,” writes Irish philosopher Philip Pettit. “The second presents him as the very exemplar of partial concern. … To be loyal is to be dedicated to a particular individual’s welfare, and that seems to conflict with the idea that the loyal agent is idealistic or dutiful.”

See Meek Chic.

| Society

Brute Force

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

Richard Martin, MP for Galway, earned the nickname “Humanity Dick” for his efforts against the abuse of animals in the early 19th century. In 1822 he brought a donkey into court to display the scars of a beating, winning the world’s first conviction for animal cruelty.

Sadly, his cause was still being fought 80 years later, when the “brown dog affair” divided Edwardian England. A London physiologist had allegedly dissected a conscious terrier before 60 medical students. The physiologist won a suit for libel, but his opponents commissioned a bronze statue with a damning inscription:

In Memory of the Brown Terrier Dog done to Death in the Laboratories of University College in February 1903, after having endured Vivisection extending over more than two months and having been handed from one Vivisector to another till Death came to his Release. Also in Memory of the 232 dogs vivisected at the same place during the year 1902. Men and Women of England, how long shall these things be?

The statue occasioned four years of riots, vandalism, and controversy. Battersea Council finally had it melted down — but a replacement was erected in 1985.

| Society

Next!

Modern times have come to China — religious teachers must now fill out a government application before they can be reincarnated.

The decree, passed in 2007, requires that applications be submitted to four different government bodies. “The selection of reincarnates must preserve national unity and solidarity of all ethnic groups, and the selection process cannot be influenced by any group or individual from outside the country.”

“Work out your own salvation,” said the Buddha. “Do not depend on others.”

| Religion · Society

Medical Brief

The story about Dr. Abernethy and his lady patient is a classic. He was a man of few words, and the lady knew it. Being shown into his private office, she bared her arm and said simply, ‘Burn.’

‘A poultice,’ said the doctor.

Next day she called again, showed her arm, and said, ‘Better.’

‘Continue the poultice.’

Some days elapsed before Abernethy saw her again. Then she said, ‘Well. Your fee?’

‘Nothing,’ said the doctor, bursting into unusual loquacity. ‘You are the most sensible woman I ever met in my life!’

— William Shepard Walsh, Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities, 1892

| Humor · Society

Street Marketing

Physicists Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee used to discuss their work over lunch at a Chinese restaurant on 125th Street in Manhattan. One day they made an important insight into parity violation, and the two received the 1957 Nobel Prize in physics.

After the award was announced, one of them noticed a sign in the restaurant window: “Eat here, get Nobel Prize.”

| Science & Math · Society

Misc

  • As Britain prepared for World War I, officers were required to have their swords sharpened.
  • Wordsworth’s “The Rainbow” has an average word length of 3.08 letters.
  • sin 10° × sin 50° × sin 70° = 1/8
  • WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE = I SWEAR HE’S LIKE A LAMP
  • “I have always thought that every woman should marry, and no man.” — Benjamin Disraeli
| History · Language · Poems · Science & Math · Society

State of Torture

Does living in Iowa constitute cruel and unusual punishment? Hughes Bagley thought so — in 1982 he was paroled from federal prison on the condition that he live in Sioux City and remain within the federal district of northern Iowa for 12 years. He asked the court to set this aside so that he could return to Seattle.

“Although we might share Bagley’s enthusiasm for the Pacific Northwest,” wrote judge Herbert Choy, “we believe, and so hold, that it is not cruel and unusual punishment to require Bagley to serve his parole term in Iowa.”

| Society

Word to the Wise

There is a tradition to the effect that Noel Coward once sent identical notes to the twenty most prominent men in London, saying, ‘All is discovered. Escape while you can.’

All twenty abruptly left town.

— Paul C. Sherr, The Short Story and the Oral Tradition, 1970

| Society