xenodochial
adj. friendly to strangers
One Foot in the Grave
When a surgeon took off Lord Uxbridge’s leg after the Battle of Waterloo, a local resident asked permission to bury the limb in his garden in a sort of shrine. This seemed like a good idea at the time, but it turned gruesomely bathetic: Visitors were shown the bloody chair on which Uxbridge had sat during the amputation, the boot he had worn, and finally a tombstone that read “Here lies the Leg of the illustrious and valiant Earl Uxbridge … who, by his heroism, assisted in the triumph of the cause of mankind, gloriously decided by the resounding victory [in 1815].”
By 1862 the grave was being mocked openly; a poem by Thomas Gaspey included this verse:
A leg and foot to speak more plain
Lie here, of one commanding;
Who, though his wits he might retain,
Lost half his understanding.
Get it? Things went downhill from there. A steady stream of paying customers visited the tomb, including the king of Prussia and the Prince of Orange, but in 1878 Uxbridge’s son discovered that the family were displaying only the naked bones, which had been exposed in a storm. Rather than rebury them as ordered, the proprietors merely hid them, and in 1934 a widow finally burned them ignominiously in her furnace. C’est la guerre.
Duck Soup
T.S. Eliot was a fan of Groucho Marx. The two maintained a correspondence through the early 1960s, when Groucho accepted a long-offered dinner with the poet.
Eliot wrote: “The picture of you in the newspapers saying that, amongst other reasons, you have come to London to see me has greatly enhanced my credit in the neighborhood, and particularly with the greengrocer across the street. Obviously I am now someone of importance.”
Above the Law
For an omnibenevolent being, God has a lot of legal trouble. Nebraska legislator Ernie Chambers sought an injunction against the deity in 2007, asserting that He had caused “widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants.” And in 2008 a Romanian prisoner claimed that his baptism had been a contract that God had broken by failing to protect him from evil.
God escaped both suits on technicalities. Chambers’ action was dismissed because God has no address and thus couldn’t be notified, and the Romanian suit was deemed to be beyond the court’s jurisdiction because God is not an individual or a company. So that settles that.
Et Tu?
Stonewall Jackson was killed by his own troops. As he was reconnoitering after the Battle of Chancellorsville, a Confederate infantry regiment mistook him for Union cavalry and fired. He died a week later.
The “Blowing Oak”
One of the natural curiosities of Hernando County, Florida, is an immense live-oak, situated near Brooksville, which seven feet from the ground measures thirty-five and one half feet in circumference; from this height to the top it has but two large limbs spreading out, and at the top measures eighty yards across. On one side of this singular work of nature is a small orifice from which issues a continual stream of cold air, showing some subterranean connection that is unaffected by what is going on above ground. No matter whether the wind blows east, west, north, or south, there is a constant current of cold air from this mysterious cavity.
— Albert Plympton Southwick, Handy Helps, No. 1, 1886
Oh
Why are 1980 pennies worth more than 1979 pennies?
For the same reason that 10 pennies are worth more than 9 pennies.
Head Count
On Dec. 30, 1888, Joseph Néel killed a Mr. Coupard on the tiny island of Île Aux Chiens off the Newfoundland coast.
France, which owns the island, shipped a guillotine from Martinique so that Néel could be beheaded on Aug. 24, 1889.
He is the only person ever executed by guillotine in North America.
Mistaken Identity
Suppose a brave Officer to have been flogged when a boy at school, for robbing an orchard, to have taken a standard from the enemy in his first campaign, and to have been made a General in advanced life: Suppose also, which must be admitted to be possible, that when he took the standard, he was conscious of his having been flogged at school; and that, when made a General, he was conscious of his taking the standard, but had absolutely lost the consciousness of his flogging. These things being supposed, it follows from Mr. Locke’s doctrine, that he who was flogged at school is the same person who took the standard; and that he who took the standard is the same person who was made a General. Whence it follows, if there be any truth in logic, that the General is the same person with him who was flogged at school. But the General’s consciousness does not reach so far back as his flogging; therefore, according to Mr. Locke’s doctrine, he is not the person who was flogged. Therefore the General is, and at the same time is not, the same person with him who was flogged at school.
— Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, 1785
A Canny Gambler
In 1693, Samuel Pepys wrote to Isaac Newton with this question:
“Which is more likely, to throw at least 1 six with 6 dice, or at least 2 sixes with 12 dice, or at least 3 sixes with 18 dice?”
To Pepys’ surprise, Newton found that the first choice has the highest likelihood. The probabilities are 0.665, 0.619, and 0.597 (rounded to three places).