From Quizzism and Its Key. Quirks and Quibbles from Queer Quarters. A Mélange of Questions in Literature, Science, History, Biography, Mythology, Philology, Geography, etc. etc. With Their Answers, by Albert P. Southwick, A. M.; New England Publishing Company, Boston; 1886; pp. 90-128.
Part V
The air and words are as old as Cromwell’s time, with the exception that Yankee Doodle was then Nankee Doodle, for it was Cromwell that “stuck a feather in his hat,” when going into Oxford with a single plume fastened in a knot called macaroni. The tune was known in New England before the Revolution as Lydia Fisher’s Jig, and there were verses to it commencing: —
“Lucy Locket lost her pocket,
Lydia Fisher found it,
Not a bit of money in it,
Only binding round it.”
The regulars in Boston, in 1775 and 1776, are said to have sung verses to the same air: —
“Yankee Doodle came to town,
For to buy a firelock;
We will tar and feather him,
And so we will John Hancock,” etc.
The manner in which the tune came to be adopted by the Americans is shown in the following letter of the Rev. W. Gordon. Describing the battles of Lexington and Concord, he writes: “The brigade under Lord Percy marched out [of Boston] playing, by way of contempt, Yankee Doodle; they were afterwards told they had been made to dance it.”
A kind of tight trousers fitting the knee and leg, came into fashion about 1790, and were so called; the name, however, existed long before, but meant loose trousers, such, perhaps, as were worn by the “lean and slippered pantaloon” of Shakespeare, and probably by the pantaloons of the stage. “The pantaloon,” says Evelyn (Tyrannus; or, the Mode), “are too exorbitant, and of neither sex.” They were “set in plaits” not, it seems, unlike the fashion of Cossack trousers, which came into fashion in Europe after the French campaigns to Russia, and still more after the Russian campaign into France.
They are said to have adopted the name from Napoleon des Ursins, a distinguished character in Italian story, with one of whose descendants they became connected by marriage; and the first of the family to whom it was given was a brother of Joseph Bonaparte, the grandfather of Napoleon.
Research has proved that the germ of the thought occurs in Jeremy Taylor; that Lloyd and South improved upon it; 92 that Butler, Young, and Goldsmith repeated it; that Voltaire translated it into French; that Talleyrand echoed Voltaire’s words; and that it has now become so familiar an expression that any one may quote it, as Lord Holland has done, without being at the trouble of giving his authority.
Congress, on the fourteenth of June, 1777, “Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternately red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.” As to the origin of the combination, and who first suggested the idea, some have supposed that it might have been derived from the arms of General Washington, which contain three stars in the upper portion, and three bars running across the escutcheon. There is no means of knowing at this day whether this conjecture is correct, but the coincidence is rather striking. There were several flags used before this striped flag. In March, 1775, “a union flag with a red field” was hoisted at New York upon the liberty pole, bearing the inscription “George Rex and the liberties of America,” and upon the reverse, “No Popery.” On the eighteenth of July, 1778, General Putnam raised, at Prospect Hill, a flag bearing on one side the (then) motto of Massachusetts (now of Connecticut), “Qui transtulit sustinet” (“He who transplanted, still sustains”), on the other, “An appeal to Heaven.” In October of the same year the floating batteries at Boston had a flag with the latter motto, the field white with a pine-tree upon it. This was the Massachusetts emblem. Another flag, used during 1775, in some of the colonies, had upon it a rattlesnake coiled as if about to strike, with the motto, “Don’t tread on me.” (Present emblem of South Carolina.) The 93 grand union flag of thirteen stripes was raised on the heights near Boston, January 2, 1776. Letters sent from there state that the “regulars” did not understand it; and as the king’s speech had just been sent to the Americans, they thought the new flag was a token of submission. The idea of making each stripe for a State was adopted from the first; and the fact goes far to negative the supposition that the private arms of Washington had anything to do with the subject. The pine-tree, rattlesnake, and striped flags were used indiscriminately until June, 1777, when the blue union with the stars was added to the stripes, and the flag established by law. Formerly a new stripe was added for each new State admitted to the Union, until the flag became too large, when, by act of Congress, the stripes were reduced to the old thirteen; and now a star is added to the union at the accession of each new state.
This phrase is generally referred to Sir William Curtis, Baronet, Lord Mayor in 1795, and for thirty-six years Alderman of the Ward of Tower. He gave a toast at a dinner, “The three Rs.” Although a man of limited education, he was very shrewd, and not so ignorant as to suppose his presumed orthography was correct. He chose the phrase in the above form purely for a jocular reason.
As given by E. S. Creasy, M. A., they are: 1. Marathon (B. C. 490), where the ten thousand Greeks under Miltiades defeated Darius the Persian, with his one hundred thousand men, and turned the tide of Asiatic invasion. 2. Syracuse 94 (B. C. 413), in which the Athenian power was broken, and the extension of Greek domination prevented. 3. Arbela (B. C., October 1, 331), by which Alexander overthrew Darius and introduced European habits into Asia. 4. The Metaurus (B. C. 207), in which the Romans defeated Hannibal, and Carthage came to ruin. 5. Victory of Arminius A. D. 9), in which the Gauls overthrew the Romans under Varus, and established the independence of Gaul. 6. Châlons (A. D. 451), in which Attila, the “Scourge of God,” was defeated by Actius, and Europe saved from utter devastation. 7. The Battle of Tours (A. D. 732), in which Charles Martel overthrew the Saracens, and broke from Europe the Mohammedan yoke. 8. Hastings (A. D. 1066), by which William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, became possessed of the English crown. 9. Orleans (A. D. 1429), by which Joan of Arc (Joan Darc) raised the siege of the city, and secured the independence of France. 10. The Defeat of the Spanish Armada (A. D. 1588), which crushed the hopes of Spain, and of the papacy in England. 11. Blenheim (A. D. 1704), when Marlborough defeated Tallard, and broke off the ambitious schemes of Louis XIV. 12. Pultowa (A. D. 1709), in which Charles XII. of Sweden was defeated by Peter the Great, of Russia, and the stability of the Muscovite empire established. 13. Saratoga (A. D. 1777), in which Burgoyne was defeated, and the result of the American Revolution virtually decided by France becoming the ally of the Americans. 14. Valmy (A. D. 1792), in which the allied armies under the Duke of Brunswick were defeated by the French Revolutionists, and the revolution was suffered to continue. 15. Waterloo (A. D. June 18, 1815), in which Wellington defeated Napoleon. Every man who served in the British army at this battle was credited with two years’ service for the work of that day. Among the decisive battles of more recent date are Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863), 95 in the Civil War, and Sedan (September 1, 1870), in the Franco-Prussian war. From the former dated the decline of the Confederacy, and the latter resulted in the capture of Napoleon III. and his army.
A monstrous gun, several centuries old, formed of bars of iron, secured by great iron hoops, placed in the Castle of Edinburgh, on a lofty platform which overlooks a broad valley. The balls which this gun carried are more than a foot in diameter. It is now disabled, having been burst, many years ago, and injured beyond the possibility of repair.
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden was, and is, popularly called Guldkungen (the golden king), on account of his yellow hair and fair complexion.
The chief river of Abyssinia is the Bahr-el-azrek (Blue River), so called from the mud which it carries down.
The true etymology of this much-disputed word, in Henry III.’s time written Camahut, is to be sought in the Persian word Camahen, lodestone or fibrous hæmatite, the usual material for Babylonian cylinders, and in use there down to the times of the Cufic signets. The Arabs knowing no other motive for the engraving of stones than their conversion into talismans, gave the name of the one most frequently used to the whole class; and the Crusaders introduced it into all European languages in this sense. 96 Matthew Paris has “lapides quos cameos vulgariter appellamus” (“Stones which we commonly call cameos,” — cameo being an Italian word), which marks its foreign origin.
The unhappy prince was put in charge of a wretch (on the execution of his father, January 21, 1793), by the name of Simon, a cobbler, with the instruction that he was to see that the “dauphin had a short life.” Accordingly by the most severe treatment, by beating, cold, vigils, fasts, and ill-usage of every kind, he sank to the grave, dying on the eighth day of June, 1795.
Francis Abbot, drowned while bathing in the river on the tenth of June, 1831. A native of England, of Quaker parentage, he arrived at the falls in June, 1829, on foot, in a very singular costume, and after a week’s residence became so fascinated with the place that he determined to fix his abode on Goat Island. He sought seclusion, and wished to erect a hut, but the proprietor not thinking proper to grant his request, he took a small room in the only house, where he was occasionally furnished with bread and milk by the family, but more generally providing, and always cooking, his own food. In the second winter of his residence, the house changed tenants, at which he quitted the island and built himself a small cottage on the main shore, about thirty rods below the falls. He was a person of highly cultivated mind and manners, a master of languages, and deeply read in the arts and sciences, and performed on various musical instruments with great taste; his drawings also were very spirited. He had travelled over 97 Europe and parts of the East, and possessed great colloquial powers when inclined to be sociable. On entering his hut his guitar, violin, flutes, music-books, and portfolio were scattered around in profusion; but not a single written paper of any kind was found to throw the least light on this extraordinary character.
George I. died in his carriage near Osnaburgh, in Germany, on the eleventh of June, 1727, aged sixty-eight. He was the first king of England of the house of Brunswick, and had reigned thirteen years.
A society formed in Philadelphia on the thirteenth of June, 1780, for the purpose of supplying the soldiers with clothing. The city was divided into ten districts, and four appointed to each district to solicit subscriptions. Their donations amounted to two thousand and thirty shirts, and they obtained seventy-seven shirts and three hundred and eighty pairs of socks from New Jersey.
On the sixteenth of June, 1487, was the Battle of Stoke, England. Lambert Simnel, who had been crowned in Ireland, received the king’s pardon, and was made a scullion in the royal kitchen.
At the battle of Patray in France, June 18, 1429, when considering “discretion the better part of valor,” he ran 98 away. The English under Talbot were defeated by Joan of Arc, with the loss of fifteen hundred slain and ten hundred taken prisoners.
For the enthusiasm with which he maintained the theory that the earth was hollow, with an opening at each of the poles. He died in 1829.
The patent of Maryland, designed for George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, was, on his decease, filled up to his son, Cecilius Calvert. When King Charles signed it (1632), he gave to the new patent the name of Maryland, in honor of his queen, Henrietta Maria. Lord Baltimore held it of the crown of England as part of Windsor Manor paying yearly, forever, two Indian arrows.
Richard Brandon, the hereditary hangman, who died in misery. He was interred the next day, amidst execrations and insults, which he could not feel.
At the fête given in celebration of the marriage of Louis XVI. of France, on the twenty-first of June, 1770.
He disappeared on the “nones,” during the quirinalia, in a chariot of fire, patriis equis, as he was reviewing his people, July 7, 715 B. C. There seems to be no other way of 99 explaining this account, than that he was a victim of some of the elements.
A heroine who, with her regiment of women, immortalized herself at the siege of Beauvais, France, when invested by Charles the Bold, Duke of Normandy, with an army of eighty thousand men. The siege was raised on the tenth of July, 1472, and an anniversary is still held on this day in the memory of the famous Jeanne.
Balthazar Gerard, a Burgundian, shot the prince through the head as he was going out of his palace at Delft, in July, 1584. The assassin was put to death by the Dutch; but his parents were ennobled and richly rewarded by Philip II. of Spain. Philip had offered a reward for the prince’s murder, and five separate attempts had been made previously to kill him.
It was sunk in Lake Nemi, Italy, in the year 195. Explored by Marchi in a diving-machine on the fifteenth of July, 1535, it was found in a tolerable state of preservation, measuring five hundred feet in length, two hundred and seventy in breadth, and sixty in depth. This magnificent work was designed for the retirement of a prince celebrated for his magnificent taste, and were it possible to rescue it from its present position, or examine the interior, many valuable relics might be brought to light, to enrich the cabinet of the antiquarian, if not, to subserve the use of science.
100John Hewet and Sarah Drew, struck dead by lightning, July 31, 1718, while under the shelter of a haycock, in England, and upon whose graves the poets have scattered flowers. Pope’s epitaph on the couple is: “Near this place lie the bodies of John Hewet and Sarah Drew, an industrious young man and virtuous maiden of this Parish, who, being at Harvest-Work, were in an instant killed by lightning, the last day of July, 1718.” Part of Pope’s verses are: —
John had covered Sarah with hay, and was found with his arm around her neck, as if to protect her. Their parents had that morning consented to their marriage, to take place the next Sunday. They were buried the next day in Oxfordshire, and Lord Harcourt built a monument to them.
* [Elf.Ed. For the whole poem and an account of the incident, on this site, see Pope’s Letter to Lady Mary Montagu.]
The ship Columbia, Captain Gray, and sloop Washington, which sailed from Boston for the northwest coast of America and China on August 9, 1787. They returned in 1790.
By exposing on it the effigies of the men who had rendered themselves odious by their agency in procuring the passage of the Stamp Act. A copper plate thirty inches by 101 forty-two was fixed upon it, bearing the inscription in golden letters, The Tree of Liberty, August 14, 1765. Ten years afterwards the British cut it down, at which time it had been planted one hundred and nineteen years. They left nothing but the stump above ground, — the root they could not exterminate. It produced fourteen cords of wood. One of the party engaged in demolishing it lost his life.
On September 5, 1752, at Williamsburgh, then the capital of Virginia. The piece was The Merchant of Venice, and the evening’s entertainment closed with Lethe, written by Garrick. Thus Shakespeare had the first place, in time as in merit, as the dramatist of the Western world, and Garrick the honor of attending on his master. Lewis Hallam made his “first appearance on any stage” at this performance. He had one line to speak, apparently an easy task; but when he found himself in the presence of the audience he was panic-struck; he stood motionless and speechless, until, at last, bursting into tears, he walked off the stage, making a most inglorious exit. It is scarcely necessary to add that he was afterwards the hero and favorite in tragedy and comedy for nearly half a century.
They were picked up, September 1, 1611, by fisherman, being in a wretched condition. Their best sustenance left, while on their voyage, was seaweed fried with candle’s ends, and the skins of fowls. They were in such a state of starvation that only one of them had the strength to lie on the helm and steer the ship. It appears that they had quarreled among themselves, and met with a fearful retribution.
102Lucretia Maria Davidson, an American poetess, who died August 27, 1825, before completing her seventeenth year. Of her poems, some of which were written at the age of nine years, Amir Khan is the principal one.
On the night of September 12, 1776, when Washington with the remains of his army entered Philadelphia, after his disastrous defeat at Brandywine, a party of British soldiers made an excursion to Wilmington, took the Governor of Delaware out of his bed, and captured a shallop richly laden with public and private property, and the public records.
On August 18, 1587, at Roanoke Island. She was the granddaughter of White, the Governor, and was baptized on the following Sabbath, by the name of Virginia (Dare).
Frederick IV. of Germany, who died September 7, 1493. He was a weak, indolent, and superstitious monarch, who saw his subjects revolt with indifference, and was afterwards reduced to beggary.
General Burgoyne, having collected about thirty days’ provisions, crossed the Hudson on the bridge of boats 103 thrown across the river by his soldiers, on September 14, 1777, and encamped on the heights and plains of Saratoga.
Gerald Fitzgerald, sixteenth earl of Desmond, suffered attainder and forfeiture of 574,628 acres. His head was fixed on the bridge.
The Venetians under Morosini bombarded Athens, September 28, 1687, when a bomb fired the powder magazine kept by the Turks in the Parthenon. This noble building, which had stood almost two thousand years, and was then nearly perfect, was by this calamity reduced to a ruin, and with it perished the ever memorable remains of the genius of Phidias. In attempting to remove the chariot of victory, which stood on the west pediment of the Parthenon, it fell and was dashed to pieces.
At the town of Isabella, in the West Indies, on September 29, 1494, after a separation of fourteen years, during which the latter had paid an unsuccessful visit to the court of England.
The ship Niña, rigged with lateen sails, and usually ahead of the others, supposing she had discovered land on October 7, 1492, hoisted her flag, and fired a Lombardo. This was soon found to be an illusion; insubordination broke forth 104 among the crews, when Columbus, with the two Pinzons, commanders, was compelled to enter into this agreement with the murmurers.
On September 30, 610 B. C., the Lydians and Medes had just begun a battle, when an eclipse of the sun (foretold by the skill of Thales) spread darkness over the scene. The furious combatants paused in the heat of the onset, and gazed in mute terror at the heavens. A dark pall seemed to be hung over the sun, to signify the displeasure of the gods. These warlike nations, ignorant of the true cause of the phenomenon, and trembling at the fear of speedy judgment, hastened to ratify a peace. An alliance was formed between the contending parties, the daughter of Alyattes the Lydian king, and sister to Crœsus, was affianced to Astyages, son of Cyaxares; and the two monarchs, to render the contract binding, opened a vein in their arms and licked each other’s blood. There is much doubt existing concerning the correct date of this noted battle. Many writers say an eclipse of the sun prevented a battle, but in Taylor’s Manual of Ancient History, p. 62, it is stated: “The most memorable event of this war, which lasted five years, was the total eclipse of the sun, that took place in the midst of a battle, and so alarmed the contending parties that both the Medes and the Lydians fled in confusion from the field. A peace was soon after concluded.”
Rawlinson in his Ancient History (Harper’s ed., p. 52) is self-contradictory. He writes, that Alyattes, son of Sadyattes, made peace with Miletus, B. C. 620. Carried on defensive war against Cyaxares of Media, B. C. 615 to 610; died 568. He also states that Alyattes reigned 49 years: 609 to 560 B. C., when Crœsus succeeded, 560 to 546 B. C.. 105 Again on same page: “Crœsus was conquered by Cyrus, 554 B. C.
Professor Olmstead in Letters on Astronomy states that the eclipse was about 600 B. C. Steele’s Astronomy says the eclipse Thales predicted was May 28, 584 B. C. If so, there was a similar one in that region 602 B. C.. Conflicting statements considered, the date 602 B. C. bears the best authority. The date 610 B. C. is given, as is well known, in several text-books, and for such reason is allowed to remain in the original statement.
Major-General Charles Lee, who joined the American army at the outbreak of the Revolution, but was suspended after the battle of Monmouth, dying in Philadelphia on October 2, 1782. He distinguished himself in 1762 under Burgoyne in Portugal.
In 1642, on the ninth day of October, when nine candidates took the degree of A.B.
On the island of Java. An eruption of this mountain occurred on the eighth of October, 1822, when immense columns of boiling hot mud, mixed with burning brimstone, were projected from its top like a water-spout with such prodigious violence that large quantities fell at the distance of forty miles. Between the hours of two and five in the afternoon, a fruitful and thickly-peopled country was laid 106 under a crust of boiling mud, in some places to the depth of sixty feet. Five million coffee-trees were destroyed, eighty-seven canals, numerous rice-fields, one hundred and fourteen villages, and upwards of four thousand inhabitants. The scene presented a bluish, half-liquid waste, where bodies of men, women, and children, partly boiled and partly burned, were strewed about in every variety of death. It was followed by a rainstorm of four days’ duration, which inundated the country, when another eruption took place, more violent than the first.
A deluge in the island of Madeira, on the ninth of October, 1803, swept the city of Funchal, with all its inhabitants, into the ocean, leaving the rocky basis of the island bare. An infant was the only human being that escaped. The event is supposed to have been occasioned by a water-spout, which had burst against the side of the mountain, and discharged itself down the declivities upon the fated city.
Sir John Hawkins sailed from Plymouth, England, October 18, 1564, with four vessels for the African coast; and this was the first slave-trade adventure and the opening of that infernal commerce. The negroes were taken to Hispaniola and sold to the Spaniards.
The tenth of October, 1800, is noted in Paris as the day that an infernal machine was exploded, intended to have 107 destroyed Napoleon as he proceeded to the opera. The coachman, being intoxicated, drove faster than was his custom, and the engine exploded half a minute after the carriage had passed, killing twenty persons, wounding fifty-three, and shattering the windows on both sides of the street.
Columbus discovered the island of Guadaloupe, the largest of the Carib or Cannibal Islands, called by the natives Carucueria, on November 4, 1493. The drinking vessels of this fierce people were formed of human skulls.
According to Polyhistor, from Berosus, it began upon the fifteenth, or the ides, of the Assyrian month Doesia, which corresponds with November 9, 2348 B. C. This event was prefigured to the patriarch in a vision, when the Deity enjoined him to commit to writing a history of all things, which he was to bury in the City of the Sun, at Sippara. The same uninspired authority informs us that Noah was the tenth king of Chaldea, and that he reigned eighteen sari.
At Berlin, Germany, on the occasion of the marriage of the prince royal with the Princess of Bavaria, December 3, 1821.
Wedel, who with a single battalion of Prussians disputed the passage of the Elbe at Solnitz, for five hours against the whole Austrian army; and, under the fire of fifty 108 cannon, thrice repulsed the Austrian grenadiers, on November 19, 1744. Wedel lost two officers and one hundred men.
It was a fortnight from the fast and about November 20, 63, that Paul, by the ocular testimony of Luke, was cast upon the shores of Malta, where they wintered three months, until the period of navigation in March. Josephus, the Jewish historian, was wrecked in the same sea, and in or very nearly the same year.
Pope Clement VII., on the sixth of December, 1527, although by a treaty with the Emperor Charles V., he would have been liberated the following day.
In referring to the capture of Rhode Island (December 6, 1776) by the British under General Clinton and Sir Peter Parker, an English work states: “It is called the Eden of America, and celebrated (very naturally) for the beauty of its women.”
His property amounting to $250,000 was left to his son on condition that he should burn his body on the third day after his death. This patriot of South Carolina was distinguished for talent and activity, and succeeded Hancock as president of Congress. He was captured by the British while on a mission to Holland and confined a long time in the Tower of London. He died December 8, 1792.
109It was the twenty-fifth of November, 1783, — a brilliant day, — that an excited crowd surged and shouted about Mr. Day’s tavern in Murray Street, near the road to Greenwich. Cunningham, the cruel and vindictive British provost-marshal, stood at the foot of the flag-pole, from which floated the Stars and Stripes, the flag of the new republic. “Come, you rebel cur,” he shouted to Mr. Day, “I give you two minutes to haul down that rag — “I’ll have no such striped clout as that flying in the faces of his Majesty’s forces!”
“There it is and there it shall stay,” said Day, quietly but firmly. Cunningham turned to his guard. “Arrest that man,” he ordered. “And as for this thing here, I’ll haul it down myself,” and seizing the halyards, he began to lower the flag. The crowd broke out into fierce murmurs, uncertain what to do. But in the midst of the tumult, the door of the tavern flew open, and forth sallied Mrs. Day, armed with her trusty broom.
“Hands off that flag, you villain, and drop my husband!” she cried, and before the astonished Cunningham could realize the situation, the broom came down thwack! thwack! upon his powdered wig. Old men still lived, not twenty years ago, who were boys in that excited crowd, and remembered how the powder flew from the stiff, white wig, and how amidst jeers and laughter, the defeated provost-marshal withdrew from the unequal contest, and fled before the resistless sweep of Mrs. Day’s all-conquering broom.
It is probable that the original account of this “battle” is given by Lossing in his Field Book of the Revolution (vol. ii, note 5, p. 838), which is as follows:
“The British claimed the right of possession until noon of the day of evacuation. In support of this claim, Cunningham, the infamous provost-marshal exercised his 110 authority. Dr. Alexander Anderson, of New York, related to me an incident which fell under his own observation. He was then a lad ten years of age, and lived in Murray, near Greenwich Street. A man who kept a boarding-house opposite ran up the American flag on the morning of the twenty-fifth. Cunningham was informed of the fact, and immediately ordered him to take it down. The man refused, and Cunningham attempted to tear it down. At that moment the wife of the proprietor, a lusty woman of forty, came out with a stout broomstick, and beat Cunningham over the head so vigorously, that he was obliged to decamp, and leave the ‘star-spangled banner’ still waving. Dr. Anderson remembers seeing the white powder fly from the provost-marshal’s wig.”
Another incident happened on this day of an interesting nature.
Sir Guy Carleton, K.C.B., commander-in-chief of all his Majesty’s forces in the colonies, stood at the foot of the flag-staff on the northern bastion of Fort George. Before him filed the departing troops of his king, evacuating the pleasant little city that they had occupied for over seven years. The waves of the bay sparkled in the sunlight, while the whale-boats, barges, gigs, and launches sped over the water, bearing troops and refugees to the transports, or to the temporary camp on Staten Island. The last act of evacuation was almost completed, and as the commander-in-chief and his staff passed down to the boats, to the strains of martial music, the red cross of St. George, England’s royal flag, came fluttering down from its high staff on the northern bastion, and the last of the rear-guard wheeled toward the ship. But Cunningham, the provost-marshal, still angered by the thought of his discomfiture at Day’s tavern, declared that no rebel flag should go up the staff in sight of King George’s men. “Come, lively now, you blue jackets!” 111 he shouted, turning to some of the sailors from the fleet, “Unreeve the halyards, quick; slush down the pole; knock off the stepping cleats! Then let them run their flag up if they can.”
His orders were quickly obeyed, and the marshal left the now liberated city. In a few minutes, Colonel Jackson, halting before the flag-staff, ordered up the Stars and Stripes.
“The halyards are cut, Colonel,” reported the color-sergeant; “the cleats are gone, and the pole is slushed.”
“A mean trick, indeed,” exclaimed the indignant Colonel. “A gold jacobus to him who will climb the staff, and reeve the halyards for the Stars and Stripes.”
“I want no money for the job,” said a young sailor-lad, as he tried it manfully once, twice, thrice, each time slipping down covered with slush and shame. “I’ll fix ’em yet,” he said. “If ye’ll but saw me up some cleats, I’ll run that flag to the top in spite of all the Tories from ’Sopus to Sandy Hook!”
Ready hands came to the assistance of the plucky lad. Then, tying the halyards around his waist, and filling his jacket pockets with cleats and nails, he worked his way up the flag-pole, nailing and climbing as he went. And now he reaches the top, now the halyards are rove, and as the beautiful flag goes fluttering up the staff, a mighty cheer is heard, and a round of thirteen guns salutes the Stars and Stripes and the brave sailor boy who did the gallant deed.
The blood shed at the battle of Lexington is commonly believed and said to be the first drawn in the contest of the Colonists with the oppressive authorities of the British Government. Aside from the Boston Massacre, which occurred March 5, 1770, it will be found by reference to the 112 records of Orange County, North Carolina, that a body of men was formed, called the “Regulators,” with the view of resisting the extortion of Colonel Fanning, clerk of the court, and other officers who demanded illegal fees, issued false deeds, levied unauthorized taxes, etc.; that these men went to the court-house at Hillsboro’, appointed a schoolmaster named York as clerk, set up a mock judge, and pronounced judgment in mock gravity and ridicule of the court, law, and officers by whom they felt themselves aggrieved; that, soon after, the house, barn, and outbuildings of the judge were burned to the ground; and that Governor Tryon subsequently, with a small force, went to suppress the Regulators, with whom an engagement took place near Alamance Creek, on the road from Hillsboro’ to Salisbury, on the sixteenth of May, 1771, — nearly four years before the affair of Lexington, — in which nine Regulators and twenty-seven militia were killed, and many wounded; fourteen of the latter being killed by one man, James Pugh, from behind a rock.
Samuel Heinicke, a German educator, who was born at Nautschütz, near Weissenfels, April 10, 1729, and died at Leipsic, April 30, 1790. At the age of twenty-one, he joined the life-guards of the elector of Saxony, in which he served four years, and taught himself Latin and French. He afterward engaged in teaching, studied for a time at Jena, became a private tutor in Hamburg, and in 1768 chorister at Eppendorf. He had several years previously been successful in teaching deaf mutes, and now taught a deaf and dumb boy to speak. Large numbers of deaf mutes were consequently put under his care, and his reputation became so great that the elector of Saxony solicited him to return to his native country. He went to Leipsic 113 and on April 14, 1778, opened the first institution for the instruction of the deaf and dumb in Germany. He also took great interest in public education, and vigorously attacked the old system of learning by rote. After his death, his wife continued to direct the institution. — Appleton’s Encyclopædia.
In 1653, Dr. John Wallis, mathematical professor at Oxford, mentions that he had instructed two deaf mutes to articulate distinctly.
Jonathan Whipple, who was born in Preston, New London County, Connecticut, in the year 1794, is called “the self-taught teacher of deaf mutes.” He never attended school, taught himself, opened school, — becoming a successful teacher, — and then instructed a deaf mute to talk. He met with much opposition from the teachers of sign-language, but he persevered in his good work and taught others additionally as well. If he did not cause the deaf to hear, he caused the dumb to talk, and let in encouragement and sunlight upon many otherwise desolate lives.
Two years, five months, and twenty-two days, as the former ratified, unanimously, the Constitution on December 7, 1787; the latter, by a majority of two, on May 29, 1790.
James Rumsey, an American inventor, born at Bohemia Manor, Cecil County, Maryland, about 1743, died in London, England, December 23, 1792. In September 1784, he exhibited on the Potomac, in the presence of General Washington, a boat which worked against the stream by means of mechanism. He subsequently gave his attention to steam 114 as a motive power, and in March, 1786, propelled a boat on the Potomac by a steam engine, which secured motion by the force of a stream of water thrown out by a pump at the stern. In December, 1787, the experiment was successfully repeated on a larger scale. — Appleton’s Encyclopædia.
Samuel Champlain, — the founder of Quebec (July 3, 1608) and the discoverer of the lake (1609) bearing his name, — before Virginia was settled.
Great Britain did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until September, 1752, when, as eleven days had been lost, it was necessary to call the third of September the fourteenth, in order to bring the calendar and the seasons once more together. Consequently the two days are one and the same. This was done by act of Parliament, and leads to what is called Old Style and New Style. Prior to that time, the year had commenced on the twenty-eighth of March, but it was at the passage of the above law enacted that from and after the last day of December, 1751, the year should commence on the first day of January. This gives rise to such dates as 1764-5, etc. And, so long as both styles were used, this was necessary to prevent a misunderstanding of a whole year.
The Albatross, which weighs from twelve to twenty-eight pounds, with wings that are usually eleven feet from tip to 115 tip; but a specimen in the Leverian museum measures thirteen feet, and one was shot off the Cape of Good Hope that was seventeen and a half feet in extent.
Max Müller states that filibuster, the signification of which is a freebooter or pirate, is derived from the Spanish word filibote, a fast-sailing vessel; and that the Spanish word itself is a corruption of the English word flyboat. Filibuster is a word of Spanish origin about synonymous with buccaneer. In Holland is a little river called Vly, the peculiar sailing vessels on which are called filibotes. The word filibostero or filibustier was coined from the appellation, and became the designation of the adventurers under Lopez, who invaded Cuba in 1851. The soldiers of Kinney and Walker in Central America were also thus entitled; and filibuster became naturalized in colloquial and reporter’s English, first as a noun and then as a verb. It is slang, however. Filibustering is a cant term much used of late years in the legislative assemblies of the United States to designate the employment of parliamentary tactics to defeat a measure by raising frivolous questions of order, calls of the house, motions to adjourn, etc., in order to weary out the opposite party, or to gain time.
In the distribution of the days through the several months, Julius Cæsar adopted a simpler and more commodious arrangement than that which has since prevailed. He had ordered that the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, and eleventh months, that is, January, March, May, July, September, and November, should each have thirty-one days, 116 and the other months thirty, excepting February, which in common years should have only twenty-nine, but every fourth year, thirty days. This order was interrupted to gratify the vanity of Augustus (died A. D. 14), by giving the month bearing his name as many days as July, which had been named after the first Cæsar. A day was taken accordingly, from February and given to August; and in order that three months of thirty-one days might not come together, September and November were reduced to thirty days and thirty-one given to October and December. For so frivolous a reason was the regulation of Cæsar abandoned, and a capricious arrangement introduced, which it requires some attention to remember.
Arago, in 1829, discovered that while a galvanic current is passing through a copper wire it is capable of developing magnetism in soft iron, and thus made possible the electro-magnet.
We know of none. A very interesting table is given in the Smithsonian Reports for 1873, p. 186, as to the number of times a letter in different languages doubles itself in 10,000 words; and of the five languages, English, French, Italian, German, and Latin, the spaces for “w,” “x,” and “y” are left blank. The results given in this investigation are of importance in determining the casting of double types. The number of occurrences of a given letter in 10,000 words of any language determines the number of types of that letter in a font.
117Because a lower temperature is required to freeze salt water than fresh. Sea water will not freeze at 28° F., but fresh water freezes at 32° F., hence salt water outside the pipe may remain liquid while fresh water within is frozen.
In Fort Hill Cemetery, at Auburn, New York, with the inscription: “Who is there to mourn for Logan!” This Iroquois chief was born near that city. Close to his sepulcher is the burial lot of the Hon. W. H. Seward.
In 1819, Jethro Wood made the first cast-iron plow, and the Autocrat of the Russias sent him this testimonial of his appreciation of a much-needed invention.
Cardiff Castle is on the River Taff in Glamorganshire, and from its commanding position has probably been an important fortress ever since the Roman occupation of Britain. In any case it was a stronghold of the Normans, and here Robert, duke of Normandy, eldest son of William the Conqueror, was imprisoned twenty-eight years (1106-1134). The length of his imprisonment is a mooted question. The Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., vol. v, p. 92, states that Robert was kept in Cardiff Castle twenty-six years till he died, 1134. Smith, in his smaller History of England, p. 37, 118 says twenty-eight years. In Freeman’s History of England, p. 43, it is stated that Robert died in 1135, and such statement is given by many others. Collier, in British History, p. 56, writes that Robert was in prison thirty years and died in 1134. The Duke was defeated at Tenchbrai in 1106, and the probability is that twenty-eight years is the correct statement.
Pontefract (pro. Pompret) Castle was the scene of the reputed murder of Richard II.; but much doubt hangs over that transaction.
Fotheringay Castle is noted as the birthplace of Richard III., and the scene of the imprisonment, trial, and execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, in February, 1587.
Carisbrook Castle, on the isle of Wight, is said to have been a British and Roman fortress, and was taken by Cerdic, founder of the kingdom of the West Saxons, in 530. Its Norman character has been ascribed to William Fitz-Osborne, earl of Hereford, in William I.’s time. Here Charles I., was imprisoned in 1647, and here died his daughter Elizabeth, aged fifteen, probably of a broken heart, September 8, 1650.
Axiothea, who lived about 300 B. C. and also Lasthenia.
It appears that Robert Hooke (July 18, 1635-March 3, 1703) had conjectured that the figure of the earth might be spheroidal before Newton or Huyghens turned their attention to the subject. At a meeting of the Royal Society on the twenty-eighth of February, 1678, a discussion 119 arose respecting the figure of Mercury, which M. Gallet, of Avignon, had remarked to be oval on the occasion of the planet’s transit across the sun’s disk on the seventh of November, 1677. Hooke was inclined to suppose that the phenomenon was real, and that it was due to the whirling of the planet on an axis, “which made it somewhat of the shape of a turnip, or of a solid made by an ellipsis turned round upon its shorter diameter.” At the meeting of the society on the seventh of March, the subject was again discussed. In reply to the objection offered to his hypothesis on the ground of the planet being a solid body, Hooke remarked that “although it might now be solid, yet at the beginning it might have been fluid enough to receive that shape; and that although this supposition should not be granted, it would be probable enough that it would really run into that shape, and make the same appearance; and that it is not improbable but that the water here upon the earth might do it in some measure by the influence of the diurnal motion, which, compounded with that of the moon, he conceived to be the cause of the tides.”
Representatives of not less than six orders of Arthropods are more or less injurious. Among the mites, is the common Cheyletus eruditus, which attacks paper in damp places. Among the Thysanura, the Lepisma saccharina, which is found in closets, etc., where provisions are kept, feeds also on paper, but leaves untouched that which is covered by printing-ink. This species was not known until a few years ago to be at all injurious to paper or books. Of the Neuroptera, the termites are injurious to paper and books as well as to many other substances. Of the Orthoptera, as is well 120 known, the cockroaches (Blattidæ) frequently commit considerable ravages. Of the Lepidoptera, the caterpillars of Aglossa pinguinalis and Depressaria frequently do damage by spinning their webs between the volumes, and also by gnawing the paper with which they form their cocoons. Among the beetles are several species. The Hypothenemus eruditus, a very minute species, excavates tiny burrows within the binding. The death-watches (Anobium pertinax and Anobium striatum) surpass in their ravages all other species, gnawing and boring not only through the pages of the volumes, but also through the binding. M. Peignot mentions an instance of twenty-seven folio volumes (in a public library but little frequented), which, placed together on a shelf, had been so completely drilled, that a string might be run through the perfectly round hole made by these insects. As an antidote to the attacks of these insects, and preventive of such, vaporization is suggested: The infected volumes may be placed in a large glass case made as close as possible, and therein likewise may be set small saucers containing benzine, or a sponge saturated with carbolic acid. “A strong infusion of turpentine, expressed juice of green walnuts, and pyroligneous acid have also been employed successfully. Fumigation on a large scale may also be adopted, by filling the room with fumes of brimstone, prussic acid, or benzine; or an infected volume may be placed under the bell glass of an air-pump, and extracting the air, the larvæ will be found to be killed after an hour’s exhaustion.”
A corruption of the word hashshasheen, a name applied to the notorious military and religious sect that flourished under Sheykh-el-Gebel (Old Man of the Mountains), or 121 Hassan. When he required the service of any of his people, he first intoxicated them with hasheen or India hemp; and when the fumes of the weed had transported them into a fools’ paradise, they were ready for any deed of blood.
C. O. Whitman in an article in the American Naturalist demonstrates from actual observation during a voyage from San Francisco to Yokohama that “flying fish do fly,” and gives a very interesting and detailed account of their movements while in motion through the air. Professor D. S. Jordan also carefully examined the flight of an Exocœtus (E. californicus) in the waters of Southern California. He observed it best “in early morning when both air and water were free from motion.” “On rising from the water the movements of the tail are continued for some seconds until the whole body is out of the water. While the tail is in motion the pectorals are in a state of very rapid vibration, and the ventrals are folded. When the action of the tail ceases, the pectorals and ventrals are spread, and, as far as we can see, held at rest. When the fish begins to fall, the tail touches the water and the motion of the pectorals recommences, and it is enabled to resume its flight, which it finally finishes by falling in the water with a splash.” The flight was thought to sometimes extend to “nearly a quarter of a mile.”
Sir William Phipps (or Phips), who was one of twenty-six children; twenty-one of whom were boys. He was born in Woolwich, Maine, February 2, 1651, and died in London, February 18, 1695.
122In 1684, he went to England to procure means to recover a Spanish treasure-ship wrecked near the Bahamas. With a national vessel furnished him by the Admiralty he did not succeed; but during a second attempt, for which the means were supplied by the Duke of Albemarle, he recovered treasure to the amount of £300,000, one twentieth of this sum, or £15,000, being given to him as his share. As an additional reward he was knighted and appointed “high sheriff” of New England. In 1692, through the influence of Cotton Mather (1663-1728), he was appointed captain-general and governor-in-chief of the province.
A body does not fall in a perfectly vertical direction because the point from which it falls, in consequence of its greater distance from the earth’s center, describes a greater circle than the point to which it falls. It will, therefore, strike a point somewhat to the east — about one fourth of an inch for a fall of 150 feet. In a fall of five hundred feet, in the latitude of Chicago, the distance east of a vertical line from the place whence it fell would be about a third of an inch.
Rue des Pyrenées, which is 11, 345 feet in length; the shortest thoroughfare, Rue Brognart, being only seventy-five feet in length.
Traitors were precipitated headlong from this historic rock, during the “palmy days” of Rome, being dashed to pieces on the rocks below. The level of the ground at the 123 base has so risen within the past dozen centuries that the last attempted suicide (for it has become famous for such attempts) received only a few bruises.
Colonel William Moultrie, who was born at South Caroline in 1731, and died in Charleston, September 27, 1805. In the spring of 1780, Charleston was attacked for the third time by a strong land and sea force, and Moultrie, who was second in command, shared in the capitulation of the American troops. While a prisoner, he was approached by the British officers with offers of pecuniary compensation and the command of a British regiment stationed in Jamaica, if he would leave the American service. He replied: “Not the fee simple of all Jamaica should induce me to part with my integrity.” He was made Major-General on October 15, 1782. In 1785, he was elected Governor of South Carolina, and again in 1794.
Demetrius Phalereus, a distinguished Athenian orator, statesman, and writer, who ruled the city for ten years with great popularity, was compelled to flee, and all his statues were thrown down except one (307 B. C.). He was the last of the great orators of Greece.
The fatal dart was thrown by the hand of Gryllus, son of Xenophon, the historian, and leader of the ten thousand Greeks on their retreat from the battle-field of Cunaxa to the Black Sea. Gryllus was soon after killed in this battle of Mantinea (B. C. 363). Shortly after the javelin was 124 extracted from the breast of Epaminondas he expired, exclaiming, “All is well!”
There are many solutions to this question; a few are given: —
(1) In the distracted state of the country during the reign of Mary, a man named George Campbell attempted to steal the crown out of Elizabeth Castle. He did not succeed in getting away with the crown itself, but did manage to abstract nine valuable diamonds, and to get off with them out of the country. To replace these, a heavy tax was laid upon the people, which, being found burdensome and oppressive, was by them termed the Curse of Scotland; and until quite recently, in certain districts of Scotland, the card itself was called “George Campbell.”
(2) It is also said that diamonds imply royalty, being ornaments to the imperial crown, and every ninth king of Scotland has been observed for many ages to be a tyrant, and a curse to that country.
(3) Another explanation relates to the massacre of Glencoe. The order for this cruel deed was signed by the eldest son of the Earl of Stair, who was at that time Secretary of State for Scotland. The coat-of-arms of this family bears nine diamonds on its shield; and the indignant people, not daring to stigmatize the Lord of Stair as the Curse of Scotland, applied the term to his shield.
(4) Still another solution, and equally good, relates to the battle of Culloden, the result of which extinguished the hopes of the Stuarts, and was at that time regarded as a national curse. The Duke of Cumberland, who was known to be very fond of cards, and who always carried a pack in 125 his pocket, when he had made his victory of Culloden complete, took a card and wrote thereon a despatch announcing his victory; and that card proved to be the Nine of Diamonds.
(5) When the Duke of York, who shortly after became James II., took up his residence at Edinburgh, and enlarged the palace of Holyrood, he and his court introduced there a new game called “Cornette,” in which the nine of diamonds is the most important card. The Scots, who had to learn the game, lost tremendous sums in playing it, and from that circumstance the nine of diamonds was called the Curse of Scotland.
(6) It is also stated that on the night preceding the battle of Culloden, the Duke of Cumberland sent orders to General Campbell to give no quarter to the soldiers of the Pretender; that this order being despatched in great haste, happened to be written on a card, and that card the nine of diamonds.
(7) Among old whist-players, the nine of diamonds is often called “the curse of Scotland.” It is probably a corruption of the phrase, “Cross of Scotland”; and as the nine “pips” on the card were formerly printed somewhat in the shape of a St. Andrew’s cross, there seems reason for believing this to be the true origin.
(8) Some say that the “nine of diamonds,” in the game Pope Juan, is called the pope, the antichrist of the Scotch reformers.
(9) Its origin is owing, it is said, to a Scotch Member of Parliament, part of whose family arms was the nine of diamonds, having voted for the introduction of the malt tax into that country.
(10) In the Oracle; or, Resolver of Questions, 1770, it is stated that the crown of Scotland had but nine diamonds, and they were never able to get more.
126(11) This card is so called in allusion to the arms of Colonel Packer (Gules across lozenge), who guarded Charles I. on the scaffold, and was hated for his severities in Scotland.
The story of “the Butcher Duke” of Cumberland having written an order for the execution of a large number of Jacobites after the battle of Culloden, or any other sanguinary message, has been disproved by Dr. Houstoun.
It is doubtless to be found in Ecclesiastes, x, 20: “Curse not the king, no, not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bed-chamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.”
In Thoroton’s Nottinghamshire, vol. i, pp. 42, 43, the origin of the general opinion about the wisdom of these worthies is thus given, as handed down by tradition: —
“King John, intending to pass through Gotham towards Nottingham, was prevented by the inhabitants, they apprehending that the ground over which a king passed was for ever after to become a public road. The king, incensed at their proceedings, sent from his court, soon afterwards, some of his servants to inquire of them the reason of their incivility and ill-treatment, that he might punish them. The villagers hearing of the approach of the king’s servants, thought of an expedient to turn away his majesty’s displeasure from them. When the messengers arrived at Gotham, they found some of the inhabitants engaged in endeavoring to drown an eel in a pool of water; some were employed in dragging carts upon a large barn, to shade the 127 wood from the sun; and others were engaged in hedging a cuckoo, which had perched itself upon an old bush. In short, they were all employed upon some foolish way or other, which convinced the king’s servants that it was a village of fools.”
The name of Pompeia, the wife of Julius Cæsar, having been mixed up with an accusation against P. Clodius, her husband divorced her; not, as he said, because he believed the charge against her, but because he would have those belonging to him as free from suspicion as from crime.
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844), in his Pleasures of Hope, writes “Like angel-visits, few and far between,” but he evidently copied from Robert Blair (1699-1747), who, in The Grave, wrote:
And a similar line is found in The Parting of John Norris (1657-1711): “Like angels’ visits, short and bright.” In Norris’s Miscellanies, in a poem “To the memory of my dear Neece [sic.], M. C.” (stanza A, p. 10, ed. 1692), are the following lines:
A living man, lying on a bench, extended as a corpse, can be lifted with ease by the forefingers of two persons standing on each side, provided the lifters inhale at the moment the effort is being made. This curious fact was recorded by Samuel Pepys in his Diary, under the date of July 31, 1665.
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