Mini-Update (Week of December 7)

December 11 - On this day, a letter about Saint Nicholas is published, concerning his yearly visit to the city of Leeuwarden, in the Netherlands:

"During a residence in the above town, some twenty years agone, in the brief days of happy boyhood, (that green spot in our existence,) it was my fortune to be present at one of these annual visitations. Imagine a group of happy youngsters sporting around the domestic hearth, in all the buoyancy of riotous health and spirits, brim-full of joyful expectation, but yet in an occasional pause, casting frequent glances towards the door, with a comical expression of impatience, mixed up with something like dread of the impending event. At last a loud knock is heard, in an instant the games are suspended, and the door slowly unfolding, reveals to sight the venerated saint himself, arrayed in his pontificals, with pastoral staff and jewelled mitre."

Sinterklaas, after praising the family's successes, then gave "his parting benediction, together with the promise (never known to fail,) of more substantial benefits, to be realized on the next auspicious morning."

"Before retiring to rest, each member of the family deposits a shoe on a table in a particular room, which is carefully locked, and the next morning is opened in the presence of the assembled household; when lo! by the mysterious agency (doubtless) of the munificent saint, the board is found covered with bons bons, toys and trinkets.

The writer, identified only as H.H., hopes that others appreciate the "relics of ancient observances, belonging to a more primitive state of manners," and offers the sentiment that "modern refinements, if they tend to render us wiser, hardly make us happier!"

H.H. could never have guessed that Sinterklaas' annual arrival to the Netherlands would be telecast and archived for all to see, but he might have relished the enduring joy in the spectacle. [EDBv1]

Image from Kenneth Verburg's Flickr page

Mini-Update (Week of October 26)

October 29 - For the young student, busy fashioning pumpkin faces over the past weeks, the very same skills that create a toothy grin may come in handy later on.

Consider the progression of the carving knife through the year-end seasons: from Halloween jack o'lanterns to Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas hams. For this day, Hone publishes a letter that examines the importance of the carver in history and literature.



The friendly command "Come, make yourself at home!" was designed to end idleness more that it was meant to spur merriment. Originally, the idea was to jump into the fray and carve for yourself.

It wasn't always this way. During the time of royal and noble ranks, it was the custom for dinner guests to sit at the table, arranged in order of ranking. Carving started with the host, at the head of the table, and continued as it was passed down to the other end. If you were poor, hopefully you weren't too finicky by the time the roast was slid in front of you:

[T]he fastidious would be sorry to cut it, after it had been mangled by the aristocracy above, then to be washed by the tears of famishing plebians...

At first, the cook was often the carver as well. But the latter eventually carved out a niche for himself, even if the Roman philosopher Seneca didn't think much of it. "Unhappy he who lives but for this one purpose, that he may carve fat fowls with neatness!," he wrote in his Epistle the 47th.

About a century later, the Roman poet Juvenal described the occupation differently, in his Fifth Satire:

The carver, dancing round, each dish surveys
With flying knife; and, as his heart directs,
With proper gesture every fowl dissects.
A thing of so great moment to their taste
That one false slip--had surely marr'd the feast

In time, Chaucer and Shakespeare would make references and allusions to the meat-carver. Within Spanish culture, proficiency in carving was possibly just as important as bravery on the battlefield. For it could show ingenuity and acuteness, in adapting the parts and pieces to the tastes and tempers of the served:--a wing for the ponderous--seasoning for the inexperienced--a merry-thought for the melancholy!

How important is the carver? Observe her face, and listen--is she festive, or solemn? Then pay attention to the rest of the dinner guests and the mood at the table. [YB]

Image from Lex in the City's Flickr page

Mini-Update (Week of October 12)

October 14 - Have you heard the latest buzz? For today, it's bee-master Wildman, famous throughout the west of England for his command over the honeysmiths.



On this day in 1766, Wildman demonstrated his prowess in handling bees, without harm to himself or the bees. Once provided with three stocks of bees, at the Wimbledon home of Lord Spencer in Surrey, he proceeded to show them hanging on his hat, with an empty hive in his other hand.

This was to show that he could take honey and wax without destroying the bees. [...] Then he returned into the room, and came out again with them hanging on his chin, with a very venerable beard.

He could make them enter and exit their hives, swarm in the air, and even "took them up by the handfuls, and tossed them up and down like so many peas." For the finale, he covered himself in bees and rode a horse around the grounds.

During the entire demonstration, no one at the Wimbledon estate even thought to swat at the bees. [EDBv2]

Image from ScienceDaily.com

Mini-Update (Week of September 21)

September 23 - How did platonic kissing get stopped in its tracks? Will the swine flu give it the kiss of death? Once a common part of greetings, it's now relegated to scenes from the French cinema and high-fashion caricature. Along with other varieties, "la bise," or cheek-to-cheek kissing, survives for the moment, despite recent warnings. A correspondent to Hone muses on this "obsolete custom," as it was once practiced in England:

It appears that, under the Tudor reigns, 'the women of this country took great offence if they were not saluted in the form of kissing.' [...] The 'embrace' was not left off, even between men, in the days of James I.; for the Spanish ambassador, being indisposed, it appears 'James visited him, and gave him a hearty embrace in bed.'

The correspondent has it on good authority that, in France, a friend or relation of any gender would resent not being greeted with a friendly kiss. So why did the custom die out in England?

The change of religion, from catholic to protestant, no doubt produced a great change in our national manners and habits, which our neighbors, still adhering to the old religion, have retained.

Before the Reformation, he surmises, "a very striking resemblance" would have been found between French and English habits, spectacles and pastimes. [YB]

Image from Current.com

Mini-Update (Week of September 7)

September 7 - Pining for the fjords? Beware, writes a correspondent on this day in 1825, of the Viriginia Nightingale and other painted birds for sale.

To the Editor of the Times

Sir,--I consider it necessary to inform the public, through your paper, that there is a fellow going about the town, (dressed like a painter,) imposing upon the unwary, by selling them painted birds, for foreign ones.

The trick consisted of showing a paper bag, and saying that he'd been working for a gentleman about to leave England for a foreign country. The gentleman gave the painter his birds, who in turn, would tell a small audience,

but I'm as bad as himself, for I'm going down to Canterbury to-morrow morning myself, to work, and they being of no use to me, I shall take them down to Whitechapel and sell them for what I can get.

Taking a bird out of the bag, he described it as 'a Virginia nightingale, which sung four distinct notes or voices.' Beautiful plumage, too: 'its head and neck was a bright vermilion, the back betwixt the wings a blue, the lower part to the tail a bright yellow, the wings red and yellow...the belly a clear green.' Money changed hands, all the birds were sold, and the fellow quickly departed.

In the course of an hour, continues the correspondent, a barber, a knowing hand in the bird way, who lives in the neighbourhood, came in, and taking a little water, with his white apron he transferred the variegated colours of the nightingale to [his white apron]. The deception was visible--the swindler had fled--and the poor hedge-sparrow had his unfortunate head severed from his body, for being forced to personate a nightingale.

A Licensed Victualler

Upper Thames-street [EDBv1]

Mini-Update (Week of August 31)

September 1 - Dark, rich colors fill the month. Saffron - and its butterfly - appear this month, and its stamens are dried into flat square cakes. The clown in the Winter's Tale, reckoning up what he is to buy for the sheepshearing feast, mentions 'saffron to colour the warden-pies.'

Wardens, a type of long-keeping cooking pear, were found at Cistercian Abbey of Warden, in Bedfordshire. Cooked in wine and nestled in a pie with saffron and ginger, the pears became a sweet filling.



Warden Pie

Take the fairest and best wardens*, and pare them, and take out
the hard cores on the top, and cut the sharp ends at the bottom
flat; then boil them in white wine and sugar, until the syrup grow
thick; then take the wardens from the syrup into a clean dish,
and let them cool; then set them into the coffin, and prick cloves in
the tops, with whole sticks of cinnamon, and great store of sugar,
as for pippins; then cover it, and only reserve a vent hole, so set
it in the oven and bake it: when it is baked, draw it forth, and take
the first syrup in which the wardens were boiled, and taste it, and
if it be not sweet enough, then put in more sugar and some
rose-water, and boil it again a little, then pour it in at a the vent
hole, and shake the pie well; then take sweet butter and rose-water
melted, and with it anoint the pie lid all over, and strew upon it
store of sugar, and so set into the oven again a little space, and
then serve it up. And in this manner you may also bake quinces*.

from "The English Housewife", Gervase Markham, Edited by
Michael R. Best, McGill-Queen's University Press, Canada,
1986, p. 104, #130 [YB]

Recipe from http://www.florilegium.org/

Image from http://www.tastesofbedfordshire.co.uk/

September 4 - Tricks for harvest-time include 'how to keep apples' - for up to a year - and an alternative to produce stickers.

For keeping apples, try the following:

Gather them dry, and put them with clean straw, or clean chaff,
into casks; cover them up close, and put them into a cool dry
cellar. Fruit will keep perfectly good a twelvemonth in
this manner.


For the cultivator of choice fruit, this trick may be handy, as a way around modern identification labels:

Let [him] cut in paper the initial letters of his name, or any
other mark he likes; and just before his peaches, nectarines,
&c. begin to be coloured, stick such letters or mark with
gum-water on that side of the fruit which is next to the
sun. That part of the rind which is under the paper will
remain green, in the exact form of the mark, and so the
fruit be known wheresoever found, for the mark cannot
be obliterated. [EDBv2]

Image from LAT's Emerald City Blog

Mini-Update (Week of August 24)

August 26 - As summer vacation ends, so does a life on this day. A pen in one hand and a sword in the other, Saint-Foix dueled mightily until 1776. His full name was Germain Francois Poullain de Saint-Foix, and was complicated as his name was long.

"In all seasons he slept upon a sofa, with no covering but a dressing-gown." Perhaps this explains his temperament: cranky one moment, good-humored the next. Early in life, he was a musketeer in the army. Even then, he wrote, and in time he completed twenty theatrical dramas, along with numerous essays - one of them, ruminations on the identify of the Man in the Iron Mask.


In society, Saint-Foix could be a nuisance. According to an anecdote published in 1843, while at a coffee shop, he noticed someone eating a custard with a piece of bread. "He exclaimed, 'What a wretched dinner!' and repeated the words till they drew the person's notice. A duel, as might have been expected, was the consequence, and Saint-Foix was wounded. Still he could not refrain from impudence. 'I own (he said) that you are brave ; but acknowledge, on your part, that it was a wretched dinner!' [YB]

Image from the Mystery Files

Mini-Update (Week of June 29)

June 30 - Talking heads abound on June 30. Before TV chatterboxes took turns skewering each other, St. Paul was martyred, via beheading, about now in the year 65. "As soon as the head was from the body," wrote a Romish writer, the head "said 'Jesus Christus fyfty tymes." Fountains of milk ran from the head, and somehow, lacking feet, the head also gave three leaps. A fountain also sprang from each jumping point. [EDBv1]

July 1 -
Now comes July, and with his fervid noon,
Unsinews labour. The swinkt mower sleeps;
The weary maid rakes feebly; the warm swain
Pitches his load reluctant; the faint steer,
Lashing his sides, draws sulkily along
The slow encumbered wain in midday heat.

A "swinkt" person is exhausted. Beat. Pooped.

July, once named Quintilis, got its new moniker from Mark Antony, who wanted to honor Julius Caesar - ruler of Rome and instigator of the new "Julian calendar." Eventually, his calendar was thought to be out of whack. Pope Gregory XIII, in 1582, introduced some corrections after it was noted that Easter didn't arrive when the spring equinox did. The Gregorian calendar has been adopted by most countries since then, while a few persist with the maddening Daylight Savings Time. [EDBv1]

Image from "The Past Beckons," Bittersweet Magazine

June 2 - A postcard picture:

A Morning's Walk in July

But when mild morn, in saffron stole,

First issues from her eastern goal,

Let not my due feet fail to climb

Some breeezy summit's brow sublime,

Whence Nature's universal face

Illumined smiles with newborn grace,

The misty streams that wind below

With silver sparkling lustre glow;

The groves and castled cliffs appear

Invested all in radiance clear;

O every village charm beneath

The smoke that mounts in azure wreath.

O beauteous rural interchange!

The simple spire and elmy grange;

Content, indulging blissful hours,

Whistles o'er the fragrant flowers:

And cattle rous'd to pasture new,

Shake jocund from their sides the dew. [EDBv1]

Image from Maison La Roque

Mini-Update (Week of June 22)

June 22 - What a mockery of democracy! Shall the results of a farce, dressed as an election, be allowed to stand? Yes, cried the citizens of Garrett.

Near Wandsworth, Garrett was a small village that hosted a wild event poking fun at all aspects of elections. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, candidates for the office of Mayor made ridiculous claims and promises. One famous mayor was Jeffrey Dunstan, a dealer of old wigs, who eventually lost his seat to Harry Dimsdale, muffin seller.

After several years of incumbency, and seeking to defeat his challenger, Dunstan pledged strict adherence to promises, as long as it was in his interest to do so. Among them, "to unmarry all those who choose it. This being a glorious opportunity for women of spirit to exert themselves, and regain their long lost empire over their husbands, I hope they will use all their coaxing arts to get me elected in their husband's place."

The pageant of foolishness was well attended; "a hundred thousand persons, half of them in carts, in hackney-coaches, and on horse and ass-back, covered the various roads from London, and choked up all the approaches to the place of election." Why such attention and attendance for a joke? Sir Richard Phillips suggests that famous actors of the day may have had a hand in this live example of political satire:

"I have indeed been told, that Foote, Garrick, and Wilkes, wrote some of the candidates' addresses, for the purpose of instructing the people in the corruptions which attend elections to the legislature, and of producing those reforms by means of ridicule and shame, which are vainly expected from solemn appeals of argument and patriotism." [EDBv2]

Image from the Numismatic Bibliomania Society's photostream

Mini-Update (Week of June 15)

June 15 - Seasoned dancers in Morris Code: turn, return, clap hands in front, back, and jerk the knee and foot alternately.

For June 1826, a letter presents an eyewitness account of morris dancing. At Rosoman-street, Clerkenwell, eight young men danced to the tunes emitted by pipe and tabor. "The dancers wore party-colored ribands round their hats, arms, and knees, to which a row of small latten bells were appended, somewhat like those which are given to amuse infants in teeth-cutting, that tinkled with the motion of the wearers."

Latten [horse-team] bells

Yes, these untutored clowns may not compare with professional acrobats, but do they not convey a sense of the "rural-born creature?"

Image from Weald and Downland Open Air Museum

June 16 - Some lines written at Ramsgate, composed at Willington-crescent ("a very pretty place, for either summer or winter residence"):

The East Wind

A summer sun in brightness glows,
But ah! the blighting east wind blows,
And weighs the spirit down!
All smiling is th' enlivening ray,
That tips with silvery tinge the spray,
O'er ocean's bosom thrown!

Yet, all inviting though it seems,
And tempts one forth to court its beams
I tremblingly retire:
For I am one who hate and dread
That eastern blast, and oft have fled
Its pestilences dire!

But the young shoots that round me rise
And make me old,--(though still unwise)
Feel no such fear as I
Brimful of joy they venture forth
Wind blowing west, south, east, or north,
If cloudless be the sky!

They tripping lightly o'er the path,
To them yet free from grief or scath,
Press on--and onward still,
With brow unwrinkled yet by care,
With spirit buoyant as the air--
They breathe at freedom's will

Where shipwreck'd seamen oft deplore
The loss of all their scanty store,
They rove at ebb of tide
In quest of shells, or various weed,
That, from the bed of ocean freed,
Their anxious search abide.

Proud and elated with thier prize,
(All eagerness with sparlking eyes,
The treasures home are brought
To me, who plunged in gloom the while,
At home have watch'd the sea bird's guile:--
Or, in a sea of thought,

Have sent my spirit forth to find
Fit food for an immortal mind,
Else of itself the prey!
And in th' abstraction of that mood,
Full oft I've realized the good,
We boast not every day.

Sometimes tho', with a courage bold,
As ever faced the arctic's cold,
I pace the Colonnade;
And then am soon compelled to beat,
And seek a cowardly retreat,
Within the parlour's shade!

Sometimes the place, warm shelter'd close,
Where Sharwood's decorated house,
From roof to step all flowers,
Shines forth as Flora's temple, where
Dominion falls to sea and air;--
Napoleonic powers!

There, snugly shelter'd from the blast,
My eyes right pensively I cast
Where famed sir Williams's bark
Lies moor'd, awaiting the time when
That Noah of citzens again
Shall venture on such ark:

But, ah! still round the corner creeps,
That treach'rous wind! and still it sweeps
Too clean the path I tread:
Arm'd as with numerous needle points,
Its painful searchings pierce my joints,
And then capsize my head!

So home again full trot I speed,
As, after wound, the warrior' steed;
And sit me down, and sigh
O'er the hard-hearted fate of those
Who feel like me these east-wind woes
That brain and marrow try!

Again upon the sea I look,
Of nature that exhaustless book
With endless wonder fraught:--
How oft upon that sea I've gazed,
Whose world of waters has amazed
Man--social or untaught.

And spite of all that some may say,
It is the place from day to day,
Whereon the soul can dwell!
My soul enkindles at the sight
Of such accumulated might;
And loves such grandeur well!

J.S. [EDBv1]

June 17 - Before giraffes strode the catwalks, one simply made clothes to fit. Purchased today in 1550 were several yards of wedding dress material. John Bowyer recorded the items, which themselves constituted a wedding present from him to his wife, Elizabeth Draper. Among the components:

-4 ells of of tawney taffeta for the Venyce gowne
-4 yardes of silk, Chamlett crymson, for a kyrtle
-One yard and a half of tawney velvet, to gard the Venyce gowne
-Half a yard of crymsyn satin, for the fore-slyves

Image from Adam & Dede's Wedding

Could it be that the practice of creating a truly unique wedding dress - something never to be worn at other gatherings - helped start a disposable culture? [EDBv2]

June 18 - "There was a sound of revelry by night...but hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!" A few lines from Byron to commemorate this day in 1815. The Battle of Waterloo arrives, and Napoleon's personal power is cut short. [EDBv1]

June 19 - Seems like only yesterday that the Magna Carta was approved by King John! Thus the rule of law was forced upon him by rebellious barons. [EDBv1]

June 20 - On this day in 1751, bringing home the bacon meant marital success. A year and a day after marrying, a couple could claim a side of pig - if they upheld their oath of domestic tranquility. John and Anne Shakeshanks won the prize and carried it home from the priory of Dunmow, Essex. The old oath went as such:

You shall swear by Custom of Confession,
If ever you made nuptial trangression:
Be you either married man or wife,
By household brawles or contentious strife,
Or otherwise in bed, or at boord,
Offend each other in deed, or word;
Or since the parish Clerk said Amen,
You wish't yourselves unmarried agen:
Or in a twelve moneths time and a day
Repented not in thought any way:
but continued true and just in desire
As when you joyned hands in the holy quire
If to these conditions without al feare,
Of your own accord you will freely sweare,
A whole Gammon of Bacon you shall receive,
And bear it henceforth with love and good leave.
For this is our Custome at Dunmow well known,
Though the pleasure be ours, the Bacon's your own.

The prize was first established centuries earlier, in 1111, but claimed only occasionally. It's still awarded today, every 4 years. Read all about it! [EDBv2]

June 21 - Is yesterday over yet? The longest day, June 21, kicks off summer with sunny verse:

Now cometh welcome Summer with great strength,
Joyously smiling in high lustihood,
Conferring on us days of longest length,
For rest or labour, in town, field, or wood;
Offering, to our gathering, richest stores
Of varied herbage, corn, cool fruits, and flowers,
As forth they rise rom Nature's open pores,
To fill our homesteads, and to deck our bowers;
Inviting us to renovate our health
By recreation; or, by ready hand,
And calculating thought, t'improve our wealth:
And so, in vigorating all the land,
And all the tenantry of earth or flood,
Cometh the plenteous summer--full of good. [EDBv1]

Mini-Update (Week of June 8)

June 8 - Upset at the races! About two centuries before Belmont Park, off-track intrigue supplied thimble-and-pea practicioners with ample funds. Today in 1825, charges of fraud are filed by a fellow who lost money at the Ascot Heath race course.

Conspiracy is at hand, for while the crowd watches the track, "a gang of seven or eight, or more, set up a table, but they all appear strangers to each other." It's here that peas or peppercorns are placed under three thimbles. Come take a look. Can you guess which one has, or lacks, a thimble? Of course you can. The proprietor loses, and "he pays the losings freely, and the other members of this joint-stock company affect to laugh at him."

Surely you can win a little money at this easy game. Look--the pea rolled out from underneath that thimble! That one--yes, I'll bet there's no pea under that one! But behold!--there it is, still, "the fellow having dexterously slipped another under it when the first rolled off the table." One variant of this ruse is the shell game, and a modern version replaces the old-fashioned thimbles with plastic cups. [EDBv1]

June 9 - Walk, don't run, to the local park or garden and see what summer offers. For June 9, a meditation on foot traffic in delightful spots. Kensington Gardens "has now suddenly started into vogue once more...and you may (weather willing) gladden your gaze with such a galaxy of beauty and fashion as no othe period or place. Vauxhall Gardens is a species to be seen at night. "Beneath the full meridian of midnight, what is like them, except some parts of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments?"


Letters have been written by schoolchildren, promising distant friends a visit during summer vacation--now, only to nail down the date! On Sundays, you might see whole regiments of girls and boys singing and walking, if you know where to look. Now, on fine evenings, go. Walk. [EDBv2]

June 10 - Blushing brides now have a lovely reception hall available, the old Maison de Dieu licensed by Henry IV on June 10, 1412. You'd better hurry, though, as it's being torn down in 1823. For centuries, this House of God provided food and clothing to the poor. It was built by Roger Thornton in Newcastle, England. His son "granted the use of its hall and kitchen for a young couple when they were married to make their wedding dinner in, and receive the offerings and gifts of their friends, for at that time houses were not large."

-Dear, where did you put the lovely set of bowls that your brother gave us? I've packed everything and I can't find them.

-Did you look in the hutch?

-Do you mean the chest at the foot of the bed?

-Yes, the hutch!

-Do you mean the shelves with the precious things on them?

-No, the hutch! [EDBv2]

June 11 - Today, a poem from Sir John Bowring on "The Blessings of Instruction:"

Hast thou e'er seen a garden clad

In all the robes that Eden had;

Or vale o'erspread with streams and trees,

A paradise of mysteries;

Plains with green hills adorning them,

Like jewels in a diadem?

These gardens, vales, and plains, and hills,

Which beauty gilds and music fills,

Were once but deserts. Culture's hand

Has scattered verdure o'er the land,

And smiles and fragrance rule serene,

Where barren wild usurped the scene.

And such is man--A soil which breeds

Or sweetest flowers, or vilest weeds;

Flowers lovely as the morning's light,

Weeds deadly as an aconite;

Just as his heart is trained to bear

The poisonous weed, or flow'ret fair.

Also a translator and an MP, foreign dictionaries would have been his main expense. Alas, he came and went before 1911. Not even a chance for a duck-house! [EDBv2]

Image from ALEXANDER ARGUELLES' GUIDE TO POLYGLOTTERY

June 12 - It's the time of the season for shearing. Step 1: dunk the sheep, one by one, into the pool where the mill-stream bends. Confused splashing! Then, after a moment, "their heavy fleeces float them along, and their feet, moving by an instinctive art which every creature but man possesses, gude them towards the opposite shallows, that steam and glitter in the sunshine." After a rude washing, "they stand for a moment till the weight of the water leaves them, and, shaking their streaming sides, go bleating away towards their fellows on the adjacent green, wondering within themselves what has happened."

Shearing-time, as a marker for rural festivals, outlived the "harvest-home" in some places. As a kind of work that relies on an assembly of people, and observed by the idlers of the village, shearing was an activity that naturally ramped down into eating and socializing.

This living picture was "pleasanter to look upon than words can speak, but still pleasanter to think of, when that is the nearest approach you can make to it." Once the old ways are clipped away, only the zombies remain--and wool they grasp and grab finds no audience with pleasured hands. [EDBv2]

Image from BBC - Wiltshire - History

June 13 - Before verse got high-falutin' and turned into poetry, there was doggerel. A few lines here and there could dress up a business sign. Witness this one, outside an alehouse, decorated with a picture of a man holding up a fish:

This salmon has got a tail

It's very like a whale,

It's a fish that's very merry,

They say it's catch'd at Derry;

It's a fish that's got a heart,

It's catch'd and put in Dugdale's cart.

Doggerel can come in the form of rude jokes - such as limericks - or serve as modern commentary. [EDBv2]

June 14 - Does Frommer's have this travel tip? For June 14, Hone publishes a letter showing how to get from town to town for free (with patience).

It seems a certain John Kilburn, quite broke down and without transportation, devised this system. "He applied to an acquaintance of his, a blacksmith, to stamp on a padlock the words 'Richmond Gaol,' whith which, and a chain fixed to one of his legs, he composedly went into a corn-field to sleep." When discovered by a law enforcement officer, he was whisked off to Richmond. The jailkeeper, knowing old Kilburn, said that he never harmed anyone, and the wise-acre produced a key. "He travelled in this way about one hundred and seventy miles."

Three dollars could certainly buy one a gallon of gas - but they could also buy enough paint for a fake inmate shirt. [EDBv2]

Hone's Breadcrumbs on Twitter

Have you already listened to the pilot episodes of "The Chronicles of William Hone?" Maybe you'd like a taste of the past, as William Hone intended to provide with his day-books.

Granted, these are only tiny morsels - but what might you discover if you follow them? See the Breadcrumbs column, at right, or follow them with your favorite electronic device.

Mini-Update (Week of June 1, 2009)

June 1 - The month opens with lingering traces of May. "Let all lovers of spring, therefore, be fully persuaded that, for the first fortnight in June, they are living in May," notes Leigh Hunt. A walk is in order, says Hone, in order to "step forward into the glowing presence of summer."



"To saunter, at mid June, beneath the shade of some old forest, situated in the neighborhood of a great town, so that paths are worn through it, and you can make your way ith easy in any direction, gives one the idea of being transferred, by some strange magic, from the surface of the earth to the bottom of the sea!"

Ovid, for some strange reason, assigns the first of June to "Carna," the goddess of the hinge:

" --- upon her power depends

To open what is shut, what's shut unbar"

At least one commentator, notes Hone, wonders about the connection with hinges. Is June the month of new opportunity? Perhaps a chance to correct past mistakes! [EDBv2]

June 2 - In 1759, one William Margarets confesses a crime: trying to raise the price of wheat by offering more dough than the poor can pay. It was done "by offering the sum of Six Shillings a Bushel for Wheat, for which no more than Five Shillings and Ninepence was demanded."

For this offense, Margarets had to proclaim his guilt in a public market. publish the same in several papers and pay a fine. "[I] testify my sincere and hearty sorrow in having committed a crime, which, in its consequences, tended so much to increase the distress of the poor, in the late calamitous scarcity," he wrote.

Why all the fuss about a higher price? In 1759, a drought in England diminished the supply of wheat. The government, having established controls on the price of certain staples of life, looked poorly upon those who would encourage sellers to raise prices. It was certainly not a free market - it had to constrain itself to the general public's purchasing power. Those seeking dominance over supplies, or unhealthy profits from meeting demand, had to stand in the midst of the populace and apologize. [EDBv2]

June 3 - Britain lost talent on this day in 1802. Madama Mara, age 52, sang with majesty, simplicity and melody. "She justly held every species of ornamental execution to be subordinate to the grand end of uniting the effects of sound sense, in their operations upon the feelings of her hearers." In other words, vocal pyrotechnics didn't make her career.

Her one defect was pronunciation. Born in Germany, she retained her accent, which was noticed by English critics. But "the fire, dignity and tenderness of her vocal appeal could never be misunderstood; it spoke the language of all nations, for it spoke to the feelings of the human heart." [EDBv1]

June 4 - Do celebrities truly get royal treatment? Here's one popularity yardstick-the number of old folks at your birthday party. On June 4, 1819, 46 old men feasted and rang bells for King George III. They didn't do it for the attention, as they staged their gathering 86 miles southeast from Windsor Castle, in Bexhill, Sussex.

A numerologist must have arranged the event. "Twenty five old men, inhabitants of the parish, whose united ages amounted to 2025, averaging eighty-one each (the age of the King), dined together at the Bell Inn, and passed the day in a cheerful and happy manner," writes Hone. The table was set by 15 fellows, whose combined ages averaged out to 71, and each of the half-dozen bell-ringers' average age was 61. After the private dinner, the doors were opened to 81 members of the public, who helped carry the celebration well into the night. There were bells on a hill, but George III, deaf and ill, never heard them ringing. [EDBv2]

June 5 - Fondness spurs some to climb about their beloved, and so, two youths climbed All Saints' Church in Stamford on June 5, 1814. A newspaper reported that they "ascended the steeple by means of the crotchets, or projecting stones on the outside of that beautiful and lofty style." It took them about 12 minutes to accomplish the feat, and before descending, young Richards "hung his waistcoat on the weathercock as a memento."

Do banks get this sort of affection? [EDBv1]

June 6 - Today marks the passing of a naval veteran who fought...Spain? In 1762, Admiral George Anson set out to circumnavigate the heavens, having conquered the globe about twenty years earlier. Only a quarter of the original crew returned with him to England, in the flagship Centurion (the other seven ships either turned back, broke down along the way, or were lost at sea).

Anson originally set out to reach the Pacific and capture Spain's territories. Though little was captured, he continued west until he reached the Far East (?) and managed to capture a Spanish galleon near the Phillipines. Upon finally reaching England in 1744, almost four years after his departure, Anson and the remaining crew were greeting with rewards - and alarm. So many men perished from scurvy, that Royal Navy surgeon James Lind launched a series of experiments with citrus fruits. Limey sailors would eventually owe their health to Lind. [EDBv1]

June 7 - TONIGHT! (1826) Fire-lover CHABERT swallows boiling oil, molten lead and relaxes comfortably in oven as rump-steak and leg of lamb roast! "He remained there," says a review in The Times, "for ten minutes, till the steak was properly done, conversing all the time with the company through a tin tube, placed in an orifice formed in the sheet-iron door of the oven. Having swallowed a cup of tea, and having seen that the company had done justice to the meat he had already cooked, he returned to his fiery den, and continued there until the lamb was properly done."

Monsieur Chabert (sometimes spelled "Chaubert"), was known as the Fire King and the Human Salamander - the latter appellation coming from the Greek words for "fire-lover," which had very little to do with the amphibian. Chabert, on the contrary, pursued a great many feats with fire, flammables, and poisonous by-products of fire. Impossible? Unexplainable by science? Hone, among others, had a menu of answers at hand. The "Booke of Secretes of Albertus Magnus" contained hints for such feats as exposure to fire:

Take the juyce of Bismalua, and the whyte of an egge, and the sede of an hearbe called Psillium, also Pulicarius herba, and breake it unto powder, and make a confection, and mixe the juyce of Radysh with the whyte of an egge. Anoynt thy body or hande with this confection, and let it be dryed and after anoynte it againe; after that, thou mayest suffer boldely the fyre without hurt.

This, wrote Hone, shows "that a man may continue to work great marvels in the eyes of persons who are uninformed, by simple processes well known centuries ago." By the way, you can find the juice of Bismalua at your local pharmacy or chemist's shop. [EDBv1]

Hone Mini-Updates to Begin

If you've had a chance to listen to the three pilot episodes of the "Chronicles of William Hone," you'll know that time flies by quickly! A perusal of Hone's various day-books demonstrates his own sensitivity to time and its effects. Progress comes and goes, the landscape changes, old customs die out and new ones step forward.

Yet why not keep step with time, Hone thought, by tracking it in some fashion? His weekly sheets, issued in sync with the calendar, did just that and provided a degree of historical perspective as winter, once again, changed into spring, and the anniversary of an interesting person's birth arrived, once again.

By "preserving the skeins of memory that linked men and women with their real and mythic past," as Ben Wilson notes in his biography, Hone provided a running narrative that, at times, reads as modern commentary. How else can one judge the depth and quality of modern life except by seeing what others made of the world in times past?

I hope to start up the "Chronicles of William Hone" podcast again in the near future, so that it can march with us through the pages of time - in my estimation, there's no substitute for hearing the little stories read aloud. In the meantime, though, some excerpts for each week, starting with this one. Enjoy!