Martin Fone's Blog, page 255
July 19, 2018
We Call Upon The Author To Explain (2)
Excited to preview the cover of my new book, scheduled for publication on 28th January 2019.
What do you think?
July 18, 2018
Quacks Pretend To Cure Other Men’s Disorders But Rarely Find A Cure For Their Own – Part Sixty Nine
Leslie Keeley’s Double Chloride of Gold Cure
We have seen cures for the evils of the demon drink before but one which took America by storm in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was Leslie Keeley’s Double Chloride of Gold Cure.
Keeley opened the first Keeley Institute in 1879 in the Illinois town of Dwight, south of Chicago, with the bold and ambitious claim; “drunkenness is a disease and I can cure it.” He claimed that he had devised a formula which, if injected four times a day, would lead to a miraculous recovery, although he was circumspect in revealing what it contained save that one of the ingredients was gold.
His advertising campaign fuelled by the desire of many to kick alcohol, together with his claim of a 95% success rate, saw business boom. Between 1892 and 1900 his company’s revenues almost topped $3m and there was even a Keeley Day at Chicago’s World Fair in 1893. Those who completed the course were called Keeley graduates and were given a pamphlet by way of a certificate which told the recipient; “You are now numbered among thousands of men and women who have broken the shackles of alcohol and drug addictions by the Keeley method of treatment. Your cure will be as permanent as your life, you will never have any craving for alcohol or other sedative drugs as long as you live, unless you create it by returning to their use, thus re-poisoning your nerve cells.”
Ardent supporters of the Keeley method formed Bi-Chloride of Gold Clubs, later known as Keeley Leagues, which were sort of alcohol support groups. Centres sprang up around the country, the last closing down as recently as 1965, and some half a million alcoholics and addicts are said to have taken the Keeley Cure. Often Keeley would employ doctors who were cured alcoholics and the staff to patient ratio at each centre was reassuringly high.
If you signed up for a course of treatment, as well as the injections four times a day, you would drink a liquid cordial every two hours. The rest of your day was spent in a variety of ways, designed to improve your physical and psychological well-being through rest, controlled diets and group discussions. The atmosphere was described as warm and friendly, far removed from the austere asylums to which alcoholics were normally consigned.
Keeley’s apparent success provoked two reactions – imitation and investigation. Dr Haines’ Golden Remedy, the Geneva Gold Cure, and the Boston Biochloride of Gold Company were among the many imitators who sought to cash in on the craze for golden remedies to alcoholism. More worryingly for Keeley, his success provoked the medical profession to take a closer look into what was in the cure. They used a variety of methods to get hold of the samples, using the handy mail order service or checking into the centres masquerading as alcoholics.
What was surprising is that the constituents of Keeley’s miracle cure seemed to vary – sometimes traces of alcohol, sometimes coca extract and sometimes a combination of strychnine, willow bark, ammonia and aloe. What wasn’t present was gold – indeed, one director was reported to say that the only time they used gold, the patient nearly died.
But the main ingredient was probably atropine, an active ingredient found in deadly nightshade and possessing hallucinogenic properties, which in ancient times was used as an ersatz anaesthetic. It is also poisonous. It may be that drug acted as some form of sedative in the majority of cases but in certain circumstances could induce psychological reactions that would force the patient to see the errors of their ways. It is unlikely to have been the major contributor to the success that Keely claimed.
What was more likely to have helped is the serene atmosphere of the centres, the ability of the patients to get rest, to talk about their problems and share their experiences with others. This is a feature of the treatment of alcoholics today and Keeley in this respect was ahead of his time.
It was just a pity he focused on filling them up with an unproven drug.
July 17, 2018
An Eye For An Eye Will Only Make The Whole World Blind – Part Six
Hans Island
When diplomats got into erstwhile smoke-filled rooms, it must be difficult to thrash out an agreement which covers every conceivable situation. Take the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This agreement sets out the definition of territorial waters which, for the uninitiated, extend twelve miles from the low water mark of a coastal state. The state involved is entitled to claim that stretch of water as their own but merchant shipping is allowed free passage.
No doubt they were all pleased to have got that one sorted out but they had forgotten the little matter of Hans Island.
Hans Island is about half a square-mile in size, is uninhabited and has no obvious mineral resources. It is slap bang in the middle of the Nares Strait which separates Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, from Canada. Crucially, the Nares Strait at this point is just 22 miles wide and so under the Convention both the Danes and the Canadians were entitled to call it their own.
So who had title to the island?
The League of Nation’s Permanent Court of International Justice considered the matter as early as 1933 and came down in favour of the Danes. But by that time the League of Nations was on its last legs and soon fell apart, meaning that their decision on the fate of Hans Island carried little weight. The dispute rumbled on.
It next flared up in 1984 when the Danish minister of Greenland affairs visited the island and provocatively stuck a Danish flag on the rocky outcrop. Beneath the flag he stuck a sign, saying “welcome to the Danish island” and left a bottle of schnapps.
This sparked what has been known as the whiskey war. The Canadians could not let the incident pass and so when a delegation of their military visited the island, they raised the Canadian flag, left a sign, saying “welcome to Canada” and left bottles of Canadian Club. And so an extraordinary bout of tit-for-tat was started, Danish and Canadian flags being left as each country’s representatives visited and bottles of hooch placed below the flagstaff. It is still going on and if you are in the area and fancy a drink, you could do worse than land at Hans Island.
In 2005 diplomats from Canada and Denmark agreed a set of protocols to determine the fate of the island amicably but, so far, an equitable solution has eluded them. In 2015 a couple of academics, as is their wont, stuck their noses into this most gentle of territorial disputes by suggesting that the island should be a condominium, shared jointly by the two countries.
What to many seems a sensible way out of an intractable problem has yet to be adopted. After all, there is too much at stake, not least national pride. I suspect that the fate of Hans Island will not be resolved for some time yet and that the extraordinary display of tit-for-tat that the whiskey war is will continue for a while.
July 16, 2018
The Streets Of London – Part Seventy Five
Rotten Row, SW1
Rotten Row runs in a fairly straight line along the southern perimeter of Hyde Park from its intersection with Carriage Drive at the eastern end to the West Carriage Drive in the west. It has a distinctive sandy, yellowish hue, taking the form of a bridle path made from a mix of gravel and tan, the crushed bark of oak trees and the residue of the tanning process. Its modern day manifestation is a tad shorter than its original form which stretched a mile and a quarter from Hyde Park Corner to Kensington Palace.
The road was built by William III in 1691 to give him a direct route from his newly acquired Kensington Palace to his London residence of the Palace of St James’s. The western approaches to the city at the time were dangerous with highwaymen and footpads on the look-out for unwary travellers. As a security measure William lined the road with 300 lanterns, making it the first road in London to boast street lighting. It also earned the thoroughfare the sobriquet of Lamp Road and was used exclusively by the royal family and members of their court.
In 1737 George II had what is now known as Carriage Drive built and the intention was to grass over Lamp Road. There was a public outcry as other modifications to Hyde Park including the creation of the Serpentine had deprived horse riders of space to exercise their nags. As a compromise Lamp Road was converted into a bridle way – you can still hire a horse and ride along it today.
Around the 1780s the bridle way started to be known as Rotten Row. No one can give a conclusive reason as to why it was so called but there are a number of competing theories, the best in my view being that it is a corruption of route de roi – the Brits are masters at mangling French – or that it took its name from the soft, giving material with which it was constructed. I prefer the latter but there are a number of Rotten Rows to be found around our green and pleasant land and that derivation does not necessarily suit most of them.
What is clear is that Rotten Row became the place for the nobs of London to be seen exercising their nags. They were expected to wear their very best riding clothes and behave with decorum – horses and carriages were to be driven at a sedate pace and no reckless or high-speed driving was allowed. By 1834 the traffic along the Row was so heavy that the authorities required that carriages use George II’s road while horses and pedestrians could continue to use the Row. The only exception was the Hereditary Grand Falconer, the Duke of St Albans, who was granted the privilege of driving his carriage along the Row. He did so just once a year so as to maintain the privilege.
From 1737 the Row was lined with wooden fencing three feet high but in 1853 iron railings took their place and the Row was widened to 100 feet. The railings were taken down during the Second World War and melted down for scrap metal. They were not replaced until towards the end of the 20th century to protect cyclists. The bridle path had by now had reverted to its original width of around 80 feet to accommodate the cycle way.
In 1868/9 a chunk of the Row to the western end was lost to make way for the construction of the Prince Albert Memorial. What is now the Flower Walk in Kensington Gardens is all that remains of it.
July 15, 2018
Red Faces Of The Week (8)
I may be a bit of a traditionalist but if I’m going to give someone a ring, I’d rather put it in a presentation box. It has served me well over the years and seems safe, if a tad boring.
Not Vikki Rutter from Edenbridge in Kent, though. She decided that she would put a ruby ring, destined to be a 21st birthday present for her cousin, Ava, in a helium balloon.
And guess what happened?
Whilst she was searching around for a counterweight to hold the balloon, Vikki was amazed to find that a gust of wind had blown it away, ring and all.
Despite frantic searching, the errant balloon and ring have not been found.
Red faces all round.
Still, it’s the thought that counts.
July 13, 2018
What Is The Origin Of (188)?…
Trig and trim
I was rereading Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood a little while ago and came across this description of Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard widow, twice; “in her spruced and scoured dust-defying bedroom in trig and trim Bay View..” Whilst the meaning of the phrase is pretty clear from the context, neat and tidy, it set me wondering where the phrase came from.
My researches unearthed an interesting character, Bishop Douglas, whose bishopric centred round the lovely cathedral village of Dunkeld in Perthshire. Douglas died of the plague in London in 1522, proving that no good ever comes of a Scot when he ventures south of the border, but not before he had translated Virgil’s Aeneid in what he called Thirteen Bukes of Eneades,, of the famous poet Virgil, translated out of Latin verse into Scottish metre, a task he accomplished in just eighteen months. It was published posthumously in 1553 and reprinted in Edinburgh in 1710.
In the translation which was probably worked on in 1519 we find the couplet “the heist sall be full tydy, trig and wicht/ with hede equalle tyll his moder on hicht,” the first appearance of the word trig in print. He used it again later in his translation, “In lesuris and on leyis litill lames/ full tait and trig socht bletand to thaire dames.” Trig was a Scottish adjective for neat or trim, owing its origin to the Scandinavian word tryggr which meant faithful or secure.
The Scottish poet, Hector Macneill, writing at the turn of the 19th century, also used trig in the same sense in one of his odes; “the same with E tricked up; Rudd/ trig her house, and oh! To busk aye/ ilk sweet bairn was a’ her pride!” Both Douglas and Macneill used the adjective on its own rather than as part of the reduplicated phrase that we know today.
Perhaps the blame for hitching trig with trim lies with the Sassenachs. Around the middle of the 16th century a phrase, trick and trim, came into vogue south of Hadrian’s Wall. One of the senses of trick as an adjective at the time, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was being smart, clever or trim, neat, and handsome. Roger Ascham wrote a book in 1545 on archery, called Toxophilus, and there we find an English version of the reduplicated phrase; “the same reason I find true in two bows I have, whereof one is quick of cast, trick and trim, both for pleasure and profit.” The sense is identical; something neat and tidy.
Grammarians have spilt much ink discussing why the Scottish adjective trig became trick when used in England. It may just have been down to mishearing – after all, the thick Scottish accent is often incomprehensible to the effete cloth ears of the Sassenachs – or it may be that there are two distinct roots in play, with different meanings.
What is clear is that the Scottish version has prevailed. Interestingly, the Cyclopaedia of English Literature, compiled by Robert Chambers in 1843 and published in Edinburgh, amended Ascham’s usage to trig and trim. As a Scot he probably enjoyed getting one over the English. Be that as it may, the phrase is today rather obscure but is worth dusting off and bringing back to life, I feel.
July 11, 2018
Book Corner – July 2018 (1)
Claudius The God – Robert Graves
There is something odd about historical fiction as a literary genre. After all, most of us have a passing knowledge of major historical events and figures and so a story that focuses on one has lost a lot of its dramatic tension before it starts. We know the outcome before we have got past the preface. And then there is the problem of a story narrated by a person who dies. The drama of the denouement, in this case Claudius’ murder, is lost because the protagonist can’t relate it.
These are some of the problems Graves battled with in his 1934 sequel to I, Claudius, a riveting tale of inter-family plotting and assassination which puts the Game of Thrones into a cocked hat. The second book is less dramatic because the anti-Darwinian Claudius, the epitome of the survival of the unfittest, has amazingly emerged top of a rather sordid pile and has very few enemies to plot against. That said, Graves succeeds in making Claudius a rather endearing, idealistic ruler, totally unsuited for the position he finds himself in and with an unfulfilled yearning to return Rome to a republic.
The other major theme running through the book is the treachery of his young wife, Messalina. So besotted is Claudius with her and so naïve that she runs rings round him and has a string of paramours. Claudius is the last to know but when the scales finally fall from his eyes his revenge is bloody and swift but the result for Claudius is that he becomes a bitter cynic, abandons his republican dreams, nurtures Nero, marries Agrippina and meets his end. Graves has to rely on accounts by Suetonius and Seneca, neither were Claudius’ greatest fans, to finish the story off.
Another structural oddity is the beginning of the book is that after detailing Claudius’ acclamation by the Praetorian Guard it launches into a retrospective account of the colourful life and times of the con-man and reprobate that was Herod Agrippa. This allows Graves to recount the treatment and pogroms launched against the Jews and it cannot be read other than an attack and commentary on what was going on at the time in Germany.
For the English reader a section of particular interest is the invasion of Britain, Claudius’ principal military achievement, for which he awarded himself a triumph. The rationale for the invasion, at least according to Graves’ Claudius, was to thwart the influence of the Druids whose training-camps in Britain fomented unrest in Gaul. “The Druids, therefore,” he writes, “though they were not warriors themselves but only priests, were always fomenting rebellion against us.” Surgical strikes against them would restore the status quo and allow the spread of civilised values to continue unhindered. Now where have we heard that rationale before?
By the standards of the early Roman emperors Claudius was a good thing and did much to improve the lot of the Romans, particularly with the re-engineering of the port of Ostia. Graves’ portrait is sympathetic and for all his faults, one cannot help feeling a wave of sympathy for Claudius.
Well written, impeccably researched and reasonably well paced, albeit a tad long, it is a worthy sequel to I, Claudius but, for me, the first book was the better read.
July 10, 2018
A La Mode – Part Five
The Top Hat
I am partial to wearing a hat but I have never had the occasion to wear a silk topper. These days their appearance seems to be limited to weddings with pretensions to grandeur, the Royal enclosure at Ascot and investitures at Buckingham Palace. My chances of wearing one seem pretty remote.
When, to echo the Kinks, you are a dedicated follower of fashion and bestride its cutting edge, you must be prepared for an adverse reaction from those who don’t share your sense of style. Even so, perhaps John Herrington, a clothier based in London’s Strand, didn’t quite expect the reaction that greeted his saunter along the streets of London in early January 1797.
According to the Hatters’ Gazette in the late 1890s, echoing a story that is supposed to have appeared in The St James’ Gazette of 1797 – alas, the original story cannot be traced – he appeared “on the public highway, wearing upon his head a tall structure having a shiny lustre and calculated to frighten timid people…several women fainted at the unusual sight, while children screamed, dogs yelped and a younger son of Cordwainer Thomas was thrown down by the crowd which collected and had his right arm broken.”
Worse was to follow for poor Herrington. He had his exquisitely tailored collar felt and was up before the beak on 15th January 1797, charged with a breach of the peace and inciting a riot. For his sins he was required to post a bond for the phenomenal sum of £500. Some versions of the story suggest that he was the inventor of the silk top hat or top hats in general whilst others, given the length of time that lapsed between the incident occurring and the first demonstrable version of the story in the press, have called it a shaggy dog story.
Hats were part of a fashionable man’s apparel and beaver hats, made from felted beaver fur which could be combed into a variety of shapes, were in vogue between 1550 and 1850. Tall, cylindrical hats appear in images throughout the centuries so it is difficult to pin point exactly when the silk topper was first made or why Hetherington’s topper caused such a stir. But there is some evidence to suggest that the development of a silk plush as an alternative to beaver, at least in England, did not predate Hetherington’s ill-fated walk by many years.
In 1794 George Dunnage received a patent for a form of hat featuring a napped, silk shag and in 1798 he was awarded another patent, this time for a ventilating top hat made of waterproof silk which was particularly suitable for coachmen riding atop of their carriage. The firm, Dunnage and Larkin, traded as patent silk manufacturers until 1814. The Piccadilly based milliner, Lincoln Bennett, was also an early pioneer in the development of silk plush and almost certainly would have made silk top hats.
So although Hetherington almost didn’t invent the silk topper, it is entirely plausible that he was one of the first to be brave enough to wear one in public in London. The shiny surface, such a contrast to the dull and dirty clothing that the hoi polloi had to wear, was enough to spark a reaction. Perhaps he just wasn’t very popular.
Ironically, today’s toppers are made of beaver, the last factory making silk hatters’ plush, in Lyons in France, closing in 1969. Legend has it that the two brothers had a major bust up in the process of which they smashed up the looms and threw them into the river. More likely the factory was closed down because of ‘Elf and Safety concerns around the manufacturing process.
Urban myth and top hats seem to go hand in hand.
July 9, 2018
You’re Having A Laugh – Part Thirteen
The Comte de Fortsas hoax, 1840
I count myself a bibliophile and love being surrounded by books – they do furnish a room, after all. Serious collectors of books specialise – first editions, Victorian novels etc – but the Comte de Fortsas, Jean Nepomucene Auguste Pichauld, took specialising to an extreme. His collection, just 52 strong on his death on 1st September 1839, featured volumes that were absolutely unique, there being no other copies in the world. If he discovered there was a duplicate, he would get rid of his copy.
To the excitement of all serious bibliophiles in Europe, a catalogue plopped through their letter boxes announcing the sale of the Comte’s collection on 10th August 1840. All interested parties were to assemble at the offices of the notary Maitre Mourlon at 9 rue de l’Eglise in the Belgian town of Binche. The catalogue amply illustrated the Compte’s unique style of collecting. In describing a work attributed to Pere Felix Grebard, the catalogue notes “this Pere Grebard is likewise the author of a very rare tragedy, La Morte de Henry le grand, which I have had in my collection, but of which I rid myself, having learned that Mons. J Ketele of Audenarde had another copy of it.”
Interest was at fever pitch and prices were anticipated to be astronomic as collectors and even the Belgian national government as well as a representative from the Roxburghe club readied themselves to battle for the honour of picking up some or all of the Comte’s fabulous collection.
There was just one problem.
When the collectors arrived at Binche the day before the great sale, they could not find rue de l’Eglise – it did not seem to exist. They were then hit with further disappointment when they picked up the local newspaper to find a report announcing that the whole collection had been bought by the municipality of Binche for its public library.
Some collectors, in a state of disgruntlement, decided to go home while others decided to satisfy their curiosity by viewing the collection at the library. But the library proved to be just as elusive as the rue de l’Eglise. There wasn’t one.
And then the centime dropped. They had been had.
The perpetrator of this elaborate hoax was a local antiquarian, Renier Hubert Ghislain Chalon. In planning the ruse Chalon researched the particular specialities of his intended victims, ensuring that within the catalogue there was something that would appeal to each of them. And then there was the sheer enormity of preparing the catalogue and dispatching it out in good time for each of the collectors to make plans to arrive in Binche in good time for the sale. According to one report, Chalon actually chatted to a group of collectors and confirmed that he had known the Comte well. Apart from exposing the gullibility of the bibliophiles, there is no evidence that Chalon had any other motive.
But all was not lost for the bibliophiles.
The catalogue itself became something of a collectors’ item and quadrupled in price over the next few years. Such was the demand for the catalogue that the original printer, M Hoyois, decided to run off a few more copies together with a facsimile of a letter purporting to have been written by the Comte and some prospective orders from the hoodwinked collectors.
Chalon went to court to prevent the reprint. After all, it would have been contrary to the spirit of the Comte.
July 8, 2018
Parking War Of The Week
Between the ages of nine and eleven getting to school was very easy. I just had to walk through a door, my version of stepping into the wardrobe en route to Narnia. To attend senior school my journey was a little more complicated, a three mile trip into Shrewsbury and back courtesy of the ancient charabancs provided by Vaggs Motors.
These days, it seems, children are chaperoned to school by parents, often by car, and this means that parents parking to drop their little darlings off are a bone of contention with residents unfortunate enough to live nearby. Blogger Towers is near the local primary school and in order to save their sprogs from the exercise that they so badly need, parents would park anyhow, oblivious to the fact that they were blocking driveways and sight lines.
We naively assumed that the introduction of double yellow lines would have solved the problem but, at least in the view of the parents, they do not apply if you are picking up your kid. So it was with a little more than passing interest that I read about a stushie in the quiet cul-de-sac that is Old Rectory Close in Highbridge in Somerset, which has the misfortune to be close to the East Brent C of E Academy.
To discourage people parking, a person or persons unknown have taken to gluing nails in an upright position on the road and hiding them with leaves, at least according to Janet Smith who allegedly found a nail in her tyre after completing a school run. The local plod are investigating.
Showing the insouciance that is endemic amongst those engaged in school runs, la Smith is reported as saying, “It’s not private. It’s a cul-de-sac and we’re there for ten minutes.”
I shall be interested to see what develops.
