Kingsley's Aves, or Isle of Birds, is down on the American coast. There is another island of the same name, which was occasionally frequented by the same gentry, about a hundred miles south of Dominica. Père Labat going once from Martinique to Guadaloupe had taken a berth with Captain Daniel, one of the most noted of the French corsairs of the day, for better security. People were not scrupulous in those times, and Labat and Daniel had been long good friends. They were caught in a gale off Dominica, blown away, and carried to Aves, where they found an English merchant ship lying a wreck. Two English ladies from Barbadoes and a dozen other people had escaped on shore. They had sent for help, and a large vessel came for them the day after Daniel's arrival. Of course he made a prize of it. Labat said prayers on board for him before the engagement, and the vessel surrendered after the first shot. The good humour of the party was not disturbed by this incident. The pirates, their prisoners, and the ladies stayed together for a fortnight at Aves, catching turtles and boucanning them, picnicking, and enjoying themselves. Daniel treated the ladies with the utmost politeness, carried them afterwards to St. Thomas's, dismissed them unransomed, sold his prizes, and wound up the whole affair to the satisfaction of every one. Labat relates all this with wonderful humour, and tells, among other things, the following story of Daniel. On some expedition, when he was not so fortunate as to have a priest on board, he was in want of provisions. Being an outlaw he could not furnish himself in an open port. One night he put into the harbour of a small island, called Los Santos, not far from Dominica, where only a few families resided. He sent a boat on shore in the darkness, took the priest and two or three of the chief inhabitants out of their beds, and carried them on board, where he held them as hostages, and then under pretence of compulsion requisitioned the island to send him what he wanted. The priest and his companions were treated meanwhile as guests of distinction. No violence was necessary, for all parties understood one another. While the stores were being collected, Daniel suggested that there was a good opportunity for his crew to hear mass. The priest of Los Santos agreed to say it for them. The sacred vessels &c. were sent for from the church on shore. An awning was rigged over the forecastle, and an altar set up under it. The men chanted the prayers. The cannon answered the purpose of music. Broadsides were fired at the first sentence, at the Exaudiat, at the Elevation, at the Benediction, and a fifth at the prayer for the king. The service was wound up by a Vive le Roi! A single small accident only had disturbed the ceremony. One of the pirates, at the Elevation, being of a profane mind, made an indecent gesture. Daniel rebuked him, and, as the offence was repeated, drew a pistol and blew the man's brains out, saying he would do the same to any one who was disrespectful to the Holy Sacrament. The priest being a little startled, Daniel begged him not to be alarmed; he was only chastising a rascal to teach him his duty. At any rate, as Labat observed, he had effectually prevented the rascal from doing anything of the same kind again. Mass being over, the body was thrown overboard, and priest and congregation went their several ways.

Excerpt from The English in the West Indies by James Anthony Froude (1888)

Katsu Kaishu was commander of the Tokugawa military in Japan. In 1860, he captained the first Japanese ship to reach America (San Francisco, to be precise). Japan had been extremely closed to the outside world prior to 1853.

By all accounts, the samurai entourage savored their sojourn of nearly two months in the burgeoning silver metropolis by the bay. Certain scenes come to mind. Katsu Kaishu posing for a tintype portrait at William Shew’s photographic studio on Montgomery Street - the two swords and family crest prominently displayed on his person, the hair tied back, the noble expression complemented by dark, determined eyes…The samurai entourage visiting the San Francisco Baths on Washington Street, because, as the Daily Alta California reported on March 21 [1860], they are “desirous of trying the American style” of bathing.

And Kaishu marveled at the industrialization of the town - the clamor of steam-powered windmills from factories; the mechanical saws; the newspaper printing presses; the San Francisco branch of the United States Mint, comprising a three-story red brick building on Commercial Street…and if Kaishu was enthralled by modern technology, imagine his astonishment at the sight of a factory worker openly engaged with a prostitute during break time, and his perplexity at being offered “the wife of a Mr. So-and-So for a certain amount per hour.”

Walking through town in San Francisco, Kaishu was surrounded by hundreds of curious onlookers - so many that “I had a hard time walking.” But he never encountered any trouble. In contrast, “when people of the vulgar mob in Edo see a foreigner, they hoot and holler out loud. But the lower classes in San Francisco only smiled at me-and nobody cause me any harm.” For all the cultural differences, Kaishu returned to Japan with a genuine liking for Americans.

Source:

Hillsborough, Romulus, Samurai Revolution, The Dawn of Modern Japan Seen Through the Eyes of the Shogun’s Last Samurai (p.120-125), Tuttle Publishing

Further Reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katsu_Kaish%C5%AB

There was a summary action with regard to liquor, too. During the war alcohol had been an obvious menace to the fighting efficiency of the nation. The country, already largely dry by state law and local option, had decided to banish the saloon once and for all. War-time psychology was dominant; no halfway measure would serve. The War-time Prohibition Act was already on the books and due to take effect July 1, 1919. But this was not enough. The Eighteenth Amendment, which would make prohibition permanent and (so it was thought) effective, had been passed by Congress late in 1917, and many of the states had ratified it before the war ended. With the convening of the state legislatures in January, 1919, the movement for ratification went ahead with amazing speed. The New York Tribune said that it was "as if a sailing-ship on a windless ocean were sweeping ahead, propelled by some invisible force." "Prohibition seems to be the fashion, just as drinking once was," exclaimed the Times editorially. By January 16th-within nine weeks of the Armistice-the necessary thirty-six States had ratified the Amendment. Even New York State fell in line a few days later. Whisky and the "liquor ring" were struck at as venomously as were the Reds. There were some misgivings, to be sure; there were those who pointed out that three million men in uniform might not like the new dispensation; but the country was not in the mood to think twice. Prohibition went through on the tide of the war spirit of "no compromise."

From Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s by Frederick Lewis Allen

Excerpted from Chapter 2: Back to Normalcy

Cover

Allen's Sources

Our new leader of 260 was a South African, Major Peter Saville.

A great man for priorities, he straightaway noticed how parched the outfit was. He came to me and told me he was detaching me for a plonk recce. He said he'd heard that there was a cache or two on the other side of the Atlas mountains. I was to take Bobby Brown, a pilot, and Taxi and see what I could scrounge, without actually invading Ike's HQ. It was a great many leagues to travel, round hairpin bends with precipices on both sides, demanding more effort than a gourmet would reckon Algerian plonk was worth. But, as the armourer and the engineer daily complained, we were due for a total refit. We might as well start as we meant to go on and get some wine in.

A day later we came out of Constantine with a good load on the lorry, and the idea of coming back another way, via Bône, to avoid the dizzy heights of the outward journey. And suddenly Bobby remarked, "There's a Yank!" He passed us on his motorbike, but he kept looking back at us. Then some more Americans swept past, this time in a jeep, and they all kept looking at us over their shoulders. Fifteen miles on there was a road-block of sandbags, bristling with machine guns and manned by Americans. The armament was all being pointed straight at us.

"Do you think these are Yanks, guv", asked Taxi, "or are they Huns?"

"The only way to find out is to drive on, cock", I replied.

But it was impracticable to drive on, the block was solid. We got out and had machine guns thrust in our bellies. We thought they were Germans masquerading as Americans. They saw our sand-coloured truck with the albatross of the [Royal] Air Force on it and mistook it for a German eagle. They took in our blue uniforms and our peaked caps and assumed we were Luftwaffe. An American officer rushed at me and started jabbering in German.

I said, "You don't have to speak German, you know, I'm fairly capable of understanding English, since that's what I am."

"You are escaped Luftwaffe prisoners", he retorted.

We were very nervous, being outnumbered five to one, and not very fast with about three tons of wine on board. I grew very excited. "You're the Luftwaffe prisoners", I roared, "and I order you to lay down your arms in the name of His Majesty King George VI.!"

They withdrew for a conference. But their guns remained level. I was wild with frustration, thinking that by now the squadron would certainly have liberated some eggs and chickens, and be basting the fowls in the happy expectation of wine to wash it down. Then, inexplecably, a British naval commander appeared out of nowhere, by himself, presumably getting his land legs with a stroll through the mountains. There was no reason I could see why our captors shouldn't take him for a Luftwaffe man in disguise too, but either his manner or his white knees convinced them that he was the genuine article. He appointed himself arbiter.

After establishing to his own satisfaction that they were Americans, he came over to our side and said to us: "It'll be alright, just answer their questions."

So the American officer asked Taxi, "What make of truck is this?"

Still brimming over, I leaped in like a know-all and said, "It's a Dodge." And it wasn't. The commander became a bit surprised.

"What's the engine number?", the American officer asked Taxi.

"I'm fucked if I know", said Taxi. "I'm not supposed to know the engine number of the bloody truck!"

After these negative replies they went into a huddle again. The naval commander managed to persuade them that Taxi's vernacular was for our present purposes more satisfactory than the right engine number would have been and after about an hour's wrangle they declared us British allies. And then nothing was too good for us. They took us to their camp and dosed us to the gills with drink, and sent us home with the truck bursting with rations and beer.

Source:

Lee, Christopher: Tall, Dark and Gruesome (1997), p. 134ff

Further Reading:

• Christopher Lee
• Constantine, Algeria
• Bône, Algeria (today: Annaba)

In Tel Aviv a polyglot Lithuanian Jew called Metz put me up in his house in Shalom Aleichem Street. He could interpret in fifteen languages, though he was absent-minded in some of them. In his enthusiasm he looked like an amiable frog. In his enthusiasm, too, he sometimes got carried away.

On one occassion he started driving me about the town expounding this and that, when a stream of strange-looking people came out on the streets, all wearing black caftans and long beards and black velvet hats. They were throwing anything that came in hand at us, from stones to washing-up clothes. It seemed we had strayed into a sector of the most orthodox Hasidic Jews, and blasphemously on the Sabbath.

Source:

Lee, Christopher: Tall, Dark and Gruesome (1997), p. 119

Further Reading:

• Christopher Lee
• Tel Aviv under British mandate
• Mandatory Palestine during World War II

He also became the first British smoker, using a long pipe with the tobacco in bowl. On one occasion when he was indulging in his new found nicotine habit, his manservant, believing him to be ablaze, threw a bucket of water over him, in a mistaken attempt to save his master’s life.

Source

2 If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser. `

Source

22 May 1856 may have been the worst day in the history of the United States Senate. Late that afternoon, after both houses had recessed for the day, a young South Carolina congressman named Preston Brooks strode forcefully into the Senate chamber looking for Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner. The Senate floor was nearly deserted, but Brooks saw Sumner sitting alone at his desk, preparing a stack of pamphlets for mailing.

Without warning, Brooks rushed forward and began beating the unsuspecting Sumner savagely with a gold-tipped wooden cane. Even after knocking the older man to the ground, Brooks continued raining down blows upon Sumner's bleeding head and defenseless body, only stopping when his cane shattered into pieces. Finally, after perhaps the most shocking few minutes in the history of Congress, Brooks turned and walked calmly out of the chamber, leaving Sumner bloodied and unconscious.

Charles Sumner nearly died of the wounds he suffered that day. And though he eventually regained consciousness and returned—following three years spent recovering from his injuries—to the Senate, he suffered for the rest of his life from intense headaches and what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder.

Preston Brooks resigned from the House but was almost immediately returned to office by his South Carolina constituents, who viewed his actions as those of a hero.

What in the world could cause such an eruption of naked violence right there on the floor of "the world's greatest deliberative body?"

The answer is slavery. Or, to be more precise, an increasingly destructive debate over the future of slavery—a debate which would soon lead to the Civil War.

Source

Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer) was a New York mobster of the Prohibition Era. In addition to bootlegging, he ran numbers (now called the lotto), and shook down restaurant owners for protection money. Thomas Dewey, later governor of NY and momentarily successful Republican candidate against Truman, took a cue from Elliot Ness (who retired from public life after a drunken hit and run) and popped Schultz for tax evasion -- twice. Schultz walked -- twice -- but this dispute opened a door for Lucky Luciano (born Salvatore Luciano) to muscle in. Schultz, ever the gent, declined to blame another "legitimate businessman" for his declining revenues and asked "the Commission" -- a crime guild which Luciano organized -- for permission to kill Dewey. They don't call it "organized crime" for nothing. The Commission refused. Schultz disobeyed and attempted to kill Dewey. The Commission passed sentence on Schultz in 1935 and saw to his execution.

The story would be limited in interest to true crime aficionados, save for one fact: Schultz didn't die immediately. Shot twice in a bathroom, he staggered back to his table and collapsed. Schultz was drifting in and out of lucidity as police attempted to comfort him and get information. Because the medics had no pain relievers, they gave Schultz brandy to relieve his suffering. Schultz gave one of the medics $10,000 in cash to see that he receive better treatment. After surgery, when it looked as if Schultz would live, the medic was worried that he would be indebted to the mobster so he shoved the money back in bed with Schultz. Schultz's last words were a strange stream-of-consciousness babble, spoken in his hospital bed to police officers who attempted to question him for useful information. Although the police were unable to extract anything coherent from Schultz, his rambling was dutifully transcribed by a police stenographer.

Source: The wikipede. The exciting bit is the transcription, artistically interpreted in the video link above.

A story for which Napier is often noted involved Hindu priests complaining to him about the prohibition of Sati by British authorities. This was the custom of burning a widow alive on the funeral pyre of her husband. As first recounted by his brother William, he replied:

"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_James_Napier

While taking a politics break and cowboying it up in North Dakota, Teddy Roosevelt took a trip to the bar because awesomeness runs on whiskey. As he entered, some drunk asshole took some shots at him. AT HIM, NOT WITH HIM. WITH A GUN. The shooter then, in what can only be described as “the best example of confusing the brassyness of ones own testicles” pointed the gun directly at Teddy “Wholly Shit This Is Literally The Calm Before The Storm Of Ass Kickings” Roosevelt, called him ‘four eyes’, and ordered him to buy a round for everyone there.

Teddy laughed.

HE LAUGHED IN THE GODDAMN FACE OF A MAN POINTING A GUN IN HIS OWN.

…then he kicked the fuckers teeth in. President “I Bash Trusts Like I Bash Faces” Roosevelt stopped laughing and charged the fucker. He proceeded to bash the shit heads face on the bar until he was unconscious then dragged him out and locked him in a shed until morning.

source