Sunset and minarets

Everyone wants a picture:

Fourth of July: 1892

The boys were loaded with explosives.
Which they let off.
In his immediate personal neighborhood.
Fire-crackers especially.
And he jumped.
And howled.
And cursed Young America, as he had cursed it a thousand times before.
But there was no escape for him.
They improvised a band.
And they played Yankee Doodle.
And Hail Columbia.

--From A Quiet Fourth of July--

Notice that the boys appear to be shooting guns into the air:

So "explosives" probably is the proper term to use.

Here's Hail Columbia, which almost no one now-a-days could identify (We use it for Vice-Presidential entrances, poor thing!):



And here's Yankee Doodle:



Imagine people spontaneously playing this music, shooting off explosives, not standing passively watching a parade, and you will realize how much different the fourth of July used to be.

Falun Gong: 1350

..."Don't you really belong to the Yellow Scarves, Zhang Jue and his ilk?"...

..."The man is a sorcerer," Sun Ce replied. "He uses his arts to mislead the multitude and must be eliminated."...

--From the Romance of the Three Kingdoms--

The Yellow Scarves, like the Red Eyebrows, and the Boxers, were groups responsible for great upheaval and revolution in Chinese history, and they all had mystical ties. So it's no wonder the Chinese government moved to repress Falun Gong, a modern day society with mystical practices.

Compare China's reaction to America's, where groups like the Tea Party, modeled after a revolutionary group, go about their business with only rhetorical government interference.

Politicians: 1789

Mr. Sherman conceived it difficult to modify the clause and make it better. It is well known that those who are religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, are equally scrupulous of getting substitutes or paying an equivalent. Many of them would rather die than do either one or the other; but he did not see an absolute necessity for a clause of this kind. We do not live under an arbitrary Government, said he, and the States, respectively, will have the government of the militia, unless when called into actual service; besides, it would not do to alter it so as to exclude the whole of any sect, because there are men amongst the Quakers who will turn out, notwithstanding the religious principles of the society, and defend the cause of their country. Certainly it will be improper to prevent the exercise of such favorable dispositions, at least whilst it is the practice of nations to determine their contests by the slaughter of their citizens and subjects.

 --From Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, 1st Congress, 1st Session--

The debate revolved around people who refuse to fight because of religious feelings. Should they expressly be allowed to refuse to serve in the military? The amount of wisdom expressed by members of Congress in response was shocking. Almost makes you believe in government.

I know I'd gladly let these people control everything. Of course, they'd be wise enough to refuse the task and probably berate me for bringing it up.

America: 1774

That we hold it essential to English liberty, that no man be condemned unheard, or punished for supposed offences, without having an opportunity of making his defence.

--From A Letter from the General Congress, to the People of Great Britain--

I wonder what what the Founding Fathers would say about water-boarding? People ask it about all sorts of other things.

The prevention of wars: 1812

The question of why violence seems to have decreased over the last few centuries was brought up again recently. Here's an example from the past which might be of help:

Allow me to recommend the following means of obviating Scarcity of Corn [wheat] in future, and rendering ourselves truly independent, and no more obliged to bend contemptibly to the Americans, as we have now done; instead of declaring War against them a twelvemonth ago, as our honour imperiously called upon us to do.

The British would have declared war on America, but they were dependent on wheat imports from and couldn't bring themselves to it, even though their honor was at stake.

The proponents of free trade have claim that it would decreases wars by removing the need to fight over resources and increasing interdependence. Here's an example.

Oh, and how badly did the British need wheat? Here are some policies the well-to-do were asked to follow to help keep prices down:

1. They make a distinction between the Bread consumed by the Family and the Servants: that for the Family being baked in tins; as the Servants cannot then lay their own profusion on the Parlour.

2. They never suffer a loaf to be cut until after the second or third day of baking; for, when eaten new, the consumption is greater, and much waste is occasioned.

3. No toast is permitted; for the same portion cut into bread-and-butter goes one-third farther.

4. No rolls, French bread, or muffins; as all these are needless incentives to appetite.

5. No more cut for dinner than absolutely requisite; for which one piece, half an inch thick, of a round cut in four, will be found sufficient for each. By this means all broken pieces are prevented.

6. No flour used in pies and puddings; for which rice, variously prepared, will prove an excellent substitute.

Look at number 2! What is the point of making bread if you can't eat it fresh?

--From The Gentleman's magazine--

The National Debt: 1812

The American finances, however, seem little able to sustain the expenses of these warlike preparations. It appears from Mr. Gallatin's budget, that the national expenditure exceeds the receipts by 2,600,000 dollars; to cover this deficit it is proposed to make an addition of 50 per cent, to the present amount of duties, or to resort to the the funding system, and raise an loan of three millions of dollars.

--From The Gentleman's magazine--

A country with shaky finances isn't hard to defeat in a war. I wonder if many foreign leaders aren't secretly happy with our spending habits.

Torture: 1817

"Magistrates are not, by law, permitted to exercise cruelties at their own discretion.

But of late, district magistrates, actuated by a desire to be rewarded for their activity, have felt an ardent enthusiasm to inflict torture. And though it has been repeatedly prohibited by Imperial Edicts, which they profess openly to conform to; yet they really and secretly violate them.

Whenever they apprehend persons of suspicious appearances, or those charged with great crimes, such as murder or robbery, the magistrates begin by endeavouring to seduce the prisoners to confess, and by forcing them to do so...."

--From Analectic Magazine--

What a barbaric state of affairs. Oh, that's right, we can't look down our nose at people who do that anymore.

Child labor: 1819

The papers in Philadelphia, are crowded with essays in support of the system of encouraging our manufactures at home, and prohibiting by high duties the importation of manufactures from abroad...

It will furnish employment for many idle people in our seaport towns; and for many women and children in our cities who appear to want such a resource.

--From Analectic Magazine--

He's saying we should encourage factories, so children have somewhere to work!

I was always skeptical about claims child labor laws were just a scheme to provide more jobs for adults, but seeing how people thought before they wanted manufacturing jobs for themselves I guess I have to agree.

What is art? circa 1898

This is what lots of people see, including artists.

To make a call: 1898

To "make a call" has an inelegant robustness of tone to one not used to hearing it; but Americans cannot plead that they are not used to hearing it. And the expression is not only general, but universal here. "Paying visits," the neat substitute for the rougher phrase, is not yet in colloquial use.

If you "made a call" you were visiting someone in person; people had telephones, but they would "call someone up" if they decided to do "telephoning".

It is a good rule to stay only fifteen minutes at a formal, at any rate a first call, unless, of course, urged to stay longer for some special reason.

When you did make your call you only got fifteen minutes to leave an impression; the original fifteen minutes of fame.

Above all, don't keep her standing an hour, while you lecture or "orate," or go over somebody's history, while everybody else sits about looking foolish.

Calling was kind of like the acting out a blog. Someone would sit at home and a stream of people would come in leaving comments; some of the comments were weird and went on forever.

Put your card on a convenient place in the hall, or on the tray the servant holds out for you, and mention your name to the manservant, if there is one.

You would leave little cars with your name on them, to let people know you were there.

This also makes me think of blogs. Sometimes I see blogs as establishments I visit. I make the rounds every once in awhile to make sure everyone is still alive.

Leaving other people's cards is a rather precarious business, and done at the caller's risk! It is not pleasant to meet your hostess driving in just as you sail out with the consciousness of having done a good stroke for a friend.

And no sock-puppets!
--From Etiquette for Americans--

A fun diversion: 1883

Porpoise-Shooting!

"Porpoise-shooting is followed at all seasons and in all kinds of weather—in the summer sea, in the boisterous autumn gales, and in the dreadful icy seas of midwinter."

"The flesh of the porpoise, when cooked, tastes like fresh pork, and at one time was much used. The Indians still eat it, and it is also in request by the fishermen on the coast, who readily exchange fresh fish for 'porpus' meat with the Indians."

--From Sport with gun and rod--

Stuffed animals: 1883

--From Sport with gun and rod--

What cute baby animals!  Let's kill them, cut their guts out, and mount them.

Don't they look sweet?

Weighty issues : 1890

Ann Althouse started a discussion on the kilogram, so I investigated the topic. It turns out people have been trying to get America to adopt the metric system since the days of George Washington. America could even have been the first country to adopt it.

This is from a paper presented in 1890, describing Congress's constitutional power to determine legal weights and measures, which it had never gotten around to doing up to that point:

"And yet, so important is this question of uniformity in the weights and measures in use among the people that the power to establish fixed standards for them was expressly conferred upon the Congress by the Constitution of the United States. Section 8 of Article I. of that instrument, in enumerating the special powers expressly reserved for Congress, places the power to establish fixed standards of weights and measures next after the vital powers to lay and collect taxes for the support of the national government, to borrow money on the credit of the United States, to regulate commerce, to provide a uniform rule of naturalization, and to coin money."

The taxing and borrowing parts they had gotten around to, but not the establishment of a fixed system of weights and measures.

Thomas Jefferson (Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson!) had even suggested the adoption of a decimalized system of weights and measures before the French had come up with their metric system:

"Thomas Jefferson, while Secretary of State, prepared, at the request of Congress, several reports on the subject. Mr. Jefferson had, as the representative of his country, resided in Paris during the great Revolution. He was of course inspired by the nobler ideas of that stirring period, one of which was a universal language of weights, measures and money, in perfect harmony with our arithmetic. About the 20th of May, 1790, he had finished a report containing the description of a new and decimal system of weights and measures constructed by himself, which was the first decimal system of weights and measures ever devised and in every way as meritorious as the Metric System subsequently perfected in France. This report was submitted to the House of Representatives July 13, 1790."

Even George Washington pushed for a system to be adopted, but it went nowhere:

"Our first President said in his first message: 'Uniformity in the currency, weights and measures of the United States is an object of great importance, and will, I am persuaded, be duly attended to.' But a century has passed, and the matter has not been attended to."

Because Congress hadn't decided on a system, the Treasury Department tried it's best to set provisional standards. Of course the states were free to make their own adjustments:

"We have already referred to the fact that the Treasury Department regards the bushel as the volume of 77.6 pounds of water, while several of the states declare that it is 2150.42 cubic inches. But the same states and, in fact, nearly all states and territories, have further passed laws fixing the contents of the bushel by weight of certain commodities, and their standards differ widely. A bushel of apples in Maine is 44 lb; but in Wisconsin 57 lb; a bushel of barley in Louisiana is 32 lb, but California law makes it 50 lb ; a bushel of buckwheat is 40 lb in Dakota, but it takes 56 lb of it to make a Kentucky bushel; a bushel of clover seed varies in different parts of the country from 45 to 64 lb, oats from 26 to 36 lb, rye from 32 to 56 lb, potatoes from 50 to 60 lb, and salt from 50 to 80 lb...."

In 1866 Congress passes a law making it legal to use the metric system. They also legally defined metric measurements in terms of American weights and measures. But since there were no legally determined American weights and measures the law perversely made all American weights and measures based on the metric standards:

"By act of Congress approved July 28, 1866, it was declared "lawful throughout the United States of America to employ the weights and measures of the Metric System." (R. S. Sec. 3569.) The same law (R. S. Sec. .3570) undertakes to fix the values of the respective metric units, which are well understood throughout the civilized world, by stating their equivalents in terms of the weights and measures in common use, which are not understood. The whole world knows what a liter is ; but nobody knows except by tradition and usage what an American quart is, dry or liquid. Yet, American law fixes the value of the liter by declaring it to be 0.908 dry quart or 1.0567 liquid quarts. It would have been more to the purpose to fix the value of each quart in terms of the liter."

The author of the paper makes this prediction:

"The ultimate adoption of the Metric System seems inevitable."

And this now funny observation:

"I believe that this Nation has it in its power to decide now upon the immediate establishment of the Metric System throughout the world ; for if this country should set the date for its adoption by our people in relation to imports and exports, the postal service, inter-state transportation, etc., Great Britain and Russia must soon follow the example."

America could encourage Great Britain to adopt the metric system!

--From Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Association--

America: 1805

The Americans, to their honour be it said, have triumphed over that petty African tyranny, to which the several States of Europe have so long submitted, and supported by their inglorious and impolitic subsidies.

Accounts from Medina, dated the 1st of June, communicate the following intelligence:

Colonel Eaton having landed with a body of marines, &c. from the American squadron in Egypt, advanced into the Tripolitan territory; and after some severe contests, in which he was wounded in the arm by a musket-ball, and in which many of his people fell, he carried Derna and Bungasi by assault. The Tripolitans, alarmed at this success, immediately made overtures of peace...

--From The Gentleman's Magazine--

Americans standing up to bullies while Europeans try to buy them off with money. Some things never change.

Dirty Dancing: 1894

Some select quotations concerning the waltz:

The waltz became to me, and whomsoever danced with me, one lingering, sweet and purely sensual pleasure, where heart beat against heart, and eyes looked burning words which lips dared not speak.

Women of virtue or self-respect will now blush to have the dance named to them.

The well-known Inspector Byrnes of the New York police declares that three-fourths, at least, of the abandoned young women of that city were first approached through the round dances by the villains who effected their ruin.

The waltz—-a species of dance I do not hesitate thus publicly to denounce as undisguisedly licentious.

Yes, "the voluptuous movement of the Waltz" is the dance of death.

--From The Lutheran Witness--

Wont someone think of the children?

America, 1860 edition

But, for profound seriousness of statement, is there anything outrageous in even American romance to match the subjoined paragraph in the President's Message to Congress?--

"It is a striking proof of the sense of justice which is inherent in our people that the property in slaves has never been disturbed, to my knowledge, in any of the territories. Even throughout the late troubles in Kansas there has not been any attempt, as I am credibly informed, to interfere, in a single instance, with the right of the master. Had any such attempt been made, the judiciary would doubtless have afforded an adequate remedy. Should they fail to do this hereafter, it will then be time enough to strengthen their hands by further legislation. Had it been decided that either Congress or the territorial Legislature possess the power to annul or impair the right to property in slaves, the evil would be intolerable."

...But to talk of this right of property in Slaves, as though under a solemn conviction of its moral existence, is surely possible only to those who are inspired with that peculiar sentiment which Mr. Buchanan happily describes as "the sense of justice which is inherent in our people."

--From Punch, or The London Charivari--

We are informed that the President also took time in the same speech, to say how awful the slave trade was. America, with all her talk of "freedom" must have looked like the worst hypocrite imaginable. Thank goodness that problem ended with slavery.