![Model Ships, Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904) [detail]](https://corvusfugitcom.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/model-ships-louisiana-purchase-exposition-1904-detail.jpg)
A model of the USS Columbia at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904; cropped from a larger photo:
The ship to the right may be the Minneapolis. The Columbia was the fourth ship with that name in the US Navy; it was launched in 1892 and served during the Spanish–American War:
An anecdote from Matthew Scott’s biography of Jumbo the Elephant (1885):
Once when I was riding him around in the Zoological Gardens, in London, sitting on his neck, with about a dozen children on a panier-saddle across his broad back, we were proceeding down the path. It was on a delightful summer afternoon, and the grass plots, flowers, plants, and trees, which abound in those magnificent gardens, looked beautiful. I was engaged talking to the dozen “little folk” who occupied his back, and encouraging them to sit very quietly and not fall off, when all at once Master Jumbo came to a standstill for some cause or other. I shouted to him to go along, but for once he did not obey the order. As I turned round to see what was the matter, there was a lady running over the grass-plot on to the path, screaming and shouting, “Oh, my poor child! my child, my child! oh, he will be killed, he will be killed!” Well, I looked down from my elevation and saw Jumbo deliberately and coolly putting his trunk around the body of an infant that escaped its mother’s apron-strings and had run and fallen in front of Jumbo. Jumbo is a very careful walker, and always looks where he is going, and, like some others of God’s creatures, is rather slow in his movements, but both very sure-footed and thoughtful. He just stopped right there, gently picked up the child by the waist with his trunk, and laid it on the green grass beside its screaming mother, more tenderly than the mother afterward took up the frightened child in her excitement.
Jumbo was an African bush elephant who had been captured in the Sudan, exported to a zoo in Paris, and then, in 1865, moved to the London Zoo. Scott (at left in picture) was Jumbo’s attentive and beloved keeper. Despite widespread public protest, Jumbo was sold to the American circus tycoon P. T. Barnum in 1862; when the animal was transported to the United States, Scott went with him.
Jumbo was not named Jumbo because he was large. The word “jumbo”—meaning “large,” as in “jumbo jet”—originated by association with the animal.
The General Motors Firebird III was built in 1958, debuted as a concept car at Motorama in 1959, and was featured at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair.
In 1776, Lemuel Haynes, a veteran of the American Revolution and the first black man in the United States to be ordained as a minister, wrote this response to the Declaration of Independence:
Liberty Further Extended: Or Free Thoughts on the Illegality of Slave-keeping
We hold these truths to be self-Evident, that all men are created Equal, that they are Endowed By their Creator with Ceartain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happyness.
—Congress
….Liberty, & freedom, is an innate principle, which is unmovebly placed in the human Species; and to see a man aspire after it, is not Enigmatical, seeing he acts no ways incompatible with his own Nature; consequently, he that would infring upon a mans Liberty may reasonably Expect to meet with oposision, seeing the Defendant cannot Comply to Nonresistance, unless he Counter-acts the very Laws of nature.
Liberty is a Jewel which was handed Down to man from the cabinet of heaven, and is Coaeval with his Existance. And as it proceed from the Supreme Legislature of the univers, so it is he which hath a sole right to take away; therefore, he that would take away a mans Liberty assumes a prerogative that Belongs to another, and acts out of his own domain.
One man may bost a superorety above another in point of Natural previledg; yet if he can produse no convincive arguments in vindication of this preheminence his hypothesis is to Be Suspected. To affirm, that an Englishman has a right to his Liberty, is a truth which has Been so clearly Evinced, Especially of Late, that to spend time in illustrating this, would be But Superfluous tautology. But I query, whether Liberty is so contracted a principle as to be Confin’d to any nation under Heaven; nay, I think it not hyperbolical to affirm, that Even an affrican, has Equally as good a right to his Liberty in common with Englishmen.
I know that those that are concerned in the Slave-trade, Do pretend to Bring arguments in vindication of their practise; yet if we give them a candid Examination, we shall find them (Even those of the most cogent kind) to be Essencially Deficient. We live in a day wherein Liberty & freedom is the subject of many millions Concern; and the important Struggle hath alread caused great Effusion of Blood; men seem to manifest the most sanguine resolution not to Let their natural rights go without their Lives go with them; a resolution, one would think Every one that has the Least Love to his country, or futer posterity, would fully confide in, yet while we are so zelous to maintain, and foster our own invaded rights, it cannot be tho’t impertinent for us Candidly to reflect on our own conduct, and I doubt not But that we shall find that subsisting in the midst of us, that may with propriety be stiled Opression, nay, much greater opression, than that which Englishmen seem so much to spurn at. I mean an oppression which they, themselves, impose upon others…
…. And the main proposition, which I intend for some Breif illustration is this, Namely, That an African, or, in other terms, that a Negro may Justly Chalenge, and has an undeniable right to his Liberty: Consequently, the practise of Slave-keeping, which so much abounds in this Land is illicit. Every privilege that mankind Enjoy have their Origen from god; and whatever acts are passed in any Earthly Court, which are Derogatory to those Edicts that are passed in the Court of Heaven, the act is void. If I have a perticular previledg granted to me by god, and the act is not revoked nor the power that granted the benefit vacated, (as it is imposable but that god should Ever remain immutable) then he that would infringe upon my Benifit, assumes an unreasonable, and tyrannic power.
It hath pleased god to make of one Blood all nations of men, for to dwell upon the face of the Earth. Acts 1 7, 26. And as all are of one Species, so there are the same Laws, and aspiring principles placed in all nations; and the Effect that these Laws will produce, are Similar to Each other. Consequently we may suppose, that what is precious to one man, is precious to another, and what is irksom, or intolarable to one man, is so to another, consider’d in a Law of Nature. Therefore we may reasonably Conclude, that Liberty is Equally as pre[c]ious to a Black man, as it is to a white one, and Bondage Equally as intollarable to the one as it is to the other: Seeing it Effects the Laws of nature Equally as much in the one as it Does in the other. But, as I observed Before, those privileges that are granted to us By the Divine Being, no one has the Least right to take them from us without our consen[t]; and there is Not the Least precept, or practise, in the Sacred Scriptures, that constitutes a Black man a Slave, any more than a white one.
Shall a mans Couler Be the Decisive Criterion whereby to Judg of his natural right? or Becaus a man is not of the same couler with his Neighbour, shall he Be Deprived of those things that Distuingsheth [Distinguisheth] him from the Beasts of the field?…
Costume design by Paul Lormier for the 1849 ballet Le violon du diable (source).
A description of what we would now call a depressive episode from a 1953 story by Jean Ferry, “The Traveler with Luggage”:
As a result of incidents still obscure to me, I suffered an absolutely atrocious mental breakdown in the first months of the year 19—, from which I had the hardest rime recovering. Having never experienced this kind of turmoil, I was deeply struck by its intensity; but a cenesthetic certainty guarantees my safety from the return of what I can only call a disease.
Weighed down by various work, for which I shared responsibility with very dear friends whom till then I had done much to keep, I suddenly found myself utterly, unremittingly unable not only to write a line, but even to perform any act of free will whatsoever. After voluntarily depriving myself of vacation, since I could not do otherwise, I spent several long weeks wandering the winter streets, no blissful idler but a hunted man, dogged by remorse and worry. I had neither willpower, nor the will to have willpower. I missed appointments with the most ridiculous excuses; I embarrassed several people who were counting on me, to whom I was bound by all sorts of ties, the least painful of which were not those of sincere friendship. I was ashamed of my incredible cowardice and, I repeat, this leisure tormented me with each passing second. Sometimes, quite rarely, I would forget it all, but almost right away, as a flood bursts a dam, the tower of misfortunes I’d built bit by bit with my own hands would suddenly collapse on me.
Image: A sculpture from Damon Davis’s series Cracks (2020).
Odilon Redon: Evocation of Butterflies (ca. between 1910 and 1912)
Léon Spilliaert: Seascape Seen from Mariakerke (1909)
Indian flying foxes are found throughout India. Like others of their species, they are gregarious and tend to form large social groups. With a wingspan of four to five feet, Indian flying foxes are very conspicuous in their open roosts in large trees such as banyan and tamarind where they spend their hours of rest. During the daytime they fan themselves with membranous wings, crawl over the branches, seek mates, defend favored roost location against other bats, and if a stranger approaches, they squawk and chatter loudly. Since they share their habitat with common birds of India such as the blue jay, crow and myna, the greeting chorus can be deafening. Just after sunset the bats begin leaving their tree roost for feeding. They return about two hours before sunrise after feeding on a wide variety of fruits, including figs, mangoes, guava and neem (Azadirachta indica), a tree native to India, whose seeds are dispersed by bats.
One colony of around 500 Indian flying foxes roosts in a huge banyan tree in the small village of Puliangulam, about 40 miles east of Madurai in southern India. The colony is considered sacred and treated with special care. When a team of researchers from Madurai Kamaraj University visited Puliangulam to talk to the local people about their beliefs concerning the flying foxes, an 80-year-old woman reported that the colony had occupied the tree even before her birth.
According to the villagers, the bats seek protection from a God named Muni who dwells around the tree. They never disturb the bats and do not permit others to do so even when only a glimpse is wanted. Those who do not heed the protests of the protective villagers may find themselves in an adamant quarrel; if a villager fails to protect the bats, even in circumstances beyond their control, they believe Muni will punish them. Punishment can be rendered in the form of a business loss, an accident, or can be as severe as a death in the family. Those who are punished approach the God and seek forgiveness by offering prayer and “pooja,” a customary ceremony (after “pooja,” sweet rice, coconut and banana is distributed to those in attendance). The villagers say that about eight such cases have happened. But while the live flying foxes must be protected at all costs, freshly dead bats found on the ground are taken for food, but only after prayers are offered to Muni.
Indian flying foxes are considered sacred in a few other villages in southern India, and several in northern India as well. [In southern India, the known flying fox colonies considered sacred are all near Madurai: Keelarajakularaman (about 56 miles southwest), Sri Vaikundam (nearly 190 miles south), and Ramanathapuram (approximately 62 miles west).] Even though some populations of these flying foxes are protected because of their sacred status, bats in unprotected colonies are killed as a source of protein and also because they are thought to possess medical powers.
There is no official protection for Indian flying foxes or the other two species of flying foxes in India, and in fact, The Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 of the Government of India consigned them all to Schedule V–vermin. Misconceptions about them persist. Dr. M.K. Chandrashekaran, a member of BCI’s Scientific Advisory Board at Madurai Kamaraj University, and a group of colleagues, are working to change attitudes through education. Their highly successful biology exhibit in 1986 drew the interest of thousands of students, and even gained the praise of India’s Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, and his wife. Requests to have the flying foxes of India removed from the list that officially recognizes them in the same category as poisonous snakes and rats are still under consideration.
—G. Marimuthu: “The Sacred Flying Fox of India,” Bat Conservation International, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1988).
Image: Bhawani Das: Great Indian Fruit Bat (Flying Fox), Pteropus giganteus, with both wings outstretched (ca. 1778–82)
The following poem appeared in several publications in 1908:
A Singular Tragedy
I dreamed I was a lady, and I was wooed by Me.
(The writer of this story you understand’s a He.)
I dreamed (I say) I loved Me with an absorbing flame,
And by-and-by I promised to bear my honored name.I dreamed that “we” were married, and thought that I was She.
A most ill-tempered hubby I soon discovered Me.
I couldn’t wake Me mornings. At paying bills I slouched.
Me left I in the evening or stayed at home and grouched.I dreamed I was my husband (and this time Me was She),
And, oh! the dance Me led I (oh! most unnatural Me!)
Me lived on bridge and Suffrage and left I all alone
In smokeless, homeless mis’ry, to pay the bills—and groan.No longer could I stand it, this dream of double dread.
“Divorce!” says Me to I, and “Sure Thing!” was all I said.
I went to court, I parted, though how is hard to get.
The dream was o’er. In bed I cried: “Thank God! I’m single yet!”
Credit is given to the Philadelphia Ledger.
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