Smashing success

Chicago Herald, June 2, 1891. The victimological gamut of “merchants, mechanics and laboring men” establishes that the perp is an equal-opportunity wisenheimer and not some filthy workshy Iowan anarchist targeting the haves and sparing the have-nots. “Mechanic” here is being used in the wider 19th-century sense of a technologically-skilled worker quelconque.

Statistically this was a very strange week here at THC. I can never anticipate which items are going to grow legs and which will not, but on December 7th traffic on this site suddenly spiked from the normal range of 1,000,000 hits per diem to 5,000,000.* To my surprise, the big rainmaker was this. Which was odd because mince, while good for generating comments from the front of the class, has never been a popular favorite. Though it’s 3D celebrity pron when compared to the poor unloved BGN, whose poison extends to the box office.

*Above numbers may differ from reality by several orders of magnitude.

Jack the Dude-Kicker

San Francisco Bulletin, June 11, 1891. I appreciate it when some obliging newspaper editor has done all the gleaning and gathering for me. Thank you, nameless long-dead newspaperman.

It was funny because it was true

Harper’s Magazine, November 1894. I’ll caption this for the visually impaired:

“Well, Jack, I suppose you’re very thankful for something to-day?”

“I dun’no’ yet. I’ll tell you to-morrow.”

“To-morrow? And why to-morrow?”

“I dun’no’ how I’ll feel after those four pieces of mince pie and three saucers of cranberry.”

You are getting ssssssleepy

Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, December 12, 1888. Question: Was the kid putting people on, or did he actually experience serpentine mind control. Because it’s possible that snake hypnosis was one of those culture bound syndromes, like Amok, Pibloktoq, Wendigo & Bulimia. (Which formidable law firm I am careful to keep on retainer at all times.)

Chop on pop

Ths Brattleboro, Vermont, Reporter, June 14, 1806. Hoo boy, heref a meffed-up ftory about a terrfically unhappy family. Bafically a confpiracy of children to kill their drunken, violent old man before he killed again. Gotta feel forry for the kidf, though my guess is the teenage murdereff probabaly fwung for thif.

Pie of dark destiny II

Critic-Reporter (Washington, D.C.), February 8, 1872. I sometimes honestly wonder if I’m not getting in over my head with my mince pie researches. Might I be about to awaken a slumbering ancient evil, per about 3,000,000 direct-to-video DVD releases?

And yet I must press on with the work, because lemme tell you, new shit is coming to light faster than I can assimilate it. In addition to these exciting new archival developments, this is a very big day in the Hope Chest Experimental Kitchens, where I am in the midst–nay, the throes–of preparing my very first batch of mince.

And lemme also tell you, this is an extremely labor-intensive pie. Yesterday I got my minced beef ready; today, having earlier shopped for suet and mace and brandy and good stuff like that, I am preparing to chop fruit and start mixing up test batches of mince.

Tomorrow I will be asking a panel of randomly-selected test subjects (i.e. strangers at someone else’s Thanksgiving dinner party) to sample the pie, evaluate its flavor, and get back to me about any physical or psychological side-effects. (And no, I don’t know if this is exactly ethical on my part, okay? But such is my Faustian–Frankensteinian? Mengeleian?–dedication to the advance of historical knowledge.)

Anyway, an account of the results plus an essay on the social history of mince pie will consequently be published in the Chicago Reader, unless of course I can’t make bail.

But before I can proceed with mixing the meth, er, mince, I must wait for my boiled cider to reduce to its appropriate consistency. It was while waiting for my cider to boil that I discovered the above horror, and many other things too strange and wondrous to even think about as I stand here on the threshold of the Hurt Locker.

As for the above item, all I can say is this: Before I put any pies in the oven, I’m definitely gonna put vents in the pastry. (Is this is what people mean when they say “Everything happens for a reason”?)

Hate the player and the game

Philadelphia Inquirer, March 3, 1889. It strikes me that Judge Snead’s little prodigy might well be getting away with murder here. Exactly how many shots were fired before he concluded that dad’s hand cannon was loaded? (Also: did the black kids ever get a turn playing police?)

Gentleman caller

Kansas City Times, May 18, 1889. I’m guessing this one never got to court.

See monkey, be monkey

Medical & Surgical Reporter, October 9, 1869. Pre-natal care has changed a fair bit over the years.

The Giantess of Illinois

San Francisco Chronicle, January 29, 1894. My headline here plays off of the title and lyric of “The Giant of Illinois,” the mournful and mysterious but insuperably beautiful song by The Handsome Family (lately also covered by Andrew Bird).

A signature trait of the Wild Woman is that she rarely seems to manifest in mixed company. She appears to the men on some occasions, and to women and/or children on others, but not to all at once. I like the detail that this one wields a club rather than the usual knife. So much more bluntly phallic.

It’s odd that neither Forteans nor feminists have perpetuated this trope. Nor even that tiny overlapping body of Fortean feminists.