Paul de Kock — A Great Novelist's Oddities

1874

During the whole life of Paul de Kock he never left the suburbs of Paris, simply because he was mortally afraid of meeting with an accident in traveling. He never, in his long career, rode in a carriage, and the idea of entering a railway car seemed frightful to him.

He was so notional that he could not write with any pen except coarse goose quills, which he cut himself, and one day, when he had to sign a document, at the "mairie" of his "rondissement," he took his old goose quill to write his name with it. He wrote a very fine hand, but very legible. He never read his own proofsheets, because typographical errors, which he considered inexcusable, owing to the legibility of his copy, made him exceedingly angry.

Most romantic was his first interview with the woman who afterward became his wife. One day in the winter time a sleigh drove past the little Belleville where Paul de Kock kept bachelor's hall. In the sleigh sat a young woman. The horse ran away and the young woman was thrown out. The fall had stunned her, and De Kock carried her kindly into his house and cared for her. She proved to be the daughter of a well-to-do hack-driver, was only eighteen, and very pretty. Paul de Kock fell at once in love with her, and four or five days afterwards his betrothal with M'lle. Jeanne Perrin was duly celebrated.

Note: Paul de Kock is mentioned in James Joyce's Ulysses as an author Molly Bloom read. "Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock's. Nice name he has."

Some Burdensome Names

1914

Perhaps the most burdensome name ever given to a child was to the daughter of Arthur Pepper in 1882. It comprised one name for every letter of the alphabet, in this way: Anna Bertha Cecilia Diana Emily Fanny Gertrude Hypatia Inez Jane Kate Louise Maud Nora Ophelia Quince Rebecca Starkey Teresa Ulysis Venus Winifred Xenophon Yetty Zeno, P of course provided in the surname, Pepper.

Hundreds of examples of this poor form of parental wit occur in the entries for the past few years Noah's Ark Smith, Sardine Box, Jolly Death, Judas Iscariot Brown, One-too-Many Johnson, Not-Wanted Smith, Bovril Simpson, Merry Christmas Figgett, Odious Heaton, Anno Domini Davis, are the names of children probably living who will have to bear them through life, unless they wash themselves clean with subterfuge.

There was for a long time a curiosity in nomenclature on the Australian pension list. His name was "Through-much-tribulation-we-enter-the-Kingdom-of-Heaven Smith." But the officials of the Pension department very pardonably abbreviated him into Tribby Smith."

It is not surprising that the names of Dickens' characters — odd though they are — should be found in real life, for it was from life that many of them were taken. Some, as we know, were copied from the names over shop doors, etc, but this was not the novelist's only source of selection. Among his papers John Forster found carefully drawn up lists of names, with the source from which he obtained them and the longest lists were those drawn from the "Privy Council Education Lists." Some of the names thus noted are too extravagant for anything but reality — Jolly Stick, Bill Marigold, George Muzzle, William Why, Robert Gospel, Robin Scrubbam, Sarah Goldsacks, Catherine Two, Sophia Doomsday, Rosetta Dust, Sally Gimblett!

Freaks in Circuses — The Attraction of Monstrosities

1910

FREAKS IN CIRCUSES

People Are Strangely Fascinated by the Monstrosities

When the "Domesticated Gorilla" Got the Show Into Trouble — Hot Water Spoils a "Mermaid" to Uncover Fake

London — It seems strange that freaks, from the legless wonder to the two-headed calf, should possess such a strange fascination for nine people out of ten, yet this is undoubtedly the case.

Of course, there are many so-called freaks which have no business to be called by such an unpleasant name, for if one argues from the dictionary a freak is a monstrosity, and a monstrosity, in the generally accepted sense of the word, is something horrible. The giant and the dwarf are interesting and unusual, but certainly should not be called "freaks."

Hunchbacks were an exception to the rule, for all kinds of powers were attributed to them. There are some very sensitive people to whom the sight of anything in the nature of a monstrosity is absolute pain, and women are fortunately few and far between who fall in love with a monster because of his monstrosity, as in the case of Victor Hugo's "L'homme qui Rit."

The ordinary individual comes across very few physical freaks, and one cannot but wonder whence the showman's rank and file are recruited. Perhaps, if the truth were known, more than half of the show freaks are "fakes." There are many good stories told of these sham freaks, who, owing to some contretemps, have "given the show away." The two following are good examples:

Among the freaks of a certain show was a "domesticated gorilla," to quote the handbills, and he proved one of the finest draws the show had ever had. After the performance no one could have recognized the gorilla, as he then took the shape of a very quiet, ordinary little man. The public particularly enjoyed seeing the gorilla swing from the horizontal bar by his tail, an appendage which is very slightly developed in the species as a rule.

This tail was a masterpiece of ingenuity. It was made of flexible steel, and so contrived that when it took a turn around anything it locked into position until it was released by the gorilla touching a spring concealed somewhere near his waist. The thing worked splendidly for a long time, until one day the gorilla put his tail through the bars of his cage, and a lady standing by took hold of it. Well, the tail acted automatically, as usual, and of course when she felt it tighten around her wrist the lady screamed. The gorilla pressed the hidden spring to no purpose. To make a long story short, the men standing by came to the lady's rescue, took hold of the tail and pulled it off. When the people saw the leather fastenings and buckles they "cleaned out the establishment."

The second story concerns a mermaid. She was no ordinary mermaid, but a "really high-class article," a very handsome young woman encased from the waist down in blue and gold fishskin. The water in which she smoked, and sang, and sat on a rock combing her hair was kept tepid so as not to give her a chill, and this was what gave her enemies — the beautiful Circassian girl and the dwarf — a chance to injure her.

They were jealous because she attracted more attention than they did, so they hatched a plot, which the dwarf carried out successfully. One day he pretended to be ill, and got a day off, and just before the mermaid's performance he hid himself in the boiler-room. After the man had been down to see that there was not too big a fire, the dwarf set to and stoked for all he was worth.

The mermaid soon felt that something was wrong, but she stood it as long as she could. At last, however, she had to choose between being boiled or giving the thing away, and naturally she preferred the latter alternative; but, as the showman put it, the public said things that were "very discouraging" and the show had to move on.

Twin Chickens from One Egg – Farmer Won't Sell Them

1899

Twin Chickens

Twenty-five dollars for a pair of spring chickens is a liberal price, yet a Massachusetts farmer rejected it. His pair of chickens, he thinks, are quite unique, for they are twins, five weeks old, and it is said that two chickens born from a single egg have never before been proved to live beyond eight days.

The buff brahma hen laid rather a large egg, yet no one thought much about it until one morning the farmer saw two bills instead of one trying to break out of the shell. He quickly removed the egg to the kitchen, extricated the two chicks, wrapped them in cotton batting, and placed them in the oven.

For three weeks the chickens were kept indoors on a diet of malted milk and brandy dropped down their throats with a medicine dropper. The twins are now hale and hearty, and run about the yard as vigorously as any of their comrades. One peculiarity, however, distinguishes them from their mates, They are exclusive little aristocrats and neither of them will associate with any other chicken except his twin. — Youth's Companion.

Some of The Genuinely Odd Things That Happen in Life

1893

OF GENERAL INTEREST.

—Dr. McBride, of Orange, Va., uses a flock of geese as a team of horses, which draw him over the ice in a specially prepared vehicle at the rate of one and a quarter miles a minute. He is now making a balloon in which he proposes to ride drawn by the same team.

—The man who orders plain butter in a New York restaurant and discovers it to be oleomargarine, or other kind of substitute, can have the proprietor arrested and fined, and the informer receives half the fine. The way in which the proprietor can protect himself is to print on his bills of fare the confession that his butter is not genuine.

—Uncle Joe Ardle, an old Georgia darky living on the Savannah river, thinks it about time to take to the woods. After the earthquake of 1886 he was afraid to live on the ground, so he built a hut in the branches of a huge oak tree, where he lived contentedly until the storm of a few weeks ago blew him and his hut clear out of the trees and almost into the river.

—The keeper of a cheap but clean restaurant in the French quarter in New York has hit upon the plan of advertising his wares by means of pictures on the flags of the sidewalk. He hires a chalk artist for this work, and you may see upon the flags just within the stoop line well-drawn fish in groups of three, and other lifelike representations of the viands that the place affords.

—An alligator eight feet two inches in length and weighing two hundred and twenty pounds was lately caught in the Mississippi. Alligators are quite plentiful in southwestern rivers, but they rarely attain a length of more than four feet. So far as known, this one is by far the largest ever taken from the Mississippi. Some of its teeth are over two inches long and very like the teeth of a shark.

—The Evening Democrat, Warren, PA, Oct. 17, 1893, p. 3.

Note: I've never heard of the French quarter in New York. Probably make that New Orleans.
—Towns county, Ga., boasts of a novel specimen of the "white" negro. This one has been "turning" for several years, until the left side of his face is perfectly white while the right side remains almost jet black. Negroes whose skin changes from black to a light brown or reddish white are not uncommon in the south, but the change mostly shows in blotches, giving them a mottled appearance.

—Stock raising is a business beset with many risks which do not cease until the flocks and herds are safely marketed. A flock of sheep was being driven through Grant county, Ore., to market at Baker City a few days ago, when, in passing through a narrow ravine, the sheep stampeded, and after the scare was over the stockman counted over sixty head of dead sheep that had been smothered in the crush.

—It may distract the attention of those who suffer from headache to learn that in early English days there were remedies "for headache, and for old headache, and for the ache of half the head." "Eye work and the fiend's temptations" are also mentioned in this catalogue. Ache of half the head, or hermicrania, from which George Eliot suffered so much, has been considered a distinctively modern disease, but there is nothing new.

—A strange fatality hangs over the Weeks family of Albion, Ind. Sherman was killed recently while climbing a tree. His brother entered the army during the war and died of lockjaw. Cornelius lost his life by swallowing a copper cent. Thomas jumped from a train and was killed, while Charles, still another brother, committed suicide by swallowing poison. Edward Weeks, also a brother, moved west some years ago and has never been heard of.

—Miss Minnie Rush, of Lakeville, Indiana, has discovered for herself and, perhaps for her sisters a new field of employment. For the past three years she has had charge of the passenger, freight and telegraph offices of the Vandalia line in her town, the receipts for which are fully ten thousand dollars a month. Miss Rush is only twenty-one years old, but she has organized railroad excursions which have netted handsome profits to her employers the past year, besides conducting the ordinary affairs of the office with skill and success.

—An ingenious mechanic in the Catskills has long manufactured small articles of use and ornament from the excrescences that grow upon the maple and other trees of the mountain region. He travels far in search of these nodules, seasons them for many years, and then fashions them into polished jewel boxes and many other beautiful things. He is especially careful that his material shall be well seasoned, a fact that means a good deal when one knows that the wood that goes to form some parts of thoroughly well made pianos should be seasoned thirty or forty years.

Man's Head For Sale, Twice Normal Size

1903

Personal and Otherwise

Arthur Jennings, aged 27, a resident of Florence, 0., has negotiated with an Eastern medical institute for the purchase of his head. Jenning's head is almost twice the normal size. According to the informant the price is $1,000 down and an additional $1,000 to be paid to his relatives at the time of his death. His head measures 36 inches in circumference.

After having been lost 33 years, Dr. J. H. Lenow, of Little Rock, is on the eve of recovering a medal which he won in his boyhood at the Kentucky Military institute. The doctor has received a letter from a jeweler in Brownsville, Tenn., Dr. Lenow's former home, saying that the medal had been brought to him by a negro who had plowed it up in a field near town.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, Iowa, March 4, 1903, page 4.