Advantages of the Spanking Machine

1905

"I see," said the mother of five, "that out in Peoria, Ill., they've invented a machine for spanking children. She cast a meaning glance at her son Willie, who shifted uneasily in his chair, but said nothing.

"I was thinking," she went on, speaking to no one in particular, "that I would send on to the inventor and get one of the machines. It would come in handy for me, and I could rent it out among some neighbors I know and make money on it. That is, of course, if I didn't use it all the time, which I might." Willie squirmed again, and thanked his stars the machine wasn't there yet. His mother went on.

"I s'pose they have various sized hands for the machine, to be used in accordance with the gravity of the spankee's offense and the spanking area presented to the spanker. For instance, for such offenses as hanging to the tall end of ice carts, about a No. 2 hand, with spikes in it would do. For riding up in the dumbwaiter and scaring the life out of the cook so that she gives notice, a No. 9 hand, with explosive torpedoes in the palm, wouldn't be any too big or heavy. If the machine works with a crank, as I imagine it does, the rapidity of the stroke could be regulated, too, and the severity of the punishment thus graded according to what the young man ought to have coming to him. "Of course, I'm merely talking from hearsay, now, but I think one of those machines on every street corner would be a good thing. They could build a little booth around it and charge admission. Then when a small boy, out with his mother, insisted on running across a crowded street ahead of her, and giving her heart disease by nearly getting run over by cars and automobiles, she could just lead him into the corner spankorium and attend to him good and plentiful. I think the city ought to know about this and provide such places.

"It would be a great machine to act as a deterrent. If a boy was bad you could say to him: 'Be good, now, or I will put papa's hand with the cast-iron fingers on it into the spanker and turn it loose on you.' That would do some good, and I don't think the small boy would think it a bluff either."

—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA, Dec. 2, 1905, p. 7.

Son Accuses Father of Eloping with Wife

1914

La Crosse, Wis., Jan. 2. — That Albert Rockwell, Nelson, Wis., eloped with his young daughter-in-law, deserting his own wife, is the assertion of his son, Bert Rockwell, who caused his arrest.

Rockwell was brought back from Spirit Lake, Idaho. Arraigned in the county court on a statutory charge he pleaded not guilty and was held to the circuit court for trial. His wife and son testified against him. The eloping father was traced to Idaho by a post card sent to Wisconsin relatives by his son's wife.

The son asserts that a year ago he decided to move to Nelson, Wis., from Minnesota. He went ahead to prepare the home, his father offering to help his young wife with the moving.

Young Rockwell telegraphed his wife and little girl to "come." They did not, neither did they answer. Then Rockwell received word from his mother that his father, wife and child had disappeared with $8,000 the elder Rockwells had saved.

Mrs. Rockwell, wife of the son, was not brought back from Idaho, her husband saying all he is after is revenge upon the father for breaking up two homes.

Disinheriting Sons

1906

A Suggestion for the Chastening and Improvement of Rich Parents

The idea occurs to me that one of the laws most urgently needed would make it impossible for a son to inherit even a cent from his parents. Of course the female progeny of a man would have to be excepted from such an arrangement. Such legislation would oblige the indulgent father to give his son a common sense education, cultivate in him a sense of healthy independence. Secondly, the young man who, under the present dispensation, has more money than sense or conception of his ethical obligations to society would find his path less slippery and would have the rough corners of his self-conceit rounded out. Thirdly, parents would find life much easier and would get a chance to cross the Styx in a natural way, not accelerated by the heartache due to the behavior of their children; and fourthly, the proposition would act as a very convenient regulator for the distribution of the national wealth.

Let every man continue making all the money he can — the more the better. He may also spend it in whatever manner he pleases; but after his demise the money he has accumulated should revert to the State, except that part necessary in order to keep the wife of the deceased and the female members of his family in the degree of comfort enjoyed by them during the life of the individual concerned. In the case of the daughters of a man so deceased their share should also revert to the State at the time of their marriage; the benefits of their father's estate, however, should be assured them in case certain conditions should make matrimony an undesirable state. The widow should be subject to the same conditions — remarriage should cause her to forfeit all claims to her former husband's estate. In her case, however, the portion due should be subject to no other conditions. The last named arrangement would prevent a good many of the old man's darling marriages, and would cause a decided decrease in moral iniquity of a very obnoxious character.

This proposition naturally sounds radical enough to be called Spartan, yet such a law, while placing no curb on personal ambition, would rob thousands of misguided parents of the only pleasure they really have — that of slaving for an ungrateful posterity. A suggestion like this could, of course, only come from Sans Galette et Sans Famille, in the New York Sun.

Gypsy Oracle Arranges Ego Transference for Brothers As One Dies

1901

CHANGED SOULS AT DEATH-BED

Queer Story Comes From Budapest

Evidence Bears Out the Fact that Something Queer Was Done But it is Believed by Experts that it Was a Hypnotic Trick

BUDAPEST, Dec. 28. — Vienna is not to be outdone by Paris in the production of remarkable canards.

Last week Paris correspondents recording the resurrecting of the dead in leading Paris hospitals. Today we have, perhaps, an even more absorbing story here.

How far it is true I cannot say, but the old philosophers averred the performance recorded here was a matter of no uncommon occurrence in ancient Egypt.

From a small village in the neighborhood of Budapest comes the following remarkable story:

"The horrors of the death-bed have apparently been added to in a new and unexpected manner and the question of the raising of the dead has assumed a new phase.

"Modern surgery has hitherto stopped at the limits of the physical being and has been content to consider the transfusion of blood as the greatest miracle which it was capable of accomplishing.

"An old and wealthy Czech named Rageli, had two sons, Rudolph and Jean, and the latter, who was his favorite, lay at the point of death. In his despair over the threatened loss of his favorite son Rageli had recourse to the assistance of a well known gypsy oracle and between these two a plot was arranged, it is alleged, which will possibly send both of the plotters to the gallows. Rageli betrayed to the oracle the fact that his distress would have been minimized if it had been his other son's life which was attacked by disease as his whole hope was based upon the assistance of his younger son Jean.

The oracle at once saw a way to enrich himself and lessen the distress of Rageli, and told him that if he desired to have such a plan consummated it would be possible for him at the critical moment when death was taking place to bring about a transference of egos so that the soul of his favorite son could be transferred to the healthy organism of his brother whilst the latter's would assume the place of the one which left the defunct body.

In order to accomplish this mysterious feat the gypsy claimed that the brother must absolutely be present.

"There was no difficulty whatever in bringing such an arrangement about, as Rudolph naturally desired to be at the bedside of his brother at such a solemn occasion as his death. The gypsy oracle was there, of course, for the avowed purpose of trying to prevent the fatal catastrophe.

"What weird scene actually transpired in that remarkable death chamber no earthly tongue has yet told and but for the strange stories which have floated out of the quiet village to the world beyond the gossiping of peasants and chatter of servants, nothing would ever have come to light, for those who made the guilty compact are naturally silent on the subject.

"Both of the brothers were married and it is to this fact that the really tangible evidence which has been found in support of the extraordinary story has been forthcoming.

"The brothers were both affectionate, devoted and faithful husbands, and among the many freaks attributed to Rudolph since his brother's death is that he has deserted his own wife and is now living with the widow of his brother, showing the most passionate devotion for one another.

"In reply to the expostulations of his wife Rudolph solemnly avers that although he retains the outward semblance of his former self he is in reality Jean.

"This story, which was at first received with ridicule by the villagers and servants, has been coupled with the fact that the old gypsy was around the Rageli house so much at the termination of the younger son's illness and his well founded reputation as a sorcerer has furnished the necessary link in this most sensational story.

"To add to the mystery of the situation the old father has shut himself up in his lonely mansion and refuses to see anybody. The servants aver that he is haunted by the spirit of Rudolph, which is trying by every means in its power to avenge the diabolical act that caused its disembodiment in favor of Jean.

"They aver and state themselves as being willing to bear witness to the fact and ready to face any court of law, that they have seen the apparition of Rudolph a dozen times in the old chateau since the death of Jean and that its countenance is so disfigured by hatred and despair that it resembles a fiend more than it does the only happy brother.

"Another rumor credits Jean with being so horrified by the strange tales which are afloat and which so peculiarly corroborate his own belief that he acts at times like a demented person.

"The rustic population are firm believers in the supernatural and it is difficult to find any of them who do not firmly believe the story.

"Their superstitions are so firmly rooted that they would not dare to molest the gypsy or the elder Rageli, although it is said that the police have investigated the case under the belief that the stories which have gone abroad were only a cover invented to hide a murder growing out of jealousy on the part of the brothers over the love of Jean's wife.

"They have abandoned the murder theory, however, and are at a loss to know how they can possibly take any action in the strange matter.

Psychologists say the changes of identity, or the transposition of egos are by no means impossible and that many well authenticated cases of such happenings have been recorded.

"These, however, have always been accidental so far as the record shows.

"Hindu fakirs, who claim to be able to withdraw their own egos from their bodies and traverse space at will say that one of the principal dangers with which they have to contend in these experiments is the possibility that some disembodied ego may attempt to establish itself in their own physical shells whilst they are absent from them.

"This is the supreme danger they apprehend when passing into what Western people call the trance state.

"There are many cases on record familiar to every newspaper reader in which living persons have been other than themselves for a number of years, afterward again assuming their own identity. It seems possible that these may have been due to the transference of egos.

"Some of the more thoughtful persons here who have devoted their attentions to the subject do not hesitate to aver their belief that Rudolph was hypnotized by the old magician at the time of his brother's death and made to believe that he was Jean so that the old magician could obtain money from his father.

"This would not, according to the hypnotic authorities, be at all an impossible feat and therefore there may be truth in the main part of the story to the effect that Rudolph and the father had been led into such a remarkable delusion." — VALERIE DELAMAR.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, Iowa, December 29, 1901, page 16.