On
May 1, 1886, American workers in general and Chicago’s workers in
particular decided that the eight-hour workday was an idea whose time
had come. Workers demonstrated, and a number of factories were
struck. Management responded in kind. At McCormick Reaper strikers
were replaced by ‘scabs’. On May 3, when the scabs left the
factory … they were mobbed by the strikers. Chicago’s police
promptly opened fire and America’s gilded age looked to be cracking
open.
The
next night, in Haymarket Square, the anarchists held a meeting
presided over by the mayor of Chicago. A thousand workers listened to
many thousands of highly incendiary words. But all was orderly until
His Honor went home; the the police ‘dispersed’ the meeting with
that tact which has ever marked Hog City’s law-enforcement
officers. At one point, someone (never identified) threw a bomb; a
number of policemen and workers were killed or wounded. Subsequently,
there were numerous arrests and in-depth grillings.
Finally,
more or less at random, eight men were indicted for ‘conspiracy to
murder’. There was no hard evidence of any kind. One man was not
even in town that day while another was home playing cards. By and
large, the great conservative Republic felt no compassion for
anarchists, even the ones who had taken up the revolutionary game of
bridge; worse, an eight-hour workday would drive a stake through the
economy’s heart.
On
August 20, a prejudiced judge and jury found seven of the eight men
guilty of murder in the first degree; the eight man (who had not been
in town that night) got fifteen years in the slammer because he had a
big mouth. …
During
the short hot summer of 1886, the case was much discussed. The
peculiar arbitrariness of condemning to death men whom no one had
seen commit a crime but who had been heard, at one time or another,
to use ‘incendiary and seditious language’ was duly noted in
bookish circles. Yet no intellectual of the slightest national
importance spoke up. … Mark Twain maintained his habitual silence
on any issue where he might, even for an instant, lose the love of
the folks.
[Gore
Vidal]
==========
Having
thus honoured and dignified the married state, [Lykurgus]
destroyed
the vain womanish passion of jealousy, for, while carefully avoiding
any
disorder or licentiousness, he nevertheless permitted men to
associate
worthy
persons with them in the task of begetting children, and taught
them
to ridicule those who insisted on the exclusive possession of their
wives,
and who were ready to fight and kill people to maintain their
right.
It was permitted to an elderly husband, with a young wife, to
associate
with himself any well-born youth whom he might fancy, and to
adopt
the offspring as his own.
And
again, it was allowable for a respectable man, if he felt any
admiration
for a virtuous mother of children, married to some one else,
to
induce her husband to permit him to have access to her, that he might
as
it were sow seed in a fertile field, and obtain a fine son from a
healthy
stock. Lykurgus did not view children as belonging to their
parents,
but above all to the state; and therefore he wished his
citizens
to be born of the best possible parents; besides the
inconsistency
and folly which he noticed in the customs of the rest of
mankind,
who are willing to pay money, or use their influence with the
owners
of well-bred stock, to obtain a good breed of horses or dogs,
while
they lock up their women in seclusion and permit them to have
children
by none but themselves, even though they be mad, decrepit, or
diseased;
just as if the good or bad qualities of children did not
depend
entirely upon their parents, and did not affect their parents
more
than any one else.
But
although men lent their wives in order to produce healthy and useful
citizens,
yet this was so far from the license which was said to prevail
in
later times with respect to women, that adultery was regarded amongst
them
as an impossible crime. A story is told of one Geradas, a very old
Spartan,
who, when asked by a stranger what was done to adulterers among
them,
answered, "Stranger, there are no adulterers with us." "And
if
there
were one?" asked the stranger. "Then," said Geradas,
"he would
have
to pay as compensation a bull big enough to stand on Mount Täygetus
and
drink from the river Eurotas." The stranger, astonished, asked
"Where
can you find so big a bull?" "Where can you find an
adulterer in
Sparta?"
answered Geradas. This is what is said about their marriage
ceremonies.
[Plutarch]
==========
… in
the hanging basket this plant will ‘cascade straight downward when
they reach the edge of the pot, creating a dense waterfall of
greenery that can drop 10 feet or more. … Breathtaking!’ …
pinch young plants … grow as a tender annual … leaves have a
wintergreen-like scent – ‘Try it and see what you think!’ … a
native of South Africa; Germans absconded with it and named it after
themselves … Senecio macroglossus is similar but has
glossier and waxier leaves … propagate by stem cuttings at any
season …
[ANNUALS
FOR EVERY PURPOSE]
==========
Another
plant of the southern seacoasts … [is] the shrubby Yaupon, or
Cassina [Ilex vomitoria], a seaside relative of out common
Christmas holly. Its leaves make the finest wild-plant tea available
in North America. This tea actually contains appreciable amounts of
caffeine, making it slightly stimulating like Oriental tea … it
makes a mildly stimulating tea that is delicious and as wholesome as
the commercial tea and coffee we buy. It is a close relative of maté
or Paraguay tea, which is highly appreciated in South America …
Our
own Yaupon is a small shrub, 1 to 3 feet high, stiffly branched, and
often forming small thickets … It is an evergreen, and can be
gathered any time of the year. … it bears small red berries
resembling those of the related hollies. I tried making tea of the
green leaves, but found it herby and unpleasant. Just dried in the
shade it was little better, but when I put a large bake pan full of
the leaves in an oven, turned the heat very low, propped open the
oven door, and roasted them until they were dry and crumbly, they
made very fine-tasting tea … Crumble the … leaves, remove the
stems and mid-veins, and make the tea exactly as you make ordinary
Oriental tea. …
One
could go on and on.
[Euell
Gibbons]
==========
PIG’S
EARS | COW’S UDDER | NIPPLE FRUIT | FOX FACE | Solanum mammosum
… full
sun … not hardy … keep evenly moist … fairly heavy feeder …
fruits are ‘reportedly’ poisonous … leaves are spiny … to 3
feet … when the fruits turn orange or yellow one can ‘harvest the
stems of the plant with the weird fruits attached’ … ‘This is
how the fruits are sold in cut flower markets, especially in Japan
and Taiwan. Then let the interpretations begin’. …
[BIZARRE
BOTANICALS]
==========
HENSLOW’S
SPARROW | Passerherbulus henslowi sururrans
There
is a great green hill east of the city of Worcester, where farmers
used to pasture cattle half a century ago, and there at the hill
foot, where a never-failing spring sent forth a rivulet that watered
a green field, I first made the acquaintance of this little fowl.
Where the rill spread out over the meadow, keeping the roots well
watered so that the grass grew rank and tall, the little male,
clinging to the upper grass stems, sent forth his weak but emphatic
‘FLEE-SIC’ hour after hour. His mate kept mostly under cover of
the grass, stealing along like a tiny mouse, and so well was the nest
concealed that I never found it.
Rank
grass in moist lowlands seems to be chosen usually by these birds as
a nesting-place. Usually, I have found the bird on moist land near
water, but in migration or in the South in winter it often frequents
dry fields or open piney woods near some sheltering thicket. …
One
who knows its note may find it without difficulty, but its activities
on the ground, where it spends most of its time, are well hidden by
the waving grass. If pursued it runs swiftly or squats and hides its
head under leaves or other vegetation, or it may flutter along close
to the ground until it reaches the shelter of some thicket of bushes
where it sits motionless and concealed until it believes that all
danger has passed. … Some of the males have the habit of singing,
if singing it can be called, after dark; sometimes they sing until
midnight, and in some cases nearly all night.
[Edward
Howe Forbush]
__________
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Busy
lizzies take summer off after mildew outbreak
Britain's
biggest garden centres will not be selling the country's favourite
summer plant this year after it was nearly wiped out by disease.
Thompson
and Morgan, a leading plant and seed supplier, has also withdrawn the
hanging basket favourite from sale.
The
entire population of busy lizzies is being threatened by impatiens
downy mildew, a fungal disease which has developed a resistance to
the fungicide being used to treat it.
The
airborne disease appears as a white powder on the underside of
leaves, causing them to yellow and fall off, leaving a bare stem.
Garden
centres hope that not stocking it will give the plant a chance to
recover and botanists time to find a cure.
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