(It is a pick.)
TABLE SALT IS NOT SALT.
(It is composed of chloride of sodium.)
THERE IS NO SODA IN SODA WATER.
(It is water charged with carbonic acid gas.)
A CUTTLE FISH IS NOT A FISH.
(It is an octopus.)
PANAMA HATS ARE NOT MADE IN PANAMA.
(They are manufactured in Ecuador.)
THE FLYING FOX IS NOT A FOX.
(It is a large bat.)
HUDSON BAY IS NOT A BAY.
(It is an inland sea.)
THERE IS NO CHAMOIS IN CHAMOIS LEATHER.
(It is made from the flesh side of sheep skin.)
THERE IS NO CAMEL’S HAIR IN A CAMEL’S HAIR BRUSH.
(The brushes are made from the hair of squirrels.)
FRENCH BEANS DO NOT COME FROM FRANCE.
(They are grown in India.)
A TITMOUSE IS NOT A MOUSE.
(It is a small bird.)
WORMWOOD IS NOT WOOD--NOR IS IT A WORM.
(It is an aromatic bitter plant.)
THE LADY-BIRD IS NOT A BIRD.
(It is a beetle.)
A PRAIRIE DOG IS NOT A DOG.
(It is a Rodent.)
A WHALE IS NOT A FISH.
(It is a Mammal. A Whale is warm-blooded, and suckles its young.)
A HUMMING BIRD HUMS WITH ITS WINGS.
THE SO-CALLED FOUR ELEMENTS--FIRE, WATER, EARTH, AND AIR--ARE NOT
ELEMENTS.
(They are compounds.)
THE GLASS SNAKE IS NOT GLASS--NOR IS IT A SNAKE.
(It is a lizard.)
* * *
CHRIST WAS _NOT_ BORN IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA
He was born about four years before the period when the era began. A
mistake in computation by a sixth-century chronologist is responsible
for the common and erroneous understanding that Christ’s birth was in
the year I.
* * *
AESOP DID _NOT_ WRITE “AESOP’S FABLES”
The famous Fables were written by a Graeco-Italian named Babrius
several centuries after Aesop’s death. They should be called “Babrius’
Fables.” Some chroniclers declare that the famous Phrygian fabulist
never lived at all. Anyway, the fables he is supposed to have composed
are lost. Not one exists today.
Aesop’s repute was wide-spread, and the term “Aesopic” is generally
applied to all moral tales having animal characters, thanks to Socrates
and later writers who made versions of Babrius’s creations to which
they gave Aesop’s name, thus bestowing immortality upon one sage while
robbing another of his rightful laurels.
* * *
NERO DID _NOT_ FIDDLE WHILE ROME BURNED
In the first place the “fiddle” was not yet invented. Neither did Nero
play any other instrument at the time because he was fifty miles away
at his villa in Antium when the fire occurred, and did not return to
the city until it was in ashes.
_Tacitus, the historian, is the authority for this statement._
* * *
THE NEEDLE OF THE COMPASS DOES _NOT_ POINT TO THE NORTH POLE
It points to the Magnetic Pole which is 1,500 miles west of the true
North Pole.
* * *
THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO POINTS IS _NOT_ A STRAIGHT LINE
Lindbergh proved that when he flew from New York to Paris. Lindy flew
what is known as “an arc of the great circle.”
* * *
[Illustration]
NAPOLEON--LIKE MOSES--CROSSED THE RED SEA ON DRY LAND
Please accept Napoleon’s own word that he crossed the Red Sea “_à pieds
secs_” (on dry foot). He says so in volume 1, page 2, of his _Mémorial
de St. Hélène_.
The Miracle of Moses and the hosts of Israel passing over the Red Sea
is a non-religious possibility. The point of crossing is near the town
of Suez called Bahr es Kolzum (the Sea of Drowning)--Yam Suph in the
Bible--and is only a mile wide and naturally shallow, due to sand bars.
The rise and fall of the tide is from five to seven feet. A strong wind
blows northwest for nine months of the year, and often has a tremendous
influence upon an ebb tide, causing it to vary three feet and more.
(It is significant that both the Bible and Napoleon mention a strong
prevailing wind.)
A combination of the above facts: wind, tide, sand bars and the
narrowness of the Gulf of Suez would indicate that Napoleon told
the truth. Besides, a number of Bible critics, both worldly and
ecclesiastical, bear out his statement. I refer you to: _Biblical
Encyclopedia_ ... under Red Sea; _Egypt_, by Bishop Charles Seymour
Robinson, page 85, volume 1, and many others.
I have seen the point of passing myself. It is now about the same
distance in width, but has been dredged out in a channel to a depth of
thirty-five feet.
[Illustration:
FOR SALE
“Urbi et Orbi”
Praetorian G.
GAUL MACEDONIA
NUMIDIA CARTHAGE DESERT
THE WORLD
WAS SOLD TO
THE HIGHEST BIDDER!
DIDIUS JULIANUS BOUGHT THE ENTIRE ROMAN WORLD
FROM THE PRÆTORIAN GUARD FOR $5,000,000
MARCH 28, 193]
SELLING THE WORLD
After the death of Pertinax the Roman World was offered for sale at
auction by the all-powerful Prætorian Guard. Didius Salvius Julianus
Marcus, a wealthy Roman merchant, outbid all others, and the world was
knocked down to him after he paid the equivalent of $5,000,000 in gold
on March 28, 193 A.D. The Roman Senate took the oath of loyalty to him.
When the Roman Legions stationed in Great Britain learned of the
disgraceful deal they rose in indignation and, under the leadership of
General Septimus Severus, hurried to Rome, where Didius was seized,
deposed, and beheaded on June 2nd, 193 A.D.
Septimus thereupon became Imperator of Rome.
_See any Roman History or Encyclopedia Britannica under “Didius.”_
[Illustration]
* * *
THE GOLDEN MAN
“El Dorado.”
How often have we heard that phrase. It means “the Golden,” and was
originally written “El Hombre Dorado”--the Golden Man.
And there is a Golden Man!
Immediately after Columbus discovered the new world a horde of
adventurers streamed across the Atlantic to seek their fortunes.
Columbus and his men had told wild tales about the lands that they had
found and the wild army of Conquistadores that followed them expected
to gather wealth with ease. These valiant old Spaniards came with no
altruistic motives. They may have carried a cross in one hand but they
held a sword in the other, and their motive was more a lust for gold
than the love of God.
Among the first tales told them as they reached the Spanish Main, was
the story of El Hombre Dorado--the Man of Gold. They were told by the
Islanders of the Caribbean that there was a man of pure gold who lived
in wondrous splendor somewhere to the south.
These Spaniards were told this story for several reasons ... the most
important of which was the impatient desire of the natives to be rid of
these strange white men.
The simplest method of ridding themselves of the troublesome white men
was to tell them about gold. Gold to the natives of new America meant
nothing. Gold had no pecuniary value. To the natives of the new world
gold was simply an ornament and they thought the Spanish crazy because
this bright metal held such a lure for them.
It was a fetish, they thought, (and they were right) so whenever the
bearded white men came down upon them they only pointed southward and
hinted about the “Golden Man.” They continually described El Dorado as
easy to be reached and situated at no considerable distance. It was
like a phantom that seemed to fly before the Spaniards and to call on
them unceasingly. It is in the nature of man, wandering on the earth,
to figure himself happiness beyond the region which he knows. The
shining lure of gold glowed brightly in the darkness of this unknown
land. A will o’ the wisp.
But they were not altogether wrong.
There was a Golden Man! “El Hombre Dorado” did exist--and he doubtless
exists to this day. The Guatavita Indians near Quito had a religious
ceremony in which their King gilded himself with gold dust and went
into a lake amid the mountains. Every morning before he made his
sacrifice this ruler caused powder of gold to be dusted on over a
coating of grease which made him shine in the sun like a true “Hombre
Dorado.”
* * *
THE WALKING HALF-MOONS
Around and around, in and out, but always upward goes the ferrocarril
of Peru. Soon the river in the Tambo valley comes into view--a strip of
Eden amidst Sahara; a long brush-stroke of green on a barren canvas;
a vivid testimony to the fatal fact that all Peru needs is a drink of
water to make her domain a Paradise.
Upward and onward we go among the burning mountains, which have not
tasted a drop of rain in a thousand years, until the highland desert
of La Joya comes into view. Looking backward we can sometimes see the
silvery sheen of the Pacific glistening in the descending sun some
sixty miles away.
TRUE AS AN HOUR-GLASS
Spreading before us are the famous walking half-moons of La Joya. They
are crescent-shaped sand dunes ranging from about 100 feet in width to
15 feet in height, and of such exact shape that no human agency could
make them mathematically more perfect than the constant winds of this
plateau. This unfailing wind is the true explanation of why the dunes
creep across the desert in a true northerly course at an even rate of
fifty to sixty feet a year.
The wind, always blowing from one direction, blows the ashen colored
sand up the convex side of the crescent from whence it drifts down into
the hollow side in such perfect and regular fashion that the entire
dune seems to creep across the plateau without a single variation in
size or shape, and with a movement that marks the years with the same
accuracy that an hour-glass marks the hours.
One has to look back but half a mile to see where a dune was fifty
years ago when this railroad was built; and if you will look back five
miles you can see where it was when the Inca sent messages to his
people that strange white men with hair on their faces were coming up
from the sea.
I am traveling the same road that Pizarro trod when these very dunes
were miles back. How I admire that villainous old fellow! What a man he
must have been and what audacious courage he must have had!
The Spanish government had dispatched two vessels to the little island
of Gallo, off the coast of Ecuador, where Pizarro and his expedition
had stranded, with implicit instructions to bring back every Spaniard
they should find still living in that dreary abode. However, Pizarro
was not looking for succor--but success! Drawing his sword, he
traced a line with it on the sand from east to west. He turned to
the south and said, “Friends and comrades, on that side are toil,
hunger, nakedness, storm, desertion, and death; on this side, ease and
pleasure. There lies Peru with its riches; here, home and poverty.
Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I
go to the south!”
So saying, he stepped across the line.
Thirteen followed him.
The boat sailed away, leaving this handful of men, without food,
without clothing, almost without arms, without knowledge of the land
to which they were bound, without a vessel to transport them to the
mainland; here on a lonely rock in the ocean they remained with nothing
but their avowed purpose of carrying on a crusade against the great
empire of the Incas!
The glistening crescents of sand have traveled many miles since the
days of Pizarro and his valiant crew--and they will travel many miles
before we see their like again.
Thus Pizarro came down to Peru and robbed the Incas.
They were never satisfied--they always craved more. They starved,
struggled, and suffered in their mad scramble, but in the end were no
richer than before. Only one in five ever left Peru alive. Pizarro’s
share of the Atahuallpa ransom was 57,222 pesos of gold, but he was
murdered before he returned to Spain.
A cavalryman named Leguizano was awarded as his share of the booty the
Inca image of the sun, a huge plate of burnished gold. This rich prize
was lost in gambling before morning; whence it came to be a famous
Spanish proverb:
“Juega el Sol antes que amanezca.” (He plays away the sun before
sunrise.)
THE RANSOM OF THE INCA
Let me tell you about the ransom of the Inca Atahuallpa. It is as
famous as it is fabulous.
From the hour that Pizarro landed on Peruvian soil and began climbing
the Andes, the hand of friendship had been extended him by the natives,
who regarded the Spaniards as superhuman. Pizarro repaid the Inca’s
kindness by inviting him to dine and then making him prisoner.
[Illustration:
The INCA ATAHUALLPA
HAD EARS 15 INCHES LONG
[signature]
drawn in CUZCO--PERU
“The City of the Sun”
THE FISHERMEN OF THE EL GRAN CHACO USE A PICK AND SHOVEL.
The Ophio-cephalous species of fish bury themselves in the mud
and the natives dig them out ... Brazil.]
Atahuallpa was not long in discovering that gold was the object of
Pizarro’s visit to his land and in hope of gaining his freedom offered
to fill the room in which he was confined with gold, as high as he
could reach; and standing on tiptoe, he stretched out his hand against
the wall. Pizarro drew a line along the wall at the height which the
Inca had indicated and called upon him to make good his word.
The room was 17 feet wide, by 22 feet long, and the line was 9 feet
from the floor. In one month this vast space was filled! The temples
and palaces of Cuzco had been stripped of their glittering golden
decorations. The wealth of this ransom has been estimated at twenty
millions of dollars!
And then, instead of freeing Atahuallpa as he had promised, Pizarro
ordered him burned alive in the public square of Caxamalca!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
COMMODUS FOUGHT AND WON 1031 BATTLES
Commodus Lucius Aelius Aurelius, Emperor of Rome (161-192), was so
proud of his records in the gladiatorial arena that he commanded the
world to worship him as Hercules. He eventually met his death at the
hands of a wrestler by the name of Narcissus who strangled him.
[Illustration]
“LINDBERGH ... _Was the 67th Man to Make A Non-Stop Flight Over the
Atlantic Ocean_”
When I printed this statement in one of my “Believe It or Not” pictures
in the newspapers not long ago, I was surprised at the reaction:
almost immediately I was besieged with telegrams, phone calls, and
letters--about 3,000 of them. Practically all of the doubting ones
thought that “Lindy” was the first to make a non-stop flight over the
Atlantic Ocean; and the few who did remember (strange, how few they
were) that Alcock and Brown flew over, could not imagine who the other
64 could be.
They forgot two dirigibles!
Sir John Alcock and Sir A. Whitton Brown made the first non-stop flight
over the Atlantic in 1919. (Newfoundland to Ireland.)
Later, the same year, the English dirigible, R 34, with thirty-one men
aboard, crossed from Scotland to America, and returned.
In 1924, the German ZR 3 (now the “Los Angeles”) flew from
Friedrichshafen, Germany, to Lakehurst, New Jersey, with a crew of
thirty-three men.
Lindbergh was the sixty-seventh.
[Illustration]
PRESENT--BUT NOT VOTING
Though dead for nearly 100 years, the dressed-up skeleton of Jeremy
Bentham, with his head between his feet, sits in uncanny silence
at the head of the hospital board around which the trustees of the
University College Hospital in London gather. Jeremy Bentham founded
this hospital in 1827 and presided at the first meetings of the Board
of Trustees--and he still does to this day, although he died in 1832.
Each meeting of the board has found his weird figure at the table.
His gaunt form is erect, his sightless eyes stare outright, and
his broad-brimmed beaver hat is never removed from the long locks
that dangle down on his shoulders, nor is his gloved hand ever taken
from the cane that it has rested upon for over 100 years. And as the
various important bits of business come before the board, old Jeremy
is consulted--and when no answer comes from his grinning teeth--he is
recorded as:
“PRESENT--BUT NOT VOTING”
This dressed-up bag of bones and dust of what was Jeremy Bentham sits
at this board because the living Jeremy Bentham willed it so.
When Bentham died he left his whole fortune to the University College
Hospital, but on the condition that his skeleton be preserved and
placed in the President’s chair at every board meeting. This unusual
testament has been faithfully obeyed by the generations of trustees
that have followed; and Jeremy still sits in the President’s chair, and
probably will never leave it until stones and bones have turned to dust.
Jeremy Bentham was a child prodigy. He could speak Latin, Greek, French
and English at the age of five. Matriculating at Queens College,
Oxford, when only thirteen, he won his B.A. two years later, and set
out upon an eventful career that was to bring him fame and fortune as a
writer, scientist, and philosopher.
His first work was entitled “Fragments on Government,” which was
acclaimed as a masterly attack upon Blackstone’s eulogies of the
British Government system.
Fame followed fast and the young scholar was soon taken up by the
_intelligentsia_ of his day and his works commanded attention not only
in England, but on the Continent, and in America.
Although he traveled widely and led an eventful life, it seems that
melancholy overtook him in the twilight of his life--he was alone
and without a family--and it was then, evidently, that the idea of
self-perpetuation came upon him, and the idea of always being present
at the meetings of the College that he founded took definite course in
his will.
It was in accordance with this last weird flare of his genius that
his testament demanded that his head be severed from his body in the
presence of his friends and placed in a separate glass case which now
rests between his ankles, while a mask, a life-like replica of his
living face, be placed upon his shoulders instead.
And so he has sat for nearly a hundred years--always present--but not
voting.
* * *
PAIN? You don’t know what pain is!
If you think that you have suffered some, just read about Mr. Henry B.
Smythe, of Maplewood, Mo., who has undergone 148 major operations! The
game Mr. Smythe has suffered constant and painful invalidship for 37 of
his 47 years. He has spent more than 200 hours on the operating table
and is still smiling.
Moreover, he is a successful broker and manufacturer’s agent, and lives
happily with his wife. He walks briskly, works hard, and eats normally.
Horseback riding and dancing are his hobbies.
Although there is a likelihood of many more operations, Mr. Smythe is
undaunted. He will no doubt be glad to answer personally anything that
you may wish to ask him.
* * *
I was traveling in Mexico a few years ago when I received the following
letter. I print it just as it came to me.
Dear Gentleman:
You make wonderful pictures. I am wonderful. I like to meet you
please. I am
GUYAL VACA SEGUAL
The World’s renown Insensible
FIRE EATER
I bathes, eats, and plays in fire. I eat fire, play with lead in my
mouth. I take bath in gasoline and set myself in fire. I step in red
hot oven and roast pound of meat in same to convince you and imerge
as cool as ice.
I am King of Fire, the whip of fire.
I have been recognized by some doctors having not found any Chemical
Substances in my body for I do not use them.
I am the only man that drinks hot lead.
I drink gasoline and light it in my mouth so that you can see the
flames of fire shooting from within me, and I feel though I had only
partaken of some cool refreshing drink.
I present myself as the only one can control fire. The man possessed
of equal control of heat is yet to come.
I can also roll myself in red-hot coal fire. I will come to the hotel
tomorrow.
MEXICAN GUYAL VACA SEGUAL.
I am the only fire eater Guyal Vaca Segual so don’t confuse me with
many performers doing the same work I do.
* * *
[Illustration: MORIMOTO ...
_Famous Japanese_ ... Can Swallow His Nose]
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
[signature]
A MURDER AT MIDNIGHT--IF
EVERYONE WHO WAS TOLD ABOUT IT
TOLD 2 OTHER PEOPLE WITHIN 12 MINUTES,
EVERYBODY ON EARTH WOULD KNOW IT BEFORE MORNING]
THE MURDER AT MIDNIGHT
* * *
[Illustration]
THE HORNED KAFFIR
Horned men have raised the devil everywhere. The satanical and
animal-like appearance of men with horns growing out of their foreheads
have excited the emotions of the curious for generations.
François Trovillow, the Horned Man of Mezières, is famous to this day,
although he died in 1698.
In Lhassa, Tibet, there is a man with a horn growing from his forehead
to the extent of thirteen inches. The reflected glory of the golden
sun bounces off K2 and Mount Everest on this curious promontory each
morning as its bearer makes his obeisance to Gatama while turning a
prayer-wheel.
The Horned Kaffir of Africa, like the Horned One of the Himalayas,
is still alive. I saw him in London several years ago. He seemed
self-centered and satisfied, although black and a Christian.
Medical science is lacking in positive knowledge as to the exciting
causes of horns on humans. It is a rarity that may be classed as a
dermatological oddity. It is a skin disease called Cornu Cutaneum, a
true horny cutaneous outgrowth varying in size and shape.
Although resembling animal horns closely, their anatomic structure
differs in not containing bone and in having a cutaneous attachment.
The Cornu Cutaneum shows preference for the hairy scalp and for the
face, occurring occasionally elsewhere--as on the trunk, cheeks,
glands, extremities, and even the eyelids! No part of the body is
exempt.
I refer you to Rodriguez’s extraordinary case, quoted by Croker, in
which horns grew on the side of the head to the extent of twelve
inches, and were fourteen inches around the base.
(_Diseases of the Skin, by Stelwagon._)
* * *
THE SQUARE PALINDROME
R O T A S
O P E R A
T E N E T
A R E P O
S A T O R
This is the most famous of all palindromes--the famous Square
Palindrome of the fourth power that has mystified scholars for hundreds
of years. It is also an anagram of PATER NOSTER A O.
The famous Square Palindrome is found on the pavement of the sacristy
of the Pieve Terzagni Church at Tremona, and is duplicated at St.
Peter’s Church near Capestrano, the Church of the Mother in Magliano,
the Church of the Augustins in Verona, and several ancient churches in
England and in France.
Its meaning has never been exactly determined. The medieval scholar,
Panza of Italy, suggested that it may have been intended to express
what wind and wheel convey to the reader of the Holy Scriptures,
namely, eternity and infinity.
The latest of a long line of interpreters of this curiosity is a
certain Mr. Williams of England, who succeeded several years ago in
arranging the letters in a symmetrical way with the theory that the
solution is:
“ORO TE PATER ORO TE PATER SANAS.”
“We pray to Thee, Father; We pray to Thee, Father; Thou healest.”
_The literature on this subject reaches back 700 years._
* * *
[Illustration: The Marching Chinese
IF ALL THE CHINESE IN THE WORLD WERE TO MARCH--4 ABREAST--PAST A GIVEN
POINT THEY WOULD NEVER FINISH PASSING THOUGH THEY MARCHED FOREVER AND
EVER
(Based on U.S. Army marching regulations)]
DAMNED CLEVER, THESE CHINESE
How did I get this one? How do I know that all the Chinese in the
world--marching four abreast past a given point--would never finish
passing, although they marched for ever and ever?
“Such stuff as dreams are made on.”
Recently I dined in New York’s Chinatown with Paul Fung, the Chinese
artist. Much food and much talk. A real Chinese dinner has from twenty
to thirty courses and lasts five hours.
It was late when I arrived home. Robert Warwick, who lives next door,
yawned dramatically. “Hi! Ho! I’ll be glad to turn in,” he said.
And so to bed.
“Hi! Ho!” The words remained. And like the sixty-fold echo of
Simonetta, they sounded again and again, until I was dreaming of the
marching Chinese of Tsingtao whom I had seen so often trotting with
their bundles on the Bund and chanting their invariable sing-song:
Hi! Ho! Hi! Ho! Hi! Ho!
Hi! Ho! HI-I-I!
They marched on endlessly in my dreams. They would never stop, it
seemed, and did not--until the crack of dawn sent them all scampering
off.
So I took a pencil and paper and figured it out, and drew the picture
that you see opposite, which has astounded a lot of people.
This is how:
Although there is no definite information on the population of China,
as a census has not been taken since 1403, let us take the reasonable
estimate of 600,000,000 as the number of Chinese on earth. (This
includes Mongolia, Manchuria, China, Tibet, Malaysia, South Seas, North
and South America, etc.)