Field Service Regulations, the Chinese--marching four abreast, or
platoon-squads formation, at the rate of three miles an hour for the
average fifteen miles per day--will require 22 years, 302 days to pass
a given point. A generation! There will be 26,280,000 passing each year.
Assuming that the birth-rate of the Chinese is ten per cent. (same as
that of the Jews), and that half of these children die before they are
able to walk, there will still be 30,000,000 new Chinese coming on each
year to take the place of the 26,280,000 that have passed the given
point.
And so they could march on forever.
_In 1402 and 1403, the Emperor of China--using the death penalty
as a threat--gathered the only reliable statistics ever taken on
the Chinese population. The census of 1402 showed a population of
56,301,026, and the 1403 census 66,598,337. This shows an increase of
nineteen per cent. in one year._
_The Chinese death rate has been officially determined only for the
city of Peking, and amounts to two and a half per cent._
_Ref.: “The Numerical Relation of the Population of China,” by Prof.
T. Sacharoff._
* * *
[Illustration]
METHUSELAH ... _Oldest Man in the Bible_ Died Before His Father
The explanation of this is simple; Methuselah was the son of Enoch, of
whom it is written:
“By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and he was
not found, because God translated him.” Heb. 11.5.
* * *
COGHLAN’S COFFIN
[Illustration: CHARLES COGHLAN COMES HOME!
HE DIED IN 1899 AND WAS BURIED IN GALVESTON WHEN THE TRAGIC FLOOD CAME
HIS COFFIN WAS WASHED OUT TO SEA--AND THE GULF STREAM CARRIED HIM
AROUND FLORIDA AND UP THE COAST TO PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND--2000 MILES
DISTANT--WHERE HE LIVED
[signature]]
RIPLEY’S DRAWING OF C. F. COGHLAN’S CASKET AS CARRIED FROM GALVESTON
FLOOD TO PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND STIRS ACTOR’S DAUGHTER TO SEARCH
_By Charles Burney Ward_
A West Indian hurricane, as the world still remembers, swept Galveston,
Tex., September 8, 1900. As an incident of its tragic havoc it swept
out to sea the coffin of the late Charles Francis Coghlan, famous actor.
Ever since that fateful day Coghlan’s daughter, Mrs. Gertrude Coghlan
Pitou, now of Bayside, L. I., has searched for her father’s coffin. She
and her husband, Augustus Pitou, who was once the late Mr. Coghlan’s
manager, have hired men by the year and spent thousands of dollars on
the twenty-seven-year-long search. They received never a hint until--
Mrs. Pitou was reading the _Evening Post_ of September 15. She turned
to the sports pages. There, Robert L. Ripley’s cartoon caught her eye.
“Believe It or not,” she read. “Charles Coghlan Comes Home! He died in
1899 and was buried in Galveston. When the tragic flood came his coffin
was washed out to sea and the Gulf Stream carried him around Florida
and up the coast to Prince Edward Island--2,000 miles distant--where he
was born.”
This was news to Mrs. Pitou!
She showed the cartoon to her husband. Mr. Pitou, who is now booking
manager of the A. L. Erlanger Theatrical Enterprises, read the
cartoonist’s inscription. Could such a thing really be possible? Mr.
Pitou could not be sure. Neither could Mrs. Pitou.
CONSULTS CARTOONIST
Yet this was the first definite hint in all these years that either had
ever had which would indicate the possible final resting place of Mr.
Coghlan’s coffin. “Hope springs eternal”--they would actively resume
the search. They telephoned the _Evening Post_.
“What we would like to know,” said Mr. Pitou, “is where Mr. Ripley got
that information. We have never once heard that suggestion. I believe
it’s impossible that the Gulf Stream could carry the coffin all around
Florida and up to Canada.”
“Find out where Mr. Ripley got that,” Mr. Pitou asked.
“Where did I get it?” Mr. Ripley replied to the reporter’s question.
“Why, two of the late Mr. Coghlan’s closest associates have set down
the incident in their published books. They are none other than Sir
Johnston Forbes-Robertson and Mrs. Lily Langtry. As for the possibility
of the Gulf Stream’s carrying the coffin to Prince Edward Island, I
checked up with a capable sea captain and several authorities on ocean
currents, who say it’s quite possible.”
Ripley then cited Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson’s book, “A Player Under
Three Reigns.” In telling how he took the late Mr. Coghlan from his
home on Prince Edward Island to play Mercutio in “Romeo and Juliet” in
London, Sir Johnston writes (pages 165-6):
“In about a year, I think, he died at Galveston. Shortly after his
burial there was a great storm came up from the Gulf which swept his
coffin, with others, into the sea. The Gulf Stream bore him around
Florida, up the coast, about 1,500 miles to Prince Edward Island and he
came ashore not far from his home.”
LONDON IS QUERIED
A like report of the curious incident is given in “The Days I Knew,” by
Lily Langtry, who appeared in several plays with the late Mr. Coghlan.
These sources of the report’s origin were given to Mr. Pitou.
“It’s strange,” he said, admitting that both Sir Johnston and
Mrs. Langtry had been good friends of his father-in-law. “But I’d
like to know where they got it. Please,” he asked, “find out
Forbes-Robertson’s source of information. This is not just a newspaper
story to us. It’s a very serious matter. If we thought there could be
any truth in it we would start a search of Prince Edward Island.”
The _Evening Post_ sent a cablegram to its London office, instructing
the representative there to get the facts from Sir Johnston
Forbes-Robertson. The reply came by radiogram to the _Evening Post_:
“Forbes-Robertson writes, ‘I distinctly remember it was given me by
one in whom I had confidence. Indeed, I think two people told me the
story. I take it that his daughter has consulted George Tyler, who was
Coghlan’s manager for some time.’”
OTHER REPORTS TRACED
George C. Tyler, theatrical producer, whose office, incidentally, is
in the same building with that of Mr. Pitou, at 214 West Forty-second
Street, said Mrs. Pitou had not consulted him, and added:
“I have heard that story of Charles Coghlan’s coffin not once but a
number of times. I was once his manager, and close friends of his have
told me since of his coffin having been found on Prince Edward Island.
It was washed ashore, as I heard it, at Fortune Bridge. I remember
once, years ago, when I spoke of its having been found on the beach at
Galveston, somebody corrected me--I forget who it was--and told me it
had been carried in the Gulf Stream to the Canadian island. It has been
told to me by several persons in whom I have confidence.”
Charles Francis Coghlan was an Irish actor, born in 1841. He first
appeared on the stage in London, in 1860, and came to America in 1876.
He was leading man in a number of plays with his sister, Rose Coghlan,
who was as famous in the profession as he. He also was leading man
in companies with Mrs. Fiske and Lily Langtry. He died in Galveston,
November 27, 1899, and his body was placed in a granite vault in a
cemetery there.
GULF STREAM GOES NORTHWARD
How that coffin might have been carried by the Gulf Stream to Prince
Edward Island is a question which probably could long be debated.
Prince Edward Island, a Province of the Dominion of Canada, lies in a
semicircular bay of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Fossil plants, abundant
there, and beds of peat, dune of drifted sand, alluvial clays and
mussel mud, occurring in and near its creeks and bays, show evidence,
many say, that they have been washed there from the Gulf shore of Texas.
The Gulf Stream, as oceanographers point out, flows northward from the
Gulf of Mexico and follows the eastern coast of the United States to a
point east of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. It is narrow and deep,
with a current that travels approximately eighty miles a day. It is
joined by a current which comes from the West Indies and follows the
same course.
MIGHT HAVE CARRIED OFF COFFIN
In this connection, Cartoonist Ripley tentatively points out that,
since the Galveston flood came from the West Indies, there might have
been a backwash after the hurricane toward the West Indies. This
possibly could have carried such a thing as a coffin out through the
Gulf to the point where the West Indian current joins the Gulf Stream.
The Gulf Stream, when it passes a point between the Bermudas and the
coast of the Carolinas, divides into several small ocean streams. And
one of these streams, whose definite courses have not been traced
positively, might well have carried Charles Coghlan’s coffin to Prince
Edward Island. Especially might this have been a destination for a
derelict in the Gulf Stream, since, as is well known, derelicts in the
stream rarely are carried to Europe.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE HUMAN PIN CUSHION
This Hindoo ascetic, of Singapore, walked three miles in the blazing
sun with fifty spears (each fitted with a very sharp point) embedded in
his flesh. Imagine the excruciating agony that every footstep meant.
Why did he do it?
No difference. There is no sense in a Hindoo religious fanatic anyway.
But the fact that he did it is interesting enough, and it all goes to
prove how much torment the human body can stand under certain mental
conditions.
* * *
THE LUCKIEST MAN ALIVE
Surely he is Captain J. H. Hedley, of Chicago, who fell out of a plane
nearly three miles in the air and then fell back into it again! Here is
the account from Hedley’s log-book and authenticated by Lieutenant R.
C. Purvis, Recording Officer of Twentieth Squadron, R.F.C.
“_January 6, 1918. Mach. No. 7255. Height, 15,000 ft. Lieutenant
Makepeace, M.C., reports Captain J. H. Hedley accidentally thrown
into air, afterwards alighted on tail same machine and rescued._”
Lieut. Makepeace was a Canadian flying officer and Capt. Hedley was an
observer in his plane when they were attacked over the German lines.
In the running fight that ensued Hedley was dislodged from the plane
when making a sudden vertical dive, and fell several hundred feet
in a direct line with the machine--probably suction or a vacuum had
something to do with it--alighted on the tail, and was brought safely
to earth from a height of some 10,000 feet.
* * *
SILENT FOR 30 YEARS.
Reb Frommer did not speak a word or utter a sound for thirty years.
This remarkable penance was self-imposed. It seems that Frommer, in an
outburst of temper, cursed his newly-wedded wife who soon after met
with a violent death which Frommer feared was brought about by his
abuse.
He was a celebrated local character of Czortków, Poland, and when he
died in 1928, the newspapers of Germany and Poland repeated again the
story of his life and of the strange vow that he never broke.
* * *
“3,675 FEET AND 9 INCHES”
This is a Sabbath Day Journey, the longest distance a Jew may walk on
his Sabbath Day as prescribed by the Talmud Berachoth.
Orthodox Hebrews observe this Rabbinical rule to the present day. It is
the Hebrew “T’hum Sabbath” meaning the limit of Sabbath.
Exodus XVI. 29; Acts 1:12.
* * *
THE SUN THAT RISES IN THE PACIFIC AND SETS IN THE ATLANTIC
If you would like to see the sun rise in the Pacific Ocean and set
in the Atlantic Ocean you must go to Panama. Only there can you have
this unusual viewpoint--and anyway, even though you never see the sun
at all, you will see Panama, which, I assure you, is worth the trip
anytime.
The way to Panama takes you across one of the most adventurous
path-ways of the deep. A wonderful and picturesque procession of ships
and men wended their devious ways among the islands and open waters of
the blue Caribbean.
Santo Domingo was the birthplace of the Buccaneers. The island of
Tortuga was the birthplace of the word “buccaneers.” The true meaning
of the word is not worthy of the men who wore it. At that time on
Tortuga the principle article of food was the smoke-dried flesh of wild
pigs--a product peculiar to the neighboring islands and known by the
Carib name of “bucan,” or what we call bacon.
As a result the inhabitants soon became known as “buccaneers”--in other
words, “baconeers.”
Among these islands, and not so far away, is Porto Rico, which is
an American possession; and a little farther on is another of our
islands--St. Thomas, where bay rum comes from. Near there is an island
most famed of all, yet nobody knows it. It is the little cay called
“The Dead Man’s Chest.” Of course, you know it:--
“_Fifteen men on a Dead Man’s Chest--
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!_”
But that was a long time ago--before prohibition.
Criss-crossing these limpid waters careened the “low, rakish craft” of
the blood-thirsty free-booters--Morgan, Lolonais, Brasiliano, Portugues
and Red Legs--and Captain Kidd who, by the way, was not a pirate at all
but suffered the rightful penalty of one, while the murderous Morgan
received the order of knighthood.
These wolves of the water hid in land-locked coves and preyed upon
passing ships and Caribbean cities. They were not all low, rakish craft
either. Morgan at one time commanded a fleet of thirty-seven ships--all
mounted with guns--and with two thousand fighting fiends exclusive of
the sailors. A tough egg in a hard-boiled world.
But all are gone.
All that remains is the chests of buried treasure which any one may
find if he looks long enough. Many years ago William Phipps Salem,
one-time governor of Massachusetts, found nearly two millions of
dollars on Puerto Plata, which had been pirate property.
ONLY PIRATES NOW ARE AT HOME
The islands about and the lazy sea are now content to bask in the warm
tropical sun and dream of the past.
The only pirates we have nowadays are in our own country--working as
chauffeurs and hat-check boys.
But if you wish to see the sun rise in the Pacific and set in the
Atlantic I suggest that you visit the Century Club in Panama. This
club offers you an ideal view and a view of ideals, as it is situated
exactly on the dividing line between two nations--the United States
and the Republic of Panama. The Canal Zone is a strip of land five
miles wide on each side of the Canal and running across the Republic of
Panama. The Canal Zone is American territory and, of course, under the
influence of Volstead. Panama, on the contrary, is under the influence
of Bacchus.
The Century Club, which is situated as I have said, on a line between
the two extremes, is divided on the question of prohibition also. The
front door, which is in the Canal Zone--or United States territory, is
dry; and the back door, which is in the Republic of Panama, is wet.
Choose the entrance dearest to you--and walk, don’t run!
But I really started out to tell you about the unusual rising and
setting of the sun. In order to understand why the sun rises in the
Pacific and sets in the Atlantic at Panama it is necessary to know the
geography of the Canal. As you will note from the map, the Canal does
not run east and west but from northwest to southeast; and the Pacific
entrance to the Canal--Balboa, is farther east than the Atlantic
entrance--Cristobal.
And as you sit on the veranda in the cool of the day--sipping your
glass of this or that, you see toward the west a blood-red sun drop
precipitately behind the verdant Cordillera--into the Atlantic Ocean!
And if you should sit there long enough--until the gentle hand of dawn
draws back the warm velvety curtains of the tropical night--you will
see the glowing face of the sun rise suddenly up in the east--out of
the Pacific Ocean!
[Illustration]
WHAT GOD HATH JOINED TOGETHER
The construction of the Canal is the greatest modern engineering
achievement of mankind, but it was an old idea. Modern man is so full
of the thoughts of his own achievements that he is inclined to forget
that there is nothing really new under the sun.
Plans were made over 400 years ago for a sea level canal across the
Isthmus of Darien. At that time Spain was by far the wealthiest and
most powerful country on earth, and Indian labor was available by the
millions for the cost of feeding them. The canal would have doubtless
become a fact four centuries ago had not the Archbishop of Madrid
advised King Phillip II. that:
“What God hath joined together, let no man tear asunder.”
* * *
The two cities at the Atlantic entrance of the Canal, Cristobal and
Colon, are the true names of Columbus. He never signed his name any
other way than “Cristobal Colon.”
* * *
[Illustration]
BOOTLEGGING HUMAN HEADS
This sketch was drawn from a human head that I bought for a little less
than a hundred dollars from a bootlegger of human heads in Panama City.
The head itself is now about the size of a baseball and the hair is 19
inches long.
A few years ago this head was an animated thing of normal size with
a pleasant smile and sparkling eyes that sat atop the shoulders of a
Jivaro warrior in the tropical forests of Peru. This happy warrior was
careless enough to lose his life--and also his head which his conqueror
cut off and bore proudly home where he proceeded to shrink it down to
its present size.
Since head-hunting and head-selling is against the law, this shrinking
violet disposed of his handiwork to a bootlegger who smuggled the
grisly thing into the City of Panama where I was able to buy it.
The taking and shrinking of human heads is an ancient rite with the
Jivaros, and one which has not vanished with modern times. It has,
rather, been stimulated by the demand of tourists for specimens of the
head-hunter’s skill as souvenirs and all the laws against the practice
that have been passed by the South American Republics are of no avail.
While there are traders to pay a price, and tourists to buy, the
bootlegging of human heads will probably continue just as the
bootlegging of hooch will continue in our own land.
The method of reducing and shrinking the heads remained a secret for
many years and it is comparatively recently that anyone has witnessed
the actual process. Friends of mine in Quito told me of a German
scientist who ventured into the unexplored Pongo de Seriche--the land
of the Jivaros--in hopes of learning their secret, and six months later
a shrunken and mummified head with a red beard and light hair was
offered for sale in the city.
The method used differs somewhat from tribe to tribe, but they
generally proceed as follows.
As soon as a Jivaro has killed an enemy, he hacks off the head as close
to the body as possible, and carries it away to a place of safety where
he goes through an appropriate ceremony, and slits the scalp from
the crown downward to the nape of the neck. Through this opening he
flays out the skull, removing the flesh and skin of the face and scalp
as carefully as possible. Throwing away the skull, he stretches the
skin over a handle made of wood and then thrusts it for a time into
a vessel of hot water which causes it to contract a little. Next a
ring fashioned from a vine is sewed in the opening at the neck to hold
it open after which hot stones are dropped inside. Magic rites are
intermingled with each new process as the shrinking is begun by filling
the head with hot sand and keeping it constantly in motion in order
that it may act on all parts of the head uniformly. As the sand cools
off, it is reheated and placed back in the head which is scraped each
time with a headman’s knife to remove the burnt tissues. Gradually,
as the head dries and grows smaller, the Indian constantly works the
features with his hands, pinching and moulding the face so that it will
retain its natural appearance--and even its natural expression when
reduced several times in size.
* * *
The Jivaros sometimes reduce and mummify the entire human body--but it
does not seem to be commonly done. I have seen three. There are two in
the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation of New York, and
the other was shown to me by Señor Juan Krateil, of Lima, who owns a
doll-like travesty of Kurruba, a “Heroe Peruano,” a quarter the size of
the living man.
One of the two dequantitated figures in the New York Museum is a
white man--a Spanish officer. This unfortunate old “conquistador” was
searching for “El Hombre Dorado,” the golden man, when he was captured
by the Jivaros who reduced him from a living man of five feet, ten
inches in height to a shrunken mummy thirty-one inches tall.
[Illustration]
“~Be Fruitful, and Multiply, and Replenish the Earth~”
_Gen. 1, 28._
Large families have always attracted particular interest among all
peoples. In many lands the parents of prodigious progeny are rewarded
by the state. Nations decimated by severe wars have used compulsory
methods of marriage to gain children. The Orient is dotted with
ribbon-bedecked shrines where childless wives pray for conception.
There are savage tribes still existing who indulge in phallic worship.
Napoleon, when asked what France needed most, replied: “mothers.” And a
baby’s crib once stood inside the door of the Cathedral of Notre Dame
in Paris.
Roosevelt emphasized parenthood and especially honored the parents
of large families. President Coolidge also receives with marked
distinction the large family groups that call on him.
The largest family to call at the White House was that of Mr. and Mrs.
Harrison and their 37 children. This healthy brood of young Americans
seems very small, however, when compared with the multinominal
households of the warmer and freer lands, where wives are plentiful and
can be had for the keeping.
* * *
MULAI ISMAIL THE FATHER OF 888 CHILDREN
Mulai Ismail, the culminating glory of the Sharifian Emperors, is the
prize “daddy” of all time. He was a real father of his country if
there ever was one. Mulai ruled Morocco for fifty-seven years with his
capital at Tafilat. He had many wives as is the royal and Mohammedan
custom of Morocco, and when he died in 1727, the stalwart old patriarch
left living 548 boys and 340 girls.
* * *
Rameses II, the famous Pharaoh, was the father of 162 children--111
boys and 51 girls.
* * *
Rama V, or King Chulalongkorn of Siam, who died in 1910 had 3,000 wives
and 370 children--134 sons and 236 daughters.
[Illustration: MAGDELAINE-CHARLOTTE-JACQUETTE-RENAUD
The nine-year-old mother]
THE NINE-YEAR-OLD MOTHER
Following is a true translation of the French Protocol as given by Dr.
Cabanes in his book “Le Sixième Sens”:
“After the sensation which the news of a nine-year-old child,
seven months pregnant, caused in Paris and at the Royal Court,
the personal Surgeon-Obstetrician to Madame la Dauphine (the
French Crown Princess) consulted with the Masters of the Medical
Faculty and then decided to take into his house, Rue Mazarin, one
Magdelaine-Charlotte-Jacquette-Renaud, daughter of Louis Renaud
and Magdelaine Laflèche, who on the 30th day of June, 1756, at
3.30 in the morning, was happily delivered of a male child through
an incision made in her left side, and survived, thanks to the
particular mercy of Providence. The newlyborn is well and in every
respect like the child of a normal mother. He was baptized in the
Holy Faith at the Parish of St. André-des-Arcs and received the name
of Jean-Louis. A pension of 1500 francs per annum has been assigned
to the mother, payable during her lifetime, and she will be placed in
a Convent after her recovery.
“The unfortunate Garçon Marchand, who has abused the innocence and
weakness of this young child died on June 9th, or he would have been
amenable to the severity of the law.
“The permission to reprint and to publish is given. Paris, July 4th,
1756, Berrier, Minister of Police and Royal Notary.”
* * *
THE EIGHT-YEAR-OLD MOTHER
Clementine Aimée Pernon, of Puis Clos, France, 8 years old, gave
birth to a perfectly developed child on June 3rd, 1866. _Annales de
Gipsicologie, page 729, by Dr. Robert Gache._
* * *
THE NINETY-YEAR-OLD MOTHER
In the “Chronique Publique dans la Revue Retrospective sous le Règne
de Louis XV” (1742-1743) there appears an account of La Belle Paule
Fieschi, of Rue de la Perle, Paris, who became a mother at the age of
ninety. The child, a boy, was born on December 1, 1742.
* * *
Jean Baptiste Tavernier, the celebrated traveler of the 17th century,
tells in his book “Travels in India,” of seeing a Bhutan woman in
northern India who had borne a child at the age of 82.
[Illustration]
THE GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER!