 And a Curse Trace by Elisabeth Gaskell. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Piotr Natter. We have our prejudices in England. Or if this assertion offends any of my readers, I will modify it. We have had our prejudices in England. We have tortured Jews. We have burned Catholics and Protestants to say nothing of a few witches and wizards. We have satirized Puritans and we have dressed up guys. But after all, I do not think we have been so bad as our continental friends. To be sure, our insular position has kept us free to a certain degree from the inroads of alien races, who, driven from one land of refuge, steal into another, equally unwilling to receive them, where for long centuries their presence is barely endured and no pains is taken to conceal the repugnance which the nightives of pure blood experience towards them. There yet remains a remnant of the miserable people called Carrots in the valleys of the Pyrenees, in the Landais near Bordeaux, and stretching up on the west side of France, their numbers become larger in lower Brittany. Even now, the origin of these families is a word of shame to them among their neighbors, although they are protected by the law, which confirmed them in the equal rights of citizens about the end of the last century. Before then, they had lived for hundreds of years, isolated from all those who boasted of pure blood, and they had been, all this time, oppressed by cruel local edicts. They were truly what they were popularly called the Accursed Race. All distinct traces of their origin are lost. Even at the close of that period, which we call the Middle Ages, this was a problem which no one could solve, and as the traces, which even then were faint and uncertain, have vanished away one by one, it is a complete mystery at the present day. Why they were accursed in the first instance? Why isolated from their kind no one knows? From the earliest accounts of their state that are yet remaining to us, it seems that the names which they gave each other were ignored by the population they lived amongst, who spoke of them as Christian or Carots, just as we speak of animals by their generic names. Their houses or huts were always placed at some distance out of the villages of the country folk, who unwillingly called in the services of the Carots as Carpenters or Tileurs or Slaters, trades which seemed appropriated by this unfortunate race, who were forbidden to occupy land or to bear arms, the usual occupations of those times. They had some small ride of pastureage on the common lands and in the forests, but the number of their cattle and livestock was strictly limited by the earliest laws relating to the Carots. They were forbidden by one act to have more than twenty sheep, a pig, a rum and six geese. The pig was to be fattened and killed for winter food. The fleece of the sheep was to clothe them, but if they said sheep had lambs, they were forbidden to eat them. Their only privilege arising from this increase was that they might choose out the strongest and finest in preference to keeping the old sheep. At Martinmas the authorities of the commune came round and counted over the stock of each Cargot. If he had more than his appointed number, they were forfeited. Half went to the commune, half to the Bailey or Chief Magistrate of the commune. The poor beasts were limited as to the amount of common which they might stray over in search of grass. While the cattle of the inhabitants of the commune might wander hither and dither in search of the sweetest herbage, the deepest shade or the coolest pool in which to stand on the hot days, and lazily switch their dabbled sides, the Cargot sheep and pig had to learn imaginary bounds, beyond which if they strayed anyone might snap them up and kill them, reserving a part of the flesh for his own use, but graciously restoring the inferior parts to their original owner. Any damage done by the sheep was, however, fairly apprised, and the Cargot paid no more for it than any other man would have done. Did a Cargot leave his poor cabin and venture into the towns, even to render services required of him in the way of his, he was bitten by all the municipal laws to stand by and remember his rude old state. In all the towns and villages, the large districts extending on both sides of the Pyrenees, in all that part of Spain, they were forbidden to buy or sell anything eatable, to walk in the middle, esteemed the better part of the streets, to come within the gates before sunrise, or to be found after sunset within the walls of the town. But still, as the Cargot's were good-looking men, and although they bore certain natural marks of their case, of which I shall speak by and by, were not easily distinguished by casual passers-by from other men, they were compelled to wear some distinctive peculiarity which should arrest the eye, and in the greater number of towns, it was decreed that the outward sign of a Cargot's should be a piece of red cloth suit conspicuously on the front of his dress. In other towns, the mark of Cargoterie was the foot of a duck, or a goose hung over their left shoulder, so as to be seen by anyone meeting them. After a time, the more convenient badge of a piece of yellow cloth cut out in the shape of a duck's foot was adopted. If any Cargot was found in any town or village without his badge, he had to pay a fine of five sous, and to lose his dress. He was expected to shrink away from any passer-by for fear that their clothes should touch each other, or else to stand still in some corner or by-place. If the Cargot's were thirsty during the days which they passed in those towns where their presence was barely suffered, they had no means of quenching their thirst, for they were forbidden to enter into the little cabarets or taverns. Even the water gushing out of the common fountain was prohibited to them. Far away, in their own squalid village, there was the Cargot's fountain, and they were not allowed to drink of any other water. A Cargot woman having to make purchases in the town was liable to be flogged out of it if she went to buy anything except on a Monday, on which all other people who could kept their houses, for fear of coming in contact with the accursed race. In the Paibasque, the prejudices, and for some time the laws, ran stronger against them than any which I have hitherto mentioned. The Basque Carot was not allowed to possess sheep. He might keep a pig for provision, but his pig had no right of pastureage. He might cut and carry grass for the ass, which was the only other animal he was permitted to own, and this ass was permitted because its existence was rather an advantage to the oppressor, who constantly availed himself of the Cargot's mechanical skill, and was glad to have him and his tool easily conveyed from one place to another. The race was repulsed by the state. Under the small local governments they could hold no post whatsoever, and they were barely tolerated by the church, although they were good Catholics and zealous frequenters of the mass. They might only enter the churches by a small door set apart for them, through which no one of the pure race ever passed. This door was low, so as to compel them to make an abeasance. It was occasionally surrounded by sculpture, which invariably represented an oak branch with a dove above it. When they were once in, they might not go to the holy water used by others. They had a benetir of their own, nor were they allowed to share in the consecrated bread when that was handed out to the believers of the pure race. The Cargot stood afar off near the door. There were certain boundaries, imaginary lines on the nave and in the aisles, which they might not pass. In one or two of the more tolerant of the Pyrenean villages, the blessed bread was offered to the Carots, the priests standing on one side of the boundary and giving the pieces of bread on a long wooden fork to each person successively. When the Carot died, he was interred apart in a plot bearing ground on the north side of the cemetery. Under such laws and prescriptions as I have described, it is no wonder that he was generally too poor to have much property for his children to inherit, but certain descriptions of it were forfeited to the commune. The only possession which all who were not of his own race refused to touch was his furniture. This was tainted, infectious and clean, fit for none but cargals. When such were, for at least three centuries, the prevalent usages and opinions with regard to this oppressed race, it is not surprising that we read of occasional outbursts of ferocious violence on their part. In the Basse Pyrenee, for instance, it is only about a hundred years since that the Carots of Réulier rose up against the inhabitants of the neighboring town of Lout and got the better of them by their magical powers, as it is said. The people of Lout were conquered and slain, and their ghastly, bloody heads served the triumphant Carots for bulls to play at nine pints with. The local parliaments had begun by this time to perceive how oppressive was the ban of public opinion under which the Carots lay and were not inclined to enforce to severe a punishment. Accordingly, the decree of the Parliament of Toulouse condemned only the leading Carots concerned in this affray to be put to death. And that henceforth and forever no Carot was to be permitted to enter the town of Lout by any gate, but that called Capp d'Éputé. They were only to be allowed to walk under the rain gutters and neither to sit, eat nor drink in the town. If they failed in observing any of these rules, the Parliament decreed in the spirit of Shylock that the disobedient Carots should have two strips of flesh, weighing never more than two ounces apiece, cut out from each side of their spines. In the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries it was considered no more a crime to kill a Carot than to destroy obnoxious vermin. A nest of Carots, as the old accounts phrase it, had assembled in a deserted castle of Moveson about the year 1600, and certainly they made themselves not very agreeable neighbors as they seemed to enjoy their reputation of magicians. And by some acoustic secrets, which were known to them, all sorts of moanings and groanings were heard in the neighboring forests, very much to the alarm of the good people of the pure race who could not cut off a withered branch for firewood, but some unearthly sound seemed to fill the air. Nor drink water, which was not poisoned, because the Carots would persist in filling their pitchers at the same running stream. Added to these grievances, the various pilferings perpetually going on in the neighborhood made the inhabitants of the adjacent towns and hamlets believe that they had a very sufficient cause for wishing to murder all the Carots in the Château de Moveson. But it was surrounded by a moat and only accessible by a drawbridge, besides which the Carots were fierce and vigilant. Someone, however, proposed to get into their confidence, and for this purpose he pretended to fall ill close to their path, so that on returning to their stronghold they perceived him and took him in, restored him to health, and made a friend of him. One day, when they were all playing at nine pins in the woods, their treacherous friend left the party on pretense of being thirsty and went back into the castle, drawing up the bridge after he had passed over it, and so cutting off their means of escape into safety. Then, going up to the highest part of the castle, he blew a horn and the pure race, who were lying in wait on the watch for some such signal, fell upon the Carots at their games and slew them all. For this murder I find no punishment decreed in the Parliament of Toulouse or elsewhere. As any intermarriage with the pure race was strictly forbidden, and as there were books kept in every commune in which the names and habitations of the reputed Carots were written, these unfortunate people had no hope of ever becoming blended with the rest of the population. Did a Cagot marriage take place? The couple was serenaded with satirical songs. They also had minstrels, and many of their romances are still current in Brittany, but they did not attempt to make any reprisals of satire or abuse. Their disposition was amiable and their intelligence great. Indeed, it required both these qualities and their great love of mechanical labour to make their lives tolerable. At last they began to petition that they might receive some protection from the laws, and towards the end of the 17th century the judicial power took their side, but they gained little by this. Law could not prevail against custom, and in the ten or twenty years just preceding the first French Revolution the prejudice in France against the Cagots amounted to fears and positive aborments. At the beginning of the 16th century the Cagots of Navarre complained to the Pope that they were excluded from the fellowship of men and accursed by the church because their ancestors had given help to a certain counter-imant of Toulouse in his revolt against the Holy See. They entreated his holiness not to visit upon them the sins of their fathers. The Pope issued a bull on the 13th of May, 1515 ordering them to be well treated and to be admitted to the same privileges as other men. He charged Don Juan the Santa Maria of Pamplona to see to the execution of this bull, but Don Juan was slow to help and the poor Spanish Cagots grew impatient and resolved to try the secular power. They accordingly applied to the Cortes of Navarre and were opposed on a variety of grounds. First it was stated that their ancestors had had, quote, nothing to do with Raymond, Count of Toulouse or with any such nightly personage, that they were in fact descendants of Gehazi, servant of Elisha, 2nd book of Kings, 5th chapter, 27th verse, who had been accursed by his master for his fraud upon Daman and doomed he and his descendants to be lepers for evermore. Name, Cagots, or Gahets, Gahets, Gehazites, what can be more clear? And if that is not enough and you tell us that the Cagots are not lepers now, we reply that there are two kinds of leprosy, one perceptible and the other imperceptible even to the person suffering from it. Besides it is the country talk that where the Cagots tread the grass withers, proving the unnatural heat of the body. Many credible and trustworthy witnesses will also tell you that if a Cagot holds a freshly gathered apple in his hand, it will shrivel and wither up in an hour's time as much as if it had been kept for a whole winter in a dry room. They are born with tails, although the parents are cunning enough to pinch them off immediately. Do you doubt this? If it is not true, why do the children of the pure race delight in sewing up sheep's tails to the dresses of any Cagot who is so absorbed in his work as not to perceive them? And their bodily smell is so horrible and detestable that it shows that there must be heretics of some vile and pernicious description for do we not read of the incense of good workers and the fragrance of holiness? Such were literally the arguments by which the Cagots were thrown back into a worse position than ever as far as regarded their rights as citizens. The Pope insisted that they should receive older ecclesiastical privileges. The Spanish priests said nothing but tacitly refused to allow the Cagots to mingle with the rest of the faithful, either dead or alive. The accursed race obtained laws in their favour from the Emperor Charles V, which, however, there was no one to carry into effect. As a sort of revenge for their want of submission and for their impertinence in daring to complain, their tools were all taken away from them by the local authorities. An old man and all his family died of starvation, being no longer allowed to fish. They could not emigrate, even to remove their poor mad habitations from one spot to another excited anger and suspicion. To be sure, in 1695 the Spanish government ordered the alcaldes to search out all the Cagots and to expel them before two months had expired and their pain of having fifty Ducats to pay for every Cagot remaining in Spain at the expiration of that time. The inhabitants of the villages rose up and flocked out any of the miserable race who might be in their neighbourhood. But the French were under guard against this enforced eruption and refused to permit them to enter France. Numbers were hunted up in the inhospitable Pyrenees and there died of starvation or became a prey to wild beasts. They were obliged to wear both gloves and shoes when they were thus put to flight, otherwise the stones and herbage they trod upon and the balustrades of the bridges that they handled in crossing would, according to popular belief, have become poisonous. And all this time there was nothing remarkable or disgusting in the outward appearance of this unfortunate people. There was nothing about them to countenance the idea of their being lepers. The most natural mode of accounting for the abhorrence in which they were held. They were repeatedly examined by learned doctors whose experiments, although singular and rude, appear to have been made in a spirit of humanity. For instance, the surgeons of the King of Navarre in 1600 bled twenty-two Cagots in order to examine and analyse their blood. They were young and healthy people of both sexes and the doctors seem to have expected that they should have been able to extract some new kind of salt from their blood which might account for the wonderful heat of their bodies. But their blood was just like that of other people. Some of these medical men have left us a description of the general appearance of this unfortunate race at a time when they were more numerous and less intermixed than they are now. The families existing in the south and west of France, who were reputed to be of Cagot descent at this day, are, like their ancestors, tall, largely made and powerful in frame, fair and ruddy in complexion, with grey-blue eyes in which some observers see a pensive heaviness of look. Their lips are thick but well formed. Some of the reports name their said expression of countenance with surprise and suspicion. They are not gay like other folk. The wonder would be if they were. Dr. Guillaume, the medical man of the last century who has left the clearest report on the health of the Cagots, speaks of the vigorous old age they attained to. In one family alone he found a man of 74 years of age, a woman as old, gathering cherries, and another woman, aged 83, was lying on the grass, having her hair combed by her great-grandchildren. Dr. Guillaume and other surgeons examined into the subject of the horribly infectious smell which the Cagots were said to have leave behind them and upon everything they touched, but they could perceive nothing unusual on this head. They also examined their ears, which, according to common belief, a belief existing to this day, were differently shaped from those of other people, being ground and gristly, without the loop of flesh into which the earring is inserted. They decided that most of the Cagots whom they examined had the ears of this round shape, but they gravely added that they saw no reason why this should exclude them from the good will of men and from the power of holding office in church and state. They recorded the fact that the children of the towns ran baying after any Cagot who had been compelled to come into the streets to make purchases in allusion to the peculiarity of the shape of the ear, which bore some resemblance to the ears of the sheep as they are cut by the shepherds in this district. Dr. Guion names the case of a beautiful Cagot girl who sang most sweetly and prayed to be allowed to sing canticles in the organ loft. The organist, more musician than Baygot, allowed her to come, but the indignant congregation, finding out whence preceded this clear, fresh voice, rushed up to the organ loft and chased the girl out, bidding her, quote, remember her ears, end quote, and not commit the sacrilege of singing praises to God along with the pure race. But this medical report of Dr. Guion bringing facts and arguments to confirm his opinion that there was no physical reason why the Cagot should not be received on terms of social equality by the rest of the world did no more for his clients than the legal decrees promulgated two centuries before had done. The French proved the truth of the sayings in Udibra, he that's convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. And indeed, the being convinced by Dr. Guion that they ought to receive Cagots as fellow creatures only made them more rabid in declaring that they would not. One or two little occurrences which are recorded show that the bitterness of the repugnance to the Cagots was in full force at the time just preceding the first revolution. There was a Monsieur d'Abedot, the curate of Lourbet, and brother to the senior of the neighbouring castle who was living in 1780. He was well educated for the time, a travelled man, and sensible and moderate in all respects but that of his abhorrence of the Cagots. He would insult them from the very altar, calling out to them as they stood afar off, quote, Oh ye Cagots, damned forevermore, end quote. One day a half-blind Cagot stumbled and touched the censor born before this alley of Lourbet. He was immediately turned out of the church and forbidden ever to re-enter it. One does not know how to account for the fact that the very brother of this bygoded abbey, the senior of the village, went and married a Cagot girl. But so it was, and the abbey brought a legal process against him and has his estates taken solely on account of his marriage, which reduced him to the condition of a Cagot, against whom the old law was still in force. The descendants of the senior de Lourbet are simple peasants at this very day, working on the lands which belonged to their grandfather. This prejudice against mixed marriages remained prevalent until very lately. The tradition of the Cagot descent lingered among the people, long after the laws emerged. A Breton girl, within the last few years having two lovers, each of reputed Cagot descent employed a notary to examine their pedigrees and see which of the two had leased Cagot in him and to that one she gave her hand. In Brittany the prejudice seems to have been more virulent than anywhere else. Monsieur Emile Souvestre records proofs of the hatred born to them in Brittany so recently as in 1835. Just lately a baker in Ennebon, having married a girl of Cagot descent, lost all his custom. The godfather and godmother of a Cagot child became Cagots themselves by the Breton laws, unless indeed the poor little baby died before attaining a certain number of days. They had to eat the butcher's meat condemned as unhealthy, but for some unknown reason they were considered to have a right to every cut leaf turned upside down with its cut side towards the door and might enter any house in which they saw a loaf in this position and carry it away with them. About 30 years ago there was the skeleton of a hand hanging up as an offering in a Breton church near Cunperle and the tradition was that it was the hand of a rich Cagot who had dared to take holy water out of the usual Benitia, sometime at the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI, as an old soldier witnessing he lay in wait and the next time the offender approached the Benitia he cut off his hand and hung it up, dripping with blood as an offering to the patron saint of the church. The poor Cagots in Brittany petitioned against their opproborous name and begged to be distinguished by the appellation of Malandrein. To English ears one is much the same like the other, as neither conveys any meaning, but to this day the descendants of the Cagots do not like to have this name applied to them preferring that of Malandrein. The French Cagots tried to destroy all the records of their pariah descent in the commotions of 1789, but if writings have disappeared the tradition yet remains and points out such and such as a family of Cagot or Malandrein or Wesselier according to the old terms of abhorrence. There are various ways in which learned men have attempted to account for the universal repugnance in which this well-made, powerful race are held. Some say that the antipathy to them took its rise in the days when leprosy was a dreadfully prevailing disease and that the Cagots were more liable than any other man to a kind of skin disease, not precisely leprosy but resembling it in some of its symptoms such as dead whiteness of complexion and swelling of the face and extremities. There was also some resemblance to the ancient Jewish custom in respect to lepers in the habit of the people who on meeting a Cagot called out Cagote, Cagote, to which they were bound to reply Perlut, Perlut. Leprosy is not properly an infectious complaint in spite of the horror in which the Cagot furniture and the cloth woven by them are held in some places. The disorder is hereditary and hence say this body of wise men who have troubled themselves to account for the origin of Cagotery, the reasonableness and the justice of preventing anemixed marriages by which this terrible tendency to leprosy complaints might be spread far and wide. Another authority says that though the Cagots are fine looking men hard working and good mechanics yet they bear in their faces and show in their actions reasons for the detestation in which they are held. The chance, if you meet it, is the Jettatura or evil eye and they are spiteful and cruel and deceitful above all other men. All these qualities they derive from their ancestor Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, together with their tendency to leprosy. Again it is said that they are descended from the Aryan Goths who are permitted to live in certain places in Guyen and Languedoc after their defeat and the temptation that they abjured their heresy and kept themselves separate from all other men forever. The principal reason alleged in support of this supposition of their Gothic descent is the specious one of derivation, Shingo, Cangets, Cagots, equivalent to Dogs of Goths. Again they were thought to be Saracens coming from Syria. In confirmation of this idea there was the belief that all Cagots were possessed by a horrible smell. The Lombards also were an unfragrant race or so reputed among the Italians. Witness Pope Stephen's letter to Charlemagne dissuading him from marrying Bertha, daughter of Didier, king of Lombardy. The Lombards boasted of eastern descent and were noisome. The Cagots were noisome and therefore must be of eastern descent. What could be clearer? In addition there was the proof to be derived from the name Cagots which those maintaining the opinion of their Saracen descent held to be Shingo or Chasseur de Goth because the Saracens chased the Goths out of Spain. Moreover the Saracens were originally Mahometans and as such obliged to bathe seven times a day whence the badge of the duck's foot. A duck was a water bird. Mahometans bathed in the water. Proof upon proof. In Brittany the common idea was that they were of Jewish descent. Their unpleasant smell was again pressed into service. The Jews, it was well known, had this physical infirmity which might be cured either by bathing in a certain fountain of Egypt which was a long way from Brittany or by anointing themselves with the blood of a Christian child. Blood gushed out of the body of every Cagot on Good Friday. No wonder if they were of Jewish descent. It was the only way of accounting for so portentious a fact. Again the Cagots were capital carpenters which gave the Bretons every reason to believe that their ancestors were the very Jews who made the cross. When first the tide of immigration set from Brittany to America the oppressed Cagots crowded to the ports seeking to go to some new country where their race might be unknown. Here was another proof of their descent from Abraham and his nomadic people and the 40 years wandering in the wilderness and the wandering Jew himself were pressed into the service and the proof that the Cagots derived their restlessness and love of change from their ancestors the Jews. The Jews also practiced arts magic and the Cagots sold bags of wind to the Breton sailors enchanted maidens to love them maidens who never would have cared for them unless they had been previously enchanted made hollow rocks and trees give out strange and unearthly noises and sold the magical herb called Ponsoussée. It is true enough that in all early acts of the 14th century the same laws apply to Jews as to Cagots and the appellations seem used indiscriminately but their fair complexions their remarkable devotion to all the ceremonies of the Catholic Church and many other circumstances conspire to forbiddas believing them to be of Hebrew descent. Another very plausible idea is that they are descendants of unfortunate individuals afflicted with goiters which is even to this day not an uncommon disorder in the gorgeous and valleys of the Pyrenees. Some have even derived the word goiter from God or Goth but their name, Christia is not unlike Cretin and the same symptoms of idiotism were not unusual among the Cagots although sometimes if the old tradition is to be credited their malady of the brain took rather the form of violent delirium which attacked them at the new and full moons. Then the workmen laid down their tools and rushed off from their labor to play mad pranks up and down the country. Perpetual motion was required to alleviate the agony of fury that seized upon the Cagots at such times. In this desire for rapid movement the attack resembled the Neapolitan Tarantella while in the mad deeds they performed during such attacks they were not unlike the northern berserker. In Be'an especially those suffering from this madness were dreaded by the pure race. The Be'ane going to cut their wooden clogs in the great forests that lay around the base of the Pyrenees feared above all things to go too near the periods when the Cagotels seized on the oppressed and accursed people from whom it was then the oppressors turned to fly. A man was living within the memory of some who married a Cagot wife he used to beat her right soundly when he saw the first symptoms of the Cagotel and having reduced her to a wholesome state of exhaustion and insensibility he locked her up until the moon had altered her shape in the heavens. If he had not taken such decided steps say the oldest inhabitants there is no knowing what might have happened. From the 13th to the end of the 19th century there are facts enough to prove the universal abhorrence in which the unfortunate race was held whether called Cagots or Gahets in the Pyrenean districts Kakao in Brittany or Yaqueros Asturias. The great French Revolution brought some good out of its fermentation of the people the more intelligent among them tried to overcome the prejudice against the Cagots. In 1718 there was a famous case tried at Biariz relating to Cagot rights and privileges there was a wealthy miller Etienne Arnaud by name of the race of gods, Cagots, Astragots or Gahets as his people are described in the legal document he married an heiress a Goté or Cagot of Biariz and the newly married well-to-do couple saw no reason why they should stand near the door in the church nor why he should not hold some civil office in the commune of which he was the principal inhabitant. Accordingly he petitioned the law that he and his wife might be allowed to sit in the gallery of the church and that he might be relieved of his duties. This wealthy white miller Etienne Arnaud pursued his rights with some vigor against the Baye of Labour the dignitary of the neighborhood whereupon the inhabitants of Biariz met in the open air on the 8th of May to the number of 150 approved of the conduct of the Baye in rejecting Arnaud made a subscription and gave all power to their lawyers to defend the cause of the pure race against Etienne Arnaud who having married a girl of cagot blood ought also to be expelled from the holy places. This lawsuit was carried through all the local courts and ended by an appeal to the highest court in Paris where a decision was given against Basque superstitions and Etienne Arnaud was dense forward and titled to enter the gallery of the church. Of course the inhabitants of Biariz were all the more ferocious for having been conquered and four years later a carpenter named Miguel Legaré suspected of cagot descent having placed himself in the church among other people was dragged out by the Abbe and two of the jurets of the parish. Legaré defended himself with a sharp knife at the time and went to law afterwards the end of which was that the Abbe and his two accomplices were condemned to a public confession of penitence to be uttered while on their knees at the church door just after Haimas they appealed to the parliament of Bordeaux against this decision but met with no better success than the opponents of the Miller Arnaud. Legaré was confirmed in his right of standing where he would in the parish church. That a living cagot had equal rights with other men in the town of Biariz seemed now seated to them but a dead cagot was a different thing. The inhabitants of pure blood struggled long and hard to be entered apart from the abort race. The cagots were equally persistent in claiming to have a common bearing ground. Again the texts of the Old Testament were referred to and the pure blood quoted triumphantly the precedent of Uzziah the Laper, 26th chapter of the second book of Chronicles who was buried in the field of the Sopoulkers of the Kings not in the Sopoulkers themselves. The cagots pleaded that they were healthy and able-bodied with no taint of leprosy near them. They were met by the strong argument called to be refuted, which I quoted before. Leprosy was of two kinds perceptible and imperceptible. If the cagots were suffering from the latter kind, who could tell whether they were free from it or not? That decision must be left to the judgment of others. One sturdy cagot family alone, Belon by name, kept up a lawsuit claiming the privilege of common Sopoulker for 42 years. Although the curee of Biariz had to pay one hundred even for every cagot not interred in the right place, the inhabitants indemnified the curate for all these fines. Messiede Romani, Bishop of Tabr, who died in 1768, was the first to allow a cagot to fill any office in the church. To be sure, some were so spiritless as to reject office when it was offered to them, because by so claiming their equality they had to pay the same taxes instead of the rancale or poll tax levied on the cagots, the collector of which had also a right to claim a piece of bread of a certain size for his dog at every cagot dwelling. Even in the present century it has been necessary in some churches for the archdeacon of the district followed by all his clergy to pass out of the small door previously appropriated to the cagots in order to mitigate the superstition which, even so lately, the people refuse to mingle with them in the house of God. A cagot once played the congregation at Laroc, a trick suggested by what I have just named. He slightly locked the great parish door of the church, while the greater part of the inhabitants were assisting at mass inside, put gravel into the lock itself so as to prevent the use of any duplicate key and had the pleasure of seeing the proud, pure-blooded people file out with banded head a small door used by the abhorred cagots. We are naturally shocked at discovering from facts such as these the causeless rancor with which innocent and industrious people were so recently persecuted. The moral of the story of the accursed race may, perhaps, be best conveyed in the words of an epitaph on Mrs. Mary Hand who lies buried in the church yard of Stratford on Avon. What faults you saw in me pray strive to shun and look at home there's something to be done. End of an Accursed Race by Elizabeth Gaskell For more information or to volunteer please visit Libravax.org In the former part of my history I have explained how the people had long been divided into two factions. Justinian associated himself with one of these, the blues which had previously favored him and was thus enabled to upset everything and throw all into disorder. Thereby the Roman Constitution was beaten to its knees. However, all the blues did not agree to follow his views, but only those who were inclined to revolutionary measures, yet as the evil spread, these very men came to be regarded as the most moderate of mankind, for they used their opportunities of doing wrong less than they might have done. Nor did the revolutionists of the green faction remain idle, but they also, as far as they were able, continually perpetrated all kinds of excesses, although individuals of their number were continually being punished. This only made them bolder, for men when they are treated harshly usually become desperate. At this time Justinian, by openly encouraging and provoking the blue faction, shook the Roman Empire to its foundation, like an earthquake or a flood, or as though each city had been taken by the enemy. Everything was everywhere thrown into disorder, nothing was left alone. The laws and the whole fabric of the state were altogether upset, and became the very opposite of what they had been. First of all the revolutionists altered the fashion of wearing the hair, they cut it short in a manner quite different from that of the rest of the Romans. They never touched the mustache and beard, but let them grow like the Persians, but they shaved the hair off the front part of their heads as far as the temples, and let it hang down long and in disorder behind, like the massagati, wherefore they called this the hunnit fashion of wearing the hair. In the next place they all chose to wear richly embroidered dresses. Far finer then became their several stations in life, but they were able to pay for them out of their illicit gains. The sleeves of their tunics were made as tight as possible at the wrists, but from thence to the shoulder were of an astounding width, and whenever they moved their hands in applauding in the theater, or the hippodrome, or encouraging the editors, this part of the tunic was waved aloft to convey to the ignorant the impression that they were so beautifully made and so strong that they were obliged to wear such robes as these to cover their muscles. They did not perceive that the empty width of their sleeves only made their bodies appear even more stunted than they were. The cloaks, drawers, and shoes which they mostly affected were called after the huns, and made in their fashion. At first they almost all openly went about armed at night, but by day hid short two-edged swords upon their thighs under their cloaks. They gathered together in gangs as soon as it became dusk, and robbed respectable people in the marketplace, and in the narrow lanes, knocking men down and taking their cloaks, belts, goat bulls, and anything else they had in their hands. Some they murdered as well as robbed, that they might not tell others what had befallen them. These acts roused the indignation of all men, even the least disaffected members of the blue faction. But as they began not to spare even these, the greater part began to wear brazen belts and buckles and much smaller cloaks then became their protection, lest their fine clothes should be their death. And before the sun set, they went home and hid themselves. But the evil spread. And as the authorities in charge of the people did nothing to punish the criminals, these men became very daring. For crime, when encouraged to manifest itself openly, always increases enormously, seeing that even when punished it cannot be entirely suppressed. Indeed, most men are naturally inclined to evil doing. Such was the behavior of the blues. As for the opposite faction, some of them joined the bands of their opponents, hoping thus to be able to avenge themselves upon the party which had ill-used them. Some fled secretly to other lands, while many were caught on the spot and killed by their adversaries, or by the government. A number of young men also joined this party, without having previously taken any interest in such matters, being attracted by the power and the license which it gave them to do evil. Indeed, there was no sort of villainy known amongst men which was not committed at this time unpunished. In the beginning men put away their own opponents, but as time went on they murdered men who had done them no hurt. Many bribed the blues to kill their personal enemies, whom they straightaway slew, and declared that they were greens, though they might never have seen them before. And these things were not done in the dark or by stealth, but at all hours of the day and in every part of the city, before the eyes, as it might be, of the chief estate, for they no longer needed to conceal their crimes because they had no fear of punishment, but to kill an unarmed passer-by with one blow was a sort of claim to public esteem and a means of proving one's strength and courage. Life became so uncertain that people lost all expectation of security, for everyone continually had death before his eyes and no place or time seemed to offer any hope of safety, seeing that men were slain indiscriminately in the holiest churches and even during divine service. No one could trust friends or relations, for many were slain at the instance of their nearest of kin. No inquiry took place into such occurrences, but these blows fell unexpectedly on everyone, and no one helped the fallen. Laws and contracts which were considered confirmed had no longer any force. Everything was thrown into confusion and settled by violence. The government resembled a despotism, not a securely established one, the one which was changed almost daily and was ever beginning afresh. The minds of the chief spirits seemed stricken with consternation and their spirits cowed by the fear of one single man. The judges gave sentence on disputed points not according to what they thought to be lawful and right, but according as each of the litigants was a friend or an enemy of the ruling faction, for any judge who disregarded their instructions was punished with death. Many creditors also were compelled by main force to restore their bills to their debtors, without having received anything of what was owing them, and many against their will had to bestow freedom upon their slaves. It is said that some ladies were forced to submit to the embraces of their own slaves, and the sons of leading men who had been mixed up with these youths forced their fathers to property to them, and to do many other things against their will. Many boys with their father's knowledge were forced to undergo dishonor at the hands of the blues, and women living with their own husbands were forced to submit to the like treatment. We are told that a woman who has not over-well dressed was sailing with her husband in a boat towards a suburb across the strait. They met away some men of this faction who took her away from her husband with threat, and placed her in their own boat. When she entered the boat together with these young men, she secretly told her husband to take courage, and not to fear any evil for her. Never, said she, will I permit myself to be outraged. And while her husband was gazing on her with the greatest sorrow, she sprang into the sea, and was never seen again. Such were the outrages which the people of this faction dared to commit in Byzantium. Yet all this did not so much gall the victims as Justinians offences against the state, for those who suffer most cruelly from evildoers are in great part consoled by the expectation that the law and the authorities will avenge them. If they have any hope for the future, men bear their present sufferings with a much lighter heart. But when they are outraged by the established government, they are naturally much more hurt by the evil which befalls them, and the improbability of redress drives them to despair. Justinians felt was not only that he turned a deaf ear to the complaints of the injured, but did not even disdain to behave himself as the avowed chief of this party, that he gave great sums of money to these youths and kept many of them in his own retinue, that he even went so far as to appoint some of them to governments and other official posts. And of the blue and the greens of Justinian by Procopius 500 to 570 AD The Burning of Pestigo from a correspondent for the New York Tribune. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. In the beginning of our account of the Chicago Confligration we made reference to the great fires in the pine woods of Wisconsin and Michigan. The loss of life was greater in those fearful fires than in the Chicago disaster. It is estimated that over a thousand human beings perished in the flames that swept like a bism of destruction. There were thousands of acres of wooded country in the northwest. Involved in this wholesale destruction was the village of Pestigo near Green Bay, and this was one of the most appalling disasters on record. It occurred on the same day on which the great Chicago fire commenced. A correspondent of the New York Tribune writing from Pestigo or where it had been under date of October 20, 1871 thus describes the hard visitation and its incidents and the scenes after the destruction of the village. This letter to give it a habitation and a name as dated where Pestigo was. In the glory of this Indian summer afternoon I look out on the ghastliest clearing that ever laid before mortal eyes. The sandy streets glisten with a frightful smoothness, and calcium fragments are all that remain of imposing edifices and hundreds of peaceful homes. This ominous clearing is in the center of the blackened withered forest of oak, pine and summer rack with a swift river, the Pestigo, gliding silently through the center from northeast to southwest. Situated seven miles from the Green Bay on the Pestigo River, the town commanded all the lumber trade of the northern peninsula and grew rapidly into importance as a frontier mart of Chicago. Built by an enterprising but lately singularly unfortunate Chicago sufferer, William B. Ogden, the town has had but one purpose, to make money for its foundering, keep up the lumber interest. But one industry breeds many and in time a railroad running seven miles to the bay connected the little city with a great chain of lakes. Great foundries and machine shops rose on the banks of the river and a busy mill stood in ceaseless operation in the center of the town. The banks of the Pestigo team with a rich and various growth of timber and the trade of years stood always in perspective to her busy people. The great northern Pacific Railroad was to be tapped by a road even now building to the place where Pestigo was and every hamlet and town in northern Wisconsin envied and admired the wonderful little city. The keen eye of trade and speculation was not deceived. Population flocked in a main and fully two thousand people had established permanent homes. The site was well chosen for beauty as well as business. The river at this point runs through a slight bluff which breaks into a low flat before the stream escapes from the borders of the town. The excellent water power as well as the lumber interest had determined the spot and a mill was one of the first establishments in operation when the walls of the village began to rise. Below the mill, the ground on either bank sloped gently into low heavily flats which joined the water's edge a few rides from the center of the town. The business and resident streets were wide and well laid out, the houses prettily built and carefully painted and little ornamental gardens were frequent. The river cut the town pretty fairly entwined, the works and shops of the Pestigo company covering most of the northeastern shore while trade and business for the main part held themselves on the south western bank. The site was and is to this day unmistakably a clearing. A solid wall of pine, oak and tamarack hedge in the desolate waste even now. As it stood the pretty bustling village combined the orderly enterprise of New England in the irrepressible vigor of the typical western city. Roads cut through the forest communicated with a long line of prospering lumbering hamlets and thriving farms to the west and south. The surrounding woods were interspersed with innumerable open glades of crisp brown herbage and dried furs which had for weeks glowed with the autumn fires that infest these regions. Little heed was paid them for the first rain would inevitably quench the flames. But the rain never came and finally valiant battle was waged far and near against the slowly increasing fires. In this as in other towns the danger was thought well warded off by the general precautions. The fire had raged up to the very outskirts of the town weeks before that fatal Sunday and the firemen set outward to fight the enemy. Everything inflammable had apparently been taken out of harm's way one careful citizen traversed the western outskirt and assured his people that no danger could come from that quarter. The sharp air of early October had sent the people in from the evening church services more promptly than usual although numbers delayed to speculate on a great noise in the dew which set in ominously from the west. The housewives looked trembling at the fires and lights within. Then took a last look at the possibilities without. For many it was truly a last glimpse. The noise grew in volume and came nearer and nearer with terrific crackling and detonations. The forest rocked and tossed tumultuously. A dire alarm fell upon the imprisoned village for the swirling blast came now from every side. The one awful instant before expectation could give shape to the horror a great horror shot up in the western heavens and in countless fiery tongues struck downward into the village piercing every object that stood in the town like a red hot bolt. A deafening roar mingled with blasts of electric flame filled the air and paralyzed every soul in the place. There was no beginning to the work of ruin. The flaming whirlwind swirled in an instant through the town. There is no diversity in general experience. All heard was the first inexplicable roar. Some of here that the earth shook while a credulous few avowed that the heavens opened and the fire rained down from above. Moved by a common instinct for all they knew that the woods that encircled the town were impenetrable every habitation was deserted to the flames and the gasping multitude flocked to the river. On the west the mad horde saw the bridge in flames in a score of places and turning sharply to the left with one accord plunged into the water. Three hundred people watched themselves in between the rolling booms swayed to and fro by the current where they roasted in the hot breath of flame that hovered above them and cinched the hair on each head momentarily exposed above the water. Here despairing men and women held their children till the cold water came as an ally to the flames and deprived them of their strength. Meantime the eastern bank was densely crowded by the dying and the dead. Rushing to the river from this direction the swirling blasts met the victims full in the face and moda swath through the fling throng. Inhalation was annihilation. Scores fell before the first blast. If you were able to crawl to the pebbly flats but so dreadfully disfigured that death must have been preferable. All could not reach the river. Even the groups that fell prone on the grateful damp flats suffered excruciating agony. The fierce blaze playing in tremendous counter currents above them on the higher ground was sufficiently strong to set the clothing aflame and the flying sand heated as by a furnace blistered the flesh wherever it fell. All that could break through the stifling samoon had come to the river. In the red glare they could see the sloping bank covered with the bodies of those who fell by the way. Few living on the back streets seceded in reaching the river the hot breath of the fire cutting them down as they ran. But here a new danger befell the cows, terrified by smoke and flames rushed in a great blowing grove to the river brink. Men and children were trampled by the frightened brutes and many losing their hold or swept under the waters. This was the situation above the bridge, below and a no less harrowing thing happened. The burning timbers of the mill, built at the edge of the bridge, blew and floated down upon the multitude assembled near the flats and afflicted the most lamentable sufferings. The men fought this new death bitterly. Those who were fortunate enough to have coats, flung them over and dipped water with their hats on the improvised shelter. Scores had every shred of hair burned off in the battle and many lost their lives in protecting others. The firemen had made an effort to save some of the important buildings and the hose was run from the river to some important edifice. The heat instantly stopped the attempt but not before the hose swollen with water had been burned through in a hundred places. Although the onslaught of fire and wind had been instantaneous in the destruction almost simultaneous the fierce stifling currents of heat couriered through the air for hours. These currents were more fatal than the flames of the burning village. Ignorance of the extent of the fire and the frightful combination of wind and flames many of the company's workmen some with wives and children shut themselves up in the great brick building and perished in the raging heat for the next half hour. Others on the remote streets broke for the clearing beyond the woods but few ever passed the burning barrier. Within the boundaries of the town and accessible to the multitude the river accommodation was rather limited and when the animals had crowded in the situation was full of despair. The flats were covered with prone figures with packs of blaze and faces pressed rigidly into the cooling moist earth. The flames played about and above all with incessant deafening roar. The tornado was momentary but was seceded by maelstroms of fire, smoke, cinders and red hot sand. Wherever a building seemed to resist the fire the roof would be sent whirling in the air breaking into clouds of flame as it fell. The shower, spark, cinders and hot sand fell in continuous and prodigious force did quite as much in killing the people as the first terrific saroko that seceded the fire. The wretched throng neck deep in the water and the still more helpless being stretched on the heated sands were pierced and blistered by those burning particles. They seemed like landsets of red hot steel penetrating the thickest covering. The evidence now remains to attest the incredible force of the slenderous pencils of guarding flame. Hard iron wood plough handles still remain perforated as though by many balls and for the main part unburned. When the hapless dwellers in the remote streets saw themselves cut off from the river groups broke in all directions in a wild panic of frightened terror. A few took refuge in a cleared field bordering on the town. Here flat upon the ground with faces pressed in the sand the helpless sufferers lay and roasted. But few survived the dreadful agony. The next day revealed a picture exceeding in horror any battlefield. Mothers with children hugged closely lay in rigid groups the clothes burned off in the poor flesh seared to a crisp. One mother solicitous only for her babe embalms her unutterable love and the terrible picture left these woeful sands with her bare fingers she had scraped out of pass as the soldiers did before Petersburg impressing the little one into this she put her own body above it as a shield and when the daylight came both were dead. The little baby face unscarred but the mother burned almost to cinders. The hearty lumbermen are not want to exaggerate in the perfect accord of every story and incident confirm every episode of this tragedy faithful to the helpless a stout woodman carried out on his shoulders one deadly sick with fever he burrowed for the helpless body a sepulcher and then began the struggle for his own life he'd lingered too long in his scarred body was found near the refuge of the man his heroism had preserved. The tornado played through the desolated streets and swept the river and the lowland adjoining the timber of the mill floating down made additional labor and danger and daylight broke terribly on the saturated survivors before they dared drag their cramped limbs from the icy waters the mingled crowd of men women and children cows and swine had held this watery refuge since ten o'clock of the night before of the hundreds of human beings that entered the waters not all escaped the frightened cows trampled many under the waters the blistering blinded many who grouped hopelessly about in the current and finally sunk. To this day none can tell how great was the swatter in the waters. After the burning heat of the night a numbing chill followed and the water soap group crawled over dead bodies and hot sands to the only blazing building and all the waste about them. Groups of dead bodies were found within a stone's throw of the water. Families rushing down for a breathing place had been blown upon by the rushing blast and struck lifeless. The ghastly throng huddled, shrieking and bewailing about the flaring embers and the terrible roll of the missing was soon called from end to end of the ashen waste. No vestige of human habitation remained and the steaming freezing wretched group crazed by their unutterable terror and despair pleaded with each other to restore the lost ones. The hot blast of the night had blinded them and they could but vaguely recognize one another in the murky light of the new day. Long after the flames had died out when there was no more to feed on the hot sands rendered moving about in exquisite torture and long into the dismal midday the survivors were confined to the narrow circuit near the river. As the day war on help came in slowly from the northward several railroad gangs had escaped annihilation and one gang led by an ex-prize fighter named Mulligan came with promptness and efficiency to the rescue through miles of burning prairie and blockaded roads. On Sunday night something over 2,000 people were assembled within the confines of this industrious prosperous city. The dreadful morning light came upon a haggard, maniacal multitude of less than 700. When the work of rescue began it was found that a great number had escaped by the bed of the river and the northern road to the port and as the day advanced half naked stragglers unkempt and blackened began to stream into the sparse settlement. As the molten sands cooled off the woeful work of recognition began. Peering into blackened faces mothers fathers brothers trembling sought out missing ones. Some in the immeasurable anguish of the moment had dashed themselves against the sands and let out the life with their own hands that the licking flames coveted. Men too distant from the river to hope for rescue or safety had cut the throats of their choking children and were found in groups sometimes unscarred by the flames. In the streets full 20 corpses were found with injury or abrasion. Fatuous tradesmen and the sudden rush of flame had thrown their valuables into wells for security. Every well in the city was turned into a flaming pit and the very waters half evaporated by the heat. Survivors attest that women and children cut off from the rivers were put into the wells and covered with bedding. I have looked into every well in the ash covered clearing and there's no possibility they could have endured the flames that boiled and seeded in them. For hours the unreasoning search was continued by the famished dying remnants but to little avail the dead one recognizable way where they had fallen in the streets where the houses stood the ground was whipped clean as a carpet in all hope of identifying human ashes was idle. The next night the long prayed for rain came safely to the living kindly to the fleeting ashes of the dead the great dread that hovered over the bay cities and towns was allayed and the threatened danger nearly gone. Before dark hope came to the perishing sufferers from the neighboring villages the wounded were taken by boat to Green Bay when some were forwarded to Milwaukee from nine o'clock Sunday night until dusk of Monday may be taken as the time of the main action of this terrible drama. By Tuesday the sweeping miles of fire had been quenched by Monday night's rain. A slight drizzle still further aided the work of rescue. The ravages of the one night's tornado left unmistakable traces on every hand. Through the solid growth of timber a clean swath of blacken stumps and roots marked the course of the fiery tempest. They were encumbered with roasted cattle and frequently with the carcasses of bears and deer while the ditches and cleared fields were strewn with smaller game and wild birds. Nearing the vicinity satyralex were found for those who penetrated eastward through the wall of flame met equally fierce flames in the clearest places. Remote dwellers on the high roads warned of the great danger packed on their great farm wagons made northward through the highways for security. But the flames engulfed them in the heart of the woods and the fragments of stout vehicles burned to the irons now strew the road hither from Marinette, the last town on the northern Wisconsin border. The high road enters Pestigo from the north through a break in the encircling belt of woods where the pretty Episcopal church stood in the fatal place. Even before this was reached a putrid hecatome of dead cattle cumbered the crowded street. Mun the pine scores lay not burnt but smothered to death. Through this underbrush thirty bodies of men and children were picked up more or less injured by the fire. In a great many instances the human remains were distinguished from animals by the teeth alone. One horror-struck relative recognized the relics of his nephew by a penknife embedded in an oblong mound of ashes. What does it avail to narrate circumstantially the inexpressible horrors of these seceding days? What good to tell of the dead faces staring upward through the calm waters? Or the piteous circumstances of a hundred heart-wrenching tragedies during and following that treacherous Sunday blast? No moral underlies the terrible story. All that frightened human nature was capable of came into play that direful night. This water resulted from no sin of admission or commission on the part of man. No unseemingly panic ate at natural causes in achieving comparatively the completest devastation in human annals. On the contrary, superhuman daring and energy were put into active operation to mitigate preternatural horrors. The immensity of visible destruction at Chicago surpasses the completeness of this devastation. But Chicago, with all its woes, has not two-thirds of its citizens to deplore as dead. With one of the men who passed through that night of destruction, I wandered over the pretty rising plain where Pestigo spread its thriving stores and ran some houses. Save where the houses were built with cellars, which was very rare. There is no trace of a former habitation. Here and there are metallic remnants of sewing machines and cracked stones. The hardware and drugstores leave almost the only reminders of things that were. A black and mortar stands oddly in a wild confusion of melted glass and lead. Two or three men with trouble faces were moving about putting up a shed for the relief committee. They answered civilly and sadly that they had been in the fire but saved themselves in nearest kin. They should have starved to death if the outside world had not stepped in and now hoped to be shortly on their feet again. They disparate of the bright, cheery little town ever being again as it was. But complacently reckoned, if the scared ones didn't drive newcomers away by their silly stories, a new people would make a new Pestigo. If you ever walked over the ground where a camp had been burned and there were a few that served during a war that had not, you found there as much semblance of a substantial city as now marks the spot where Pestigo's 2,000 people carried on the business of life a few days ago. On the bank of the river, fish killed by the lusting flame are still to be seen which the day after the fire were soft and white and unwounded. Crossing the frail remnants of the bridge on timbers, charred and fragile my neighbor said it was as like judgment day as I can imagine. Friend handsome with his wife and four children believed firmly that it was and while the fire rained down he began to walk composably up and down his parlor with his family about him and I have never seen him since. The material losses estimated at $3 million the greater part of which falls on William B. Ogden who suffered simultaneously greater losses than Chicago but undaunted by his accumulating misfortunes that energetic man instantly sent an agent on to rebuild the mills and shops and gather a new people in the place if possible there are 400 dead authentically accounted for there besides half as many missing who cannot be accounted for and probably never will be many of the mill hands and companies employees were utter strangers in the place and the majority of them something like 100 trusting to the stout walls of the company's building perished in mass and of the burning of Pesh to go by a correspondent of the New York Tribune Mark Twain's Speeches by Mark Twain this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org read by Chad Horner from LibriVox girls in my capacity of publisher I recently received a manuscript from a teacher which embodied a number of answers given by her pupils to questions which were pointed these answers show that the children had nothing but the sound to go by the sense was perfectly empty here are some of their answers to words they were asked to define a riferous pertaining to an orifice ammonia the food of the gods equestrian one who asks questions parasite a kind of umbrella apesia a man who likes a good dinner and here is the definition of an ancient word honoured by a great party republican a sinner mentioned in the bible and here is an innocent deliverance of a zoological kind there are a good many donkeys in the theological gardens here also is a definition which really isn't very bad in its way a vessel containing beer and other liquids here too is a sample of a boy's composition on girls which I must say I rather like in their manner and behaviour they think more of dress than anything and like to play with dolls and rags they cry if they see a coy in a far distance and are afraid of guns they stay at home all the time and go to church every Sunday they are always sick they are always fury and making fun of boys hands and they say how dirty they can't play marbles I pity them poor things they can't have boys and then turn round and love them I don't believe they ever killed a cat or anything they look out every night and say oh ain't the moon lovely there is one thing I have not told and that is they always know their lessons better boys end of girls bye mark tween how much shall we spend for food I'm Mary Ellis Nichols this is a LibraVox recording all LibraVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibraVox.org how much shall we spend for food the question, how little can we spend for food has been considered over and over again and especially during the time of financial stress has been of the greatest interest to the housewife undoubtedly the cost of food is the item of household expense is most in different families and consequently the item that can be modified most easily hence the interest in the question of how little is needed to run a satisfactory table but the question how much shall we spend for food is quite different it is an ethical rather than an economic question and as such is worthy of our careful consideration granting absolute freedom in the use of money we want to decide not how small an amount she can get along with but how much she will be justified in spending upon food for her family or is it necessary for her to decide at all shall she buy the food that she needs and wishes without regard to cost that is the method often employed only last week a friend informed me in a way that made me feel that she considered figuring on the cost of food canerious that she had never attempted to run her table on a certain amount she had always bought the things that she knew the family liked without regard to cost I never know how much my table bills are going to be till they come in she concluded yes I answered but do you buy your clothes in the same way did you know how much you were to pay for your beautiful new cloak before it came home the reply was prompt how ridiculous of course I did I never buy a garment without knowing its price if I cannot afford $100 cost I get one for $50 or $35 or for $25 but food is different we must eat true we must eat but health and even happiness do not depend on our eating squabs and sweetbreads much less strawberries in January spring chicken may be a common article of food in one family and an inexcusable luxury in another while even chops and beef steak may be extravagances in a third my family insist on having grapefruit for breakfast every morning grown to my friend who is trying to live within her income grapefruit is delicious and wholesome so if a family can afford it and want it it should be on their table every morning but oranges are nearly as good baked apples just as wholesome and prunes are the most digestible of fruits as witnessed by the fact that they are almost the first babies I once confided to my grocer's wife who was assisting her husband on Saturday morning that I could not afford a certain tempting tidbit for if I did I should go over my table allowance she looked interested and at last hesitatingly asked if I minded telling her how much my allowance was we each catered as it happened for the same number five I named the amount which while not large was ample to provide a table that seemed to please and satisfy my own family her curiosity turned to surprise why she said my own table never cost less than $36 a week and of course all the fruit vegetables and dry groceries are bought at wholesale the grocer lived over his store he worked early and late to provide an income for his family his eldest daughter kept his books his wife did the housework in the store Saturday mornings and yet they spent more than $7 per person for food each week any woman who has made a little study of food values and the cost of food knows that for a family so situated that amount is folly almost sin but what if the wife of a man on a $5,000 salary who spends the same amount is she any wiser in short how is one to know to begin with every family should have enough good wholesome food to keep up strength in the adult members of the family and to furnish material for the growth of the children in addition the food should be varied enough to make it palatable that much expenditure is a necessity if the family income allows more delicate but not less nourishing food may be substituted as the finer cuts and varieties of meat the hot house vegetables more fruit and relishes of different sorts if there is no reason why the house wife should limit the amount she spends for food she will of course make her table as dainty as possible freely using the hot house products and imported delicacies which belong with jewels oriental rugs and old masters but even then the wise woman will know what is a reasonable amount to spend for the results she expects and will keep within it if she does not insist on adequate returns for her money she will encourage waste in her domestics and dishonesty in her trade folk the real test of how much one can afford to spend for food then is how much can be used beyond what is absolutely necessary without encroaching on the funds that should be used for other purposes what is necessary being understood to mean the food that would be sufficient and growth in distinction from what is desired as illustrated by my friend's grapefruit exactly what this sum shall be every housewife who earnestly wishes to do her duty by her family must discover for herself it may be 50% it may be 25% it may be only 10% but she must know how much it is and keep within it if she is to make a wise distribution of the funds at her disposal the problem is really one in simple proportion what can the family afford in other things for example my grocers family had a table that should have presupposed a house to themselves attractive furniture, books and periodicals the young daughter in school instead of behind her father's desk and some assistance in the home for the overworked mother the housewife will make no mistake who takes care that a nice proportion is maintained if she make sure that charity, art books, hospitality travel, home decoration yes and close all have due consideration she will be able to decide how much she can afford to spend for food and of how much shall we spend for food one of the world's most famous tables by Francis R. Sterrett this is a LibraVox recording all LibraVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibraVox.org is there any table in history or story that is better known to old and young than that of King Arthur have we not all thrilled at the dotty deeds performed by the knights of that marvelous table have we not too regarded it as a myth or as one of the important accessories of a mythical tale enchanting because it was mythical how we deceived ourselves for the table was real it must have been for you can see it to this day high on the wall of the great hall in Winchester castle England the custodian of the castle declares that the huge round of stout boards is the actual table around which King Arthur and his knights assembled and as proof he quotes from the Winchester annals an authentic record of all that is taken place in and around Winchester which was once the royal seat of England and this record runs back for many hundred years the table is mentioned many times in the annals once it was shown to William the Conqueror after his invasion of England and other entries prove that it has hung in Winchester castle for over 500 years think of that boys and girls of all ages who have reveled in the stories of the peerless king his round table and his brave knights according to the custodian the table was made in the beginning by Merlin the wise magician for Guinevere's grandfather and her father presented it to her and the young King Arthur on their wedding day when King Arthur established his famous order of the knights of the round table and chose from among the many brave men at his court those who were to assist him with their council in the peace and war he took this wedding gift for his banquet table as it had neither head nor foot a higher nor lower place and the king, as you remember wished all who sat there to be equals the table has changed since it was used for round table banquets and councils for the Winchester annals note that Henry VIII had it repainted and Henry VIII never lost an opportunity to emblazon everywhere the emblem of his house the Tudor Rose so in the center of the table almost concealing the representation of the sun that was the original decoration is now a pink Tudor Rose but between the petals the sun's rays can still be seen around the flower is King Arthur's motto and radiating from it to a broad white band that encircles the table are stripes of white and blue on the encircling band each stripe is the name of a knight to mark the place where he sat looking close one can spell out the quaint English letters and find the old familiar names Sir Lancelot, Sir Gallahad Sir Bedivere and all the rest of the brilliant band whose brave deeds and gentle courtesy we read of with delight where King Arthur set King Henry VIII had painted a picture of the king in his royal robes the table is a huge circular piece of wood 18 feet in diameter and as it hangs on the wall today it is enclosed in a circle of oak to protect its edge in spite of King Arthur's wish that all the places at the table should be of equal honor there are two that are particularly distinguished the seat perilous and the Judas seat the seat perilous at the right of the king was only for the pure in heart and there Sir Gallahad set the second special place has become known as the Judas seat for it was occupied by Sir Modrid who struck the blow that killed his king neither legend nor the Winchester annals give a complete record of the famous table and little is known of its history from the death of King Arthur until the coming of William of Normandy the early historians never doubted its authenticity and confidently referred to it as Arthur's Table for 500 years at least it is hung on the wall of Winchester castle and no one in Winchester will admit that there is any doubt that it is actually the table around which King Arthur and his knights gathered to eat haunches of venison roast pheasants and herons rich stews and pastries and to consult over the wrongs and injustice that were brought to them to be made right the grand old hall no longer echoes the story of nightly deed or the song of the minstrel and it is only when visitors wander in that it resounds with human voices the tall marble pillars and stone wall are perhaps all that is left of the original castle hall once the center of royal gatherings for even the windows and roof have been altered since the days when the shields of Arthur's knights emblazoned the walls with gold and gay colors the tapestries with tales of valor have dropped to pieces the brave men and the beautiful ladies whose battles they fought have long since passed away but the round table still hangs on the wall under the high window mute evidence of a day when nightly strength was dedicated to the protection of fair women and the service of God and of one of the world's most famous tables by Francis R. Sterrett recording by Betty B the magician by Roger of Wendover died 6 May 1236 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org in the year of grace 464 the Britons sent messengers into Brittany to Aurelius Ambrosius and his brother Uter Pendragon who had been sent there for fear of Vortigern beseeching them to come over from the Amorican country without delay to drive out the Saxons and King Vortigern and take the crown themselves as they had now arrived at man's estate they began to make preparation of men and ships for the expedition which when King Vortigern heard he called together his magicians and asked them what he ought to do under the circumstances they counseled him to build a very strong tower which might serve for the defense of himself and his friends after passing through several provinces in search of a suitable spot he came at last to Mount Erur which he conceived was adapted to his purpose collecting masons from all parts and gave directions for the building of the tower but as soon as they had begun the earth swallowed up every night what they had done during the day on his inquiring of the magicians the cause of the failure they counseled him to seek out a youth without a father and to sprinkle the mortar and stones with his blood which would give solidity to the work straight away messengers are dispatched into the different provinces in quest of a youth answering to this description coming at length to a town which was afterwards called Carmarthen they saw two youths quarreling one with whom in the heat of his passion said to the other why aren't thou such a fool as to contend with me wilt thou who was born without any father but thyself on a level with me the father's and mother's side imdescended from a line of kings on hearing this the messengers took the youth and his mother and brought them straight away to the king when they stood before the king he began diligently to inquire of the mother who was the father of the lad on which she answered as my soul lives my lord the king once when I was in the chamber of the king of Demesia my father there appeared to me a person in the likeness of a most beautiful youth who closely embraced me with many kisses and when he had done to me what it pleased him he suddenly disappeared this he repeated for a long time until at length he left me pregnant no other than he is the father of this boy he reached beyond measure at this recital the king called the youth and asked him his name after replying that his name was Merlin Ambrosius he inquired of the king the cause by himself and his mother had been brought into the royal presence to which king Vortigern answered my magicians have counseled me to seek after a youth without a father and to sprinkle my building with his blood they made me that it would then stand command said Merlin thy magicians to come before me and I will convict them of inventing lies for not knowing what is under the foundation of thy work they thought to satisfy thee by falsehood but call thy workmen my lord oh king and command them to dig into the earth and thou shalt discover a pool underneath which is the cause thy work does not stand which being done it was found exactly as Merlin had said whereupon Merlin turned to the magicians and said tell me now ye basico fans what is their line at the bottom of the pool to this they made no reply on which he turned to the king and said give orders that the pool be drained and thou wilt find at the bottom hollow stones with two dragons asleep in them on the faith of his words the king commanded the pool to be drained when to the astonishment of all what Merlin had assured was found to be the truth in the year of grace 465 Hilary sat in the Roman chair six years three months and ten days after which it remained vacant for ten days at his request Victorinas drew up a cycle of Easter extending through 532 years at that time while king Vortigern was sitting by the bank of the pool that had been drained the two dragons came forth one of them was white and the other red as soon as they approached each other they commenced a dreadful combat breathing forth flames the white dragon had the better the contest and pursued the red one unto the margin of the pool when the latter, indignant at the repulse turned on the white dragon and forced him to retire while they were thus fighting the king commanded Merlin Ambrosius to say what the battle between the dragons meant whereupon bursting into tears and full of the spirit of prophecy he thus began woe to the red dragon for his banishment approaches the white dragon which signifies the Saxons whom thou hast invited over shall possess his caverns whereas the red dragon signifies the British people which shall be oppressed by the white dragon his mountains shall be brought low as the valleys and the rivers of the valleys shall flow with blood his religious worship shall be destroyed and his lies lying in ruins when at length the oppressed shall prevail and shall resist the cruelty of the strangers for the boar of Cornwall shall afford sucker and shall tread their necks under his feet the aisles of the ocean shall be subdued by his might and he shall possess the forests of the Gauls the house of Romulus shall tremble at his rage and his end shall be doubtful his praise shall be sounded among the nations and many shall obtain their bread by narrating his exploits et cetera et cetera having uttered this prophecy to the admiration of our present the king requested him to tell him what he knew respecting his own fate to which Merlin replied flee if thou canst the fire of the sons of Constantine for they will conquer the Saxon people and shut the up in the town of Genorium and burn thee the faces of the Saxons shall be red with blood and having slain hangest Aurelius Ambrosius shall be crowned king the very next day Aurelius Ambrosius landed with his brother Uter Pendragon and a vast multitude of warriors the dispersed Britons flocked together under him and in a convocation of the clergy made him their king he first devoted himself with all his ability to the restoration of the churches from their ruins he was municifant in his gifts exact in the observation of his religious duties singularly modest a lie he detested beyond everything he was formidable on foot and more so on horseback and endued with all the qualities of a commander with such virtues his fame had spread among the nations and of Merlin the magician by Roger of Wendover a metric America a decision whose time has come for real by Gary P. Carver this is the Brevox recording while the Brevox recordings are in the public domain for more information auto-volunteer please visit www.brevox.org recording by Avayee in September 2019 a metric America a decision whose time has come for real NISTIR 4858 June 1992 U.S. Department of Commerce Technology Administration National Institute of Standards and Technology Metric Program Technology Services Gethersburg M.D. 20899 Gary P. Carver U.S. Department of Commerce Barbara Hackman Franklin Secretary Technology Administration Robert M. White National Institute of Standards and Technology John W. Lyons Director Abstract The Metric Conversion Act of 1975 amended in 1988 and in 1991 Presidential Executive Order provide both the rationale and the mandate for a transition to the use of metric units Federal agencies are developing and implementing metric transition plans cooperating on individual concerns and working with industry and user groups to establish realistic schedules for change Keywords metric, metrication metric system, metric transition Dr. Gary P. Carver is Chief of the Metric Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gethersburg M.D. Prior to assuming responsibility for the Commerce Department's leading role in federal agency metrication Dr. Carver was a research physicist in integrated circuit technology and a manager in the semiconductor and manufacturing engineering areas at NIST His goal is to successfully eliminate the need for his office Introduction 21 years ago a National Bureau of Standards reported to Congress a metric America a decision whose time has come described the United States as an island in a metric world The report's recommendations contributed to passage of the 1975 Metric Conversion Act This act raised the expectation of a 10 metric system However the act lacked a clearly stated objective and a timetable for implementation Possibly as a result the voluntary metric transition process eventually lost momentum In 1988 the growing influence of the metric system of units as an international standard and the increasing competitive importance of metric specifications for products in international commerce caused Congress to respond by including metric usage provisions in the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act The Omnibus Trade Act the amendments strengthened the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 The amendments make each federal agency responsible for implementing metric usage in grants, contracts and other business related activities to the extent economically feasible by the end of fiscal year 1992 However no statutory provision was made for leadership and coordination of the overall effort On July 25th 1991 President Bush acted to fill the Federal Metric Transition Leadership Void by issuing Executive Order 12770 Metric Usage in Federal Government Programs It gives specific direction and new management authority to the Secretary of Commerce to lead and coordinate implementation of the metric usage provisions of the Omnibus Trade Act This responsibility was delegated to the Undersecretary for Technology with staff support to be provided by the Office of Metric Programs of the Department of Commerce The Department of Commerce has long been concerned with the technical aspects of metric usage through NIST's role as the nation's science and engineering laboratory for measurement technology and research on standards Since 1901 NIST has played a major role in the evolution of a national measurement system policy by providing the measurements, calibrations, data and quality assurance that are vital to U.S. commerce and industry NIST also provides technical support to the national conference on weights and measures an organization of state county and city weights and measures enforcement officials and associated business consumer representatives a rationale and a mandate The amended Metric Conversion Act of 1975 and the 1991 Executive Order provide both the rationale and the mandate for a transition to the use of metric units The rationale is the need to remove a trade impediment to U.S. products as well as to improve our efficiency and competitive edge Since the modern metric system is now the international standard of measurement The metric system for purposes of international trade is more than just the international system of units, SI It includes the product standards and preferred sizes that are accepted by industries and governments throughout the world World-class products must be built to metric specifications to be competitive in the international marketplace The mandates in the law and executive order call for the federal government to use the metric system in all of its business related activities unless it is not economically feasible or is likely to cause significant inefficiencies or loss of markets to U.S. firms It is intended that the federal government set an example and use its influence to catalyze a transition to the metric system by U.S. industry The federal government uses measurements in many ways that influence business including regulation, data collection publishing and other services The federal government also is the largest customer of U.S. industry By offering to buy metric products and services government can help industry make the transition to the use of metric units of measurement In addition by requesting metric products the government can demonstrate its commitment to the metric system of measurement A special year The metric program is taken an evolutionary path to the statutory goals The federal agencies are developing and implementing transition plans cooperating on mutual concerns and working with industry and user groups to establish realistic schedules for change This year, 1992 is a special year in the implementation of the mandate The law requires that each federal agency by a date certain and to the extent economically feasible by the end of fiscal year 1992 use the metric system of measurement in its procurement grants and other business related activities The executive order requires that agencies provide to the secretary of commerce by June 30, 1992 an assessment of agency progress and problems together with recommendations for steps to assure successful implementation of the metric conversion act The executive order also requires in 1992 as part of the annual report to the president by the secretary of commerce recommendation which the secretary may have for additional measures including proposed legislation needed to achieve the full economic benefits of metric usage This year is also special because more significant progress is being made by federal agencies in metric usage than has been made in any previous year This will be viewed as a watershed year in the federal metrication process In 1990 a report on the federal metric program by the government accounting office was critical of the slow pace of progress Then in 1991 a congressional research report documented a low level of compliance with the metric usage mandate by the federal agencies A report on federal agency plans and the status of their execution that will be issued this year by NIST however provides evidence that federal agencies metric transition progress is gaining great momentum growing interagency cooperation Compliance with the spirit of the law and the executive order is significantly improved over previous years Many agencies have plans in place that describe specific actions already underway and policies that promise complete transition to using the metric system of units But even more significantly a growing number of agencies need to address common issues and to deal with shared problems This is especially apparent among agencies whose activities focus on procurement regulatory and small business activities The interagency metrication operating committee, MOC is composed of senior level metric coordinators from the federal agencies The subcommittees of the MOC address specific topics of interest to several different agencies These areas include for example construction, education procurement, grants standards and federal employee training Many agencies participate in the activities of the subcommittees and benefit from the combined efforts The construction subcommittee is one of the most active and successful groups It has attracted participants from private industry and has published a metric usage guide for commercial construction The subcommittees work is funded by participating federal agencies and its members have visited Canada to explore the Canadian experience Recently, the National Institute of Building Sciences which served as secretariat for the subcommittee created a construction metrication council to build on the work of the subcommittee and to enable even greater participation by private industry MOC agencies have accepted the construction subcommittees goal to design all new federal facilities in metric units by January 1st 1994 Another example of the growing cooperation among federal agencies to meet the mandate to use the metric system is the leadership of the government printing office and the internal new service in exploring a change to metric sized paper printed forms and documents To examine and discuss the issues they recently invited other agencies to meet with the staff of the joint committee on printing They considered the advantages and disadvantages of adopting standard metric sizes compared to continuing use of the current sizes described in metric units The approximately 60 representatives appointed an ad hoc committee to develop surveys of industry and the federal agencies as well as a timetable for reporting the results The possible impacts on the paper and printing industries will be examined including transition costs and long term benefits document handling, storage reproduction, information management and other related activities The consensus of the participants was that potential problems should be identified and a progressive policy and practical timetable be developed with industry's cooperation to make the federal government's transition to the use of metric sized paper forms and documents What needs to be done? The progress that federal agencies are making to implement metric usage will require some time to reach the point where metric units are used routinely For example agencies that have implemented a policy to use metric units on all new projects will not make predominant use of the metric system until new metric usage becomes a significantly large part of the agency's activity budgetary restraints that limit new project initiatives safety considerations transition costs and external factors will all affect the pace of the change For example in construction until a large fraction of old non metric facilities are replaced with new ones or are renovated extensively almost all government facilities as well as major equipment will remain non metric The use of metric units to describe existing items may be an option but in some situations this may not be desirable or acceptable In addition to needing time for metric policies and plans to be implemented in the federal government visible top management commitment to the metric transition and leadership are needed This also is true for state and local governments and for the business community Leadership is especially needed in critical areas that involve long lead times such as in education including workforce training As federal agencies evaluate their progress and identified problems they may encounter recommendations for legislation and other actions will be made to the secretary of commerce who in turn will send them to the president Clearly the completion of federal metric efforts will take time To assure the most beneficial results will take the continuing support of congress and the cooperation and active participation of industry and state and local governments A variety of reasons have been put forward to explain why the metric transition has not made a widespread progress in the US in the past They include lack of national leadership reluctance to embark on such a change and the failure of the voluntary effort that began in 1975 The many competing national priorities and the lack of immediate and visible benefit to a transition clearly were factors There are political, economic and social reasons to explain the apparent slow progress and reluctance to make the transition None of these factors justify continued in action We must continue along the path to joining the global community in the use of metric measurement standards The efforts of federal agencies are moving us more rapidly in that direction The implications for business In his message to the 1992 National Metric Conference Metrication 92 President Bush associated the metric system of units with success in the international marketplace Greater efficiency Production of goods and services that fit the needs of other nations Enhanced competitive edge and new opportunities and jobs A business making the transition from using inch pound units to using metric units is not only making an investment in the economic well-being of the United States but also investing in its own economic survival Companies sometimes ask whether they must convert to the metric system of measurement The simple answer is no The law does not require conversion and the government cannot force businesses to convert Competitors, especially overseas competitors might even prefer that U.S. companies not convert Finally, some workers may be relieved to hear they do not need to learn a new system and companies may wish to postpone transition expenses Although the competitive reality is that postponement will be very temporary and subsequent costs may be higher The answer is yes Yes to a conscious and strategic decision to convert Companies that delay conversion will lose some of the future economic benefits that will ultimately surpass any short-term costs Companies should convert if they make or sell any product or service that they or anyone else might want to sell in foreign markets If they want to be assured of being able to sell to the future and if they want to begin to enjoy a long-term return on their investment in the transition In short, companies should actively plan and manage their transition and not wait for circumstances that will force it By then, it may be too late for some firms to survive in the increasingly competitive business climate Clearly, U.S. companies that do not produce products or specifications will risk being increasingly non-competitive in world markets Japan has identified the U.S. lack of metric usage as a strategic impediment to access of U.S. products to the Japanese home market In addition, consolidation of the European market product standards will make sales of non-metric products increasingly difficult and uncertain Most U.S. companies understand that using metric units is essential to future economic success Their hesitation may be due to uncertainty as to when and how to convert Summary Through their actions federal agencies are demonstrating an increasing determination to use the metric system of units in business-related activities The results are not yet very visible to the public which is not a direct target of current federal transition activities Industry is the target and is becoming increasingly aware of and generally welcomes the government's progress Industry acceptance of the wisdom of proceeding with the metric transition is due partly to the realization that producing metric specifications and surviving in tomorrow's economic environment are synonymous Industry also understands that government agencies are committed to working cooperatively with industry In addition, both government and industry recognize the need to make changes gradually and opportunistically to achieve the maximum amount of benefit with the minimum amount of expense and disruption of activity End of a metric America This time has come For Real by Gary P. Carver