January 10

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by gerryadmin

1840 Birth of the Penny Post

Here are images of stamps from Canada, the USA, and France.

Here are images of British stamps.

Notice any difference? Of course, you do. British stamps, uniquely in the world, do not carry the name of the country that issues them. Only the portrait of the current monarch is needed to denote them as a product of Great Britain, the country that invented the modern postal system. A 19th-century account explains:


The 10th of January 1840 will be a memorable day in the history of civilization, as that on which the idea of a Penny Postage was first exemplified. The practical benefits derived from this reform, are so well known that it is needless to dwell upon them. Let us rather turn attention for a few moments to the remarkable, yet most modest man, whom his species have to thank for this noble invention.


Rowland Hill, born in 1795, was devoted through all his early years, even from boyhood, to the business of a teacher. At the age of forty, we find him engaged in conducting the colonization of South Australia upon the plan of Mr. Edward
Gibbon. Wakefield, for which his powers of organization gave him a great advantage, and in which his labours were attended with a high degree of success. It was about the year 1835, that he turned his attention to the postal system of the country, with the conviction that it was susceptible of reform. Under enormous difficulties he contrived to collect information upon the subject, so as to satisfy himself, and enable him to satisfy others, that the public might be benefited by a cheaper postage, and yet the revenue remain ultimately undiminished. The leading facts on which he based his conclusions have been detailed in an authoritative document. ‘The cost of a letter to the Post-Office he saw was divisible into three branches.

First, that of receiving the letter and preparing it for its journey, which, under the old regime, was troublesome enough, as the postage varied first in proportion to the distance it had to travel; and again, according as it was composed of one, two, or three sheets of paper, each item of charge being exorbitant. For instance, a letter from London to Edinburgh, if single, was rated at 1s. 1½d.; if double, at 2s. 3d.; and if treble, at 3s. 4½d.; any-the minutest-inclosure being treated as an additional sheet. The duty of taxing letters, or writing upon each of them its postage, thus became a complicated transaction, occupying much time and employing the labour of many clerks. This, and other duties, which we will not stop to specify, comprised the first of the three branches of expense which each letter imposed on the office. The second was the cost of transit from post-office to post-office. And this expense, even for so great a distance as from London to Edinburgh, proved, upon careful examination, to be no more than the ninth part of a farthing!


The third branch was that of delivering the letter and receiving the postage-letters being for the most part sent away unpaid. Rowland Hill saw that, although a considerable reduction of postage might and ought to be made, even if the change rested there, yet that, if he could cheapen the cost to the Post office, the reduction to the public could be carried very much further, without entailing on the revenue any ultimate loss of serious amount. He therefore addressed himself to the simplification of the various processes. If, instead of charging according to the number of sheets or scraps of paper, a weight should be fixed, below which a letter, whatever might be its contents, should only bear a single charge, much trouble to the office would be spared, while an unjust mode of taxation would be abolished.

This led to the proposal for pre-payment by stamped labels, whereby the Post-office is altogether relieved from the duty of collecting post-age. Thus, one by one, were the impediments all removed to the accomplishment of a grand object—uniformity of postage throughout the British Isles.’

January 9

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by gerryadmin

1995 Death of Peter Cook

Peter Cook (1937-95) was the most important comedic figure in the English-speaking world in the last half of the 20th century. He may rightly be considered the godfather of satire and the inspiration for innumerable writers, comedians, and producers.

He began his career in the famous Footlights of Cambridge University, an institution that nurtured such talents as Eric Idle, Hugh Laurie, and Douglas Adams. Cook joined with Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, and Jonathan Miller in 1960 to form the revue “Beyond the Fringe” which was a success in London and Broadway. His financial support of the satirical magazine Private Eye allowed that publication to continue through difficult years. Cook’s partnership with Dudley Moore produced classic sketches and a genial collaboration in movies The Wrong Box and Bedazzled but their relationship foundered in later years.

Cook, like many comedic geniuses, was not a happy man and suffered from alcoholism before dying of a gastro-intestinal haemorrhage. 

Here is Cook in one of his most famous moments.

January 8

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by gerryadmin

1908 Birth of Fearless Nadia

Few performers have had the cross-cultural impact of Fearless Nadia, born Mary Ann Evans in Perth Australia. She was the daughter of a British soldier who moved with her parents to India at an early age. When her father died in World War I the family moved to Peshawar on the Northwest Frontier where she learned to ride and shoot. These skills came in handy when she took up a career in the circus (her mother had been a belly dancer and may have inspired her show-business ambitions). On the advice of a fortune teller she changed her name to Nadia.

In the 1930s she attracted the attention of movie mogul JBH Wadia who thought that her height, blonde hair, and blue eyes would prove an attraction in action films. She made over 40 cinematic appearances with her bigggest hit as masked adventuress “Hunterwali”. Doing her own stunts, she sang and danced her way into the hearts of the Indian move-going public who were dazzled by her racy athletic performances. One critic noted: “A hero in a male-dominated universe, she was a star, a stuntwoman, a horse-rider, roof-climber and gravity-defier, all rolled into one. She brandished a whip at the drop of a hat. Wearing a mask, she sent men flying with a thwack. She ran atop trains and made lions her pet.”

At the age of 53 she married Homi, the brother of JBH Wadia, and thus became Nadia Wadia. The couple had long postponed their nuptials due to the opposition of his traditionally-minded mother.

Fearless Nadia died in 1996 but her career is now undergoing a posthumous reassessment and she is hailed as a proto-feminist and pioneer. Her film 1940 Diamond Queen” is said to have “mixed stunts, slapstick and important issues such as fighting corruption, advocating education and literacy and exhorting Indian women to rise up against chauvinism and patriarchy.”

January 7

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by gerryadmin

St Lucian’s Day

It’s about time we honoured another obscure saint. Today it is St. Lucian, surnamed of Antioch, born at Samosata, in Syria. He lost his parents whilst very young; and being come to the possession of his estate, which was very considerable, he distributed all among the poor. He became a great proficient in rhetoric and philosophy, and applied himself to the study of the holy scriptures under one Macarius at Edessa. Convinced of the obligation annexed to the character of priesthood, which was that of devoting himself entirely to the service of God and the good of his neighbour, he did not content himself with inculcating the practice of virtue both by word and example; he also undertook to purge the scriptures, that is, both the Old and New Testament, from the several faults that had crept into them, either by reason of the inaccuracy of transcribers, or the malice of heretics. Some are of opinion, that as to the Old Testament, he only revised it, by comparing different editions of the Septuagint: others contend, that he corrected it upon the Hebrew text, being well versed in that language. Certain, however, it is that St. Lucian’s edition of the scriptures was much esteemed, and was of great use to St. Jerome.

St. Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, says, that Lucian remained some years separated from the Catholic communion at Antioch, under three successive bishops, namely, Domnus, Timeus, and Cyril. If it was for too much favouring Paul of Samosata, condemned at Antioch in the year 269, he must have been deceived, for want of a sufficient penetration into the impiety of that dissembling heretic. It is certain, at least, that he died in the Catholic communion; which also appears from a fragment of a letter written by him to the church of Antioch, and still extant in the Alexandrian Chronicle. Though a priest of Antioch, we find him at Nicomedia, in the year 303, when Dioclesian first published his edicts against the Christians. He there suffered a long imprisonment for a the faith; for the Paschal Chronicle quotes these words from a letter which he wrote out of his dungeon to Antioch: “All the martyrs salute you. I inform you that the pope Anthimus (bishop of Nicomedia) has finished his course of martyrdom.’ This happened in 303. Yet Eusebius informs us, that St. Lucian did not arrive himself at the crown of martyrdom till after the death of St. Peter of Alexandria, in 311, so that he seems to have continued nine years in prison.

At length he was brought before the governor, or, as the acts intimate, the emperor himself, for the words which Eusebius uses, may imply either. On his trial, he presented to the judge an excellent apology for the Christian faith. Being remanded to prison, an order was given that no food should be allowed him; but, when almost dead with hunger, dainty meats that had been offered to idols, were set before him, which he would not touch. It was not in itself unlawful to eat of such meats, as St. Paul teaches, except where it would give scandal to the weak, or when it was exacted as an action of idolatrous superstition, as was the case here. Being brought a second time before the tribunal, he would give no other answer to all the questions put to him, but this: “I am a Christian.” He repeated the same whilst on the rack, and he finished his glorious course in prison, either by famine, or according to St. Chrysostom, by the sword. His acts relate many of his miracles, with other, particulars; as that, when bound and chained down on his back in prison, he consecrated the divine mysteries upon his own breast, and communicated the faithful that were present: this we also read in Philostorgius, the Arian historian. St. Lucian suffered at Nicomedia, where Maximinus II. resided.

January 6

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by gerryadmin

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Epiphany

From the Greek epiphania, or manifestation. Celebrated in both Eastern and Western churches on January 6, Epiphany marks a number of important appearances or manifestations: the arrival of the Magi, the baptism of Jesus, the miracle at Cana and the Feeding of the 5000.

Its first appearance seems to have been in the second century A.D. among the Basilidean heretics of Alexandria who believed that Jesus did not become divine until his baptism which they claim had taken place on January 6. Though this idea of a late-acquired divinity was rejected by orthodox Christianity, some churches seem to have used the date to celebrate Christ’s earthly birth — an epiphany of a different kind. When in the fourth century Rome adopted December 25 as the day to celebrate the Nativity the Western churches’ Epiphany emphasis shifted to focus on the Magi while in the East stress was placed on the baptism. The period between these two important holy dates became known as the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Epiphany became an official holiday in the Eastern Roman Empire, marked by a ban on chariot racing and attending games in the arena and by ceremonies of blessing the waters. At these ceremonies the emperor would drink the waters three times to the cry of “The emperor drinks!” The blessing of the waters takes place even today in Orthodox denominations. A priest will bless a body of water, either inside, or by a lake, river or sea and the faithful take it home where it will be used to sprinkle on houses, barns and fields to ensure prosperity for the coming year. In some places the priest will throw a cross into the water and divers will race to be the one to recover it.

In the West, Epiphany was a day to celebrate the visitation of the Magi or the Three Kings as they became known. Religious services honouring the Magi gradually turned into dramas held outside of the church such as The Play of Herod. As returning Crusaders in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries brought back stories of the fabulous east, fascination with the Magi grew — cities held processions honouring the Kings and carols retelling their journeys were sung. (The remnants of these customs are the Star Boys and their January pilgrimages from door to door.) Epiphany came to be a time all across Europe for popular celebrations marked by eating a cake and gift-giving.

The custom of the King’s Cake, Twelfth Night Cake, Dreikönigskuchen, gâteau des rois, etc., can be traced back to the thirteenth century. A bean or a pea or a coin was baked into the cake and the lucky finder was named king or queen of the party and could direct others to do his bidding for the evening. Though the tradition lingers in much of Europe (as well as French America) the custom in England was displaced to December 25 where it became the Christmas cake. In medieval France it was customary to put a piece of the cake aside for the poor or to collect money from the rich for their share of the cake and use the money for a charity.

Because the Christmas season ends in many parts of the world on January 6, Twelfth Night became a time of raucous celebration, associated with masking, mumming, drinking and social inversion. This misrule may have been a carry-over to some extent from the riotousness of the pagan Kalends. In Byzantium for example church councils had to legislate against the dancing and transvestism that went on in early January. During the reign of Michael III (842-67) the emperor and his court went so far as to use the occasion to mock the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Mass itself. Mock coronations and consecrations become common in medieval Europe with clerical hijinks, cross-dressing, noise and laughter the order of the day on Twelfth Night.

To commemorate the visit of the Magi who brought gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus, Epiphany became the day for giving gifts, especially to children. In the Spanish-speaking world the eve of the day of Los Tres Rejes Magos is when the three wise men pass through on their way to Bethlehem and leave presents for kids who, in turn, leave out snacks for the kings and their camels. In Spain their Majesties and their attendants can be seen processing through the city streets on January 5 in great splendour. In Italy the night of January 5 sees the visit of the Befana (the name itself is a corruption of Epiphania), an old lady who refused to spare time from her housekeeping to accompnay the Three Kings on their journey. She soon repented of her decision and tried to join the Magi but has never succeeded to this day. She therefore visits each home in search of the Christ Child and leaves presents for the little ones that she finds sleeping there.

In parts of the Middle East there is a charming story about this night and another gift-bringer. On the Night of Destiny, when the Magi first journeyed to Bethlehem the palm trees bent down to show them the way — as they have done, says legend, every January 5 since. Once a mule was tied to a tree on such a night and when the trees sprang back to their ordinary posture the beast was whipped high into the branches. To mark this miracle the Mule was made the gift-bringer in Lebanon where doors are left open for him to bring in the presents and where hay and water are set out to refresh him.

Epiphany is also the time for houses to be blessed for the coming year. A priest will recite a prayer, sprinkle the house with holy water and cense the home and barn. The initials of the Magi and the number of the year are chalked on the door frame as in “20 K+M+B 15”. Even the chalk can be first consecrated with a Ceremonial Blessing of the Chalk.

Just as Epiphany serves as a time for houses to be blessed and evil forces expelled from them, so is January 6 the date for driving demons out of the whole town. In parts of Switzerland boys go about on Twelfth Night to make noise with horns and whips to drive away nasty wood spirits.  In the eastern Alps, the Berchtenlaufen ceremony sees 200-300 boys with masks, cowbells, whips and weapons shoot up the sky and make and make as much noise as possible.  In Eschenloe  in Upper Bavaria, three women with bags over their heads go house to house carrying a chain, a rake and a broom. They knock on doors with the chain, scrape the ground with the rake and sweep with the broom, all to clear away evil.

In England it has been the custom since the Middle Ages for the reigning king or queen to imitate the giving of gifts which the Magi brought. On January 6 during the Epiphany service in the Chapel Royal at Saint James’s Palace two Gentleman Ushers, acting on behalf on the monarch, bring forth silken bags containing gold, frankincense and myrrh. The gold is in the form of twenty-five gold sovereigns which, after the service, is changed into ordinary currency and donated to the poor. This presentation used to be carried out by the ruler himself until the madness of King George III prevented his participation; since then servants have carried out the custom by proxy.

January 4

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1905 Birth of Sterling Holloway

If a woman’s face is her fortune, sometime’s a man with an unfortunate face can make his fortune by using his voice. Such was the case with actor Sterling Holloway who appeared in over 140 movies and television shows despite startling features and a shock of unruly red hair.

Holloway started on the stage in his teens and by his early 20s he was on Broadway where his very pleasant tenor debuted such Rodgers and Hart classics as “I’ll Take Manhattan” and “Mountain Scenery”. He moved to Hollywood in the last days of the silent era with roles in The Batttling Kangaroo and Casey at the Bat. After the introduction of “talkies”, his face and his distinctive reedy voice provided him a steady living in comedies

Holloway’s most memorable part was that of the rustic bumpkin Willie in the Christmas movie Remember the Night with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. He sings a lovely version of “A Perfect Day” accompanied by Stanwyck on the piano.

Enduring fame came to Holloway when he began to provide voice-over for Walt Disney animated films. He had roles in Dumbo, Bambi, The Jungle Book, Mickey and the Beanstalk, Alice in Wonderland, Lamber the Sheepish Lion, The Aristocats, and most notably as Winnie the Pooh. (On a personal note, I hated the latter performance. Pooh must have an English accent.)

In his private life Holloway had an extensive collection of modern art. He was survived by an adopted son, Richard.

January 3

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106 BC The birth of Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was born on this date to a family of the equestrian class who had made it big in the chickpea business.  (Cicer is the Latin name for that useful legume). He was given an excellent education in philosophy rhetoric and the law and, as any young ambitious Roman of the elite did, embarked on the cursus honorum. In his life of public service, he rose from praefect to aedile to praetor to consul to provincial governor. Cicero earned a reputation as the greatest orator of his age and was a deadly advocate in the law courts, particularly fame for his prosecution of Cataline and his would-be rebels.

Cicero’s downfall came when he meddled in factional politics and chose the wrong side in the last days of the corrupt republic. He cheered the assassination of Caesar and made an enemy of the dictator’s heir and best friend, Octavian Caesar and Mark Antony who put him on a death list. He was murdered on December 7, 43 BC, and his head and hands were nailed up in the Forum. 

Cicero’s speeches, letters, and books were considered to be written in the purest form of Latin and inspired much imitation during the Renaissance. (The reader will recall the demand of the dying prelate in Robert Browning’s poem “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St Praxed’s” that his epitaph be in finest “Tullian” style.) His works have never been out of print for the last 500 years.

Since he would have been 2128 years old today, it seems fitting to conclude with remarks from his book On Old Age.

When I reflect on this subject I find four reasons why old age appears to be unhappy: first, that it withdraws us from active pursuits; second, that it makes the body weaker; third, that it deprives us of almost all physical pleasures; and, fourth, that it is not far removed from death.

The greatest states have been overthrown by the young and sustained and restored by the old. … Rashness is the product of the budding-time of youth, prudence of the harvest-time of age.

No one is so old as to think that he cannot live one more year.

When the young die I am reminded of a strong flame extinguished by a torrent; but when old men die it is as if a fire had gone out without the use of force and of its own accord, after the fuel had been consumed; and, just as apples when they are green are with difficulty plucked from the tree, but when ripe and mellow fall of themselves, so, with the young, death comes as a result of force, while with the old it is the result of ripeness. To me, indeed, the thought of this “ripeness” for death is so pleasant, that the nearer I approach death the more I feel like one who is in sight of land at last and is about to anchor in his home port after a long voyage.

In short, enjoy the blessing of strength while you have it and do not bewail it when it is gone, unless, forsooth, you believe that youth must lament the loss of infancy, or early manhood the passing of youth. Life’s race-course is fixed; Nature has only a single path and that path is run but once, and to each stage of existence has been allotted its own appropriate quality; so that the weakness of childhood, the impetuosity of youth, the seriousness of middle life, the maturity of old age—each bears some of Nature’s fruit, which must be garnered in its own season.

It’s not just a Canadian thing

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by gerryadmin

The recent Canadian hysteria over renaming public buildings or schools and tearing down statues of national heroes who no longer meet current tastes in political correctness appears to be shared by other nations.

On the African continent one looks in vain for Salisbury (now Harare) or Fort Victoria (now Masvingo). India too has for some time been renaming cities in accordance with local usages — thus Bombay becomes Mumbai, Madras becomes Chennai and Calcutta becomes Kolkata. A recent change in an island name may be more controversial. The Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Modi has decided that Ross Island, named after a colonial-era marine surveyor will now be known as Subhash Chandra Bose Dweep.

Chandra Bose was an Indian nationalist and one-time leader of the Congress Party, fighting for independence from Britain. Like Gandhi, he opposed Indian aid to the Allies in the Second World War but Bose took his resistance to a higher plane. In 1941 he escaped from India through Afghanistan to the Soviet Union (then an ally of Adolf Hitler) which sent him on to Nazi Germany. There he attempted to raise a volunteer force of Indian prisoners of war — the Indian Legion — to aid the German war effort in the hope that this would drive the British from India. The Nazis were lukewarm to his pretensions and to the military might of his Legion but realized he might do some real damage if he were sent back to Asia.  In February 1943 he was dispatched in a German submarine to the Indian Ocean off Madagascar where he rendezvoused with a Japanese submarine. He had ceased to be a Nazi puppet and was now an agent of Imperial Japan.

In Japan he took over the Indian exile movement and quickly raised a large force — the Indian National Army– from prisoners of war captured in Malaya. He proclaimed himself the head of the true Indian government with its own banks, postal system and administration. The INA took part in battles against the British in the Japanese drive to invade India but this was a disastrous campaign which resulted in a rout of the invaders. At the end of the war Bose died in a plane crash on Taiwan. He remains a beloved figure among Indian nationalists, despite (or, perhaps, because of) his admiration for fascism and violence.

December 30

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1916 The murder of Rasputin

Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin was a Siberian mystic whose seemingly supernatural powers won him the friendship of the Russian ruling family and a place of influence at a time of crisis in the empire. On this day in 1916 he was murdered by an aristocratic cabal.

Born into a peasant family in 1869, Rasputin underwent some sort of religious experience in his late 20s; he began making pilgrimages to to monasteries and holy men and soon acquired his own reputation for holy powers. Influential churchmen introduced him to high society in the capital St Petersburg and by 1905 he had met Tsar Nicholas II and his family.

The tsar’s son Alexei, heir to the Romanov dynasty, was a victim of hemophilia. Rasputin was asked to pray for the boy but it was his personal visits to the child that seemed to stem the disease. The tsarina Alexandra called Rasputin “our friend”, bringing him into intimate contact with the royal family. Lurid rumours spread about his relationship with the empress and her daughters, especially after news of Rasputin’s sexual behaviour with his many female followers gained public credence.

As Russia’s fortunes in World War One grew grim, Rasputin was blamed as a malign influence and a threat to national security. He had already been the subject in 1914 of an unsuccessful assassination attempt when he was lured to the palace of Prince Felix Yusopov in late 1916. There a gang of high-ranking nobles and politicians poisoned him and shot him, leaving Rasputin for dead. But when Yusopov went back to check on the body the prince recalled:

Rasputin lay exactly where we had left him. I felt his pulse: not a beat, he was dead.

Scarcely knowing what I was doing I seized the corpse by the arms and shook it violently. It leaned to one side and fell back. I was just about to go, when suddenly noticed an almost imperceptible quivering of his left eyelid. I bent over and watched him closely; slight tremors contracted his face.

All of a sudden, I saw the left eye open … A few seconds later his right eyelid began to quiver, then opened. then saw both eyes–the green eyes of a viper-staring at me with an expression of diabolical hatred. The blood ran cold in my veins. My muscles turned to stone. wanted to run away, to call for help, but my legs refused to obey me and not a sound came from my throat.

 Then a terrible thing happened: with a sudden vio lent effort Rasputin leapt to his feet, foaming at the mouth. A wild roar echoed through the vaulted rooms, and his hands convulsively thrashed the air. He rushed at me, trying to get at my throat, and sank his fingers into my shoulder like steel claws. His eyes were burst ing from their sockets, blood oozed from his lips. And all the time he called me by name, in a low raucous voice.

 No words can express the horror I felt. I tried to free myself but was powerless in his vice-like grip. A ferocious struggle began … This devil who was dying of poison, who had a bullet in his heart, must have been raised from the dead by the powers of evil. There was something appalling and monstrous in his diabolical refusal to die.

 I realized now who Rasputin really was. It was the reincarnation of Satan himself who held me in his clutches and would never let me go till my dying day. By a superhuman effort I succeeded in freeing myself from his grasp.

Rasputin struggled to his feet, made it out of the house and into the courtyard where he was shot yet again. His body was then thrown into the river from which it was recovered the next day.

His assassins claimed they were working for the good of Russia. In order to minimize scandal the killers were exiled or sent to the front lines of the war. Two months later the Russian Empire was overthrown in the February Revolution.