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Topic: En Passant (Read 24969 times) |
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Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #60 on: 2010-09-30 10:07:12 » |
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[Blunderov] ED seems, on the whole, to approve of Die Antwoord. Especially Yo Landi Vi$$er.
<snip>even though she's prolly like 28, she looks like she's loli with decent tits and a nice arse and /b/ would hit it with the fist of an angry god. </snip>
Translation of picture caption " The Answer. It's like tentacle porn for your tiny ears".
For a very fair review read moar at
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Die_Antwoord
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Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #61 on: 2010-11-01 12:13:15 » |
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[Blunderov] Recently it was revealed to us that Ozzy Osbourne is related to the Neanderthals
http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/report_it-s-official-ozzy-osbourne-is-a-neanderthal_1457882
It's official: Ozzy Osbourne is a Neanderthal
Published: Monday, Oct 25, 2010, 21:21 IST
Place: London | Agency: ANI
Ozzy Osbourne is a descendant of a Neanderthal man, according to researchers who have studied the singer's DNA.
The researchers discovered that the star shares some DNA with the ancient Romans who were killed in Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD.
He is also a distant relative of outlaw Jesse James, the last Russian tsar Nicholas II and King George I.
Scientists made the discovery by taking a sample of the singer's blood at his home in Buckinghamshire and sending it to a lab in New Jersey in the US Using a state-of-the-art 12,000 pound test, they were able to unlock his genetic code, or genome.
The 61-year-old hellraiser, who has survived years of drug abuse and alcohol addiction, joked that news of his Neanderthal heritage would not come "as much of a surprise" to his wife Sharon or to police departments around the world.
He famously bit the head off a bat while drunk on stage, broke his neck in a quad bike accident in 2003 and has admitted there's "no plausible reason" why he is still alive.
"That means I'm also probably related to some of the survivors, which makes a lot of sense," the Daily Mail quoted him as saying.
The Black Sabbath frontman claims his "superhuman" genes have kept him healthy despite a lifetime of rock 'n' roll excess.
"If any of the Roman Osbournes drank nearly as much as I used to, they wouldn't have even felt the lava. They could have just walked it off," he said
[Bl.] Ozzy has it wrong. The Pompeiians were killed by the pryoclastic blast gases from the eruption - hence the characteristic gaping mouths of the victims. These proclastic gases would have been fatal within about 10 seconds. But I digress from my main purpose which is to point out that Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones is no less a survivor and may, therefore conceivably, be related to the Neanderthals too.
He may even be related to Professor Keith Richards who is a Professor of Geography (Professorial Fellow. MA, PhD.) who has been researching and teaching in Cambridge, as a Fellow and member of the Department of Geography, since 1984. But I seriously doubt that Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones has a Phd. in Economics as reported by, amongst others, The Christian Science Monitor.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Green-Economics/2010/1030/What-do-Keith-Richards-and-Greg-Mankiw-have-in-common
"What do Keith Richards and Greg Mankiw have in common?
Rolling Stones legend Keith Richards and Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw share more than you might think.
They both have a PHD from MIT in economics, and they share a belief that the tax code matters in determining our choices.
To quote Dr. Richards, "The whole business thing is predicated a lot on the tax laws," "It's why we reherse (sic) in Canada and not in the U.S. A lot of our astute moves have been basically keeping up with tax laws, where to go, where not to put it. Whether to sit on it or not. We left England because we'd be paying 98 cents on the dollar. We left and they lost out. No taxes at all." (Source November 1, 2010 New Yorker Magazine page 104)
Somewhere, I can hear George Harrison singing "Tax Man (Mr. Wilson)".
Perhaps the Tea Party has found a new leader to run against President Obama in 2012? Street Fighting Grandpa."
[Bl.] Unless he got an honorary doctorate, this I do not believe. Even if Economics is the science of making predictions of past events and is therefore a relatively simple proposition compared to, say, particle physics, I still very much doubt that the Rock 'n Roll lifestyle espoused by Keef would have permitted sufficient time for the necessary study neglible though this might have been. Phd in Nasty Licks certainly. But not Economics.
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Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #62 on: 2010-11-03 06:37:20 » |
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[Blunderov] Remember "The Great Feith Wars"? Some nostalgia for the old folks as Frank Zappa used to say...
"To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true" - Bertrand Russell.
http://thelittlebook.blogs.fi/2010/01/08/bertrand-russell-on-reason-and-courage-7718350/
(vide Facebook Rationality Group)
[Bl.]The word "faith" is what Wittgenstein used to call a family resemblance word. Here, it does not mean what Pat Robinson would think it means.
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Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #63 on: 2010-11-05 05:21:26 » |
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[Blunderov] I mentioned volcanic pyroclastic blast gas in a post recently. This is what it can do.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40022130/ns/world_news-asiapacific/
'We're totally overwhelmed': Volcanic ash sets homes ablaze
Around 100 die as blistering gases cascade down slopes of Indonesia's Mount Merapi
Soldiers joined overnight rescue operations in Bronggang, nine miles from the mouth of the crater, pulling corpses from smoldering homes and streets blanketed by ash three inches deep, then piling them into the backs of trucks.
Dozens of injured — clothes, blankets and even mattresses fused to their skin by the 1,400 degree Fahrenheit gas clouds — were carried away on stretchers.
"We're totally overwhelmed here!" said Heru Nogroho, a spokesman at the Sardjito hospital, as the number of bodies dropped off at their morgue climbed to 58 — making it the deadliest day Mount Merapi has seen in nearly 80 years — bringing the overall toll to 102, The Associated Press reported.
Mount Merapi, on the outskirts of Yogyakarta city in Central Java, began spewing deadly clouds of ash and superheated gas last week.
'Everything was in turmoil'
Villager Niti Raharjo, 47, was in the hospital with burn wounds to his legs, alongside his 19-year-old son who suffered burns to his shoulder, hands and legs. Raharjo said a strong tremor woke him up and he grabbed his motorbike and the pair rode away.
"The heat surrounded us and there was white smoke everywhere," he said. "I saw people running, screaming in the dark, women so scared they fell unconscious. Everything was in turmoil while an explosion that sounded like it was from a war came along the river ... then it got worse as ash and debris rained down.
.When the debris filled the road, they were thrown from the motorbike. "But fear made us get up and get out of the hell, regardless of the burning pain in our feet," he said.
Merapi's booming explosion just after midnight was six times as powerful as its initial blast on Oct. 26 and triggered a panicked evacuation. Men with ash-covered faces streamed down the scorched slopes on motorcycles, followed by truckloads of women and children, many crying.
[Bl.] I only recently found out about pyroclastic blast. Before then I had thought, as I suspect most people do, that if serious lava started flowing down the hill one would have enough time to get the hell out of Dodge. But Pompeii is testament to the sudden death that can emanate from volcanoes. Sudden mass death. Naples is the most densely populated major city in Italy. Vesuvius is still there.
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MoEnzyme
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #64 on: 2010-11-05 12:04:45 » |
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Quote from: Blunderov on 2010-11-03 06:37:20 [Blunderov] Remember "The Great Feith Wars"? Some nostalgia for the old folks as Frank Zappa used to say...
"To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true" - Bertrand Russell.
http://thelittlebook.blogs.fi/2010/01/08/bertrand-russell-on-reason-and-courage-7718350/
(vide Facebook Rationality Group)
[Bl.]The word "faith" is what Wittgenstein used to call a family resemblance word. Here, it does not mean what Pat Robinson would think it means.
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I think this reflects part of the reason we choose not to make "faith" the sin. That which is sinful about it is more accurately covered by "dogmatism". I also take the sin of dogmatism to include religious tendencies to hold faith as a virtue in itself, which in turn justifies Credo quia absurdum, “I believe because it is absurd.” as a proof of this so-called "virtue." This is exactly the opposite of Bertrand Russell's sentiment above. There is no virtue in absurdity.
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I will fight your gods for food,
Mo Enzyme
(consolidation of handles: Jake Sapiens; memelab; logicnazi; Loki; Every1Hz; and Shadow)
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Fritz
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #65 on: 2010-11-06 18:34:14 » |
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Gentlemen as the finer points of belief are on the table; I find myself south of the Mason-Dixon Line in the little burg of Richmond Virgina, were I have noted that all is explained in terms of the time lines as set out by the end of the Civil War. It seems elements of faith have been refrained in terms of believes of who was right and held onto as such.
I did note that the journey though Pennsylvania, Maryland and now Virgina reveal a beauty of a land that is certainly without parallel and that is something that should be believed in and cherished, as well as a people that are, kind, generous and innovative. That these people need to be listened to by their government is clear yet I question that that will happen.
America is an exceptional place and people !
Cheers
Fritz
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Where there is the necessary technical skill to move mountains, there is no need for the faith that moves mountains -anon-
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Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #66 on: 2010-11-20 03:24:10 » |
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[Blunderov] Lulz. Steaming hot. Step right up.
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Cryptome
<snip>Cryptome is the independent precursor to Wikileaks trolling governments and organisations since 1996. Owned and operated by John Young who believes all information should be free (except his). Cryptome is known for releasing government documents, satellite photos of government installations and officials houses. Cryptome is like the crazy old homeless man who claimed to have been in the CIA during the 60s. Always saying crazy shit about the government but no one listens to him.
“ Listen, I can't over-emphasize the importance of Encyclopedia Dramatica for understanding what is going on in hacker world of lying, cheating and criminality, including Wikileaks hyperbole machine,and as ever, that of angelic journalism." </snip>
— Encyclopaedia Dramatica is the place to go for the hacking underground
[Bl.] And in further news... (A hattip to Lethiomaniac for this one)
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Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #67 on: 2010-12-02 03:49:24 » |
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"lulz Noun --- (lul-zz)
Definition:
1. The act of entertaining oneself with the misfortune of others; an
agreeable occupation for the mind
2. Something affording pleasure, diversion, or amusement,
esp. a performance of some kind.
3. The essence of which can be derived from an epic win.
Usage:
We did it for the lulz.
Synonyms:
Entertainment
Source:
A corruption of lol." ~ ED.
[Blunderov] And now, my nomination for the epic WIN of This Year of Our Lulz, 2010.
http://www.iol.co.za/news/back-page/woman-strips-for-airport-search-1.912765
Woman strips for airport search
December 2 2010 at 04:12am
Independent Newspapers
Oklahoma City - Airport security agents got a surprise on Tuesday when a woman in a wheelchair approached a checkpoint in Oklahoma City, took off her trench coat and was wearing only a black lace bra and panties.
Airport and security officials said that police were called over, questioned the woman, Tammy Banovac, and allowed her to proceed to security.
She was given an “enhanced” pat down because she was in a wheelchair. During screening of her carry-on and laptop an alarm for nitrates was triggered, the Transportation Safety Administration said in a statement on Wednesday.
The TSA said she was not allowed to proceed to her Southwest Airlines flight to Phoenix.
Authorities said nitrates could legitimately be present in medication, or if someone was hunting recently and there were traces of nitrates from the bullets.
A video of the underwear-clad Banovac, wearing a pearl necklace and holding a small white dog in her lap, was shot by a passerby and posted on YouTube.
Officials said they had no idea why Banovac acted the way she did, or if she was attempting to protest airport security.
TSA has come under attack in recent weeks for enhanced methods of patting down passengers, but Oklahoma City Airport spokeswoman Karen Carney said TSA acted appropriately.
“TSA did everything they should have done,” said Carney.
Banovac returned to the airport Wednesday morning, again clad in her underwear, and cleared security without incident.
“Once she went through the checkpoint, she put slacks and a top on,” Carney said.
Banovac could not be reached for comment. - Reuters
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Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #69 on: 2010-12-11 07:28:41 » |
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[Blunderov] Einstein once remarked (paraphrasing) that the only thing in the universe more ubiquitous than hydrogen was human retardedness. Apparently, as the following observation in the field seems to demonstrate, this retardedness is also, contrary to the previously accepted model, rapidly increasing. Therefore this new data would seem to refute the previously sacrosanct Law of the Conservation of Stupidty. * Oh the drama!
http://www.iol.co.za/news/back-page/have-you-taken-the-porno-exam-1.1000107
Have you taken the ‘porno exam’?
December 11 2010 at 11:36am
The EU has told the Czech Republic to stop its controversial practice of trying to determine whether asylum seekers are gay by showing them blue movies to gauge their levels of arousal.
The EU has told the Czech Republic to stop its controversial practice of trying to determine whether asylum seekers are gay by showing them blue movies to gauge their levels of arousal.
Those subjected to what Czechs referred to as the “porno exam” were men claiming asylum on the grounds they would be in danger in their homelands due to their sexuality.
If any of the applicants got aroused at the sight of men and women having sex they were automatically denied asylum rights.
A Prague interior minister spokesman said the tests had been valuable in determining whether men were really gay or not but the EU said they were clearly a breach of its human rights charter.
The men were shown both straight and gay pornographic films by Czech officials.
Sensors were attached to their private parts, linked up to a computer, to test whether they were stimulated or not.
In a report on homosexual equality, the Agency for Fundamental Rights said the “testing was questionable, since it is dubious whether it reaches sufficiently clear conclusions”.
The Czech Republic is the only country in the EU that uses such “phallometric” testing to distinguish true asylum seekers.
The Czech interior ministry says the testing has been carried out in fewer than ten cases and always in the presence of a medical specialist.
Ministry spokesman Pavel Novak also claims that the test was only ever used on applicants from nations such as Iran, where gays and lesbians are subject to persecution. -Daily Mail
[Bl.] All of which would, in America, be 'classified' information of course...
* cf. 'Darwin Awards'.
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Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #70 on: 2011-01-12 18:39:59 » |
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[Blunderov] I suppose it must be an Americanism that I don't get (like "could care less"; it's couldn't care less godammit) but it amuses me nonetheless: the phrase "gays serving openly in the military". What are the poor darlings to do? Must they take care to, for instance, turn up at he base heavily disguised and only during the hours of darkness? Should they dispose of any items (such as uniforms, firearms and identity cards) which might identify them as having some connection to the American armed forces? Should they ever be seen in the company of straight soldiers even if they are dressed as burlesque artistes?
Instead, "openly gay persons serving in the military" would probably serve better even though it does require moar words to express. Economy does not trump syntax amongst the English speaking peoples. </pedantry>
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Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #71 on: 2011-02-19 05:04:26 » |
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[Blunderov] What do we do with the knowledge that we cannot possibly understand most of what's going on? To hope fervently that something or someone does understand, is in charge, and is mostly benign is very understandable emotional response. If such a thing or person does exist then it would make good sense to form an alliance with that entity. But an alliance implies equality which is not the case so a different form of alliance known as worship will be required.
Superior entities, it is reasoned, might quite justifiably be given to a certain vanity. In a worst case scenario it might indeed be possible to piss off said entity most mightily quite by accident which would not be a good thing. It is necessary therefore that there be appointed specialist worship diplomats (whom we will call priests) to brave these trecherous waters on our various behalves.
The priests will duly confer with the superior entity and report back to the huddled masses that nothing, but nothing, pisses superior entities off more than being required to produce credentials. And, in order that there be no possibility of any misunderstanding on this score, it would be prudent to go the extra mile and make sacrifices of delicious things and coinage just to be on the safe side. Of course the priests will be too busy co-ordinating and facilitating the sacrifices to actually make any themselves but they perform a necessary function. It might also not be wise to tax them - just in case...
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Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #72 on: 2011-02-20 13:01:17 » |
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[Blunderov] I'm fortunate enough to have acquired a copy of "Tavern of the Seas. My copy doesn't even have a date or the ISBN number in the publisher's credits. Maybe it's a first edition?
Cape Town: Tavern of the Seas
Author: Lawrence G. Green
205pp; 208 X 148mm;
Illustrated with 16 pp b/w pics.
Trade paperback.
ISBN 1-919854-12-6; bar code 978191854120
Non fiction
The classic Cape Town: Tavern of the Seas by Lawrence Green was first published in 1948 and more than 50 000 are in print. This does not include the number sold to those Education Departments who adopted the book. Green was a charming man and a prolific writer. With the death of the much loved Green in the early 1980s and the collapse of the publishing house, Howard Timmins, shortly before this, the book went out of print and has remained so for more than two decades.
This evergreen book deals with charming folksy subjects like the wine of the Cape; Table Mountain; the Atlantic coast; Cape Town carnivals; the streets, canals and shops; the story of Simon’s Town, Seal Island; Table Bay; shipwrecks; reputed sea monsters; blatjang and sambals; the Cape Flats and so on.
If you love South Africa, you will love this book.
CHAPTER XI.
UNDERWORLD OF CAPE TOWN.
For human misery in the mass and over a long period I suppose there has never been anything in South Africa to match the Breakwater Prison. Some of the warders, some of the men they guarded, are still living. The evidence is abundant.
It was in July 1846 that Mr. W. E. Gladstone presented to the British Cabinet a dispatch from the Governor of the Cape urging the need for a breakwater to protect the shipping in Table Bay during winter gales. Mr. Gladstone himself suggested that it should be built by convict labour.
The convicts were assembled. In 186o Prince Alfred, afterwards Duke of Edinburgh, pressed a silver trigger and thus tipped the first load of stone. That was the first and last touch of luxury in the whole enterprise. For more than half a century after that white, native and coloured prisoners toiled in the quarries and harbour, carrying out one gigantic task after another. The prison became one of the most feared in the world, a place that ranked in the criminal mind with Dartmoor and Devil's Island. You can still form an idea of the terrors of this prison by walking through the open gates in' Portswood Road and gazing at the treadmills and the solitary confinement cells. The gates are wide open now, but something of the old atmosphere of hardship and despair still remains within the turreted walls. Here was Old Newgate under our southern sun.
I have met several warders who were stationed at the Breakwater Prison. One of them landed in Cape Town in 1888, a penniless lad of eighteen, and became a warder for lack of anything better to do. He found himself among an odd assortment of colleagues—ex-soldiers, ex-policemen, seamen who had deserted their ships, adventurers without references. The pay was one shilling and eightpence a day, and fourpence was deducted for messing. " We fared well," the old warder assured me. " There were always a few first-class chefs among the prisoners."
The warders carried old and battered Snider rifles but they were never trusted to load or fire. They kept tobacco in their ammunition pouches, and relied on ,fixed bayonets in emergencies. Only the head warders had serviceable weapons.
That was the time when I.D.B. (illicit diamond buying on the Kimberley fields) was being punished savagely in an attempt to stamp out the traffic. Magistrates could, and sometimes did, award ten years 'hard labour' for this crime, and the minimum sentence was five years. There was no option of a fine. Thus scores of men who were not criminals in the ordinary sense were trapped and sent to the breakwater merely for being found in possession of uncut diamonds. As one writer in 1895 remarked : " The breakwater depends entirely for its rate of progress on the output of I.D.B. convicts from Kimberley."
Many of those who experienced the full horrors of the Breakwater Prison should never have been awarded hard labour. Yet doctors, lawyers, army officers and other educated men fell into the merciless net and learned the meaning of penal servitude. There were also international crooks who had hastened to South Africa during the diamond and gold booms like vultures to a feast. Some became wealthy; most of them ended up on the long, grey stone breakwater in Table Bay. Perhaps there are a few old ones who still sit round where criminals gather and talk of the " old breakwater days "—but not wistfully.
They wore the broad arrow in those days, and each man had his number stamped on the back of his jacket. Dangerous customers marched out to work in chains. The rings were riveted round their ankles, and they lived in chains for months at a time.
At five o'clock each morning the " rouse bell " sounded. The wards, as they called the dormitories, were bare with concrete floors. Each man had bed boards with a mat, a pillow and three blankets. The doors were unlocked at five-thirty and the mealie pap breakfast was served. At six work started—quarrying and loading stone. Lunch, always stew and bread, came at mid-day. From one to five they laboured again, and at five they clumped back for their evening soup and bread. They could walk the yards for a spell, and then at eight they were herded back into the wards. It was the pitiless monotony that made men give up hope. This, they knew, would be their lot for all the years they served at the breakwater prison.
The wards were lighted at night so that every man could be watched. Towards the end of the century arc lights with hissing carbons were used. Each half hour during the night a bell tolled. Then the warders on duty along the walls would chant their monotonous reports : Number one, and all's well." And so on from post to post.
" Halt ! Who goes there? a sentry would challenge. And back would come the inevitable cry : "Visiting rounds !"
In the early days each white convict slept with a native convict on each side of him—to reduce the risk of communication: Often there would be a thousand convicts within the walls.
Sunday was the day of services and the weekly shaves, hair-cropping and baths. The men were given razors until the custom became dangerous owing to attacks on warders. Then the convicts had their beards clipped for them.
On Sundays the " prison widows " and children trudged down the Portswood Road to visit the men they had not forgotten. Once a month every man was permitted to see a visitor and receive a gift of small fruits. Nothing large enough to hide a file, a knife, or tobacco was allowed. Interviews lasted twenty minutes, and the convicts remained behind wire netting.
The aristocrats of the prison, for some queer psychological reason, were the " I.D.B." men—just as in a modern prison the skilled safe-breaker is treated by his fellows with some respect. The "I.D.B.s " always boasted that they had parcels of diamonds " planted " for the day of their release. Impostors who claimed to have dealt in diamonds when, in fact, they had been sentenced for less glamorous crimes were liable to be set upon by genuine members of the fraternity.
One day two " I.D.B." men who had just been released at the end of long sentences contrived to break the monotony. They drove round Table Bay Docks in an open carriage, lolling back like princes with cigars in their mouths. They wore gorgeous clothes, and as they visited gang after gang they waved genially to old friends and made rude gestures to the guards. Hundreds of convicts cheered them. It was the great topic in the bleak prison that night.
The law was harsh, and as I have said, there were men who should never have been sent to penal servitude. Among the victims of injustice (a warder told me) were a number of British regular soldiers whose time had expired while on active service. For refusing to obey orders when they should have been discharged. They were all sent to the breakwater. In the eighties of the last century criminal lunatics were treated as criminals ; they, too, swelled the numbers in the ghastly prison. But the most pitiful case of all was a man who had come from a family of low mentality. He had seen someone climbing out of his wife's bedroom window, and had fired and killed the intruder. Only then did he discover that he had shot his own father.
Percy Collingwood, one of the most skilful safe-breakers of his day, served a stretch at the Breakwater during this century. Once the superintendent challenged him to open a new safe in his office. Within ten minutes Collingwood had got the door open with his bare hands. Collingwood was a well-educated man, too intelligent to attempt an escape from prison; but he helped two other men to escape. In 1918 he was deported from the Union.
Convicts recaptured after a "break" usually received six months and twelve lashes with the cat-o'-nine-tails. In later years the maximum number of strokes was reduced to ten ; but it was still a punishment that scarred a man for life. The " cat," with its nine knotted thongs of whipcord, was pickled in brine to stiffen it. The prisoner was stripped to the waist and fastened by the wrists to the triangle. Each stroke was delivered with all the force a muscular warder could apply. It sounds like medieval torture, and indeed it is nothing less. The " cat " is still a legal instrument in South Africa, and a few learned judges who are unaware of the facts still include the "cat" in their sentences.
Yet some of the men on the breakwater even risked this torture for the sake of freedom. One " I.D.B." convict, a clever malingerer, contrived to be transferred to a convict hospital outside the Breakwater Prison. From there escape was a much simpler matter, and he succeeded in reaching England. He was doing well in an Honest business of his own when he met one of his old companions of the breakwater. The man was a blackmailer. At last the victim refused to pay any further money, and so the blackmailer sent an anonymous letter to the police. The " I.D.B." man was arrested. He appealed against extradition, but failed. Back he had to go to the breakwater, the place six thousand miles away which he had never expected to see again.
Special cells were built in the prison in 1891 to hold men who had escaped so often that they could not be trusted in the ordinary wards. You can still see these steel and concrete cells in the prison quadrangle. The walls are fifteen inches thick. It would take dynamite to demolish them. And you can still read the messages scraped defiantly on the walls. " Three days cells for two big smokes—this won't break my heart."
"Frenchie" Ferroli was the desperado who caused the authorities to build these cells. He walked out of the Breakwater Prison in a warder's uniform, swinging a pair of handcuffs and nodding a greeting to the sentries at the gate. He was caught while being shaved in a Cape Town barber's shop six months later, and finally he was deported. That was the only final solution of the, problem of men like Ferroli.
Then there were three men who made a skeleton key, entered a room where the warders kept their civilian clothes, and walked out boldly into the yard. It was Sunday, the visitors were there, and the three men were mistaken for visitors who had wandered into the wrong part of the prison. They were ordered out of the gates, and gladly they went.
A maniac named Harry Wilson was sent to the breakwater for sand-bagging an Indian trader in Natal. He was a tall, slim man who could not bear captivity ; and be escaped from the train bringing him to Cape Town. He was recaptured, but he attempted to escape so often that his original sentence of two and a half years grew to six years; and he received, at various times, a total of fifty lashes with the "cat."
They put him in one of the special cells, handcuffed, leg-ironed and chained to a ring bolt in the wall. Still he fought for liberty. One day he threw his breakfast in the face of the warder who had brought it in, and tried to find keys to fit his handcuffs. He was so troublesome that at last the prison doctor certified him as insane, and he was transferred to the lunatic asylum on Robben Island. There he found a boat one day, rowed across to Sea Point, and left a simple message. "Goodbye—Harry." That was the last that was seen of Harry Wilson.
He was one of the small handful' of men who were never recaptured. Another man hid in a train at the docks and steamed off to freedom. But the most remarkable escape was that of a soldier named Holloway. Holloway had been sentenced to death for shooting his sergeant after he had been reprimanded on parade. When the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment he went to the Breakwater Prison. After only a few days there he was placed in a waiting room with another man until the photographer arrived to take the routine portraits. Holloway was in prison garb, but the other man was not. They changed clothes. Although Holloway was seen climbing the prison walls the guards failed to overtake him. Every ship in the harbour was searched. The hunt went on for weeks, but Holloway had vanished completely.
Among the lesser punishments at the Breakwater Prison was the treadmill. This cruel and senseless invention appears to have been in use in the old Cape Town " tronk " as far back as 1824. It was always reserved for men. There were two treadmills at the Breakwater, and though the punishment was abolished in 1905, the rusty machinery is still there. I think it ought to remain there as a perpetual reminder of the evils that appear in prisons, and the need that still exists for a more humane system.
The first breakwater treadmill was installed in the eighteen-seventies, and it held two victims at a time. A larger one, capable of holding six men at once, was built in the eighteen-nineties. The convicts called it " grinding air ". They were on a sort of moving staircase which began to revolve when they stepped on, and which had to be kept going at a steady pace. If the men slackened off the planks they stood upon came up and lacerated their shins.
The treadmill was the customary penalty for laziness and petty gaol offences. A man would spend the whole day, from nine to five, climbing these endless stairs, with only five minutes' rest every half hour. Three days was a "stretch", and then he would return to the stone quarries. Men who revolted against the punishment were handcuffed to a bar, and there they hung with every turn of the mill bruising their legs.
On a cold day, with a kind-hearted warder using the brake mercifully, the treadmill was tolerable. But in summer a sadistic warder would inflict torture by allowing the wheel to run too fast.
I knew another warder who went to the Breakwater Prison in 1900 and remained there for ten years. By the beginning of the century some of the abuses had been remedied ; but it was still a grim place dreaded by all evil-doers. This warder told me it was the most interesting prison in the world for almost every nation in the world seemed to be represented among the inmates and some notorious criminals were serving sentences there. One was "Cuban" Jackson, who was deported to the United States. There he linked up with the celebrated Chicago May, and soon afterwards received a life sentence for shooting Eddie Guerin.
The convicts had books, draughts and chess and a slice of cake at Christmas. In later years the steam kitchen turned out wholesome meals. The men needed it, for they did a harder day's work than any other convicts in South Africa. The huge quarry where the oil tanks now stand in Table Bay Docks was hewn out of the rock by the hard-driven convicts decade after decade.
The warder declared that it was impossible to stop tobacco entering the prison. Friends of the convicts hid it in the quarry at night ; and in spite of routine searches there were always leakages. A more puzzling side of prison life was the news service. Often the convicts discussed the details of important events before the warders had heard the news.
It was not until 1923 that the Breakwater Prison was finally evacuated. Then it became a native location, and a government research laboratory was built in the old punishment yard.
The warder who was there during the first ten years of the century had served in many gaols and prisons, and he made a remark about the Breakwater Prison that still lingers in my mind. ". I won't say that it reformed men," he summed up. " But it was the only prison I knew which kept a lot of men straight afterwards simply because they were afraid to come back. I often met them in the street, and they told me so. No man ever forgot a stretch at the Breakwater Prison.
Roeland Street gaol is one of those landmarks which might be demolished without a single protest reaching the newspapers. It was built, as far as I can discover, because the " Cape Argus " rightly denounced the overcrowding of the old " tronk " on the waterfront. Ever since December 1859, Roeland Street gaol has been occupied by erring humanity, and it looks as though there will be a centenary (without celebrations) in the not distant future.
It takes a long time to abolish a gaol. As far back as 1824 the waspish but merciful Dr James Barry visited the "tronk" in the course of her duties and faithfully reported what she saw : " In a dungeon in that place I found Jacob Elliott with his thigh fractured, without crutches, without a bed or pillows, blankets, dirty in the extreme, without a single comfort, and in short in such a state of misery that if he had not been under the special protection of Providence he could not have survived. He has not been provided with any sort of medical attention which is so much required in his helpless, painful state. Only once in twenty-four hours has the jailor taken him a bucket of water and the common prison allowance." Dr. Barry removed this prisoner and another from the tronk " and sent them to hospital. She also exposed the medical officers who had neglected their patients.
One day, perhaps, the obsolete Roeland Street gaol will vanish and be forgotten as completely as the "'tronk." At the moment it is an unpleasant reality. It is an efficient place in one respect. During the first eighty years of Roeland Street you could have counted the number of escapes on the fingers of your hands. Munnik, the murderer, went to the gallows without revealing the details of his escape ; but it is believed that he scaled the high gaol wall with a rope, held in position by someone waiting outside.
The old gaol's reputation as an Alcatraz suffered its worst blow in September 1946, when eleven coloured men, all awaiting trial, sawed through the bars of a second-storey cell with a hacksaw blade and dropped into a side street.
Roeland Street is more like a railway station than a prison. No one stays there for long, though the maximum sentence of six months may be monotonous enough for those who have to serve it. But a great number of those who pass through the heavy entrance doors are on their way somewhere else. The gaol receives the man with the shortest possible sentence, and also the man who has been condemned to death, and who must be taken to Pretoria for execution.
Some years ago a prison visitor assured me that he could show me round Roeland Street gaol. I was doubtful, but I went inside with him and waited in an office. After a delay the head warder arrived. He favoured me with the most penetrating stare I have ever known in my life, then refused to admit me. Some warders, I am told, boast truthfully that they have never forgotten a face : and I feel mine is still neatly filed at the back of the head warder's mind, and that if I turn up at Roeland Street again he will recognise me and remark with satisfaction : " Ah, you've been here before." As it was, I went out without my curiosity satisfied.
Only once has the austere routine of Roeland Street been upset. That was during the 1918 influenza epidemic, when the place became a hospital, the warders became nurses, and one man in every ten died. A warder who was there at the time told me of a dramatic situation which arose. Two men were due to be hanged within a few days, a white man and a native. The warder gave, them all the available medicines, a nourishing diet and brandy, in the effort to save their lives. All the time he was nursing them the paradox bulked large in his mind. The native recovered—just in time to be able to walk to the gallows. The white man died, to the intense relief of his relatives and friends.
There has not been an execution at Roeland Street since 1935. In that year the execution chambers in all the provincial gaols were dismantled, and every person condemned to death in the Union has been hanged at the Pretoria Central Prison. The executioners are now salaried government officials. In the past, in Cape Town and elsewhere, casual hangmen were employed ; and the results were not always satisfactory. One former Cape Town hangman was a shopkeeper, and he chose his own assistants. A fee was paid for each execution. These men travelled about the Cape according to the demands of justice, and regaled inquisitive people in the dorp hotels with tales of their prowess with the rope. Nowadays a deep secrecy surrounds executions. Nothing but the bare announcement is made. But in earlier days everyone in the town soon heard every ghastly detail.
Just before the end of last century the Cape hangman was sailor named James King. His predecessor in office had been a drunken wretch who had been dismissed for bungling several executions. King officiated at more than a hundred executions, and was given a pat on the back by one newspaper for the "neatness and despatch " with which he carried out his task. After one painful experience, when a condemned man put up a terrific fight on the scaffold, King insisted upon all murderers walking on to the drop in their stockinged feet.
The system of casual hangmen was abandoned because some of these men fortified themselves too liberally before the ordeal, and could not always be relied upon to appear sober at the right time. I was told of a gaol superintendent who had to carry out an execution himself in the absence of a hangman. More recently two executioners refused to travel to a distant gaol unless they were given higher pay.
Once I talked to a man who had shot his wife during a quarrel, and found himself in the condemned cell at Roeland Street. He said that when every second seemed to be taking him nearer the gallows he learned to appreciate the value of life.
The condemned cell, he told me, measured only eight feet by six and a brilliant overhead electric light was never switched off. He was given curry and rice every day as a sort of treat. On a Monday morning three weeks after he had been sentenced the warders informed him that a crowd had gathered in Roeland Street. They were waiting for the black flag to be run up, and the tolling of the gaol bell. But this man had petitioned the Governor-General for a reprieve. It was the first sentence to come before Lord Buxton for review. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and after ten years on Robben Island he was released.
Almost within living memory executions were held in public in Cape Town. The very last, I believe, was in the eighteen-sixties, and the late Senator Munnik often related how he played truant to join the crowd at Gallows Hill.
Gallows Hill was a mound of earth, near the present Traffic Control Depot, off Ebenezer Road. This was the " outside place of execution " of Dutch East India Company's days, selected because the people living round about the old gallows at the Castle complained vehemently (and not unjustifiably) of the bodies left exposed after sentences had been carried out. No one lived near Gallows Hill at the time, and so the place became the scene of tortures that are hideous to recall. Only a little more than two centuries ago a white woman and her black paramour were marched there for execution. They had murdered the woman's husband, and the judge of the day had devised the deaths that he thought fitting. The woman was half-throttled; then, when she recovered consciousness, the strangling was completed. The man was thrust down on a sharp stake in a sitting position. He was given a bottle of arrack and left there until he died two days later.
The execution watched by Senator Munnik was performed mercifully. A cart drove up to Gallows Hill. It moved under the gallows, where the executioner was ready. He wore a tall, bell-top hat, dark glasses and a long, white false beard - a disguise which did not baffle the crowd, for his identity was well known. The executioner pinioned the man, adjusted the noose, stepped off the cart and led the horse away. The drop was sufficient to cause instantaneous death.
Not all hangings, as I have already said, were done in that way. Campbell, a visitor to Cape Town, saw the hanging of a white farmer by two natives on Gallows Hill. "I do not recollect ever witnessing so horrible a transaction," he wrote. " I think these hangmen would have killed a dog or a pig with more gentleness and feeling." Natives were employed when, as often happened, no white man would volunteer for the task.
As recently as 1877 a case came before the Cape Parliament of a man who was cut down from the gallows before he was dead, and who began to recover while he was being placed in the coffin. The hangman, assailed by a legal doubt, refused to act again until a fresh death warrant had been made out. The victim solved the problem by dying a few hours later.
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #73 on: 2011-07-07 12:41:25 » |
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[Blunderov] A bit quiet round here lately and now that I'm back from my voyages I'm intent on raising a little ruckus. Strauss Khan anyone? "Dirty pool old man, dirty pool" as Gomez once said. There's a lot of it about.
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Blunderov
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Re:En Passant
« Reply #74 on: 2011-07-13 03:41:40 » |
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[Blunderov] Distribute as widely as possible. Death to the barbarians!
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