The wars of the 20th century were prophesied in 1788.
Carnival does not mean a celebration.
An orchestra uses two cannons for bait.
Can you imagine that?
This is Lindsay McCurry, back with another gathering of out of the way news articles
and facts with which to make you say, can you imagine that?
And until we all return in one minute and a half, we hope you'll be waiting.
I'll do it for you.
You've heard many warnings during the past years to keep yourself on the lookout for
con men and women, confidence operators whose nefarious vocation comprises the bilking of
unsuspecting victims out of as much money as they can bilk.
Modern police methods and radio have probably done more to reduce the number of victims
of con games than anything else during the past few years.
But time was when these gentle drafters really plied their trade with a vengeance.
For instance, well, I ran across a situation that occurred in San Francisco in the month
of March 1917.
One day in police headquarters...
Okay, who's next here?
I'm next.
I've got to tell you about it.
Now wait a minute.
Wait a minute, one at a time.
All right, you, what's your trouble?
Me, I'm a loser money.
This a man.
He'll come to my store.
Now wait a minute.
What's your name?
Abela, John Abela.
This a man.
He's a come into my fruit store on a Saturday afternoon.
He's a come in on a Wednesday.
He's a buy $1.05 worth of a fruit and he's a give me a check.
This a check right here.
Yeah.
He's a give me this check for $19.75.
I look in my money drawer and I've got $8.70 cash.
He says, oh, that's all right.
I come back tomorrow for another $10.
Then he's a go away.
I think it to myself he's a finer fella.
It's a very nice a man.
He tries to Abela for 10 bucks.
He's a nice fella.
Yeah.
You sent the check to the bank and it came back marked insufficient funds.
Is that it?
Yeah, sure.
That's it.
That's what happened.
Now I want you to find this man and get my money.
Okay.
We'll see what we can do.
Now what's your trouble?
Well, I'll tell you Sergeant.
I want you to find a gypsy for me.
A gypsy?
Yeah.
Well, a couple of months ago I went to this gypsy fortune teller up on Howard Street and
she told me that I was going to have a run of good luck and that pretty soon in about
eight weeks I was going to get married, inherit $500 and get established in business.
She told me I should leave all my valuables with her for safekeeping.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
Well, I gave her my gold watch and my purse.
Well, how much was in the purse?
$225.
Well, I went back eight weeks later and she was gone.
Yeah, and I thought she would be.
All right.
What's your name and where do you live?
My name is Gus Harris and I live at a 49th.
Can you imagine that?
Poor Gus Harris and John Abello reported their losses in the same police headquarters in
San Francisco on the same day.
I think it's probably safe to assume that John Abello posted a sign in his fruit store
reading no checks cashed and that Gus Harris assiduously avoided any future contact with
gypsy fortune tellers.
Well, that certainly sounds like someone is having a high time, doesn't it?
In fact, it sounds like a carnival.
And just what do you think of when someone mentions the word carnival?
Of course, you think of gay revelry of mysterious masks and glamorous ladies whose eyes shine
laughingly through the holes in their masks.
You think of streamers of colorful serpentines streaming from windows, showers of confetti
getting into your mouth and eyes.
But do you know what the word actually means?
Well, it comes from two Latin words.
The first is carne, meaning meat.
The second is vale, meaning farewell.
Literally, then carnival means farewell to meat.
Carnival was first used to denote the days of merrymaking, feasting, and general hilarity
that preceded the Lenten fast days.
It was a period when the people let off steam in a riot of fun and frolic that had to last
them through the 40 days of self-denial and reverent living before Easter.
The famous New Orleans Mardi Gras is exactly the same thing, for it precedes the period
of Lent.
Today, of course, we use the word carnival for any celebration where costumes are worn.
So just remember that when you say you are going to a carnival, that what you really
say is that you are going to a farewell to meat party.
Can you imagine that?
Our next little item we submit as neither for nor against soothsaying, fortune telling,
nor astrology.
I'm going to report it just as I read it.
It was in October of 1937 that Maurice Pivard, the French seer, cast the horoscope for the
year 1938.
Among other things, he said, and mind you, he said this in October of 1937.
It's in the stars.
I can read them and tell you the future.
And what I see for 1938 is baleful, evil.
For here I can read the signs that tell of disaster.
In particular, do I read a sad fate for the nation, Austria.
I see her loss at the independence in 1938 during the first quarter of the year.
On March the 14th of next year, 1938, she will have reached the climax of her affairs.
She will no longer exist as a nation.
This wrote the French seer Maurice Pivard in October 1937.
And on March 14 of the year 1938, Hitler's troops and Adolf Hitler himself marched into
Vienna.
Can you imagine that?
But that isn't all I've dug up in the way of prophecy.
Kept in the Viennese University Library under the catalog number I-246-341 is a little booklet
of brochure.
It is mellowed and yellow with age, for it was first published in the year 1788.
A Polish monk was the author.
How can we imagine the old monk gazing out into the limitless expanse of the sky, watching
the stars flicker, his senses attuned to some weird, mysterious influence.
At his feet sits a neophyte, listening in bruffless wonder as he hears the voice of
the old monk, deep, vibrant, calling off the prophecies he has seen.
My son, there will come to pass many things.
I see in the year 1793, I see a man who was once a king mounting a scaffold to feel the
merciless cold knife of an instrument of execution.
His name, his name is Louis, Louis the 16th of France.
But father, how can you see those things when this is but 1788?
I know not, except that it is given to me to tell, then I see a bloody war between France
and Austria in 1805, then, then I see plague sweeping all Europe.
I see carts and tumbles carrying away the dead.
That will be in 1889.
And then what father, after that?
My son, be glad you live now.
Be glad that God has not given you life in the 20th century.
For that will be the accursed century when brother shall kill brother, when terror shall
reign from the skies and sweep all the earth, when men shall kill, kill, kill, never satisfied
until they have driven each other like beasts of the field into savagery and bloody agony.
God help them.
Father, tell me, does your prophecy see no peace, no peace at all?
Someday man will know that to kill and make war is not to correct the ills and evils of
the world, but that he shall not learn until far into the 20th century, until the year
1986.
Thus, in the year 1788, Rolton prophesied an old Polish monk in his Salen monastery.
He foretold the murder of King Gustav III of Sweden.
He prophesied the partition of his own country, Poland, in 1793 by Prussia and Russia, the
French revolutions of 1830 and 1848, the burning of Moscow in 1812.
Well, we leave it to you.
Was the old monk astute and politically shrewd enough to realize cause and effect upon the
human race?
Were his prophecies based on cold calculations arrived at through a brilliant deduction?
Did he base future happenings on the happenings of the past?
Or did the stars whisper these things to him as he gazed up at the inscrutable sky?
At any rate, in 1788, he accurately and positively foretold the future.
Can you imagine that?
Now for our sally into the musical world.
For this part of Can You Imagine That?
This time I've dug up a novelty which I think will amuse you.
It doesn't have to do with the writing of a certain song, nor does it concern itself
with how a popular song may sound like one of the classics.
Instead, it's all about a house party and the house warming that was given by Mr. Jacob
Lease at Yerba Buena, California on July 4, 1836.
The details were very kindly furnished to me by the Bancroft Library of the University
of California at Berkeley.
Mr. Lease hurried the building of his house, which was one of the first two to be erected
at Yerba Buena, and helped to form the beginning of the city of San Francisco.
To the house warming were invited the most prominent families.
To it came the stately Spanish Dons, the Castro family, the Martinez, and the famous Mexican
general N. G. Vallejo.
In gay colorful costumes they came.
They marveled at Mr. Lease's house, which the records say was 60 feet long and 25 feet
broad, and in those 1836 days it was a very giant of a structure.
But I guess you're wondering where the musical portion comes in.
Well, it seems that Mr. Lease's partner, Captain Hinkley, commanded the American Barque, Don
Quixote, which was lying at anchor in the cove.
The men from the barque came ashore, and with them they brought an orchestra.
Where did they get the orchestra?
That's easy.
Captain Hinkley had a passion for dulcet sounds, and he always carried an orchestra with him
that consisted of a clarinet, a flute, a violin, a drum, a fife, and a bugle.
It was possibly the most stylish orchestra ever heard in California up to that time.
But to make it even more imposing, Captain Hinkley borrowed two small six-pound cannons
from the Presidio to form the bass.
Can you imagine that?
Now it puzzled us no little to try to find out just what piece it would be that required
two six-pound cannons for the bass.
We weren't able to find out, but we've used our imaginations, and we've concocted what
we think is a good imitation of that early Yerba Buena orchestra playing...well, you
listen and see if we haven't made a good choice of a number.
Yes, sir, Pop Goes the Weasel does seem the logical song to need six-pound cannons for
its bass.
Well, now it seems time has come for me to turn you over to your own announcer, and until
we see you again soon.
Until then, this is Lindsay McCurry saying goodbye now.