WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:18.520 The wars of the 20th century were prophesied in 1788. 00:18.520 --> 00:21.080 Carnival does not mean a celebration. 00:21.080 --> 00:24.040 An orchestra uses two cannons for bait. 00:24.040 --> 00:25.040 Can you imagine that? 00:25.040 --> 00:28.600 This is Lindsay McCurry, back with another gathering of out of the way news articles 00:28.600 --> 00:31.400 and facts with which to make you say, can you imagine that? 00:31.400 --> 00:59.160 And until we all return in one minute and a half, we hope you'll be waiting. 00:59.160 --> 01:18.120 I'll do it for you. 01:48.120 --> 02:06.820 You've heard many warnings during the past years to keep yourself on the lookout for 02:06.820 --> 02:11.740 con men and women, confidence operators whose nefarious vocation comprises the bilking of 02:11.740 --> 02:15.320 unsuspecting victims out of as much money as they can bilk. 02:15.320 --> 02:18.560 Modern police methods and radio have probably done more to reduce the number of victims 02:18.560 --> 02:21.600 of con games than anything else during the past few years. 02:21.600 --> 02:25.680 But time was when these gentle drafters really plied their trade with a vengeance. 02:25.680 --> 02:29.540 For instance, well, I ran across a situation that occurred in San Francisco in the month 02:29.540 --> 02:31.640 of March 1917. 02:31.640 --> 02:32.840 One day in police headquarters... 02:32.840 --> 02:35.360 Okay, who's next here? 02:35.360 --> 02:36.360 I'm next. 02:36.360 --> 02:37.360 I've got to tell you about it. 02:37.360 --> 02:38.360 Now wait a minute. 02:38.360 --> 02:39.360 Wait a minute, one at a time. 02:39.360 --> 02:40.360 All right, you, what's your trouble? 02:40.360 --> 02:41.360 Me, I'm a loser money. 02:41.360 --> 02:42.360 This a man. 02:42.360 --> 02:43.360 He'll come to my store. 02:43.360 --> 02:44.360 Now wait a minute. 02:44.360 --> 02:45.360 What's your name? 02:45.360 --> 02:46.360 Abela, John Abela. 02:46.360 --> 02:47.360 This a man. 02:47.360 --> 02:51.040 He's a come into my fruit store on a Saturday afternoon. 02:51.040 --> 02:52.720 He's a come in on a Wednesday. 02:52.720 --> 02:56.800 He's a buy $1.05 worth of a fruit and he's a give me a check. 02:56.800 --> 02:57.800 This a check right here. 02:57.800 --> 02:58.800 Yeah. 02:58.800 --> 03:02.080 He's a give me this check for $19.75. 03:02.080 --> 03:06.600 I look in my money drawer and I've got $8.70 cash. 03:06.600 --> 03:08.440 He says, oh, that's all right. 03:08.440 --> 03:11.080 I come back tomorrow for another $10. 03:11.080 --> 03:12.080 Then he's a go away. 03:12.080 --> 03:14.520 I think it to myself he's a finer fella. 03:14.520 --> 03:16.040 It's a very nice a man. 03:16.040 --> 03:18.040 He tries to Abela for 10 bucks. 03:18.040 --> 03:19.040 He's a nice fella. 03:19.040 --> 03:20.040 Yeah. 03:20.040 --> 03:23.200 You sent the check to the bank and it came back marked insufficient funds. 03:23.200 --> 03:24.200 Is that it? 03:24.200 --> 03:25.200 Yeah, sure. 03:25.200 --> 03:26.200 That's it. 03:26.200 --> 03:27.200 That's what happened. 03:27.200 --> 03:29.800 Now I want you to find this man and get my money. 03:29.800 --> 03:30.800 Okay. 03:30.800 --> 03:32.520 We'll see what we can do. 03:32.520 --> 03:33.760 Now what's your trouble? 03:33.760 --> 03:35.600 Well, I'll tell you Sergeant. 03:35.600 --> 03:37.640 I want you to find a gypsy for me. 03:37.640 --> 03:38.640 A gypsy? 03:38.640 --> 03:39.640 Yeah. 03:39.640 --> 03:43.880 Well, a couple of months ago I went to this gypsy fortune teller up on Howard Street and 03:43.880 --> 03:48.200 she told me that I was going to have a run of good luck and that pretty soon in about 03:48.200 --> 03:53.400 eight weeks I was going to get married, inherit $500 and get established in business. 03:53.400 --> 03:56.960 She told me I should leave all my valuables with her for safekeeping. 03:56.960 --> 03:58.400 Oh my God. 03:58.400 --> 03:59.400 Yeah. 03:59.400 --> 04:01.520 Well, I gave her my gold watch and my purse. 04:01.520 --> 04:03.920 Well, how much was in the purse? 04:03.920 --> 04:04.920 $225. 04:04.920 --> 04:09.200 Well, I went back eight weeks later and she was gone. 04:09.200 --> 04:11.160 Yeah, and I thought she would be. 04:11.160 --> 04:12.160 All right. 04:12.160 --> 04:13.160 What's your name and where do you live? 04:13.160 --> 04:15.960 My name is Gus Harris and I live at a 49th. 04:15.960 --> 04:17.480 Can you imagine that? 04:17.480 --> 04:20.960 Poor Gus Harris and John Abello reported their losses in the same police headquarters in 04:20.960 --> 04:22.920 San Francisco on the same day. 04:22.920 --> 04:26.320 I think it's probably safe to assume that John Abello posted a sign in his fruit store 04:26.320 --> 04:31.400 reading no checks cashed and that Gus Harris assiduously avoided any future contact with 04:31.400 --> 04:33.920 gypsy fortune tellers. 04:33.920 --> 04:38.440 Well, that certainly sounds like someone is having a high time, doesn't it? 04:38.440 --> 04:40.240 In fact, it sounds like a carnival. 04:40.240 --> 04:43.200 And just what do you think of when someone mentions the word carnival? 04:43.200 --> 04:47.640 Of course, you think of gay revelry of mysterious masks and glamorous ladies whose eyes shine 04:47.640 --> 04:49.600 laughingly through the holes in their masks. 04:49.600 --> 04:53.440 You think of streamers of colorful serpentines streaming from windows, showers of confetti 04:53.440 --> 04:55.300 getting into your mouth and eyes. 04:55.300 --> 04:57.320 But do you know what the word actually means? 04:57.320 --> 04:59.200 Well, it comes from two Latin words. 04:59.200 --> 05:01.320 The first is carne, meaning meat. 05:01.320 --> 05:03.640 The second is vale, meaning farewell. 05:03.640 --> 05:07.840 Literally, then carnival means farewell to meat. 05:07.840 --> 05:12.400 Carnival was first used to denote the days of merrymaking, feasting, and general hilarity 05:12.400 --> 05:14.640 that preceded the Lenten fast days. 05:14.640 --> 05:18.360 It was a period when the people let off steam in a riot of fun and frolic that had to last 05:18.360 --> 05:22.360 them through the 40 days of self-denial and reverent living before Easter. 05:22.360 --> 05:27.240 The famous New Orleans Mardi Gras is exactly the same thing, for it precedes the period 05:27.240 --> 05:28.240 of Lent. 05:28.240 --> 05:32.280 Today, of course, we use the word carnival for any celebration where costumes are worn. 05:32.280 --> 05:36.380 So just remember that when you say you are going to a carnival, that what you really 05:36.380 --> 05:40.720 say is that you are going to a farewell to meat party. 05:40.720 --> 05:42.560 Can you imagine that? 05:42.560 --> 05:47.440 Our next little item we submit as neither for nor against soothsaying, fortune telling, 05:47.440 --> 05:48.440 nor astrology. 05:48.440 --> 05:50.360 I'm going to report it just as I read it. 05:50.360 --> 05:54.920 It was in October of 1937 that Maurice Pivard, the French seer, cast the horoscope for the 05:54.920 --> 05:56.760 year 1938. 05:56.760 --> 06:00.680 Among other things, he said, and mind you, he said this in October of 1937. 06:00.680 --> 06:03.600 It's in the stars. 06:03.600 --> 06:06.280 I can read them and tell you the future. 06:06.280 --> 06:10.920 And what I see for 1938 is baleful, evil. 06:10.920 --> 06:14.320 For here I can read the signs that tell of disaster. 06:14.320 --> 06:18.080 In particular, do I read a sad fate for the nation, Austria. 06:18.080 --> 06:24.440 I see her loss at the independence in 1938 during the first quarter of the year. 06:24.440 --> 06:31.360 On March the 14th of next year, 1938, she will have reached the climax of her affairs. 06:31.360 --> 06:34.000 She will no longer exist as a nation. 06:34.000 --> 06:38.080 This wrote the French seer Maurice Pivard in October 1937. 06:38.080 --> 06:43.480 And on March 14 of the year 1938, Hitler's troops and Adolf Hitler himself marched into 06:43.480 --> 06:44.480 Vienna. 06:44.480 --> 06:45.480 Can you imagine that? 06:45.480 --> 06:48.000 But that isn't all I've dug up in the way of prophecy. 06:48.000 --> 06:54.280 Kept in the Viennese University Library under the catalog number I-246-341 is a little booklet 06:54.280 --> 06:55.280 of brochure. 06:55.280 --> 07:00.120 It is mellowed and yellow with age, for it was first published in the year 1788. 07:00.120 --> 07:02.280 A Polish monk was the author. 07:02.280 --> 07:07.120 How can we imagine the old monk gazing out into the limitless expanse of the sky, watching 07:07.120 --> 07:11.680 the stars flicker, his senses attuned to some weird, mysterious influence. 07:11.680 --> 07:15.080 At his feet sits a neophyte, listening in bruffless wonder as he hears the voice of 07:15.080 --> 07:19.520 the old monk, deep, vibrant, calling off the prophecies he has seen. 07:19.520 --> 07:24.560 My son, there will come to pass many things. 07:24.560 --> 07:34.080 I see in the year 1793, I see a man who was once a king mounting a scaffold to feel the 07:34.080 --> 07:39.360 merciless cold knife of an instrument of execution. 07:39.360 --> 07:44.800 His name, his name is Louis, Louis the 16th of France. 07:44.800 --> 07:48.560 But father, how can you see those things when this is but 1788? 07:48.560 --> 07:58.160 I know not, except that it is given to me to tell, then I see a bloody war between France 07:58.160 --> 08:07.080 and Austria in 1805, then, then I see plague sweeping all Europe. 08:07.080 --> 08:12.000 I see carts and tumbles carrying away the dead. 08:12.000 --> 08:15.960 That will be in 1889. 08:15.960 --> 08:18.240 And then what father, after that? 08:18.240 --> 08:22.000 My son, be glad you live now. 08:22.000 --> 08:27.080 Be glad that God has not given you life in the 20th century. 08:27.080 --> 08:33.320 For that will be the accursed century when brother shall kill brother, when terror shall 08:33.320 --> 08:44.400 reign from the skies and sweep all the earth, when men shall kill, kill, kill, never satisfied 08:44.400 --> 08:51.920 until they have driven each other like beasts of the field into savagery and bloody agony. 08:51.920 --> 08:53.960 God help them. 08:53.960 --> 08:58.360 Father, tell me, does your prophecy see no peace, no peace at all? 08:58.360 --> 09:05.040 Someday man will know that to kill and make war is not to correct the ills and evils of 09:05.040 --> 09:13.560 the world, but that he shall not learn until far into the 20th century, until the year 09:13.560 --> 09:14.560 1986. 09:14.560 --> 09:25.120 Thus, in the year 1788, Rolton prophesied an old Polish monk in his Salen monastery. 09:25.120 --> 09:27.960 He foretold the murder of King Gustav III of Sweden. 09:27.960 --> 09:33.080 He prophesied the partition of his own country, Poland, in 1793 by Prussia and Russia, the 09:33.080 --> 09:37.680 French revolutions of 1830 and 1848, the burning of Moscow in 1812. 09:37.680 --> 09:40.080 Well, we leave it to you. 09:40.080 --> 09:43.720 Was the old monk astute and politically shrewd enough to realize cause and effect upon the 09:43.720 --> 09:44.720 human race? 09:44.720 --> 09:49.040 Were his prophecies based on cold calculations arrived at through a brilliant deduction? 09:49.040 --> 09:51.640 Did he base future happenings on the happenings of the past? 09:51.640 --> 09:57.360 Or did the stars whisper these things to him as he gazed up at the inscrutable sky? 09:57.360 --> 10:02.800 At any rate, in 1788, he accurately and positively foretold the future. 10:02.800 --> 10:05.320 Can you imagine that? 10:05.320 --> 10:07.120 Now for our sally into the musical world. 10:07.120 --> 10:09.160 For this part of Can You Imagine That? 10:09.160 --> 10:11.760 This time I've dug up a novelty which I think will amuse you. 10:11.760 --> 10:14.920 It doesn't have to do with the writing of a certain song, nor does it concern itself 10:14.920 --> 10:17.600 with how a popular song may sound like one of the classics. 10:17.600 --> 10:21.880 Instead, it's all about a house party and the house warming that was given by Mr. Jacob 10:21.880 --> 10:27.160 Lease at Yerba Buena, California on July 4, 1836. 10:27.160 --> 10:30.800 The details were very kindly furnished to me by the Bancroft Library of the University 10:30.800 --> 10:32.680 of California at Berkeley. 10:32.680 --> 10:36.440 Mr. Lease hurried the building of his house, which was one of the first two to be erected 10:36.440 --> 10:41.440 at Yerba Buena, and helped to form the beginning of the city of San Francisco. 10:41.440 --> 10:44.320 To the house warming were invited the most prominent families. 10:44.320 --> 10:49.600 To it came the stately Spanish Dons, the Castro family, the Martinez, and the famous Mexican 10:49.600 --> 10:52.080 general N. G. Vallejo. 10:52.080 --> 10:54.080 In gay colorful costumes they came. 10:54.080 --> 10:58.600 They marveled at Mr. Lease's house, which the records say was 60 feet long and 25 feet 10:58.600 --> 11:03.760 broad, and in those 1836 days it was a very giant of a structure. 11:03.760 --> 11:06.640 But I guess you're wondering where the musical portion comes in. 11:06.640 --> 11:11.400 Well, it seems that Mr. Lease's partner, Captain Hinkley, commanded the American Barque, Don 11:11.400 --> 11:14.120 Quixote, which was lying at anchor in the cove. 11:14.120 --> 11:18.600 The men from the barque came ashore, and with them they brought an orchestra. 11:18.600 --> 11:19.600 Where did they get the orchestra? 11:19.600 --> 11:20.600 That's easy. 11:20.600 --> 11:24.760 Captain Hinkley had a passion for dulcet sounds, and he always carried an orchestra with him 11:24.760 --> 11:31.640 that consisted of a clarinet, a flute, a violin, a drum, a fife, and a bugle. 11:31.640 --> 11:36.160 It was possibly the most stylish orchestra ever heard in California up to that time. 11:36.160 --> 11:40.720 But to make it even more imposing, Captain Hinkley borrowed two small six-pound cannons 11:40.720 --> 11:43.040 from the Presidio to form the bass. 11:43.040 --> 11:44.840 Can you imagine that? 11:44.840 --> 11:49.260 Now it puzzled us no little to try to find out just what piece it would be that required 11:49.260 --> 11:51.640 two six-pound cannons for the bass. 11:51.640 --> 11:55.360 We weren't able to find out, but we've used our imaginations, and we've concocted what 11:55.360 --> 12:00.200 we think is a good imitation of that early Yerba Buena orchestra playing...well, you 12:00.200 --> 12:03.200 listen and see if we haven't made a good choice of a number. 12:30.200 --> 12:51.160 Yes, sir, Pop Goes the Weasel does seem the logical song to need six-pound cannons for 12:51.160 --> 12:52.160 its bass. 12:52.160 --> 12:56.000 Well, now it seems time has come for me to turn you over to your own announcer, and until 12:56.000 --> 12:57.800 we see you again soon. 12:57.800 --> 13:00.720 Until then, this is Lindsay McCurry saying goodbye now.