Two men bet more than two billion dollars on a building.
Cows in Scotland wear sweaters.
Herring is never seen alive.
Can you imagine that?
Yes, this is Lindsay McCarrie back again, ladies and gentlemen, with odd gleanings from
libraries, newspapers and encyclopedias.
In just one and a half minutes we'll all be back with proof of the statements made a few
seconds ago.
Until then, wait around, won't you please?
But where's half of it?
I'm sure you must have all heard or read at some time of the custom of placing copies
of current newspapers, coins, legal documents, pictures, phonograph records and what not
in the cornerstone of a new building.
This custom may seem to us to be an estimable method by which to preserve for posterity
the modes and manners of the day.
It may appear to be a gladsome salutation to the erection of a new building, an auspicious
recognition of the beauty of the handiwork of man.
But the origin of laying a cornerstone is one of the most bloody in all the annals of
antiquity.
To prehistoric men the raising of any edifice, whatever, was a direct act of impiety, a challenge
to the wrath of their ancient gods.
Man was born to live in caves, to take shelter under trees, as did his animal brothers.
And when he presumed to erect any sort of building toward the heavens, he was flying in the face
of possible vengeance from the gods.
Man was convinced this was true because so many buildings were struck by lightning, shattered
by earthquakes, or ravaged by the elements.
So to appease this supposed righteous wrath, human beings were buried alive under the foundations
of any new structures.
Thus our present custom of laying a cornerstone actually originated in the ghastly custom
of human sacrifice.
If you were the heir to either J.D. Stottler or R.E. Collins of Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
you would be able to collect more than two billion dollars.
Yes, I said more than two billion.
But you'd have to wait until the year 2432 to collect.
Why?
Well, it was back in 1932 that the two men were arguing about the new Capitol building
in Baton Rouge.
Said Mr. Stottler.
Say, that's what I call a building.
For five million dollars they should have had a better one.
Say, this one will stand for five hundred years.
That's how well it's built.
Five hundred years?
I'll lay you money it won't.
Put up or shut up.
I've got two and a half dollars that says this building won't last five hundred years.
Here's my money that says it will.
Well the two men banked their bets under contract.
Then in July 1938 they went to the bank and reaffirmed their contract.
Said an official of the bank to them.
Gentlemen, I don't know whether you're aware of it or not, but that original stake has
grown to six dollars and eighty five cents.
That's with four percent interest.
Let's see.
Bet doesn't get paid off until five hundred years.
That's added to 1932 then.
The year 2432.
Correct.
And you've made provision for the bet to be paid to the heirs of the winner.
That's right.
Just as a matter of curiosity, sir.
How much will that amount to in 2432 A.D.?
I thought you'd ask that.
Here are the figures.
In the year 2432 the heirs or heir of the bet's winner will receive two billion eighty
four million four hundred and ninety five thousand six hundred and five dollars and
twenty two cents.
Can you imagine that?
Over two billion dollars can be collected on a two and one half dollar bet.
The twenty two cents seems a little picky-oonish, but who knows what twenty two cents may buy
in 2432 A.D.
To those who believe the crow or the raven to be birds of evil omen, here's a new story
that will clinch that belief.
It's rather weird and smacks of the supernatural, but I'm going to report the story just as
I read it in a newspaper of February 27, 1931.
It was in Sydney on that day that Justice Hugh Ross was addressing the prisoner at the
bar, Alfred Beckett.
A crowded courtroom hung on his words.
And it is now the duty of this court to pronounce sentence upon you, Alfred Beckett.
Alfred Beckett, it is the judgment of this court that you are to be electrocuted.
The crow.
Here, the crow.
There he is again.
I must ask the spectators to remember that this is more serious than can be imagined.
Alfred Beckett, I hereby sentence you to be executed in the electric chair in the state
penitentiary.
Yes, sir.
There he is, right on schedule, too.
Weird.
That's what it is.
Weird.
Don't tell me it's just a coincidence either.
This is the fifth time.
Hey, what's this all about?
I'm a reporter.
I'd like to get the story.
What for?
No one believed it if you printed it.
Oh, I don't know.
They might.
What is the story?
It's a story about a man who was a prisoner in a prison cell.
He was a prisoner in a prison cell.
What is the story?
You're looking right up at it, son.
That crow?
What are you talking about?
The crow.
That's what we're talking about.
This is the fifth time it's appeared.
Well, what's so odd about a crow roosting in a tree and cawing his head off?
Son, that same crow is lighted in that same tree and cawed in exactly the same way five
times now.
And each time he did it, the judge was reading the death sentence against somebody.
No.
See?
You don't believe it.
It's a real tragedy.
Last time he did it was when Justice Ross was sentencing Bing Anderson, that ski jumper
to death.
Maybe you'll call it coincidence, son, but people around these parts don't call it that
anymore.
Not after five times.
Seems like that crow knows just when to perch in that tree and start cawing.
Listen to him.
Yes, that same crow, according to the people of the region, roosted in the same tree and
cawed at the exact moment the death sentence was being pronounced upon a prisoner during
five death trials.
Can you imagine that?
From a San Francisco paper of March 2, 1917, comes the ultimate in animal highlights.
Visiting the Golden Gate City at that time was Sir Francis Webster of Edinburgh, Scotland,
who stated that...
Oh, but wait, let's have Sir Francis tell us.
As owner of one of the finest dairies in Scotland, I've been asked what is the most modern step
in dairy farming.
Well, the latest is dressing the cows in knitted sweaters in winter to keep them warm.
The sweaters are much like those made for humans, buttoning around the neck in chess.
Unlike a blanket, they cannot be misplaced when the cow lies down.
Knitted sweaters for cows.
We wonder what Bossy would think when a couple of attendants were buttoning the latest turtleneck
style around the bovine body.
At any rate, it must have been startling to anyone to come suddenly upon a pasture dotted
with daisy bells and flossies, all decked out in what the well-dressed cow will wear.
Can you imagine that?
Here's an interesting bit of phrase origin.
You've probably used the expression as dead as a herring.
But do you know why you use it?
Do you know just how dead a herring really is?
Well, according to our sources of information, very, very few people have ever seen a live herring.
Sailors and others who know the sea and its ways and the ways of its denizens will tell you
that as soon as a herring is taken from the water, it dies instantly.
Fishermen were quick to adapt this peculiarity of the herring to their everyday speech
and added the expression as dead as a herring to their already colorful vocabularies.
Of course, it was a short step from the fisher folk to the land lovers who wanted to know why the expression was used.
They were told, and soon the phrase took hold.
And nowadays, when we want to say something is particularly defunct, we say it's as dead as a herring.
Can you imagine that?
Well, now, I imagine that most of you at one time or another have heard the old vaudeville wheeze that goes something like this.
Say, Joe, did you know the two states are fighting over where I was born?
No, is that so?
Yep. New York says I was born in New Jersey, and New Jersey says I was born in New York.
Well, I'm sorry that we can't tell you the date of the origin of that gag,
but none of the volumes in the archeology department of our library go farther back than 5000 B.C.
We can tell you, however, about an amazing woman over whose residents no fewer than four states fought at one time.
This woman was the famous Hetty Green, who, when she died in 1917, left a fortune of $170 million.
Despite the fact that she and her husband had lived and reared their children in Bellows Falls, Vermont,
the state of New York began its fight to prove that it was actually in that state that Hetty Green had been a resident,
for it was in New York that she had transacted her business almost daily.
It was there that she kept her deposits. It was there that her husband had courted her.
Vermont, on the other hand, claimed that she had retained her family homestead and paid taxes on it in that state.
Council for Vermont also said that at no time had Hetty Green established legal residence in New York,
whereas upon many documents she had given her residence as Bellows Falls.
Suddenly, in the midst of this legal battle, two other states raised objections
and claimed the residence of Mrs. Green, Massachusetts and New Jersey.
Why all this embattlement over the citizenship of one woman?
Were they all going to raise monuments to her memory? Well, not quite.
It was a little matter of a transfer tax on her estate amounting to $6 million.
This was the amount that New York was claiming from her heirs.
The case was carried on through to the U.S. Supreme Court,
and Vermont was ultimately declared to have been Hetty Green's legal residence,
whereupon the heirs paid a tax of $52,000, and the case was closed.
Can you imagine that?
It comes time now for the music lesson.
Ah, but don't run away like that. We're not going to hold a metronome over your head
or strike your fingers sharply with a ruler if you don't get things right.
All we're going to do is play over a couple of songs, and you can join in the community singing too.
For you all know the song, it's Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here.
But do you know where that jolly song of comradeship and convivial living may have come from?
Well, listen to this for a moment.
Of course you recognize that. It's part of the Anvil Chorus from Verdi's opera Il Trovatore.
That first part contains more than just a hint of Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here.
Verdi wrote Il Trovatore in 1853.
Then about a quarter of a century later came Gilbert and Sullivan
with their delightful and extremely clever series of musical comedies.
Far be it from us to suggest that these two geniuses of biting satire and musical wit
would have accepted a suggestion from Verdi's opera,
but holding that phrase from the Anvil Chorus in your mind,
listen to this selection from The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan.
Come friends who plow the sea, truce to navigation, take another station.
Let's bury piracy with a little burglary.
Come friends who plow the sea, truce to navigation, take another station.
Let's bury piracy with a little burglary.
Did you catch it? Of course. So perhaps from one, perhaps from the other,
we got our song that is always sung when a few of the boys from the class of 93
get together for a little fun and frolic and here's the way it might go.
Hail, hail, the gang's all here. What the heck do we care? What the heck do we care?
Hail, hail, we're full of cheer. What the heck do we care now?
And there you have a tabloid history of hail, hail, the gang's all here.
If you'll tear off the hide from the nearest elephant and write a short history of the Orient on it,
we may send you another musical history a little later.
But right now comes time for me to turn you back to your own station announcer.
Until we meet again then, this is Lindsay McCarrie saying goodbye now.
Thank you.