For The Historically Interested

The scene is England. The date is August 31, 1759 and it’s dark outside. It’s a quarter past nine in the evening, and two men are fighting.

They are both skilled fighters. Their dispute started in an ale-house, when the landlady attempted to send one of the men and another who was with him away. The second man assisted her, and he and the first man started fighting.

Out in the street, one of the men stabbed the other in the abdomen, and was then taken to the hospital. The other was arrested. The man who was stabbed died at 2pm the following day.

The case of the murder of William Kendal was heard in the Old Bailey in England on 12 September 1759, and the sentence was immediately given.

The sentence was swift, with no appeal process:

Now, for the plug:

This all comes from the Old Bailey Online, which has just released transcripts of criminal trials from back to 1674. It makes for rather fascinating reading. Those of us interested in history, particularly that of criminal matters, will enjoy this.

Three observations though:

1. 11 days to prepare a criminal trial and have a sentence handed down? Brilliant! Now it’s lucky to take less than 11 months.

2. Two and a little bit days to carry out a sentence for almost nothing (monetary wise)? Equally good, as long as guilt is established. In this case, it seems to have been pretty conclusive.

3. We’ve advanced far in medicine, because this kind of injury is often overcome these days. Of course, I say that just going off the information read in the transcript.

One last thing, if anyone likes reading about true crime and the like, I have plenty of links if you’re interested.

Has to be in the running for the dumbest little bastards award, under 15 years of age category. Just has to be.

Teens try to rob Cop Shop

What. The. Hell?

New Zealand is clearly going astray under the leadership of Helen Clarke.

Where else in the world can you get charged with “assault with a hedgehog“?

Head on beach face to be revealed… Mind out of the gutter. Although it ain’t bad…the surf, the salt air…nevermind.

A woman’s head and two hands were found on the beach.

Police hope to be able to issue an artist’s impression of a woman after a head and hands were found on a beach.

Efforts will also continue to try to establish a more exact age for the dead woman, whose head was found wrapped in a plastic bag on Arbroath beach.

BBC

Rodenator®. Heh.

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters)

A war on gophers waged by two Canadian men went awry this weekend when a device used to blast the rodents in their holes sparked a massive grass fire in a rural area near Calgary, Alberta, causing more than C$200,000 (US$197,000) in damages.

Despite a ban on fires in the tinder-dry area of Springbank, just northeast of Calgary’s city limits, two men went into a field to kill gophers using a device called a Rodenator, fire officials said on Monday.

The device pumps a mixture of propane and oxygen into gopher holes, which is then ignited, and, according to the manufacturer’s Web site, the resulting blast creates a shock wave that kills the gopher and collapses its tunnel system.

“We had a couple of acreage owners out taking care of their rodent problem with this device,” said Captain Joe Garssi of the municipal district of Rocky View’s fire department.

“They did a few holes successfully and then hit a hole that didn’t go in very far. When they filled it with propane it over-filled the hole…and when they ignited it (fire) flashed out of the hole into the grass beside them.”

The resulting grass fire scorched about 160 acres of surrounding property and destroyed a number of outbuildings. No homes were damaged.

“The way I look at it, it’s ‘humans eight, gophers one’.” Garssi said, as the two men destroyed about eight of the rodents before sparking the blaze.

Charges are being considered against one of the two men involved.

UPDATE: PAAAAAAAACOOOOOOO!!!!

Detroit Mayor Charged With Perjury…

Kym L. Worthy

Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney
DETROIT (AP) - Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, a one-time rising star and Detroit’s youngest elected leader, was charged Monday with perjury and other counts after sexually explicit text messages contradicted his sworn denials of an affair with a top aide.Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy also charged the popular yet polarizing 37-year-old mayor with obstruction of justice and misconduct in office.

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Gosh, Mr Mounds, Rev. Wright, Michelle Obama….Look, it’s Eliot Spitzer…Well, kinda. Of course, when YOU three stop to look at it…this is just another ‘whitebread’ entrapment, right?

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Ms. Worthy, you have my greatest respect. Now, prove your case, to “we the people”, in your county.

Make sure it is a FAIR jury…not one of the “purchased” juries.