A Rabbit Hole

      Once in a while, I have need of reading historical newspapers for some research project or other. I enjoy it but it is time consuming. Not just because the difficulty of finding the information sought but because I become distracted by some of the news articles I spot as I am scanning pages.

     Like this one, from the North Devon Journal, published on Thursday 12 May 1853; "May 10th-(Before the May and Robert Budd, Esq.)-Eliza Boatfield, a prostitute with a wooden leg, was charged by Policeman Chanter with using obscene and abusive language in Joy-Street, on the preceding night.-Committed for 14 days." I think most people would be curious about a one legged prostitute but the fact that she worked on Joy Street and not delivering was mildly amusing too. So then, I became curious about Eliza. Who was she? How did she lose her leg? What happened to her when she got out of jail?

     Unless the archives in Devonshire or in the Barnstaple area have more information, from Canada I was only able to fill in her story a tiny bit. I do know what happened to her leg from another article in the Exeter Flying Post, published on Thursday 24 January 1850. A young woman of 19 was operated on at the Torrington Union workhouse. The operation was noteworthy because it was accomplished while the patient was sedated with chloroform. It was Eliza Boatfield, who had been living in the South Molton Union workhouse and had been suffering from an unspecified disease for 9 months. She was brought to the workhouse in a very emaciated state, where because of the extensive disease (again unspecified) in her leg, the medical officers deemed it necessary to remove the limb above the knee joint. Everyone was pleased with the success of the operation. Eliza of course was not given an opportunity to say what she thought.

      Now I feel really bad for Eliza because she is at such a young age alone and living in one of those awful workhouses and her leg has been cut off. How can she support herself? Clearly we know it did not have a happy ending but how did this begin even? I could not find a baptism record for Eliza although I found her on the 1851 census living in the South Molton workhouse. She said she was born in High Bickington where there are numerous Boatfields. Without a birth register I cannot figure out who her parents were but I believe she lost them at a young age. There are three or four Eliza Boatfields from that part of Devon, born within 10 years of each other but I believe our Eliza is the 9 year old who, in the 1841 census was living at a farmhouse working as a servant. 

     Poor Eliza. I was unable to find out what happened after her arrest on Joy Street. There was an Eliza Boatfield who was married in 1857 in Barnstaple but without knowing more about her I can't say for sure which Eliza Boatfield it is but I feel it is her. I am sure a one legged former (or not so former) prostitute who has a criminal record would not be marrying a great guy but I hope he was a decent guy. 

     And while trying to find out about Eliza, I came across a John Bawdon, who was in the same workhouse, referred to by the newspaper as the notorious John Bawdon, and who was thrown in jail because he refused to do his workhouse chores. I kinda like the sound of this Mr. Bawdon and I wonder why he was so 'notorious'. Truly, reading old newspapers is like taking a long trip down a rabbit hole

A thoroughly modern fable

 With all the issues in the world and lack of trust in news media in view, I was having a conversation recently with my son and I told him a story. It went like this:

Once upon a time, there was a man. His name was Walter Cronkite and he was called 'the most trusted man in America' and it was true. He earned that name, people trusted him. He was the most trusted man in America and he was a journalist.

That was the punchline. My son thought I was being funny but it is a true story. There was a time when people trusted the news. Imagine that.

Thoughts While Sitting at Home Bored.

      In the early days of quarantine, I thought it might be fun to reread Camus' The Plague and compare the global pandemic to what they experienced. I reread the book but got sucked into a lethargic rut. Many of the emotions in the book and today's reality are similar with several distinctions. The first, covid-19 is not as deadly as pneumonic plague or as easily transmitted. Secondly, there was no point in trying to escape since there is no place to go to. Ah well, here's hoping there will be a return to some kind of sanity soon.

Fahrenheit 451

     I noticed Fahrenheit 451 had been made into a tv movie and, as I was cruising by, I watched it for a few minutes. The story did not resemble the book but it had been a long time since I have read it so it was time to take it off the shelf. A nuclear war breaks out at the end of the novel which fits in well with my recent apocalyptic theme. 
     Considering how crazy politics and the discussion have gotten lately, I am amazed to see that Ray Bradbury spotted this trend back in the early 1950's as he has Beatty tell the disillusioned fireman Montag,

     "Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that!

     Indeed. I think we are getting to the book burning stage. The younger generation is very comfortable with censorship.

     Having reread the book now. I can see that the HBO movie re-interprets the story in a very politically correct way. I will not compare the two since I did not watch the entire movie but there is an orthodoxy and it appears to be crime these days to disagree with all or part of the political narrative. A book on censorship was censored. 

     Somebody once suggested to me that Huxley's A Brave New World is the logical future of the society in the novel if that society was not obliterated by nuclear war.

The story opened with the glory and beauty of a large fire consuming a house and the books inside. Guy Montag was a happy fireman, or at least he thought he was happy until he met a teenage girl on his walk home from work and she made him realize that there is something missing in his life: human connection. He arrives home from his conversation with the teenaged sprite and finds his wife has committed suicide. After calling the emergency number, a non-medical crew shows up with a gadget that sucks the prescription pills out of suicides like Mildred since there are so many now. While the crew is working on Mildred, Montag could hear Clarisse and her family warmly talking on their porch and laughing. The emptiness of his life hits him even harder. 

     In the morning, Mildred wakes up and carries on as if nothing has happened. Most houses are equipped with large tv screens that take up the entire wall. There are no movies or dramas on those screens, just live action that seems to be quite a bit like reality tv. Viewers get to vote on things and can interact with characters on the screen. Mildred won the chance to speak a line on one of those programs by sending in boxtops. Except that the screens are so very large, one could be talking about social media, video games and the whole internet. 
     Montag returns to work but he is no longer the same man. The Hound, a cruel parody of the Dalmatian that fire halls used to keep as a mascot, 'senses' the change in him and begins to threaten him. Radio and television news occasionally break in with some statement about a looming war. For the next seven days, Clarisse would walk to the subway or to home with him, chattering away and then she was gone. 
     While Montage is processing the changes in himself, the firemen are sent to the house of  an old woman with a library full of books. Rather than run, she quotes Hugh Latimer, a Protestant martyr, executed in the time of Mary I. Latimer was an Oxford don who was executed for translating the Bible into English so that anyone could read it. The quote  recited by the old woman tells Latimer's co-conspirator to be of courage, that they would, with this burning (execution for heresy), light a candle that he hoped would never be put out. That candle would be knowledge. The statement is full of irony that the old lady's house and books and their knowledge are about to be extinguished by fire. Rather than go to the insane asylum, the old lady lights a match and sets herself on fire. With Montag's already fragile mental state, he is horror-struck and goes home and weeps. But he stole a book from the house and subsequent events show he has stolen books before. 
      The station captain came to visit Montag and talk to him about books and how the burning got started. It really was not necessary to burn the books, ordinary people, we, by complaining about being offended got rid of them ourselves. Considering the 'safe spaces', protests against professors who challenge the current narrative, politicians who deny scientific consensus on the basis of their feelings, one can hear Beatty say to Montag,  "the word intellectual became the dirty word it deserved to be".( A few months back there was a kerfuffle between Margaret Atwood and some Me Too activists. Atwood was pleading for due process and the rule of law while the activists accused her of being unorthodox. )
     Montag finds out that Clarisse was killed by a 'hit and run' and his rejection of social norms is cemented. He remembered an English professor he met once and goes to the man's house looking for help in exploring his new knowledge and processing it. Beatty has given him a deadline to get rid of the books. After the deadline passes and Montag screams in rage at his wife and her friends, he becomes a fugitive from the law. His house is burned, he burns Beatty and the Hound is set to track him down and kill him. He eludes capture but, because the hunt is broadcast live and the government must be seen as capable, the Hound is sent to kill a poor random man who is out taking a walk. 
      Montag escapes from the city and follows the railroad tracks to a transient community that tries to keep the books alive by memorizing their contents. While he is talking to those men, a nuclear strike hits the city and the decision is made to return to the city to help the survivors. 
      So how well did Bradbury foretell the future? Well, we are not burning books yet although some have been banned and offended minorities threaten Shakespeare and Mark Twain from time to time. Contests, diversions, people addicted to technology, a mental ill health epidemic are here now.  Bread and circuses to distract the mob from the war that is a constant backdrop. There are very few, if any years, where there has not been some war or other since 1900. As the bombers fly over Montag's house, he states there have been two atomic wars since 1990.  That has not happened but as more countries join the nuclear club, it is but a matter of time. 
      Montag also comments that they are so rich in the U.S. and the rest of the world is so poor and that may be why the world hates them. Partly true and good of him to admit not everyone loves 'America" the country. I have met many wonderful Americans but I would also say the American government's interference in the internal politics of so many sovereign nations is a bigger part of why they are hated.
         -Presidents are elected for their presence on tv, that has happened. Looks are not so important in U.S. politics but has played a part in Canadian elections, i.e. Robert Stanfield vs. Trudeau the elder. 
      - parents don't parent anymore, just shove their kids in front of a screen and leave them.
     -Bradbury did not foresee the growing income inequality. none of the science fiction writers did. Most imagined shorter work days with guaranteed income not longer days and insecure work or outsourcing. Not being greedy themselves, they underestimate the greed of others. 
    - the war began and ended in an instant. Thanks to intercontinental ballistic missiles, it is no longer necessary for jets to zoom overhead and drop the bombs. However, we will have the godawfulness of the warning to take cover while they are on their way. Once it turns nuclear, it would not last long. I do not think there would have been a third nuclear war like in the novel. 
     - the description of the blast is not realistic. There would be a light but those looking at it would likely be blinded. The city would be vaporized not lifted up in the air to crash back down. There would be a wind, a shock wave, knocking trees, buildings, men down, but it would come with heat and no one would want to walk back to the city to help survivors as there is not likely to be any and the radiation would kill the helpers. Montag and the other survivors are close enough to the city to be burned in the ensuing fires. 
     -The survivors would not need these men and their books. There will be famine and there will be disease, homelessness, cold and other manner of suffering. Novels will be of no use in such a world for a long time after. 
      -the reason for the war is never given. The public is kept in the dark as to what the government is doing, who they are at war with and why.   We are not so blind yet, but we could be. 
     -Bradbury does not try hard to imagine what life would be like after a nuclear war, the apocalypse is really the catastrophic event that it would take to change the current course of humanity.