Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (48 page)

THE TRIALS

On May 14, 1692, the newly appointed governor, Sir William Phips, arrived from England. He immediately set up a special court, the Court of Oyer and Terminer, to hear the witchcraft trials that were clogging the colonial legal system.

• The first case heard was that against Bridget Bishop. She was quickly found guilty of witchcraft, sentenced to death, and then hung on June 10.

• On June 19 the court met a second time, and in a single day heard the cases of five accused women, found them all guilty, and sentenced them to death. They were hung on July 19.

• On August 5 the court heard six more cases, and sentenced all six women to death. One woman, Elizabeth Proctor, was spared because she was pregnant—and the authorities didn’t want to kill an innocent life along with a guilty one. The remaining five women were executed on August 19.

• Six more people were sentenced to death in early September. (Only four were executed: one person was reprieved, and another woman managed to escape from prison with the help of friends.) The remaining sentences were carried out on September 22.

• On September 17, the court handed down nine more death sentences. (This time five of the accused “confessed” in exchange for a commutation of the death sentence and were not hung.) The remaining four were hung on September 22.

Mmm, mmm. The life span of a tastebud, in days: 10.

• Two days later, the trials claimed their last victim when Giles Cory, an accused wizard, was executed by “pressing” (he was slowly crushed to death under heavy weights) after he refused to enter a plea.

REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

By now the hysteria surrounding the witch trials was at its peak: 19 accused “witches” had been hung, about 50 had “confessed” in exchange for lenient treatment, more than 100 people accused of witchcraft were under arrest and awaiting trial—and another 200 people had been accused of witchcraft but had not yet been arrested. Despite all this, the afflicted girls were still exhibiting bizarre behavior. But public opinion began to turn against the trials. Community leaders began to publicly question the methods that the courts used to convict suspected witches. The accused were denied access to defense counsel, and were tried in chains before jurors who had been chosen from church membership lists.

The integrity of the girls then came under question. Some of the adults even charged that they were faking their illnesses and accusing innocent people for the fun of it. One colonist even testified later that one of the bewitched girls had bragged to him that “she did it for sport.”

As the number of accused persons grew into the hundreds, fears of falling victim to witchcraft were replaced by an even greater fear: that of being falsely accused of witchcraft. The growing opposition to the proceedings came from all segments of society: common people, ministers—even from the court itself.

THE AFTERMATH

Once the tide had turned against the Salem witchcraft trials, many of the participants themselves began having second thoughts. Many of the jurors admitted their errors, witnesses recanted their testimony, and one judge on the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Samuel Sewall, publicly admitted his error on the steps of the Old South Church in 1697. The Massachusetts legislature made amends as well: in 1711 it reversed all of the convictions issued by the Court of Oyer and Terminer (and did it a second time in 1957), and it made financial restitution to the relatives of the executed, “the whole amounting unto five hundred seventy eight pounds and twelve shillings.”

What’s an ermine? A weasel whose coat has turned white for the winter.

Here’s an entry inspired by the Captain of Cool, Gene Sculatti, and his book
Too Cool.

THE WILD ONE

Girl to Brando:
“Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?”

Brando:
“Whaddaya got?”

THE KILLERS

Claude Akens:
“You said Johnny North died. How’d he die?”

Clu Gulager:
“Questions...he asked one too many.”

HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL

(
Teenage interpretation of Queen Isabella’s reaction to Columbus
) “Christy, what is this jazz you puttin’ down ‘bout our planet being round? Everybody’s hip that it’s square!”

THE COURT JESTER

Mildred Natwick:
“The pellet with the poison’s in the flagon with the dragon. The chalice from the palace holds the brew that is true.”

Danny Kaye:
“What about the vessel with the pestle?”

OCEANS 11
(
to doc examining X-rays
) “So tell me, doc. Is it the big casino?”

I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN

“I know you have a civil tongue in your head. I sewed it there myself.”

THE BIG CARNIVAL

“I’ve met some hard-boiled eggs in my time, but you—you’re 20 minutes.”

MIDNIGHT RUN

Dennis Farina
(
to henchman
): “I want this guy taken out and I want him taken out fast. You and that other dummy better start gettin’ more personally involved in your work, or I’m gonna stab you through the heart with a f——pencil. You understand?”

Henchman:
“You got it, Jimmy.”

THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS

(
Hustler Tony Curtis, about to go into action
) “Watch me make a hundred-yard run with no legs.”

GOODFELLAS

“I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.”

5 most persuasive words in the English language:
discover, easy, guarantee, health, and results
.

Companies are always trying to get our attention—and our money—with catchy slogans, free stuff, discounts, and so on. But occasionally a promotion stands out for ineptitude...or cleverness. Here are three examples
.

A
PENNY SAVED

The Company:
Reader’s Digest

The Promotion:
For years the
Digest
solicited subscriptions with a letter that began, “An ancient Persian poet once said, ‘If thou hast two pennies, spend one for bread and the other to buy hyacinths for the soul...’” In 1956 someone decided to give it a new twist by including two pennies with each letter. The point: People could keep one, and send the other back with their subscription order to get the “soul-satisfying”
Digest
.

What Happened:
The magazine planned to send out 50 million letters, which meant they needed 100 million coins—enough to deplete the entire New York area of pennies. The U.S. Mint intervened, forcing
Reader’s Digest
to make quick arrangements to ship in 60 million more pennies from all over the country. Then, when the company finally got all the pennies it needed, it stored them all in one room—and the floor collapsed under the weight. In the end, though, it was worth the effort—the promo drew a record number of responses.

HOOVERGATE

The Company:
Hoover Europe, England’s most prestigious manufacturer of vacuum cleaners

The Promotion:
In 1992 Hoover tried to put a little life into the British vacuum market by offering an incredible deal: Any customer who bought at least 100 British pounds’ (about $150) worth of Hoover merchandise got two free round-trip plane tickets to a European destination. Customers who bought 250 pounds’ worth ($375) qualified for two tickets to either New York or Orlando, Florida.

Rampant technophobia: 70% of VCR owners say they’ve never used the timer.

What Happened:
It was one of the biggest marketing fiascos in history. Customers realized the obvious—vacuum cleaners are cheaper than airline tickets—and snapped up every available Hoover. An estimated 200,000 customers—roughly 1 in every 300 people in Great Britain and Ireland—claimed they qualified for free flights.

The company sold so many vacuums that the factory switched to a seven-day work week to meet the demand—which made it, as one obeserver noted, “a classic case of mispricing a promotion so that the more products the company sold, the more money it lost.” The promotion caused such a run on airline tickets that Hoover had to charter entire planes to meet the demand.

The promotion cost the company $48.8 million more than it expected—and cost 3 top executives their jobs. The parent company, Maytag, had to take a $10.5 million loss in the first quarter of 1993.

NORTH TO ALASKA

The Company:
Quaker Oats

The Promotion:
Quaker was the long-time sponsor of “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon,” a popular kids’ TV series. In 1955 they decided to create a tie-in between the show and some cereals that weren’t selling too well—Quaker Puffed Rice and Quaker Puffed Wheat. Their ad agency came up with an unusual plan: Buy up a parcel of land on the Yukon River in Alaska, then subdivide it into 21 million one-inch-square parcels and give away a real deed to one of the parcels in each box of cereal.

What Happened:
According to
Getting It Right the Second Time
, “[Quaker’s ad exec] and a company lawyer flew to Dawson, Yukon Territory, selected a 19.11-acre plot of ice on the Yukon River from the air, and bought it for $10,000. [The ad man] wanted to go home, but the Quaker lawyer insisted on investigating the land close up by boat. As it turned out, the boat developed a leak in the middle of the half-frozen river, and the passengers were forced to jump overboard. They paddled back to shore, only to find they’d missed their dogsled connection back to the airstrip. As darkness fell, the Quaker contingent was forced to walk six miles in subzero weather to meet the aircraft and go home.”

Was it worth the aggravation? Quaker thought so. They sold more than 21 million boxes of Puffed Rice / Wheat; it has been cited as one of the three most successful cereal promotions ever.

Immediately after the last episode of
M*A*S*H*
, New York City’s sewer flow increased by

We’ve considered doing something about left-handedness for several years, but the question always comes up—are there enough left-handed bathroom readers to make it worthwhile? After six years, we finally don’t care
;
we just want to use the information. So here’s a section for southpaws
.

A
re you left-handed? If so, you’re not alone—but you’re definitely outnumbered; lefties make up only 5% to 15% of the general population. If you’re a female southpaw, you’re even more unusual—there are roughly 50% more left-handed males than females. For centuries scientists have tried to figure out what makes people left- or right-handed, and they still aren’t sure why. (They’re not even sure if all lefties are that way for the same reason.) Here are some theories:

WHAT MAKES A LEFTIE?

• Scientists used to think that left- and right-handedness was purely a genetic trait, but now they have doubts. Reason: In 20% of all sets of identical twins, one sibling is left-handed, and the other is right-handed.

• Some scientists think the hand you prefer is determined by whether you’re a “right-brained” person or a “left-brained” person. The right half of the brain controls the left side of the body, as well as spatial / musical / aesthetic judgement and perception; the left half controls the right side of the body, plus communication skills. Lefties are generally right-brained.

• Support for this theory: Most children begin demonstrating a preference for one hand over the other at the same time their central nervous system is growing and maturing. This leads some scientists to believe the two processes are linked.

• According to another theory, before birth all babies are right-handed—which means that the left side of their brain is dominant. But during a stressful or difficult birth, oxygen deficiency can cause damage to the left side of the brain, making it weaker and enabling the right side to compete against it for dominance. If the right side wins out, the baby will become left-handed.

3.2 million gallons—the equivalent of 1 million toilets flushing simultaneously.

• This theory also explains, researchers claim, why twins, any child born to a smoker, or children born to a mother more than 30 years old are more likely to be left-handed: they are more prone to stressful births. Children of stressful births are also more likely to stammer and suffer dyslexia, traits that are more common in lefties.

LEFT-HANDED HISTORY

No matter what makes southpaws what they are, they’ve been discriminated against for thousands of years—in nearly every culture on Earth. Some examples:

• The artwork found in ancient Egyptian tombs portrays most Egyptians as right-handed. But their enemies are portrayed as left-handers, a sign they saw left-handedness as an undesirable trait.

• Ancient Greeks never crossed their left leg over their right, and believed a person’s sex was determined by their position in the womb—with the female, or “lesser sex,” sitting on the left side of the womb.

• The Romans placed special significance on right-handedness as well. Custom dictated that they enter friends’ homes “with the right foot forward”...and turn their heads to the right to sneeze. Their language showed the same bias: the Latin word for left was
sinister
(which also meant “evil” or “ominous”), the word for right was
dexter
(which came to mean “skillful,” or “adroit”). Even the word
ambidextrous
literally means “right-handed with both hands.”

• The Anglo-Saxon root for left is
lyft
, which means “weak,” “broken,” or “worthless.”
Riht
means “straight,” “just,” or “erect.”

BIBLICAL BIAS

• The Bible is biased in favor of right-handed people. Both the Old and New Testament refer to “the right hand of God.” One Old Testament town, Nineveh, is so wicked that its citizens “cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand.”

• The saints also followed the right-hand rule; according to early Christian legend, they were so pious even as infants that they refused to nurse from their mother’s left breast.