horseless carriage

Although very much retold from an America perspective, it was nonetheless interesting to consider the etymological journey we embarked on to get to the colloquial term car (from cart)—automobile, a French convention ultimately with Greek roots, being a technical, industry term (similar to the formal German PKW—Personnen Kraftfahrzeuge) that’s only used in North America. Of the early trade names suggested before reaching a critical mass and adopting a standard name, early media coverage referred to prototypes as the Motorig, Buggyaut, Tonneau, the Diamote and the Mocole—among others.  Be sure to visit Jalopnik at the link above to discover more car-related cul-de-sacs and points-of-departure.

freedom of religion is also freedom from religion

We were a little familiar with the personage of Ingersoll (*1833 - †1899) though the occasional quotation featured on Cynical-C, whose author has happily reconsidered retiring from blogging, but had not invested learning more about the figure, who is regarded as one of the greater orators and politicians of the United States of America during the Golden Age of Free Thought (the freethinking movement that coalesced with the conclusion of the US Civil War in 1865 and lasted until roughly the outbreak of World War I—but did not get the needed extra academic nudge until learning that this day is (among a few other things) the anniversary of Robert Green Ingersoll’s birth.
I wonder what the noted lawyer and politician called “The Great Agnostic” would make of such a day of obligation. Amazingly popular and charismatic as a speaker, despite attacks levied against his character for disdaining organised religion and spirituality that did not compliment scientific inquiry, logic and humanism, audiences would pay the sum of one-dollar entry fees (nominally, around thirty dollars in today’s money but that’s a simplistic comparison considering how far a dollar stretched back then and what else a person could get instead for that admission price) and attended to Ingersoll’s every word. Credited with informing the way we understand the separation of church and state as well as reviving Thomas Payne as an important, foundational figure in socio-political thought, many of Ingersoll’s lectures, whose topics were not limited to disabusing superstition and fealty but also humility, family, universal suffrage, civil rights and Shakespeare, were improvised but many others were committed to print—which one can peruse here in full or, if you’d rather, as a daily digest.

peer of the realm

Marquess of the baronet of Anglesey (Ardalydd Môn), privy counsellor to the courts of Victoria and Edward VII and nicknamed “Toppy,” Henry Cyril Paget (*1875 - †1905) lived a short and by the reckoning of his of his fellow royals a destitute and squandered one. At age twenty-three Paget married his cousin Lilian Chetwynd and the same year came into his title with the death of his father and inherited extensive estates throughout England and Wales. Paget had the chapel of the family’s country seat converted into a one hundred-fifty seat theatre (modelled off the Dresden Opera) and staged everything from elaborate costume dramas to cabaret for invited audiences.
Paget’s plans to tour with his theatre company, already mortgaging some of property to fund the excursion, was a step too far and she had their marriage annulled—though later cared for him at his death in Monaco, bankrupt and suffering from a prolonged illness (he’d always been somewhat restrained by a weak constitution) and possibly eager to win the right to hold onto some of his prized-possessions at Monte Carlo. All of it, the jewels, private custom rail cars for his actors, the clothes, the costumes—even his dogs, were auctioned off. Neither gambling nor lovers seemed to be the cause of Paget’s downfall, however—only a rather innocent though irresponsible propensity for profligacy and performance—also nicknamed the Dancing Marquess, Paget had a signature slinky snake dance that he would do no matter what the occasion, the later which none faulted him for. Even if the obituaries in the newspapers as well as the heir (another cousin) who inherited what was left of the Anglesey lands plus the debt were harsh, that heir ordered destroyed all of Paget’s diaries and correspondence, so we’ll never know if there was more to the story. Whatever the case, the people in his troupe as well as those associated with the family manors genuinely cared for their eccentric lord and patron.

a high-toned, candied muskiness

We’ve just been made aware that the common North American grape variety for wines, juices and jams is called the Niagara and is a hybrid of the European species Vitis vinifera and the native Vitis labrusca—the fox grape, named for its earthy character and cause of and partial, unsatisfying rescue from the French wine blight of the 1850s due to its export overseas with a pernicious aphid in tow—through this illustration from the 1901 Woodlawn Nurseries Spring seed catalogue. The grape was first created through selective cross-breeding in 1868 and are cultivated along the eastern seaboard and in the province of Ontario. It was also nice to be reminded that there was once a convention of the mail-order seed catalogue that while by its nature is a nod to competition and proprietorship also recalls a time when barriers to entry were low and farmers and gardeners weren’t beholden to one source.