Sunday, 30 July 2023
A Short Commercial Break
One Hundred Years Ago
1923
Here is a larger version which indicates that advertising was the "Aladdin" of the day in 1923, but replaced later on by genies such as Kijiji and Craigslist.
Wednesday, 26 July 2023
Horrible Things Have Happened
(If you are unaware of the events relating to the now deceased Richard Bilkszto, the KOJO Institute and Kike Ojo-Thompson, there are many articles in the Canadian and Toronto press in the summer of 2023. For one, see: "Ontario Launches Review of School Board's Handling of Allegations From Principal Who Later Died by Suicide," Caroline Alphonso, The Globe and Mail, July 25, 2023.)
A Little History
A Japanese Example
In a recent article there was a discussion of the hostility that existed between the Japanese and the Koreans. Here is a portion:
"The enmity has very deep roots. In the late 16th century, Japanese warlord Hideyoshi invaded the Korean peninsula and offered rewards for how many Koreans and Chinese could be killed. As proof, samurai hacked off the noses and ears of at least 330,000 Koreans, pickled them in brine and brought them back to Japan, where they were piled into mounds. (The largest one is in Kyoto and has become a pilgrimage site for Koreans.) In 1895, Japanese assassins butchered the consort, Empress Myeongseong – a.k.a. Queen Min – inside the grounds of the Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul. During 25 years of colonial rule, Japan banned the Korean alphabet, compelled the adoption of Japanese surnames and enforced worship at Shinto shrines. On the plus side, colonial rule modernized the Korean economy, improved education and produced an efficient bureaucracy."
There is a link in the article to the pilgrimage site, the Mimizuka Mound. This text was taken from that website:
"Not far from the Kyoto train station is an unassuming mound of earth located in a quiet residential neighborhood. Not found on most maps, the shrine—called the Mimizuka—is a rare physical reminder of Japan's 1592-98 war against Korea. It was dedicated on Sept 18, 1597, about a year before the war's end, to serve as the final burial site of tens of thousands of ears and noses sent from Korea in barrels filled with brine. These macabre shipments were delivered by Hideyoshi's generals in Korea, who were rewarded according to the number of enemy dead that they could prove their troops had slaughtered. The number of dead were so numerous that instead of sending back severed heads (a common measure of counting the dead), the generals preferred to return ears and noses, which were easier to transport and offered distinctive proof of casualties inflicted. It is not known how many ears and noses were ultimately returned from Korea. Most were likely discarded as soon as they had been counted. Only a fraction of the total (about 38,000) ended up at the Mimizuka—the tomb of noses and ears."
The source: "What Does the Return of Japanese Militarism Mean For Asia -- And the World"?, Peter McGill, Globe and Mail, July 8, 2023.
In the last sentence I quoted above from the article it is suggested that there was a "plus side" to colonial rule. One generally is not allowed to make such a suggestion these days.
An Italian Example
In a recent article about the bad things currently happening in Ethiopia, there was information about a bad historical episode which occurred when Ethiopia was part of the Italian Empire.
"When people there heard the artillery of the advancing Tigrayan forces, able-bodied men and women rushed to the front, while more vulnerable residents did what their ancestors had done countless times before during periods of war: they fled their villages for the shelter of one of the innumerable caves that pock the faces of the nearby mountains. But there was one cave in particular that they avoided, an expansive and seemingly impregnable cavern with a slit of an opening halfway down a towering cliff. Known as Ametsegna Washa, or the “Cave of the Rebel,” it has long been regarded by locals as a place of evil, haunted by malevolent spirits and by memories of a horrific act of mass violence that occurred here more than eighty years ago.
In the spring of 1939, Italian military forces under Mussolini used mustard gas to flush out a band of Ethiopian resistance fighters, their families, and civilians from surrounding villages who had taken shelter in the cave. The details of what happened next remain contested to this day, but well over a thousand Ethiopians—including women and children—probably died, either from the effects of the gas or during the summary executions that followed their surrender. Forgotten and deliberately ignored for decades, it is an event that, like the rest of the five-year Italian occupation, has cast a long shadow over a divided and war-torn Ethiopia. It has also sparked fierce debate in Italy at a moment of far-right revival and continuing denialism about the country’s colonial past and its brutality. Today the darkened chambers of Ametsegna Washa are still strewn with the detritus of the siege and the bodily remains of the lives it extinguished—a grim memorial that unequivocally refutes the apologists’ polemics."
A Spanish Example
The Source: "Spanish Vote Threatens Efforts to Recover Franco's Victims: Spain's Left-Wing Government Has Tried to Accelerate Exhumations of Mass Graves Left From the Dictatorship. If It Wins Sunday's Election, The Right May End That," Constant Méheut, New York Times, June 18, 2023. The photo at the top is from this article.
(For example, to provide some Canadian content, there are cases where children in Canada, who were not Indigenous, have been mistreated. See: " 'It's Like They Never Existed': Toronto Monument Will Honour Mistreated British Home Children," Mark Gollom, CBC News, Oct. 1, 2017.
Shit Does Happen
Tuesday, 25 July 2023
Simple Solutions
I have been busy for a bit and the weather is nice, but it is time to post something. I will again rely on the creativity of others, which you readers will find reassuring since I, myself, so far have demonstrated little of it. Here I will present two solutions to the problem that arises, when people who are more sensitive than I, come across something horrible or frightening when they are reading or watching in the privacy of their home or out walking in the public square.
Caveat Lector
"Retain and Explain"
AFTER
Monday, 17 July 2023
Footner Down Under
This will be the third post in a row relating to the author, Hulbert Footner. I quietly introduced him when I told you about “Where I Went on My Spring Vacation." I went to Maryland and part of the reason for doing so was to visit Footner’s granddaughter and the Calvert County Historical Society where a room is dedicated to him. More recently, you learned that he became engaged to the daughter of the Canadian journalist, “Kit" Coleman, whose visage is now found on some Canadian coins. And you just found out that jousting is the official state sport in Maryland and read Footner’s account of a tournament held in the 1940s in southern Maryland.
This is likely Footner’s Last Post in this blog, so before leaving him I should explain why he has shown up in MM. Before that is done, you would probably like to be reminded of who he is and for that I will just direct you to the Wikipedia entry. That was the only source about him that I could find. After reading his non-fiction works, I couldn’t understand why more was not known about him. Additional catalysts were the facts that he was born close by in Hamilton and died in Maryland, the state in which I was born, and where they had declared March 14 as “Hulbert Footner Day.”
Considerable research was done. I have often undertaken massive amounts of research related to a wide variety of subjects, as well as a number of people, and the paucity of finished output is truly astonishing. In this case, I thought the references gathered should not be wasted. The Footner family would find them useful, plus he is worthy of examination as a novelist and historian. They ended up in book form and to prove that this post is not a plug for that publication, I am only including the title here in the concluding sentence of this paragraph and will not note that it can be easily and cheaply purchased in print, or as an e-book from Amazon: Hulbert Footner: Author of Adventure Novels, Detective Novels and Historical Nonfiction: A Bibliographic Account of His Life and Work.
Additional Evidence From The Antipodes
For that book, I searched throughout North America and the United Kingdom for references to Hulbert Footner and for indications that he was, in fact, a popular author. There was little to be found about him, but there was considerable proof that he was relatively well-known. More data to support that were not needed and to plough through even more references would have been a chore for even the most dedicated Footner fan. But, there are now a few who are interested in Footner who are reading this blog and that is the reason he has shown up. They will be pleased to know that his stories, books and movies were popular with the Aussies and I now know that he was even liked by the Kiwis.
Even if you are not interested in Footner, but are in Australia, then you should visit TROVE, an immense digital treasure. You can search thousands of newspapers and sort the results in a variety of ways. (They have also figured out a way to placate ‘sensitive’ readers who might stumble across a one hundred year old word that is now offensive.) I found Footner information in it a few years ago, but did not include the Australian material in the book. The references to Footner found in Trove have increased as new publications and years are added.
Apart from the ads for his books there are often reviews of them and apparently the Aussies frequently found them to be ‘rattling good.’ Here, for example, are some sentences from a review of The Fugitive Sleuth which appeared in The World’s News (Sydney) on Saturday, May 3, 1919:
“The Fugitive Sleuth is a rattling good detective story, breathless, pauseless, full of life and go. In Hulbert Footner the public has found the adventure story writer par excellence. The instant success of his brilliant romance, The Sealed Valley, will always ensure a wide welcome for a new book by the same masterly hand.”
You can now also do the same for publications in New Zealand in “Papers Past.” They are both free! Footner samples from both are provided below.
When I searched for “Hulbert Footner” on TROVE a few years ago there were over 500 “hits.” Now there are 887. The results can be restricted in a variety of ways: you can look in particular papers or cities and separate the ads from the articles. Here are some of my notes from the earlier searches: [NB - note that these are from old 'notes'. They should be checked on TROVE and verified.]
"The Shanty Sled is described in similar fashion as “a rattling fine yarn of the frozen north.” Readers in Brisbane are told that Footner “is endowed with a sense of humour and the dramatic ease of a born story teller.” (The Queenslander, Saturday, Nov.14, 1925).
Advertisements and reviews for his films are also found. For example: Even in Tasmania - a review of “Ramshackle House,” The Mercury, (Hobart), Thursday, Dec. 20, 1925. As well in the West (Perth), The Mirror, Saturday, Jan. 9, 1926: “Similes fail in finding a fitting word for Betty Compson, star of The Ramshackle House, the picturisation of the Hulbert Footner novel of the same name now screening at the Palladium.” The earliest mention of Hulbert Footner found was in an ad for The Sealed Valley in 1915 (The Advertiser, (Adelaide), August 28, 1915. The latest is a mention of his name in a review in 1951.”
I recently did a bit of searching again and here are some examples. One learns that the University of Sydney Library has a copy of De dubbelganger, which is apparently a Dutch version of Two on the Trail. The earliest mention of Footner is now found in 1908 when it is reported that an article of his is appearing in Century Magazine. In 1943, The Northern Advertiser (Western Australia) excerpted a piece from his New York: City of Cities: “One of the World’s Great Avenues” [Park], Feb. 27.
This is the title of an article in The World News Sydney, Sep. 6, 1919 “Have You Read?” Thieves' Wit (Hulbert Footner). "Those who read and enjoyed, as each reader surely did, this author's "Fugitive Sleuth" will welcome this latest story from his pen. It is a new type of detective story, and quite a good one at that. It is fashioned on new and fascinating lines, and it is quite difficult to forecast the end until the author chooses to take the reader into his confidence.” “Backwoods Breezes” The Herald (Melbourne, Vic.) May 23, 1917 “Canadian novels never lack In vigor and freshness of scene. The Fur Bringers, by Hulbert Footner, is conspicuous in that respect. The breezes of the pine forests blow through it, and make up a peculiar attraction for readers who nave tired of the old haunts and devices of the story tellers….Mr Footner has made a study of his subject, he is full of the spirit of the region, knows its moods and intrigues, and has fashioned a romance at once rugged and beautiful.” "The Folded Paper Mystery" , Sunday Times, Perth, Sep.28, 1930 “A good story can always be expected from Hulbert Footner. And "The Folded Paper Mystery" is one of his best productions.” Even Footner's book about his house in Maryland gets reviewed: The Australasian, (Melbourne), July 13, 1940
"Charles Gift "
“Many readers will like to think of "CHARLES' GIFT," by HULBERT FOOTNER (Faber and Faber), as a delightful writer's gift to a reading public. The world is so unsteady, the present so uncertain, and the future to many unthinkable. In these days it is often hard to feel relaxed even when reading, but '•Charles* Gift" is a joy to read. Its tempo is one of leisure and of peace; one is lulled by the soothing prose. “
From New Zealand
A search in 2023 for "Hulbert Footner" in the newspapers digitized on Papers Past yields 950 "hits." The first (oldest) is his story "Melodrama in Fulton Street," in the Lyttleton Times, April 4, 1908. Soon after, "The Simple Adventures of 2112," appears in the Dunstan Times, Sept. 6, 1909. Reviews of Footner's works are easily found. For example: There is a short review of "The Nation's Missing Guest" in the New Zealand Herald, May 27, 1939, under the title, "Sultan Disappears", where it is described as "a diverting story." In the same newspaper on Sept. 22, 1934, Dangerous Cargo is reviewed. See: "Two Mystery Novels." "Always to be relied upon for an exciting and entertaining story, Hulbert Footner has thrills a plenty in his latest mystery novel, "Dangerous Cargo," a Crime Club book. Advertisements can be searched separately and many are found for the film, "Ramshackle House (e.g. Evening Post (Wellington), Sept. 14, 1926. Twenty years later Footner's book, Unneutral Murder is advertised by Hyndman's bookstore in the Otago Daily Times, Nov. 21, 1946.
Tuesday, 11 July 2023
Surely You Joust
This form of mediaeval activity still exists in the mid-Atlantic states and farther south and during this time of "culture wars" some may characterize such activities negatively, as most activities are, since something about them will be upsetting to someone. Instead of tilting at ring tournaments I will present here a description of one from the last century when Maryland planters appreciated the "good things of life -- wines, handsome furniture and plate, fine clothes and blooded horses." Pomp and pageantry are displayed and one can simply regard it as a prom in a pasture which people of all ages could dress up for and enjoy.
Ring Tournaments
Wednesday, 5 July 2023
Kathleen "Kit" Coleman
If you do not know much about this famous Canadian journalist, you soon will. This year the Canadian Mint honoured "Kit" Coleman by producing coins celebrating the 125th anniversary of her "becoming North America's first accredited woman war correspondent." If you know of a young woman who is interested in journalism, "Kit" would be a good role model.
In the first part of this post, I will present the numismatic announcements along with some of the biographical information provided in them. In the second I will offer some information about her daughter and the apparently very brief relationship she had with the author Hulbert Footner.
The Coins and the Announcements
The silver coin shows her holding an open notebook and pen. "Within that silhouette are various elements that represent her life and career (from top to bottom): The Mail and Empire building in Toronto, Ont.; SS Circassian, the passenger ship that brought the Irish-born writer to Canada in 1884; a partial map of the Atlantic Ocean, to represent Coleman’s travels and dispatches; a view of Coleman writing at her desk; and a vintage typewriter that symbolizes her legacy and impact on Canadian journalism."
The gold one shows her "penning her weekly column. The map in the background traces the trailblazing reporter’s incredible journey—from her birthplace in Ireland to her life and career in Canada, and her travels as North America’s first accredited woman war correspondent."
Hulbert Footner
If you are interested only in the relationship between Patsy Coleman and Bill Footner, all that is known about it is found below. It comes from the book I published and before you rush to purchase it, you should know that this is the only, mildly prurient part within it. Here is the excerpt, from which you will learn about Footner's travels in Canada early in the last century and more about "Kit" and her daughter.