Monday, January 23, 2012

Serious about crime

This is from the Gentleman's Magazine August 1801:

14 comments:

  1. You are so random.

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  2. I have to be random. If I focused one one thing I'd have two readers.

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  3. Defenestration was common method of assasination in Prague and other places. I wonder how common it was as a method for official executions. It is in some ways comparable (though reversed) to skilah (as in description of beit haskila).
    Even more interesting is the elaborate post-mortem treatment.

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  4. Abul, apart for the grisliness of this account my thought was that it sounded like they were trying to kill him a little too much.

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  5. Fred,

    They were trying to kill him after he had died. I imagine that it was pretty hard to do.

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  6. I know. It's almost comical if, again, it wasn't so horrible. The 8th Amendment hadn't been ratified in Prague yet.

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  7. Subsequent autopsy revealed that the real cause of death of the perpetrator was suffocation in the coffin three days later.

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  8. Am I a ghoul if I laughed out loud?

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  9. And BTW, during the famous ("Second" or "Great") defenestration of Prague, the 3 catholic representatives of the emperor, thrown by the protestant nobles out of the 3rd floor window of the castle (about 70 feet), all survived the fall (but didn't smell so nice).

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  10. The respective fates of the major and his murderer reminded me of a scene in the musical version of "Candide." After the title hero kills the Grand Inquisitor and the rich Jew Don Issachar, both of whom had been his rivals for the love of the beautiful Cunegonde, another character observes, "Ah well, His Holiness will be buried in the Cathedral with the greatest pomp while the Jew will be thrown in the sewer. There are advantages to being a Christian after all."

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  11. Just checkin' to see if anyone has asserted that this story was merely a blood libel. -- Phil

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  12. Didn't they dig up Cromwell and execute the dead body after the Restoration?

    Didn't the defenestration of Prague cause the Thirty Years' War?

    Shimon: Sounds like Rasputin.

    -All historical information courtesy of Cracked.com

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