The Holy Grail Press
Proudly Made On Earth By Earthlings
Word of the Every So Often
tottery: (adj.) shaky; unstable; ready to fall. After drinking the splo we were all just a whole lot tottery.
Everyday History
It was August 31, 1798, in the night and into the following morning, that thieves knocked over the Bank of Pennsylvania at Carpenter’s Hill, making off with $162,821, which would now be worth around 3.1 million. This was the first major bank robbery in the United States, and perhaps the dumbest. Well... maybe. The robbery was set up a guy named Thomas Cunningham, who was a porter at the bank and managed to get a copy of the key. He gave the key to a carpenter named Issac Davis, who used it to get inside and get at all that money.
So what do you do with all that money? I mean, you can’t just leave it all lying around. The safest thing would be to put in the bank... the same bank they robbed it from. Yeah. They were caught. Well, Davis was. Cunningham died of yellow fever, which was rampant in Philadelphia at the time, within a couple days of the robbery.
Until Davis was caught, a blacksmith named Patrick Lyon, who had worked on the vault, was accused of the robbery. After all, the locks on the safe were undamaged. Davis eventually confessed of the crime and was pardoned on the condition that he return the money, which he did... all but $2,000 (worth around $50,000 now), which he kept. He left town and was never heard from again, and he never spent a day in jail.
Lyon, on the other hand, was kept in jail even after Davis’s confession, even though his bail was reduced. When Lyon was finally released, he sued – and won – for false imprisonment. Lyon is probably best known – aside from the robbery – as a major inventor of fire engines.
So, yeah. I suppose there’s a lesson to be learned here. Probably more than one. But I’ll be darned if I can figure out what that might be.
Cartoon of the Week
Grid Your Lions
Stuff
Cosmic Rats: The debate continues
by Earl Eldridge
Ever since Dr. Ivan Tupidsay announced the existence of Cosmic Rats in 1992, debate has raged throughout the scientific community over the reality of this alleged phenomenon.
After an exhaustive 17 year survey of the Cosmos, Dr. Tupidsay was able to conclude, much to the shock of astronomers and astrophysicists worldwide, that there is no Cosmic Cheese (Astronomy Today, April 1992). As his argument follows, it would take Cosmic Mice far too long to devour a hunk of Cosmic Cheese. The Cosmic Cheese, though, has clearly been eaten, which explains why none can be found. Therefore, there must be Cosmic Rats, since no other creature would possess such an affinity for Cosmic Cheese. Cosmic Rats, estimated at being perhaps several light years long, are obviously very adept at hiding.
Professor Giuseppe Asabuncha, of the Bologna Institute of Technology in Bologna, Italy, has recently announced that Dr. Tupidsay’s research was, at best, horribly flawed. “His survey was by no means exhaustive. He only mapped small sections of the Universe…and then extrapolated the rest. Even those sections he investigated were not representative of the Universe as a whole,” said Professor Asabuncha. (Cosmos Quarterly, January 1995)
Still not satisfied, Professor Asabuncha has begun an independently funded search for Cosmic Cheese, which he is confident will once and for all prove the fallacy of Dr. Tupidsay’s Cosmic Rat Theory.
Proponents of the Cosmic Rat Theory are quick to point out, however, that even if Cosmic Cheese is discovered it will only strengthen Dr. Tupidsay’s original conclusion. “It is only logical,” Dr. Tupidsay wrote in the Cosmic Mind (Holy Grail Press, 1995), “that since there are Cosmic Rats there must, therefore, be a cosmic food source.”
Recently, Messerschmidt and Baum of Southern Cal have proposed a Cosmic Cat Theory to explain why they have been unable to find any Cosmic Rats. (Cosmos Quarterly, February 1995)
“Absolutely ridiculous!” was the response of Dr. Tupidsay. “It is most obviously an attempt to find a simple explanation for a complex cosmic phenomenon by manufacturing the solution out of pure fiction.” (Cosmic Mind)
Mr. Eldridge is an associate professor of Astronomy at the University of Milan. Other articles by Mr. Eldridge have appeared in Cosmos Quarterly, Astronomy Today, and more recently Astrophysicists Digest. He is currently finishing his doctoral thesis Stars, Planets, and Stuff Like That.
Contact Us
Comments? Criticism? Insults? Money Orders?
Earl, our editor, wants to hear from you!
(But that doesn't necessarily mean you'll hear from him.)
Send your messages or bank account information to: