Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

It's the last day of September, and Autumn is in full swing here at Strange Company HQ!

That time a bucket started a war.

The Wright brothers as babysitters.

An ancient rock art site tells quite a story.

The place where you can get away with murder.  I hope I'm not giving anyone vacation ideas.

The Tavora Executions.

The "real" Count of Monte Cristo.

The vampire of Rhode Island.

A man with interesting tastes in home decor.

Finding a wife for Philip, Duke of Burgundy.

A 507-year-old clam.

A 2,600-year-old cheese.

The Donora Smog Disaster.

The difficulty with prosecuting a deaf and dumb man in 1825.

The liner that was hit by one freaking big wave.

The Disneyland of graveyards.

The tale of a pauper's coffin.

The magician who was shot on stage.

Being cuckolded in the Regency Era could have its financial benefits.

That time when W.B. Yeats and Aleister Crowley got into a magic duel.

That time when Galileo tried to determine the size of Hell.

Jane Toppan, a particularly enthusiastic serial killer.

Kingsley Amis didn't think too much of John Keats.

For those of you who are sick of theories about who Jack the Ripper was, here's a theory about who the Zodiac Killer was.  Unless you're sick of those, too.

The Lord Lucan case in contemporary newspapers.

Ancient party islands.

The murder of a grave-robber.

The display of human remains in museums.

Why men stopped wearing hats.  I wish men today would go back to wearing them.  And three-piece suits.  With spats.

History's largest chariot battle.

I am now wondering how many Spanish Flu victims were really killed by their medicines.

A man who did much good, and much evil.

Raccoons are really, really smart.  We have some raccoons in my area, and that was an observation I made some time ago.  You don't want them anywhere near your garden, though.

Leveling the Lords.

A brief history of the Rosetta Stone.

Nazi merchant raiders in the South Pacific.

In which Mr. Graverol meets the Devil.

Related: Five ways to summon the Devil.

How to make Irish seaweed pudding.

The India Office holds a yard sale.

Lampo, the Railway Dog.

Baltimore, the Fire Dog Mascot.

Hester Stanhope, Queen of the Desert.

William Marwood, famed hangman.

In which Charles Dickens discusses the news.

The Fenland bog oak table.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at yet another cautionary tale about angering fairies.  In the meantime, here's the Rose Ensemble.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

 

A very odd and mysterious burial was described in the "Sydney Morning Herald," September 7, 1866. (Via Newspapers.com)

In demolishing a house recently, for the purpose of widening the Rue Guy Lussac, near the Pantheon, the workmen discovered in one of the chimney jambs a cavity in which was the skeleton of an infant of about a year old. The bones reposed on a layer of eggs, still entire, to the number of more than 60, and near the hand was a little leather ball, which had formerly been white. The heat had partly calcined the bones of the legs, and the eggs had been dried till the centres were not larger than a pea. The infant appears to have been in this receptacle for some 25 or 30 years, which besides had been made and closed up by some practised hand, as there were no external signs of any derangement. Conjecture is quite baffled as to the reasons for such a singular tomb, and for the accompanying eggs. Towards 1804 the house was inhabited by a religious community, but in the year 1807 it became a furnished lodging-house.

A Shot in the Night: The Murder of Mary Ludwig

"Asbury Park Press," January 27, 1975, via Newspapers.com

There have been real-life "locked-room murders" that gained fame as classic unsolvable puzzles:  The deaths of Isadore Fink and Joseph Bowne Elwell are probably the most famous examples.  However, there was a killing just as weird as those two renowned cases, which has sunk into near-total obscurity.  This week, let us look back at one of the New Jersey shore's most puzzling unsolved crimes.

For most of the year, sixty-year-old widow Mary Ludwig lived in Kearney, New Jersey, where she worked as a school custodian.  However, every summer she vacationed in a bungalow she rented in the bayside area known as the Highlands.  It was in the section of town known as "Water Witch," about 400 yards from the bay.  In July 1965, Mary was at her summer home, along with her daughter and son-in-law, Dolores and Edward Gunner.  Also there were the four Gunner children and a family friend, Joseph Rodgers.  It was the usual placid, happy holiday gathering, with no hint that something was about to go very, very wrong.

On the night of July 16, Mary was sharing a room with her twelve-year-old granddaughter Marie Gunner.  Their bedroom was in a back corner of the house.  All was completely still in the darkened, quiet neighborhood until around 4 a.m., when the family was rudely awakened by the sound of a gunshot.  This was immediately followed by the hysterical screams of young Marie, running through the house and crying for her grandmother.

When the others came to investigate, they found that Marie had lost her grandmother, for good.  Someone had used a rifle to shoot Mary Ludwig in the head, killing her instantly.   She had been shot at very close range, so the killer must have been standing inside the bedroom.  However, it was never determined from what direction the shot was fired, or the type of rifle that had been used.

When the police came, they took statements from everyone in the house, but no one professed to have any idea how the murder had taken place.  Marie could only say that she had been awakened by a "loud blast."    

Both the front and back doors had been locked, and there were no signs of forced entry.  The screens on the windows in Mary's bedroom were firmly in place, with no tears or bullet holes.  Neighbors had not seen any strangers lurking around the area, and the bungalow was on an open, treeless plot of ground that did not provide any hiding places.  The rifle that was used to shoot Mrs. Ludwig was never found.  If, as the family insisted, all the doors were locked, then it stood to reason that someone already inside the house must have committed the murder.  But if so, what did they do with the weapon?  And who among the household would have possibly wanted to do such a deed--and in the presence of her young granddaughter, to boot?

Detectives spent days interviewing all the residents in the area.  They spoke to everyone who had known the dead woman.  And in the end, they were left with zero clues, zero suspects, zero possible motives.  Mrs. Ludwig was a well-liked, with no enemies.  She was a humble working-class woman with a tiny life insurance policy, so no one benefited financially from her death.  Not even the gossip mill which usually springs up around strange crimes could come up with any possible answers for the tragedy.  Police Chief Howard Monahan essentially threw in the towel, telling reporters, "We have absolutely nothing that you could hang your hat on."  Journalists described it as an "impossible" crime.  It was as if a malevolent ghost had materialized inside the house, shot a sleeping woman seemingly at random, and then instantly vanished back into nothingness.

Five months after Ludwig's murder, John Gawler, the chief of the local prosecutor's detectives, said "We are doing the best we can, and hoping for a ray of light to help solve this one."

That ray never emerged.  And Mary Ludwig's murder was soon forgotten.

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Welcome to the first Link Dump of Autumn 2022!

The Strange Company staffers are late returning from summer vacation.  Typical of them.

A baby mix-up with a happy ending.

A school in India has a new student.

Prehistoric stone tools from a previously-unknown civilization.

Corpse-hunting on a New York river.

The dubious joys of temperance melodrama.

A structure near Prague that's older than Stonehenge.

In 1978, a Navy frigate was attacked by an enormous (and still mysterious) monster.

 Believe it or not, we're still uncovering dreadful details about Nazi death camps.

That time when Londoners cracked down on freak dances.

When it looked like America might lose WWII.

The last time a king was buried in Westminster Abbey.

A newly-discovered cave that's something of an ancient time capsule.

When Japanese time met a European clock, and things didn't go too well.

There are few foods I love more than sourdough bread, but even I wouldn't want to eat any baked by a 19th century miner.

How nomads helped shape civilization.

JMW Turner's lifelong friendship with Henry Trimmer.

A UFO crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 2014. And people would like to find it.

For this week in Russian Weird, crop formations come to Lake Baikal.  

How the Bronx got its name.

The sounds of meteorites crashing into Mars.

When ancient Rome had a monster problem.

The last days of John Keats.

A possible explanation of the "Wow!" signal.

Autumn fashions from 1822.

A very strange murder mystery.

Propaganda and the murder of Jane McCrea.

The last of the Spitalfields Market cats.

The adventures of HMS Nautilus in 1807.

Some autochromes of Tsarist Russia.

A "witchcat" gets away with murder.

The attack on Sempringham Priory in 1312.

Lady Arbella Stuart, the woman who nearly became Queen of England.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look one of those murder mysteries that are seemingly without any clues.  In the meantime, here's some Telemann.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This quirky little ghost story appeared in the “Buffalo News,” October 25, 1892.  It is a reprint from the “San Jose News.”

"I used to ride in races,and only last year I spun around the track at my home in the East, but I was cured of the sport in a rather remarkable manner," said a visiting bicyclist at the races of the Garden City Cyclers.

The story is a strange one," he continued, "and I have never told it to any one yet that I really think believed it, but so firmly am I convinced of of the reality of an incident that was frightful in some of its details, that for fear of a repetition I have not had the courage to ride in a race since. 

"The races were run on a half-mile horse-racing track that had been rolled and otherwise partially prepared for the purpose. I had never been especially fast, but just before the event I had bought a new pneumatic-tire racer, one of the first seen in that part of the country. The machine was a beauty, full nickeled and with the object of making a display more than anything else, I entered for the five-mile race with a 15-minute limit, the conditions being the same as those of the last race in San Jose yesterday that Wilbur Edwards won. 

"There were seven starters in the race, and we had 10 laps to make. I thought we were making rather slow time, and from some remarks that I overheard from the judges' stand when we passed on completing the eighth lap I was certain that it would be no race, as the winner would not make the distance within the time required. By this time I was well winded, and was sure that I would not come out first, but I did not feel in the least disappointed, as I had not expected to win the race when I started.

"In the beginning of the ninth lap, however, as I was tolerably well in the lead, I thought I would spurt a little. So I forged ahead and was allowed to make the pace for awhile, each of the riders having done this in turn before me. I had been in the lead seemingly only a second when to my surprise I saw just ahead of me a strong-looking rider on an old-style solid-tire wheel. I had not seen him pass and. did not know that any such man had entered the race in the first place.

"The stranger was well in the lead, and felt so much ashamed of myself to think that I was plodding behind on a new-style racing pneumatic while he was making the pace at a swinging gait on a solid tire that I just dug my toenails into the truck, so to speak, and did my utmost in an attempt to pass him. It did no good, however, I could not decrease the distance, although, spurred on as I was, my speed, as I afterwards learned, became something terrific.

"When I passed the grand and judges' stands at the end of the ninth lap for the finish there was tremendous cheering. I could not understand what it was all about, as I did not consider that my efforts on a pneumatic flyer to catch a man on a solid tire with a spring frame were worthy of much applause. I did not have time to look around and see what the rest of the riders were doing.

“On I flew like the wind, every muscle strained to the utmost in my endeavors to catch the stranger, who kept swinging along about 10 feet in the lead. I felt that he must tire out at last, so I did not relax, but rather increased the immense strain to which I was putting every fiber of my being. When we neared the grand-stand I could hear thunders of applause rolling up to greet us, and when I was within 50 yards of the scratch I made a last desperate effort to pass the stranger. 

"In the strain that was upon me I shut my eyes and paddled like lightning. When I was certain that I had crossed the tape I looked up just in time to see a terrible spectacle. The wheel of the rider ahead struck something. He was thrown forward and struck on his head. I was sure his neck was broken and blood gushed forth from his nose, mouth and ears. The sight was horrible, and in my exhausted state I could stand the strain no longer. I fainted and fell from my wheel. 

"The next thing I knew I was stretched out on a blanket in the rubbing-down room with a crowd around me. As soon as the boys saw that I had recovered consciousness all of them began to talk to me at once. They congratulated me on my wonderful victory, all declaring they had never seen anything like it before. They all wished to know, however, why I had exerted myself so much when I was so far in the lead. I had left all the rest of the riders far behind, and yet I swept forward and saved that race, coming in just inside of the 15-minute limit.

"When I spoke of a rider that I was trying to catch all were dumb with amazement. They had seen no such wheelman and the judges had given me the race. When I described the man I saw and his wheel he was recognized as being identical in appearance with a man who was killed under similar circumstances several years before in a five-mile race on the same track. It is scarcely necessary to state that I almost fainted again when I learned that I had been urged forward by a spook. I have never had the courage to get in a race again, for fear that there would be a repetition of my former terrible experience. I had before heard of ghostly riders on horseback, but it was my first, and I hope it will be my last, experience with a spook on a bicycle."

One Night in Maracaibo

The sober pages of "Scientific American" are among the last places where you expect to find a slice of The Weird, but on at least one occasion, that's exactly what happened, courtesy of the following letter which appeared in the December 18, 1886 issue:

The following brief account of a recent strange meteorological occurrence may be of interest to your readers as an addition to the list of electrical eccentricities:

During the night of the 24th of October last, which was rainy and tempestuous, a family of nine persons, sleeping in a hut a few leagues from Maracaibo, were awakened by a loud humming noise and a vivid, dazzling light, which brilliantly illuminated the interior of the house.

The occupants, completely terror stricken, and believing, as they relate, that the end of the world had come, threw themselves on their knees and commenced to pray, but their devotions were almost immediately interrupted by violent vomitings, and extensive swellings commenced to appear in the upper part of their bodies, this being particularly noticeable about the face and lips.

It is to be noted that the brilliant light was not accompanied by a sensation of heat, although there was a smoky appearance and a peculiar smell. The next morning the swellings had subsided, leaving upon the face and body large black blotches. No special pain was felt until the ninth day, when the skin peeled off, and these blotches were transformed into virulent raw sores.

The hair of the head fell off upon the side which happened to be underneath when the phenomenon occurred, the same side of the body being, in all nine cases, the more seriously injured.

The remarkable part of the occurrence is that the house was uninjured, all the doors and windows being closed at the time.

No trace of lightning could afterward be observed in any part of the building, and all the sufferers unite in saying that there was no detonation, but only the loud humming already mentioned.

Another curious attendant circumstance is that the trees around the house showed no signs of injury until the ninth day, when they suddenly withered, almost simultaneously with the development of the sores upon the bodies of the occupants of the house.

This is perhaps a mere coincidence, but it is remarkable that the same susceptibility to electrical effects, with the same lapse of time, should be observed in both animal and vegetable organisms.

I have visited the sufferers, who are now in one of the hospitals of this city; and although their appearance is truly horrible, yet it is hoped that in no case will the injuries prove fatal.

Warner Cowgill, 

U.S. Consulate, Maracaibo, Venezuela, 

November 17, 1886.

Modern students of Forteana have noted the obvious similarity to radiation sickness, with some broad hints that UFOs may have been responsible, but what caused this unsettling incident is still a matter for debate.

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

This week's Link Dump could be called a real fishing expedition.

Street harassment in Victorian London.

The world's most isolated civilization.

This is for all of you who have asked, "Why do you never post photos of Agatha Christie surfing?"

Elizabeth II's life in contemporary newspapers.

The Great Smoke Pall of 1950.

"Playing the game" of Sherlock Holmes.

The time the U.S. Treasury was robbed.

Remembering the "ice widows."

Women go to court, 1300-1800.

"Scraps" of Victorian tradesmen.

The mysterious deaths that inspired a famous horror movie.

A successful amputation from 31,000 years ago.

Jean-Pierre Cherid, the man whose life sounds like something from "The Day of the Jackal."

The mystery of the Orang Pendek.

A lost Iberian civilization.

The Dari Mart murder.

I love the "just" in this headline.

The mourning for a queen.  Victoria, this time.

The hunt for ghost islands.

America's first uprising.

The Victorian journalist and the highly unpleasant sport of rat-baiting.

Another rat-baiting link.  It's just been that kind of week, I guess.

The woman who survived jumping off the Empire State Building.

The days of boxing cats.

Some really cold crime cases.

The first known color photos of Ireland.

Comparing Georgian England's criminal code to that of Austria's.

The abbey and the wood of...Abbey Wood.

The 1860 New York visit of the Prince of Wales.

Some newly-discovered ancient hieroglyphs.

Why 1950s American women were inspired by Elizabeth II.

The Ashland Outrage.

The mystery of the "bog bodies."

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a story that might be UFO-related.  Or might not.  It's one of those strange tales that's hard to categorize.  In the meantime, here's, uh, this.