Matty Bottles

GoF, could you perhaps elaborate on the Charleville pistol? It appears on the Dixie Gunworks page below the QA. According to 'United States Military Shoulder Arms, 1795-1935' by James E. Hicks, Fred Porter Todd (The Journal of the American Military History Foundation, Vol. 1, No. 2 [summer, 1937], pp. 75-79) the Charville armory manufactured weapons since 1719, but they only mention muskets, and I wondered if there was more information to place the pistol specifically in or out of the GAoP. It just looks like a very interesting pistol.

Great pics - how reliable is the English Admiral picture? The reason I ask is because it specifies an English Admiral at sea, and as an example of actual sea-going ware, could be construed as a justification for any number of pirate cliches.

Hm. I'm from SB. I'll have to check that out.

Well, insofar that I do not even know if the wooden block punishment actually happened, that seems to me to be less a punishment by example and more of a roundabout way of execution. I'm not sure what law limited the punishment of ship captains, but a heavy wooden block dangling from a crushed finger all you scurry about the top ropes seems like a fatal fall waiting to happen.

I remember reading of a captain who drilled a hole in a heavy block of wood, ordered the offender to insert his finger into the hole, and then hammered a wooden wedge into the hole with the finger, most likely crushing the finger and certainly making it impossible to remove until the wedge had been removed. The offender was then ordered to work the top ropes with this block of wood dangling from one crushed finger.

And here again, last third of Chapter 13: "It was a dismal sight to look at; the ship, which by its building was Spanish, stuck fast, jammed in between two rocks. All the stern and quarter of her were beaten to pieces by the sea; and as her forecastle, which stuck in the rocks, had run on with great violence, her mainmast and foremast were brought by the board-that is to say, broken short off; but her bowsprit was sound, and the head and bow appeared firm. When I came close to her, a dog appeared upon her, who, seeing me coming, yelped and cried; and as soon as I called him, jumped into the sea to come to me." So here we have three ships mentioned in Robinson Crusoe (published 1719!), with cats on one ship, dogs on two, and very little mentioned about the third (the one that rescues him.) Is this a good start, then, to the possibility that dogs, at least, were not necessarily uncommon on GAOP vessels? I used the e-text version available here. The chapters are arbitrary, and may not correspond with another edition. http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/publi...ic/DefCru1.html

Ah-hah! Found in the last third of Chapter 4, a few pages before crusoe makes his "Good and Evil" list: "And I must not forget that we had in the ship a dog and two cats, of whose eminent history I may have occasion to say something in its place; for I carried both the cats with me; and as for the dog, he jumped out of the ship of himself, and swam on shore to me the day after I went on shore with my first cargo, and was a trusty servant to me many years; I wanted nothing that he could fetch me, nor any company that he could make up to me; I only wanted to have him talk to me, but that would not do."

I accept that challenge, Long Tom. I will wear precisely these sort sof clothes to the pirate ball at the Port Washington Pirate Festival! You will have eye witnesses from the Pub!

Actually, I haven't met any of you, either. Maybe we should have a secret password, like one person says "Don't pinch the barmaid," and the other says "Too hard!" and then they'll know the othger person is a pub member.

Okay, this I'm sorting a period fictional source, and I don't even have the work in front of me, and I have no idea if this is even mentioned, but... Didn't Defoe mention the ships dog and ships cats in "Robinson Crusoe?" And even though Defoe isn't necessarily Captain Johnson, didn't hehave some considerbale maritime experience?

I know you said you were going to pursue the Protestant (as opposed to the Catholic) angle, but for those of you who want to do a Captain Mission impersonation, a scapular to go with the already suggested rosary would be a good angle. One of the miracles attributed to God, granted through Mary's intervention as symbolized by the scapular (see, we don't worship Mary; she's like, uh, our congresswoman ) was the quelling of an angry sea.

I saw a survey cited in an article that thirty percent of a sample population in the UK who has read the book said that it 'fundamentally changes their faith." (Now, who knows how accurate that sample population is?) But the guy who wrote the article had a good point. He said something like "Whoever let this book change their mind is has all the faith they deserve." I mean, if your faith can't stand up to something like that, what does it do when the heavy tragedy hits, you know? Of course, in many cases like that, people grow stronger in faith. Anyway, good discussion.

I like where your head's at.

If you just want the blade, Albion Armorers make falchion blades that might work, although I don't how accurate the blade shape would be. Just a thought.

I think A.R. of Kent is the only person to list this so far (I could be wrong), but man, nothing beats Combat! That is such a sophisticated show, dealing with the nature of heroism and duty and humanity - oh! It was good.

Wait! What happened to your sig, Cap'n Bo?

I was watching "Iron Chef" a few years ago and they had the 30-yr-old rock lobster contest, and one of the Iron Chefs took this lobster tail, a tail so massive the meat alone, stripped of body and carapace, laid bare and naked, the meat alone was the size of a football. And I thought, How could they improve that? And then the Iron Chef butterflied the tail, slathered herbed cream cheese inside, stuffed it with bacon, and wrapped it in more bacon. Then a net of pork fat was wrapped around that bacon, and he deep-fried the whole thing to turn it into an impromptu bacon-lobster sausage. Verily, I beheld then a God of Cookery.

I thought that "Paris Street Cries" by Bouchardon would have some goodies for me, but actually, the only thing that could be possibly a waistcoat shortened in the back* is Fig. 211 the Knife Grinder, and I can't even tell if he IS wearing a waistcoat, because his apron thingy gets in the way. But I can't figure out what it is. If it is a waistcoat, it is shorter in the back than the waistcoat visible in Fig. 221, if the coat in Fig. 221 is indeed a waistcoat and not a regular over coat. I'm not sure of that either. And this is still, what, twenty years out of period, ~1740? I'm more confused then when I began. *And if it IS a shortened waistcoat, it's not THAT short, since it still well covers the guy's rear. I need a beer. Hey, I'm a poet, and I don't even know - screw that, I need a beer.

Don't worry, Phil. According to some of my fellows, I'm perptually 'one toke away from a psychotic break.' I mean, this one friend of mine is, yeah.

I confess that I both type that way sometimes, and am mostly annoyed that people type that way, simply because it is hard to read, NOT because I don't like the people who type that way or their characters. I am not accusing anyone who has posted of not liking people or their characters, I suspect that everyone merely finds it hard to read. I feel the same way about Mark Twain. Love him, but hate the dialects. The best writer who suggests speech patterns without really using them and sacrificing reability is Elmore Leonard. How did I get to Elmore Leonard? Anyway, Yes, in the hot tub I both type and like reading that way, but in other arenas the bloom is off of that rose fast, and just gets in the way of the discussion. Not that I have much to contribute to any discussion, but I sure enjoy reading them, yes sir or madam.

Yeah, but you would have missed out on some incredible experiences, like getting caught in a definition-identification vortex, or experiencing brief moments of omnipresence/time travel, or playing Katamari Damacy and actually believing you're rolling up the entire world to make a star... uh, or, at least, I'm told you'd've miss those experiences, yeah.

Yeah, I have to say that the controversy is the best thing to happen to the book. I think it's actually pretty mediocre, in the way that every Dan Brown book I have ever read is pretty mediocre. The characters are essentially the same, the plot dynamics are essentially the same, he does half-a$$ed research and his interpretation - his interpretation! Oh, goodness. And I'm not even talking about the JC + MM thing. His claims on the origins of Jehovah, his claims about iambic pentameter as some sort of mystic divine male/female symbolism, and his claim that English is the lingua pura - a language free from the corrupting influence of Latin, I believe - is so patently ridiculous that I laughed outloud. English is free from Latinate influence? Dear lord! Try Swedish. Try Swahili, actually. You want a 'secret historian' who will blow your mind, try Tim Powers. That cat writes circles around Dan Brown.

Thank you, Kass! That's good stuff to know.

Brief Hijacking... How is "A History of Costume?" My mother has a copy, but I haven't been using it because I'm not sure how accurate it is (having been written in the twentieth century.) Thank you.

From what I understand (from the advice and commentary of those on this very site) that was not uncommon. They were generally used for riding and other activities.