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Gangs of Paree · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcomed. Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Anyone who has seen a production of West
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  Speaker 1: Side Story knows two things about real gangs. One, they
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  Speaker 1: don't dance, and too, they certainly don't sing. And even
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  Speaker 1: though the sharks and the Jets were known to leap
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  Speaker 1: and pirouette through city streets, they were still violent in nature,
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  Speaker 1: starting rumbles with knives and guns and ending each act
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  Speaker 1: with a death or two. But the theater is not
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  Speaker 1: real life, or is it. While no real gangs have
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  Speaker 1: ever been reported dancing, one Parisian gang was considered the
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  Speaker 1: best dressed in Europe maybe in the world. They were
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  Speaker 1: known as the Apaches, a brutal gang that prowled the
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  Speaker 1: streets of Paris during the turn of the twentieth century.
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  Speaker 1: They were known for two things, their violent nature and
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  Speaker 1: their fashion sense. It was the press that gave them
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  Speaker 1: their name. One journalist reported on a particular heinous crime
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  Speaker 1: in which a victim had been stabbed in the face
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  Speaker 1: with a hat pin and sliced with a knife. The
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  Speaker 1: reporter was something of a Wild West fanatic and believed
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  Speaker 1: that the brutality of this crime was similar to the
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  Speaker 1: misinformation and stereotypes they had heard about the indigenous people
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  Speaker 1: over in America. This reporter may not have known much
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  Speaker 1: about indigenous people's but they did know how to brand
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  Speaker 1: their stories, and the moniker stuck. In fact, the cops
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  Speaker 1: had already been using the Apache name inappropriately to describe
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  Speaker 1: the brutality of other crimes they were investigating. You wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: think that a violent gang would become popular or exciting, though,
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  Speaker 1: but that's exactly what happened with the Apaches. They're catching name,
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  Speaker 1: combined with their penchant for butting heads and strangling people
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  Speaker 1: with their scarves, made them infamous among Parisian society. One
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  Speaker 1: of their signature moves involved one gang member strangling a
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  Speaker 1: mark from behind and hoisting them up so they couldn't
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  Speaker 1: fight back. Meanwhile, another gang member would go through the
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  Speaker 1: victim's pockets for money, as a third kept watch for
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  Speaker 1: the authorities. Well, the goal wasn't to kill the person
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  Speaker 1: being strangled. Sometimes the act took so long the victim
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  Speaker 1: died anyway, And scarves weren't the only weapons in their
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  Speaker 1: arsenal either. These apaches had their own special weapon to
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  Speaker 1: set themselves apart from other street gangs. It was a
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  Speaker 1: type of revolver with a handle made from brass knuckles
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  Speaker 1: with a short blade that extended past the barrel. Most
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  Speaker 1: of the gang members were young men and women, teenagers
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  Speaker 1: and adults barely into their twenties, and from shop owners
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  Speaker 1: to aristocrats, two cops and firemen. Nobody was safe from
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  Speaker 1: their hot headed compulsions. But they weren't special because of
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  Speaker 1: their ages, or their guns, or even their headbutting. The
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  Speaker 1: apaches were special because they were apparently really snappy dressers.
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  Speaker 1: A top there perfectly coffed hair thick with palmaide sat
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  Speaker 1: a hat known as a deaf cap. It bore a
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  Speaker 1: strong resemblance to the newsboy caps worn by kids and
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  Speaker 1: teens in America around the same time. The women, however,
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  Speaker 1: didn't wear hats at all. Instead, they tied a black
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  Speaker 1: ribbon around their necks. And although they were often poor,
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  Speaker 1: Apaches didn't let their lack of funds stop them from slain,
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  Speaker 1: both literally and in the fashion forward. Since they often
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  Speaker 1: wore vests and waistcoats over striped sailor shirts and never
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  Speaker 1: walked around in scuffed shoes, it was important for their
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  Speaker 1: footwear to be polished and pristine at all times. Gang
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  Speaker 1: members had a blue dot tattooed under their left eye
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  Speaker 1: to identify their membership, and the looks of the gang
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  Speaker 1: members became so iconic elements of their wardrobes started to
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  Speaker 1: seep into the closets of the wealthy, and so did
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  Speaker 1: their sling. It was called the green tongue, and it
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  Speaker 1: became so popular it was taught to those willing to
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  Speaker 1: pay to learn it. But the gang members themselves didn't
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  Speaker 1: make it that long. After the outbreak of World War One,
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  Speaker 1: the age of the dandie gang member died out, yet
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  Speaker 1: their influence did linger on for years to come in
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  Speaker 1: plays and in movies. Even legendary actors such as Marlon
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  Speaker 1: Brando and James Dean were known to sports Apache style
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  Speaker 1: clothing when they were out on the town. They may
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  Speaker 1: not have dance stub sung in the streets of Paris,
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  Speaker 1: but the Apaches certainly left their mark on French history
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  Speaker 1: and on the runway. History is fraught with strange mercurial
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  Speaker 1: things called cursed objects, physical items that have attracted a
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  Speaker 1: bit of notoriety over the years, like a dark cloud
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  Speaker 1: of painful stories that seemed to follow the item wherever
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  Speaker 1: it goes. One such example might be the clock atop
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  Speaker 1: the Palace of Versailles in France. Its hands have remained
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  Speaker 1: at eight fifteen am, the exact hour and minute when
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  Speaker 1: King Louis the fourteenth was pronounced dead ever since. But
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  Speaker 1: one cursed object came from much humbler beginnings, and it
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  Speaker 1: seemed to collect the tragic tales and coincidences of one
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  Speaker 1: family in particular, the Spicers, lived in Massachusetts during the
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  Speaker 1: late seventeen hundreds. Daniel Spicer was killed in seventeen eighty
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  Speaker 1: four when two musket balls passed straight through his coat.
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  Speaker 1: His younger brother, Jabez, then inherited the coat. After his
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  Speaker 1: brother's death. Three years later, in seventeen eighty seven, Jabez
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  Speaker 1: Spicer took up a fight of his own. He was
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  Speaker 1: one of many in Massachusetts who were fed up with
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  Speaker 1: what they believed was government overreach in its collection of
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  Speaker 1: taxes on the poor. A decade earlier, during the Revolutionary war,
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  Speaker 1: the economy was mostly based on the agricultural output of
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  Speaker 1: local farms. Farmers towards the center of the states often
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  Speaker 1: had little money and would either barter with neighbors or
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  Speaker 1: ask pliers for credits until they could pay them back.
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  Speaker 1: Times were tough, and folks were doing everything they could
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  Speaker 1: to prevent themselves from going under. The Massachusetts coasts, however,
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  Speaker 1: were run by a merchant class that had no problem
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  Speaker 1: paying for the supplies they needed with cold, hard cash.
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  Speaker 1: This kept the economy afloat and made collecting taxes much easier.
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  Speaker 1: The state government preferred things this way. After the war,
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  Speaker 1: the idea of credit lines all but disappeared, even for
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  Speaker 1: the farming communities that could not afford to pay outright
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  Speaker 1: for what they needed. Vendors wanted money, and they didn't
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  Speaker 1: want to wait to be paid. As a result of
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  Speaker 1: the change, farmers couldn't afford to pay off their debts
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  Speaker 1: nor their taxes. They started having their land repossessed. This
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  Speaker 1: led to animosity towards the courts and the tax collectors.
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  Speaker 1: When the legal routes to fix their situations stopped working,
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  Speaker 1: the people took matters into their own hands. In Sight two,
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  Speaker 1: for example, one citizen of Massachusetts, a guy named Job
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  Speaker 1: Shattuck started organizing his community to hold protests and stopped
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  Speaker 1: the tax collector from fulfilling their duties. From there, things
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  Speaker 1: only grew more heated until a mass protest in August
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  Speaker 1: of seventeen eighty six effectively shut down the courts from
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  Speaker 1: Northampton to Worcester. Mobs of people prevented the Massachusetts legislature
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  Speaker 1: from getting back to work. Even when militias were sent
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  Speaker 1: to stop the demonstrations, they refused to act. The troops
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  Speaker 1: actually sided with the farmers. Eventually, two of the rebellions ringleaders,
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  Speaker 1: Daniel Schayes and Luke Day, organized a full scale assault
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  Speaker 1: against the government and its forces. On the other side
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  Speaker 1: of the equation was the Massachusetts militia, led by former
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  Speaker 1: Revolutionary War general Benjamin Lincoln. He marched into Worcester on
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  Speaker 1: January nineteenth of seventeen eighty seven with three thousand troops
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  Speaker 1: behind him. They managed to quell the rebellion in a
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  Speaker 1: matter of weeks, with fewer than ten casualties on either side. However,
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  Speaker 1: one of those casualties happened to be Jabez Spicer, the
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  Speaker 1: brother of the late Daniel Spicer. During an attack on
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  Speaker 1: the Springfield Arsenal. Jabez, who was wearing the coat his
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  Speaker 1: brother had died in, was shot twice. The two musket
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  Speaker 1: balls that killed him happened to travel straight through the
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  Speaker 1: exact same bullet holes that had taken out his brother
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  Speaker 1: Daniel three years before. Was it an unfathomable coincidence, a
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  Speaker 1: case of bad luck or fate coming to finish what
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  Speaker 1: it had started in It's hard to say for sure,
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  Speaker 1: but maybe things might have turned out differently if Jabez
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  Speaker 1: hadn't been trying to ride his brother's coattails. I hope
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  Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
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  Speaker 1: of Lure dot Come and until next time, stay curious.
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  Speaker 1: H