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One-Woman Show · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Hey, folks, erin here. Today is the day the first
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  Speaker 1: ever official Cabinet of Curiosities book has arrived, and this
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  Speaker 1: is the week to grab a copy in whatever format
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  Speaker 1: fits your needs hardcover, ebook or audiobook. For audio lovers,
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  Speaker 1: we have a special guest to accompany me as we
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  Speaker 1: move through the Cabinet audiobook. Danish Schwartz, host of the
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  Speaker 1: Amazing history podcast Noble Blood, joins me in the audiobook
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  Speaker 1: for little conversations in between the topical sections, adding a
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  Speaker 1: cool layer of insight into the stories that you'll hear.
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  Speaker 1: And of course, the hardcover is available everywhere. I specifically
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  Speaker 1: want to mention that Target has gone all in with
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  Speaker 1: me on this, putting the Cabinet of Curiosities book into
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  Speaker 1: stores all across the country. Honestly, I'm blown away by
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  Speaker 1: the response the book has received in the lead up
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  Speaker 1: to launch and here we are, so please, please please
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  Speaker 1: grab a copy today, set it aside as a holiday
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  Speaker 1: gift for a history lover in your life, or selfishly
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  Speaker 1: clutch it to your chest and refuse to let anyone
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  Speaker 1: else touch it. You do you. I'm just grateful that
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  Speaker 1: you find listeners are here, supporting the show and spreading
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  Speaker 1: the word and pointing friends and family to the book
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  Speaker 1: might be the easiest way to share cabinet with others.
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  Speaker 1: Find all the links that you'll ever need over at
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  Speaker 1: Grimandmild dot com slash curiosities, And again, thank you so
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  Speaker 1: much for helping this book become reality. And now on
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  Speaker 1: with the show. Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities,
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  Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild. Our world
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  Speaker 1: is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an
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  Speaker 1: open book, all of these amazing tales are right there
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  Speaker 1: on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. In Monawai, Nebraska, Elsie Isler's tavern
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  Speaker 1: is the only place to be. Well, that's because it's
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  Speaker 1: the only place, period, because Elsie Isler is the sole
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  Speaker 1: resident of America's smallest incorporated town. Monawai, Nebraska's population is one. Monawai,
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  Speaker 1: located just over the border from South Dakota, feels remote
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  Speaker 1: and isolated. The county it sits in has just two
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  Speaker 1: thousand people living there. It's seven miles to the nearest
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  Speaker 1: gas station and sixty to the closest walmart, but Monawai
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  Speaker 1: wasn't always that small. The town was founded in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: oh two as a stop on the Chicago North and
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  Speaker 1: Western Railroad. By the nineteen thirties, it was a bustling
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  Speaker 1: farming community. Back then, the town had a whopping one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty three residents, huge by today's standards. Obviously,
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  Speaker 1: it had a school, a post office, a church, a
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  Speaker 1: grocery store, and even a jail. Over the years, though
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  Speaker 1: the world moved past Monawai. Modernization and the high cost
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  Speaker 1: of equipment and labor led many farmers to just leave.
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  Speaker 1: By the time Elsie and her husband Rudy bought the
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  Speaker 1: Monawai Tavern in nineteen seventy one, much of the town's
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  Speaker 1: population had already gone. When the railroad shuttered in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy eight, that was the final blow. The population dwindled
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  Speaker 1: to just two, Rudy and Elsie. When Rudy passed away
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  Speaker 1: in two thousand and four, that number dropped to one. Today,
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  Speaker 1: Monowai's main street is an unpaved dirt track. The downtown
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  Speaker 1: is completely shuttered except for three buildings Elsie's house, Rudy's library,
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  Speaker 1: which runs on the honor system, and the Monawai Tavern
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  Speaker 1: with no noisy neighbors or town meetings. You would think
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  Speaker 1: being the last person in Monawai would be peaceful, but
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  Speaker 1: you'd be surprised how busy it gets living in an
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  Speaker 1: empty town. Ninety year old Elsie spends her days being
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  Speaker 1: a one woman town. She is the mayor, treasurer, and librarian,
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  Speaker 1: and she pays taxes to herself to keep everything up
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  Speaker 1: and running. She secures funding from the state for water
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  Speaker 1: and power, and even finds time to approve a liquor
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  Speaker 1: license for herself every year. When she's not running the town,
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  Speaker 1: of course, she's running the Monawai Tavern, the beating heart
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  Speaker 1: of Monowai. For fifty years, she's been serving up the coldest,
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  Speaker 1: not to mention, the only beer in town. Step inside
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  Speaker 1: and you'll enter Elsie's world. Elsie is a diminutive figure.
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  Speaker 1: She greets customers kind heartedly from the grill. The wood
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  Speaker 1: paneled bar is covered with dusty paraphernalia, from vintage road
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  Speaker 1: signs to black and white pictures of the town. The
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  Speaker 1: bathroom is an outhouse out back, and above the bar
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  Speaker 1: is a handwritten placard that reads, if you are grouchy, irritable,
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  Speaker 1: or just playing mean, There will be a ten dollars
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  Speaker 1: charge for putting up with you inside the tavern. You
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  Speaker 1: will see that while Elsie lives alone, she is far
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  Speaker 1: from lonely. Around fifty people stop in each day to
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  Speaker 1: grab a burger and chat with Elsie. That number balloons
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  Speaker 1: on Sundays when local farmers join the weekly running card game.
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  Speaker 1: She can even count on some of her local patrons
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  Speaker 1: to jump behind the bar and wash dishes and sling
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  Speaker 1: drinks on a particularly busy night. Although she's got a
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  Speaker 1: close crew of regulars from the surrounding towns, people have
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  Speaker 1: come to visit Elsie from all fifty states and sixty
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  Speaker 1: different countries. Although the town and the tavern have been
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  Speaker 1: Elsie's life for the past fifty years, she has no
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  Speaker 1: desire to change things now. As she's told reporters, she
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  Speaker 1: adores her life in Monowai. She loves meeting all sorts
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  Speaker 1: of people who come to the tavern and tell her
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  Speaker 1: about themselves over cheap beers. So if you're driving across
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  Speaker 1: Highway twelve in Nebraska and find yourself hankering for a bite,
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  Speaker 1: stop in and say hi. You can count on Elsie
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  Speaker 1: being behind the bar Tuesday through Sunday morning until night.
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  Speaker 1: Business is booming, even if the population is not. Visit
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  Speaker 1: London today and you'll get the sense that the city
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  Speaker 1: doesn't truly awaken until after dark. From South Bank to
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  Speaker 1: Covent Gardens, dusk brings a flurry of activity. Hobgoers spill
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  Speaker 1: out of awnings and congregates on sidewalks, Tourists embark on
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  Speaker 1: midnight jack the Ripper tours accosted by hawkers and street performers,
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  Speaker 1: and on weekends the night Tube never stops running. But
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't always like this. Before the late Victorian era,
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  Speaker 1: poor street lighting made getting around at night difficult. This
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  Speaker 1: was true in most major cities, but especially so in
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  Speaker 1: Britain's capital, which regularly grappled with waves of green and
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  Speaker 1: black fog. These pea soupers, as they were called, grew
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  Speaker 1: worse and worse during the Industrial Revolution, when factories and
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  Speaker 1: homes pumped smog from burning coal into the sky, creating
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  Speaker 1: a dense, impenetrable haze. In a setting like this, going
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  Speaker 1: outside at night was a dangerous proposition, like stepping into
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  Speaker 1: a murky nether world populated by criminals and sterious figures.
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  Speaker 1: Members of the upper class could avoided as much as possible,
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  Speaker 1: but every now and then you didn't have a choice.
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  Speaker 1: Say a relative fell ill and you had to fetch
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  Speaker 1: a doctor, or maybe you just stayed at your club
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  Speaker 1: playing cards a bit later than you intended. And in
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  Speaker 1: these situations, what was a gentleman or a lady to do. Well.
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  Speaker 1: If you were very rich, you might have a carriage
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  Speaker 1: and a few servants to run ahead with a lantern
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  Speaker 1: to light the way, but most other people were out
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  Speaker 1: of luck. You couldn't hail a cab in those days,
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  Speaker 1: but you could do the next best thing, call on
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  Speaker 1: the services of a link boy. These torch wielding children
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  Speaker 1: were everywhere in nocturnal London, as commonplace as double decker
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  Speaker 1: buses are today. For a small fee, they would escort
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  Speaker 1: you to wherever you needed to go, providing lights and
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  Speaker 1: directions so that you wouldn't get lost on the way.
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  Speaker 1: The name linkboy comes from an outdated term for the
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  Speaker 1: cotton wick on torches that they used. They worked long
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  Speaker 1: hours for pitiful pay, typically charging just one farthing per
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  Speaker 1: trip that would be roughly a quarter of a penny
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  Speaker 1: in today's money, so perhaps it's not surprising that some
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  Speaker 1: bolstered their income by partnering with thieving gangs. It was
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  Speaker 1: an easy task for a link boy to lead their
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  Speaker 1: clients in the wrong part of town, where older, more
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  Speaker 1: dangerous criminals were lying in wait. It's hard to say
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  Speaker 1: how often this actually happened, but it was a common
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  Speaker 1: enough fear that the link boys quickly gained a reputation
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  Speaker 1: for trouble. Over time, they became almost mythical figures, representing
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  Speaker 1: the dangers that haunted London's streets. They were viewed as
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  Speaker 1: impish will of the wisps, who were more likely to
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  Speaker 1: lead you to your death than to your destination. But
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  Speaker 1: however society saw them, the link boys were never demons.
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  Speaker 1: Almost all of them were young males who had fallen
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  Speaker 1: through society's cracks. Many were orphans trying to survive on
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  Speaker 1: the fringes of a city that had never loved them.
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  Speaker 1: Each night, they faced dangers that terrified the city's adults
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  Speaker 1: without any kind of supervision or protection. Around the end
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  Speaker 1: of the nineteenth century, electric street lights were gradually installed
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  Speaker 1: around London. These street lamps were significantly more powerful than
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  Speaker 1: the gas lamps that had preceded them, and far more
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  Speaker 1: effective at cutting through the city's infamous fog. As a result,
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  Speaker 1: getting from points A to point B became easier, and
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  Speaker 1: the demand for link boys plummeted. Soon they vanished entirely.
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  Speaker 1: The children who had once lit up London's foggy streets
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  Speaker 1: would now earn their bread like the rest of the
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  Speaker 1: city's poor, toiling away in dangerous factories. Today, the link
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  Speaker 1: boys are all but forgotten. The best evidence that they
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  Speaker 1: once existed at all is the metal cones, which can
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  Speaker 1: still be found outside older London houses. Link boys would
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  Speaker 1: use these devices, called snuffers, to put out their torches
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  Speaker 1: after delivering a client home, and thankfully they live on
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  Speaker 1: in a popular expression that we all know today, if
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  Speaker 1: someone wanted to say that a person they knew wasn't
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  Speaker 1: good enough to be their link boy, they would say,
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  Speaker 1: you can't hold a candle to them. It's yet one
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  Speaker 1: more piece of evidence of how these children were used, demonized,
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  Speaker 1: and forgotten. They deserve to be remembered for their resourcefulness,
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  Speaker 1: their enduring spirits, and still burning long after the city
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  Speaker 1: closed its eyes. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
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  Speaker 1: of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
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  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
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  Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
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  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore which is a podcast, book series,
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  Speaker 1: and television show and you can learn all about it
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  Speaker 1: over at the Worldolore dot com. And until next time,
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  Speaker 1: stay curious.