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The Bottle Jumping Hoax (And Riot) · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for
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Speaker 1: tuning in. Uh it's a it's a lovely day today.
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Speaker 1: We have just survived what we were told was going
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Speaker 1: to be the storm of the century or the storm
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Speaker 1: of the decade. Excuse me, Hi, my name is Ben,
0:45
Speaker 1: Hey Ben, my name is No. It's weird. I saw
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Speaker 1: all of the preliminary forecasts and all that stuff, and
0:52
Speaker 1: it seemed like it was really gonna be scary, and uh,
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Speaker 1: it was a little bit stormy, and then I slept
0:57
Speaker 1: right through the worst of it. Um, I think I
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Speaker 1: must have been exhausted and storms kind of tend to
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Speaker 1: put me to sleep anyway. But I woke up and
1:04
Speaker 1: luckily my neighborhood wasn't hit, but I know that some were. Yeah. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it was a system that moved through the state overall,
1:12
Speaker 1: not just here in Atlanta. Super producer Casey Pegram, how
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Speaker 1: is your storm experience? Yeah, I mean I stayed up
1:20
Speaker 1: late to just kind of keep an eye on the
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Speaker 1: radar and everything, because you know, tornadoes freaked me out.
1:26
Speaker 1: But um, the worst of it kind of passed by
1:28
Speaker 1: us here, so it was no big deal. Nice, Yeah,
1:31
Speaker 1: this is uh, you know, peek behind the curtain. Casey
1:34
Speaker 1: and I live walking distance from each other, so I
1:37
Speaker 1: kind of had a good idea, or at least an
1:39
Speaker 1: optimistic idea of how how your experience was. But but yeah,
1:43
Speaker 1: even though the the hits keep coming, here in twenty
1:47
Speaker 1: we are continuing to make episodes about weird, fascinating dare
1:52
Speaker 1: I say, ridiculous people, places and events of the past.
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Speaker 1: And this one, this one is a weird one. This
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Speaker 1: is uh, this is a doozy nol. Do you want
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Speaker 1: to set the scene for us? Oh? Absolutely? Uh So
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Speaker 1: it's six thirty pm on the sixteenth of January in
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Speaker 1: the year seventeen hundred and forty nine. Uh. There's an
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Speaker 1: advertisement that has graced the pages of the General Advertiser,
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Speaker 1: a London newspaper, promising the most incredible magical performance anyone
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Speaker 1: has ever seen um at the Royal Theater. It promises
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Speaker 1: that this conjurer, which will get into the specifics that
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Speaker 1: differ between an illusionist and a conjuror and a magician,
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Speaker 1: would perform feats uh, such as being able to call
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Speaker 1: out the identity of any member of the audience that
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Speaker 1: might be wearing a mask that was of course optional. UH.
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Speaker 1: The notion that this conjurer would play UH music that
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Speaker 1: could sound like any instrument on an ordinary cane or
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Speaker 1: walking stick, that he would get donated to him by
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Speaker 1: a member of the audience, and that he could impersonate
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Speaker 1: or dare the advertisement pointed out UH took an even
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Speaker 1: step further become embody any person alive or dead. And
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Speaker 1: then the biggest claim of all that had people's imaginations
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Speaker 1: running wild, that this conjurer would be able to take
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Speaker 1: an ordinary UH wine bottle like you would see it
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Speaker 1: any any local pub and disappear into it. The language
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Speaker 1: used was climb into it. Yeah, that's that's true. That's
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Speaker 1: what was advertised, at least before we dive in. I
3:35
Speaker 1: want to make maybe this is a disclaimer, maybe as
3:38
Speaker 1: a confession. I want to make it known. I have
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Speaker 1: always had a deep instinctual UH distrust and dislike of
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Speaker 1: stage magicians. As a matter of fact, it's probably one
3:51
Speaker 1: of the only biases I really have about humans. I
3:55
Speaker 1: think they're smug. I think the smug and I don't
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Speaker 1: cott into it. But the show must go on, right,
4:02
Speaker 1: And these claims that were made in this advertisement. Uh,
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Speaker 1: these claims hit home and people across London mobbed the
4:11
Speaker 1: place trying to get into the theater. I think by
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Speaker 1: seven pm it was absolutely packed and there were still
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Speaker 1: people outside waiting to get inside. Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
4:22
Speaker 1: the demand was outrageous. Um. And this this, this, this
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Speaker 1: particular chronological account comes from an article on history extra
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Speaker 1: dot com. I think they might be taking a few
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Speaker 1: liberties with the timing, because, if I'm not mistaken, this
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Speaker 1: article or this advertisement would have been circulating for a
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Speaker 1: little bit longer than just the thirty minutes leading up
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Speaker 1: to the performance. But uh, whatever the case might be.
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Speaker 1: There was an announcement as people packed into this theater,
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Speaker 1: an announcement that the conjuror or or stage magician wasn't
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Speaker 1: it wasn't showing up and he wasn't there, and that
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Speaker 1: if anyone wanted to they could get their money back. Uh.
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Speaker 1: And this resulted in a absolutely massive riot. And somewhere
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Speaker 1: in the darkness of the theater, a very well to
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Speaker 1: do gentleman was looking on and snickering because he had
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Speaker 1: just won a pretty serious bet that he could fill
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Speaker 1: a theater by promising the gullible public. Uh. Impossible feats
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Speaker 1: that would be performed. So let's dive in for additional details.
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Speaker 1: Quite like the way the Vintage News dot Com sets
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Speaker 1: up this story. Magicians, they say, or conjurers are a
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Speaker 1: smaller subset of a larger thing, the street performing scene.
5:45
Speaker 1: And you know what we say when we say magicians
5:47
Speaker 1: or conjurors, sleight of hand? Is this your card? Holy smokes?
5:52
Speaker 1: How did you guess that number? Even though that's more
5:54
Speaker 1: in the range of mentalists. And these people, despite my
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Speaker 1: personal feelings about them, are are historically very popular. And
6:04
Speaker 1: usually they would work in their own kind of circuits
6:08
Speaker 1: or maybe they'd have their own kind of turf, sort
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Speaker 1: of like drug dealers today. Uh. Instead of you know,
6:14
Speaker 1: they were solo acts. There would often be only one
6:17
Speaker 1: magician in your town, and they wouldn't be part of
6:21
Speaker 1: a larger network of performers. And because of this, uh,
6:27
Speaker 1: there was a mystique surrounding them. They were they were enigmatic,
6:32
Speaker 1: they were mysterious, and a lot of that is probably
6:34
Speaker 1: a cultural descendant of earlier beliefs about hedge magicians, local healers,
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Speaker 1: or people who are alleged to be sorcerers. And this
6:46
Speaker 1: popular perception is sort of Uh. I mean it's a
6:49
Speaker 1: key piece of why the guy who makes the bet
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Speaker 1: is able to win the bet, because people still in
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Speaker 1: the mid seventeen hundred, it's you know, they might say, well,
7:02
Speaker 1: I you know, magic, that's not real and these are
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Speaker 1: modern days of the eighteenth century. But then maybe in
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Speaker 1: private or maybe at home, they're like, I don't know.
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Speaker 1: I don't know though, because how did he know it
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Speaker 1: was my card? You know what I mean? Yeah, I
7:15
Speaker 1: don't know. Ben. You and I kind of differ a
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Speaker 1: little bit on our feelings towards stage magicians. Yeah, like birds,
7:21
Speaker 1: corvids are some of my favorite creatures. I know you
7:24
Speaker 1: are a friend. You are a bird friend? Uh? There
7:26
Speaker 1: should that would be like your native American nickname if
7:30
Speaker 1: if you ever pulled the dances with wolves, you would
7:32
Speaker 1: be Ben friend of bird Boland. Possibly that's just just
7:37
Speaker 1: as my my particular idea there. But yeah, I know
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Speaker 1: I really like magicians and always have. Like I wouldn't
7:41
Speaker 1: saw David Copperfield when I was a kid, and UM
7:44
Speaker 1: really enjoyed that, actually met him and got him to
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Speaker 1: sign a poster and all of that. And I recently
7:49
Speaker 1: um had the pleasure of going to the Magic Castle
7:52
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles with with my kid, and it was
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Speaker 1: a really good time. I just you know, I I
7:57
Speaker 1: kind of like the whole suspension of disbelief thing and
7:59
Speaker 1: and not knowing and obviously I am armed with the
8:02
Speaker 1: knowledge that magic isn't particularly real, and so I don't
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Speaker 1: necessarily wouldn't fall into the same boat as a lot
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Speaker 1: of these Londoners of the time who maybe in the
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Speaker 1: back of their mind we're like, oh, maybe there is
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Speaker 1: real magic. And I am distrustful of this individual because
8:16
Speaker 1: of what you said about you know, the history of
8:18
Speaker 1: things like hedge magicians and and wizards and conjurors, that
8:22
Speaker 1: we're actually doing it for real. Um, So I'm able
8:25
Speaker 1: to kind of put all that aside and just have
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Speaker 1: a good old time. But I definitely see where you're
8:29
Speaker 1: coming from as well, Ben, But this um kind of distrust. Uh,
8:34
Speaker 1: you can sort of take distrust and almost move it
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Speaker 1: into the realm of fascination. Distrust and fascination are kind
8:42
Speaker 1: of two sides of the same coin, where um, you
8:45
Speaker 1: can really work people into a frenzy by capitalizing on
8:49
Speaker 1: on that suspicion and being like, well, I've got to
8:52
Speaker 1: see this if it's true. The idea that that a
8:54
Speaker 1: person could disappear into a bottle, that's crazy town. And uh,
8:58
Speaker 1: I I need to know, just from my own out
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Speaker 1: of action for the safety of my community, if there's
9:02
Speaker 1: someone like this out there. Um. And that is what
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Speaker 1: caused people to flock to the new theater in Haymarket
9:10
Speaker 1: on that evening of January sixte of seventeen nine. Yep
9:15
Speaker 1: I was thinking about how best to give the context
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Speaker 1: of the excitement the gripped the city. Uh. And the
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Speaker 1: best way that I could I spent some time thinking
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Speaker 1: about this. The best way I could describe it is
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Speaker 1: the way people on the internet have been reacting to
9:30
Speaker 1: the Tiger King. Here in these are days of Quarrantine
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Speaker 1: that everybody knew about this upcoming performance. London was talking
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Speaker 1: about this everywhere, from the like the the elite gentleman's
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Speaker 1: clubs to your local pub. People were excited. And then
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Speaker 1: sometimes you'll see it described the bottle He's gonna jump in.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes you see it described as a court bottle, sometimes
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Speaker 1: as a wine bottle. And as people we're talking about this,
10:02
Speaker 1: maybe it was a slow news day, maybe like uh,
10:06
Speaker 1: like the Tiger King. Now, people just wanted something to
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Speaker 1: distract them. But either way you cut it, this is
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Speaker 1: a huge success. When we finally roll around to the
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Speaker 1: night of the show, remember there's not really such a
10:18
Speaker 1: thing as a fire code in these days, the theater
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Speaker 1: is literally packed to the gills. Every place you could
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Speaker 1: put a person is taken up by a person. People
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Speaker 1: are standing, uh, people are waiting outside, you know, trying
10:33
Speaker 1: to slip in uh by any means necessary. And it
10:38
Speaker 1: rolls around to seven o'clock, right, the audience is waiting
10:42
Speaker 1: there and a lot of these people, understand, have been
10:44
Speaker 1: standing in this very packed crowd for a long time
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Speaker 1: and nothing crickets, casey, maybe get a cricket sound there.
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Speaker 1: There's not even like an opening act, right, No, there's not.
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Speaker 1: Um and people were already getting a bit restless. Uh.
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Speaker 1: The theater was over sold to the point where people
11:03
Speaker 1: were like, I mean it was you know, there was
11:04
Speaker 1: no air conditioning in these times. It was very uncomfortable.
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Speaker 1: Every single box seat, every single position in the pit
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Speaker 1: area and the gallery was taken uh. Standing room around
11:15
Speaker 1: the edges was completely packed. And eventually a gentleman came
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Speaker 1: out onto the stage, a representative of the theater. Uh,
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Speaker 1: to the sound of groans and whistles and cat calls
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Speaker 1: and pounding canes and feet uh. And this person walked
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Speaker 1: out bowing uh and an apology UM, and said that
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Speaker 1: if the performer wasn't going to appear in the next
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Speaker 1: quarter hour, that refunds would be available at the door. Um.
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Speaker 1: And this was followed by another suscerous as you like
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Speaker 1: to say, been a hubbub, a commotion with groans and
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Speaker 1: hisses and cat calls and people mocking this poor hapless
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Speaker 1: sap that was just doing his job, literally shooting the messenger. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: my favorite part of this is this cacophony of groans
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Speaker 1: and his is is this. There's a guy who's in
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Speaker 1: the pit of the theater, so he's standing. There's a
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Speaker 1: guy in the pit who who decides the shout out.
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Speaker 1: He's like, if you pay me, double outcrowling, solidn't point bottle.
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Speaker 1: And then someone's like that guy, that guy's doing crowd work.
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Speaker 1: So he he bought. He bought a little time. Basically,
12:25
Speaker 1: he bought a little time. People kind of got back
12:28
Speaker 1: in good spirits, but that wasn't gonna last for long. No,
12:32
Speaker 1: it only lasts for about fifteen minutes when people are like,
12:35
Speaker 1: oh ha ha a tensions relieved. Before we continue, I
12:43
Speaker 1: know it sounds like maybe we're making a big deal
12:45
Speaker 1: about this, but before we continue, it's necessary to know
12:49
Speaker 1: that the when when you hear the phrase theater crowd, uh,
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Speaker 1: we mean something very different in terms of socioeconomic status
13:00
Speaker 1: and behavior. Because nowadays, when you hear like theater crowd,
13:04
Speaker 1: you might think people going to Broadway, or people are
13:07
Speaker 1: dressing up in suits and nice uh, nice outfits of
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Speaker 1: some sort and then they're having a dinner at a
13:13
Speaker 1: nice restaurant or before No, no, no, not at all. Uh,
13:17
Speaker 1: these places can turn ugly pretty quickly, and the crowd
13:20
Speaker 1: back that is much more like what you would expect
13:22
Speaker 1: out of out of a concert, you know what I mean,
13:25
Speaker 1: than what you would expect out of your local theaters
13:28
Speaker 1: production of Phantom of the Opera. Yeah. Yeah, And this
13:31
Speaker 1: is definitely like there was all all this call and
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Speaker 1: response and audience kind of participation and much more of
13:37
Speaker 1: just like you know, there was no decorum. This was
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Speaker 1: not like a white glove opera situation. This was very
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Speaker 1: much uh, a lot of the upper crust mixing with
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Speaker 1: the quite lower crust um and it was the great
13:50
Speaker 1: equalizer was everyone was fascinated by the idea of of
13:53
Speaker 1: what this uh, this magician conjuror was capable of, you know,
13:57
Speaker 1: from dukes and and uh and royalty and relatives of
14:01
Speaker 1: of such to the lowest peasants, you know. And the
14:04
Speaker 1: tickets were not absurdly overpriced either, and this was something
14:07
Speaker 1: that you know, you would pay a premium for the
14:10
Speaker 1: box seats obviously, but down in the gallery as they
14:13
Speaker 1: tall out of the pit, that's where the lower class
14:15
Speaker 1: seats would would be. So that's also probably where the
14:18
Speaker 1: uh these this riot that was about to take place
14:21
Speaker 1: reached a fever pitch much more quickly with like the
14:24
Speaker 1: you know, the swells up in the up in the logs,
14:27
Speaker 1: the logs good or bad, I can never remember, uh,
14:30
Speaker 1: up in the expensive seats, and we're able to make
14:33
Speaker 1: a getaway much much more effectively. And that's exactly what happened. Yeah,
14:37
Speaker 1: it's interesting point that out, and well because the upper
14:41
Speaker 1: class actually started the riot or or set the spark
14:46
Speaker 1: here because there was some guy, some some real winner
14:51
Speaker 1: up in the boxes who after fifteen minutes or so
14:54
Speaker 1: from that previous crowd work joke, he got bored or
14:58
Speaker 1: he decided he would just stir the poe. Uh. He
15:01
Speaker 1: threw a lit candle onto the stage, and this was
15:04
Speaker 1: sort of like this was taken my this was this
15:09
Speaker 1: was taken as an announcement to riot. I guess sure
15:11
Speaker 1: seems like it. I mean it sounds like the equivalent
15:13
Speaker 1: of like throwing a Molotov cocktail over the wall, you know,
15:17
Speaker 1: like during like some kind of like armistice, you know,
15:20
Speaker 1: really uh, you know, like setting the powder keg on fire.
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Speaker 1: Literally what a thing to do, you know, especially from
15:28
Speaker 1: someone that was you know, it's coming from such a
15:30
Speaker 1: protected position to pretty pretty lame, that's right. Noal So
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Speaker 1: the mob rises up like all at once. They're tearing
15:38
Speaker 1: the seats from the floor, they're upending the benches. They
15:41
Speaker 1: decide that they're going to destroy the theater, and you know,
15:45
Speaker 1: mob mentality is is just an insane thing. I don't
15:49
Speaker 1: know if you guys have ever been in like a
15:50
Speaker 1: protest gone wrong or a riot that goes out of hand,
15:54
Speaker 1: But people just start breaking stuff. It doesn't matter what
15:57
Speaker 1: they're protesting. It's crazy. It's sort of like a much
16:00
Speaker 1: more violent version of the way people react when somebody yawns,
16:04
Speaker 1: you know, like everyone gets on board super quickly. It's
16:07
Speaker 1: almost like this knee jerk reaction. That's what happened. There
16:10
Speaker 1: was this you know, the sound of like women screaming,
16:13
Speaker 1: and there you know, their dudes or escorts, uh just
16:16
Speaker 1: clawing their way to get to one of these exits.
16:19
Speaker 1: And again the people up in the balconies were much
16:21
Speaker 1: more uh at an advantage here. Um. Soon there's you know,
16:26
Speaker 1: everyone's just climbing over each other in fear of being trampled.
16:30
Speaker 1: People are pulling up the seats, throwing it into the
16:34
Speaker 1: fire on the stage. Essentially the curtain was pulled down
16:38
Speaker 1: and ripped into shreds and made into like a weird
16:41
Speaker 1: like flag that was hoisted up on a pole on
16:44
Speaker 1: the stage. Um, all of the money that was taken
16:48
Speaker 1: in which was you know, a sold out house. I
16:51
Speaker 1: don't have a number as to exactly how many people,
16:53
Speaker 1: but this sounds like a medium's level theater, which would
16:56
Speaker 1: probably be in the you know, five hundred plus, I
16:59
Speaker 1: would say, to have this kind of chaos going, maybe
17:01
Speaker 1: even as many as a thousand. Um. Some of this
17:03
Speaker 1: almost sounds like like an old style kind of Broadway
17:06
Speaker 1: type theater or something on the West End. That you'd
17:08
Speaker 1: see in London. All of that money is looted. Uh,
17:11
Speaker 1: and the places just left in an absolute shambles um
17:16
Speaker 1: with no one really to blame, no one to be
17:18
Speaker 1: held accountable, right because these people are acting as a collective. Uh.
17:24
Speaker 1: They also after they after they tear down everything inside
17:28
Speaker 1: the theater, including like pulling down the boxes. After they've
17:32
Speaker 1: done this, they've essentially gutted and dismantled the theater. And
17:35
Speaker 1: then they carry all the stuff they broke down into
17:39
Speaker 1: the street, and then they make a bonfire, and then
17:44
Speaker 1: they put the curtain of the theater on a pole.
17:49
Speaker 1: And then by the time the guards get there, they
17:51
Speaker 1: can't really do anything. They just sort of warmed themselves
17:54
Speaker 1: by the fire. But I misunderstood a little bit when
17:56
Speaker 1: I was reading this material. I thought that they had
17:58
Speaker 1: actually because the candle was on the stage, that maybe
18:01
Speaker 1: there was a fire inside. But I think I got
18:03
Speaker 1: a little carried away. It's true they took all this
18:05
Speaker 1: stuff that essentially became the equivalent of like scrap wood
18:09
Speaker 1: out into like a lame Misserabla style barricade in the streets.
18:13
Speaker 1: They then set on fire and uh, and you know,
18:16
Speaker 1: hoisted this flag not on the stage at all, but
18:18
Speaker 1: in the street up around that fire. What craziness. It
18:22
Speaker 1: seems like there must have been something else at play.
18:25
Speaker 1: Do you think it was because they were just so
18:26
Speaker 1: disappointed they weren't going to get to see somebody jump
18:29
Speaker 1: into a bottle? Do you think they felt as though
18:31
Speaker 1: they'd been had Maybe and they kind of knew that
18:34
Speaker 1: it was too good to be true and that's why
18:35
Speaker 1: they reacted so violently. Or are people at this time
18:37
Speaker 1: just kind of wild animals that did crazy violent things. Yeah,
18:42
Speaker 1: I was thinking about that because you know, a lot
18:44
Speaker 1: of sociologists spend their lives studying how riots and outbreaks
18:51
Speaker 1: of panic begin. And sometimes it's a it's a projection, right,
18:57
Speaker 1: They're reacting to something that they can use as a
19:01
Speaker 1: stand in for a real a real concern or or
19:06
Speaker 1: another social pressure. So I was looking into seventeen forty
19:10
Speaker 1: nine London and I didn't see, you know, like a
19:15
Speaker 1: huge crisis that was happening. That doesn't mean that there
19:17
Speaker 1: wasn't one. It could just mean that theater was a
19:20
Speaker 1: very different thing back then. But we do know despite
19:24
Speaker 1: the fact that there were, as you said, multiple socio
19:27
Speaker 1: economic classes there, Uh, they all reacted the same way. Uh.
19:32
Speaker 1: Newspapers started using this as a as a way to
19:39
Speaker 1: ridicule the public and say things that the journalists and
19:43
Speaker 1: comedians have said for years and years, which was that
19:46
Speaker 1: maybe a person is smart, but people together are stupid. Uh.
19:51
Speaker 1: And they went they went a little hard on the paint. Like.
19:53
Speaker 1: They didn't just mention this in newspaper articles or in broadsheets.
19:56
Speaker 1: They issued pamphlets that talked about how dumb the blake was.
20:01
Speaker 1: They made fake articles explaining why the conjuror didn't show up.
20:05
Speaker 1: It was kind of like they were doing like onion
20:07
Speaker 1: articles about this basically. Oh man, some of these are
20:10
Speaker 1: really funny. Can we read a few? Uh? My favorite
20:14
Speaker 1: was the this this promises in appearance by the most
20:18
Speaker 1: wonderful and surprising doctor benembe Zama Pongo occultist and body
20:24
Speaker 1: surgeon to Emperor Mono Mungi Uh will perform on Saturday
20:28
Speaker 1: next at the Little t in the Haymarket the following
20:31
Speaker 1: surprising operations. First, he desires any one of the spectators
20:36
Speaker 1: only to pull out his own eyes, which is suoned
20:40
Speaker 1: as he uh, as these are the way this is
20:42
Speaker 1: written is hard. Uh. As soon as he done, the
20:45
Speaker 1: doctor will show them to any lady or gentleman then
20:48
Speaker 1: present to convince them there is no cheat, and then
20:51
Speaker 1: replace them in the sockets as perfect and entire as ever. Uh. Secondly,
20:57
Speaker 1: he desires any officer or any other to rip up
21:01
Speaker 1: his own belly, which when he has done, he, without
21:05
Speaker 1: any equivocation, takes out his bowels, washes them, and returns
21:10
Speaker 1: them to their place, without the person suffering the least hurt. Thirdly,
21:15
Speaker 1: he opens the head of a j of p I'm
21:19
Speaker 1: not sure what that means, takes out his brains and
21:21
Speaker 1: exchanges them for those of a calf, the brains of
21:24
Speaker 1: a bow for those of an ass, and the here
21:27
Speaker 1: of a bully for that of a sheep, which operations
21:30
Speaker 1: will render that person more sociable and rational creatures than
21:33
Speaker 1: they were ever in their own lives. That's a really
21:37
Speaker 1: long excerpt, and that's not even the whole thing like
21:40
Speaker 1: it goes on. Um, I'm not gonna put you through it,
21:42
Speaker 1: but that's that's like an example of how the how
21:47
Speaker 1: the advertisements started shifting from because because I've been talking
21:51
Speaker 1: about how they were making fake explanations what happened to
21:54
Speaker 1: the guy, they double down and started making explanation like
21:57
Speaker 1: making new fake things right, just like it on your article,
22:01
Speaker 1: Like here's another magician. Can't wait to see what this
22:04
Speaker 1: guy does. Right, And this one is just so beyond absurd.
22:09
Speaker 1: It involves people like literally being so stupid as to
22:12
Speaker 1: allow someone to pluck their eyeballs out or remove their
22:16
Speaker 1: brains from their head and implies that if they put
22:18
Speaker 1: the brain of a sheep back in there that they
22:21
Speaker 1: would end up smarter than they were in the first place.
22:23
Speaker 1: So this really is completely mocking the public. And you
22:26
Speaker 1: can find more of this in the Paris Review uh
22:29
Speaker 1: dot org article on the Great Bottle Conjurer hoax. It's
22:33
Speaker 1: really really great. I love the Paris Review, by the way,
22:35
Speaker 1: not to um go. I don't want to go on like, uh,
22:38
Speaker 1: really lengthy excerpt here, but just for examples that you
22:41
Speaker 1: can find in Paris Review. Uh, there's one guy says
22:44
Speaker 1: he's gonna jump down his own throat. There's another guy
22:47
Speaker 1: says I'm going to change myself into a rattle. And
22:49
Speaker 1: then someone said I'm gonna shoot myself with two pistols,
22:53
Speaker 1: once through my stomach and once through my brain. Uh
22:55
Speaker 1: and and uh, you know that's the kind of trick
22:58
Speaker 1: you can do, but you can only really do it once.
23:05
Speaker 1: No one was really talking at first about how this
23:09
Speaker 1: situation came to pass socio economic factors aside, what was
23:14
Speaker 1: the origin of this. It turns out that this hoax
23:18
Speaker 1: was all a bet. It was all based on a bet.
23:22
Speaker 1: And even though people didn't really know what was happening, uh,
23:26
Speaker 1: we learned through an artis with the help of an
23:29
Speaker 1: article by Jerry Walton over at the Vintage News, that
23:32
Speaker 1: there was a real story. People of London initially suspected
23:38
Speaker 1: the theater manager, Samuel Foote, had perpetrated a hoax. Now
23:43
Speaker 1: note here the theater manager is not the same guy
23:46
Speaker 1: as the theater owner. That's a guy named John Potter.
23:49
Speaker 1: He just gets the money from owning it. Both of
23:52
Speaker 1: these dudes say they're innocent. They say there's somebody else
23:56
Speaker 1: behind this. We don't know who it is. But he
23:59
Speaker 1: made all the arrangements, he paid us, and then Potter.
24:03
Speaker 1: I think Potter is worried that he might be the
24:06
Speaker 1: victim of violence here because he says, look, if you
24:09
Speaker 1: guys hadn't stolen the box of ticket receipts, I would
24:13
Speaker 1: refund the cost for every single person in the audience.
24:16
Speaker 1: He didn't even mention if you guys hadn't destroyed my theater,
24:19
Speaker 1: I would refund it. Oh, I know that this is
24:21
Speaker 1: the guy that got screwed in all of this, the
24:23
Speaker 1: fourth small business owner. I mean, you know, no one
24:26
Speaker 1: was injured in any of this. Um, I think the
24:29
Speaker 1: worst thing that happened was there was a young nobleman
24:32
Speaker 1: who slightly injured his chin um and also the brother
24:38
Speaker 1: of the king at the time, the Duke of Cumberland.
24:41
Speaker 1: Um was able to escape, but sadly lost his jeweled sword.
24:46
Speaker 1: His jeweled sword, Ben. I mean, you don't want to
24:49
Speaker 1: walk around with an undecorated sword like a Jabroni and
24:53
Speaker 1: you imagine what people would say. You've got a certain expectation.
24:57
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. We don't know for sure who
25:02
Speaker 1: the culprit was, but we're like I would say, eighty
25:07
Speaker 1: percent sure it was a guy named John Montague, the
25:10
Speaker 1: second Duke of Montague. Uh. He he had the bona
25:14
Speaker 1: fides for it. He was a known practical joker, right,
25:18
Speaker 1: Uh he was. He He fit the profile of the
25:21
Speaker 1: kind of prankster who would think this was worth a giggle. Yeah,
25:25
Speaker 1: he was a known uh, sort of man child. I
25:30
Speaker 1: guess there's a description of him by his mother in
25:34
Speaker 1: law as um quote, having all the talents that lie
25:39
Speaker 1: in things only natural and boys of fifteen years old. Uh,
25:43
Speaker 1: and he at the time was about forty two years old.
25:47
Speaker 1: He would occasionally, this is again from her account, get
25:50
Speaker 1: people into his garden and wet them with squirts city
25:55
Speaker 1: and invite people to his country houses, and put things
25:59
Speaker 1: in beds to make them itch and twenty such pretty
26:03
Speaker 1: fancies as these. What a guy. Here's why we think
26:08
Speaker 1: that he was involved so earlier in the year, earlier
26:12
Speaker 1: in seventeen forty nine now or a bunch of uh,
26:16
Speaker 1: distinguished Englishmen that we're talking about human gullibility, right, about
26:21
Speaker 1: how credulous people can be. And among them were the
26:25
Speaker 1: Duke of Portland's, the Duke of Montague, and the Earl
26:28
Speaker 1: of Chesterfield. This comes to us again from the Paris Review.
26:32
Speaker 1: One of the dukes said something like, I will wage
26:36
Speaker 1: of that letterman advertised, the most impossible thing in the world.
26:40
Speaker 1: He will find fools enough in London to fill a
26:43
Speaker 1: playhouse and pay handsomely for the privilege of being there.
26:48
Speaker 1: And then accordingly, you know, apparently the Earl of Chesterfield
26:51
Speaker 1: is like, for sure, surely if a man should say
26:55
Speaker 1: that he would jump into a court bottle, nobody would
26:58
Speaker 1: believe that. Uh. And they argued back and forth about this. Uh.
27:03
Speaker 1: And apparently the Duke of Montague made a wager, you know,
27:06
Speaker 1: if this guy existed. Now, I would not be surprised
27:10
Speaker 1: if he had a show like Nathan for You or
27:13
Speaker 1: Jackass or something. Uh And and people would watch it.
27:17
Speaker 1: But that's that's what we think happened. We think it
27:19
Speaker 1: was a bet that went wrong for the public but
27:23
Speaker 1: went very very right for the Mary prankster, the Duke
27:26
Speaker 1: of Montague. Yeah, but again, like his summer homes. And
27:30
Speaker 1: this guy's like totally screwing over a small business owner.
27:33
Speaker 1: I mean I call it a small business. I mean
27:34
Speaker 1: obviously the it's a theater. Dude obviously had you know, means,
27:39
Speaker 1: but totally annihilated this working gentleman's livelihood, you know, for
27:44
Speaker 1: a lark. I mean, this guy seems like a real
27:47
Speaker 1: piece of work if you ask me, the worst of
27:49
Speaker 1: the worst of the upper class. And this really represents
27:52
Speaker 1: the kind of flippant, you know, banality of evil kind
27:56
Speaker 1: of thing. Uh. For his own amusement. Just watch in
28:00
Speaker 1: the world burn because he's too bored to do anything
28:03
Speaker 1: else And and the description from his mother in law
28:05
Speaker 1: holds true. Yeah, you know, it reminds me of the
28:08
Speaker 1: Bullingdon Club. Have you guys ever heard of the Bullingdon Club.
28:12
Speaker 1: It's an elite dining club at Oxford University. Dining clubs
28:17
Speaker 1: are you know just what they sound like. It's where
28:20
Speaker 1: a social group gets together and they have dinner discussion.
28:23
Speaker 1: Sometimes they have guest speakers. But the Bullingden Club is
28:26
Speaker 1: different from the more prestigious dining clubs because they have
28:32
Speaker 1: this practice where they would they were known for going
28:36
Speaker 1: on these big banquets and then vandalizing the restaurants they
28:39
Speaker 1: went to. And this is like not something where a
28:42
Speaker 1: party gets out of hand. It's what they do because
28:45
Speaker 1: they think it's a funny prank. They also like they
28:49
Speaker 1: they're really hoity toity. Membership is super expensive and uh,
28:54
Speaker 1: super exclusive. The one thing they do that makes it right.
28:58
Speaker 1: One of the reasons Bullington is tinue for so long
29:01
Speaker 1: is their members have to have a tradition of pain
29:05
Speaker 1: on the spot for damage. So, like, how aristocratic and
29:09
Speaker 1: jerk like is that you intentionally ruin someone's restaurant and
29:13
Speaker 1: they say you've done thousands of dollars of damage and
29:15
Speaker 1: then you say, okay, here's fifty grand. Get out of
29:18
Speaker 1: my face. Like that's the kind of mentality and we
29:21
Speaker 1: can joke about it. But but but I think socially
29:24
Speaker 1: there's a lot to be said here, and that's that's
29:27
Speaker 1: where the bottle conjuror hoax ends. Thankfully, Right, the city
29:32
Speaker 1: didn't descend into multiple riots over this. It was just
29:35
Speaker 1: the one, right, it was just the one. Yeah, But
29:38
Speaker 1: it's uh, I don't know. It's an interesting testament to uh,
29:41
Speaker 1: the willful suspension of disbelief by the public um, the
29:46
Speaker 1: idea of all of the kind of tricklings of history
29:49
Speaker 1: of England, uh and belief in magic, and the kind
29:53
Speaker 1: of high water mark of where those two things sort
29:55
Speaker 1: of meat um and become more of a modern thing
29:58
Speaker 1: as people sort of opt believing in magic. But I
30:02
Speaker 1: really do think that the actual riotous nature of this
30:05
Speaker 1: had to do with um. People were just so worked
30:08
Speaker 1: up over the potential of what this thing had to
30:11
Speaker 1: offer that they felt as though they'd been cheated in
30:14
Speaker 1: some way. But obviously they were gonna get their money back.
30:16
Speaker 1: But they that wasn't enough for them. They wanted to actually, uh,
30:19
Speaker 1: you know, tear the place apart, piece by piece and
30:22
Speaker 1: then set it all on fire in the streets. Um.
30:25
Speaker 1: That is a very fascinating impulse to me, and for
30:27
Speaker 1: the mob to have taken to it so quickly really
30:30
Speaker 1: speaks to kind of the mentality of the time. I
30:32
Speaker 1: think it's interesting and greed and we'd like to hear
30:35
Speaker 1: your stories about some more terrible, terrible things in history
30:41
Speaker 1: that are associated directly with stage magicians. Uh and Uh,
30:46
Speaker 1: I'd like to hear about him especially. I'm kidding j K,
30:50
Speaker 1: j K not JK, But thank you for tuning in, folks.
30:54
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our super producer Casey Pegram missed
30:59
Speaker 1: them lat episode in the credits, but shout out as
31:02
Speaker 1: always to our own Alex Williams uh the designated Ridiculous
31:06
Speaker 1: History composer, at least for that song that we love.
31:09
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I gotta love Alex. Thanks to Gabe Luzier,
31:13
Speaker 1: our Reachard associate extraordinaire. Thanks to Christopher Aciotes here in spirit,
31:16
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, the notorious uh and and and dubious quister. Um,
31:21
Speaker 1: We'll have to have him back from his particular bunker.
31:24
Speaker 1: I think it's like a holid out um snow cap
31:27
Speaker 1: in Antarctica or something. Right, Yeah, it's it's been a while,
31:31
Speaker 1: you know, and he was already kind of well. I
31:34
Speaker 1: guess madness is its own isolation, you know what I mean.
31:38
Speaker 1: So I hope you hear that. Uh So as always,
31:42
Speaker 1: UM as always we uh we can't wait to get
31:45
Speaker 1: back to on the next episode. Uh. You can find
31:48
Speaker 1: us all over the internet. We're on Instagram, Facebook, and
31:51
Speaker 1: Twitter and of course uh as as I always like
31:55
Speaker 1: to say, for any show we do, uh, we are
31:57
Speaker 1: open to criticism or complaints to send them to directly
32:01
Speaker 1: to our complaint email. That is Jonathan Strickland at iHeartMedia
32:05
Speaker 1: dot com Open seven. Don't be don't be afraid he's
32:10
Speaker 1: gonna kill me. Don't be afraid to make your voice
32:13
Speaker 1: known specifically there. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
32:25
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
32:28
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.