Do Go On - The Great Stork Derby - Do Go On Mini

Episode Date: July 6, 2020

When Canadian lawyer Charles Vance Millar died, he set up a bizarre will that would give his fortune to the woman that gave birth to the most children over the next ten years. The strangest contest in history, this is the story of The Great Stork Derby.This is the podcast version of episode seven of our new web series that we made with Stupid Old Studios. You can watch the video of the episode complete with animations, props and lots and lots of regret face right now on The Stupid Old Channel YouTube page (link below).Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9DXtQiqQH-o Our website: dogoonpod.comSupport the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPod Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-Topic Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasReferences and further reading:https://torontoist.com/2016/10/historicist-the-stork-derby/https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-great-stork-derby/https://boingboing.net/2018/11/21/the-great-stork-derby-rewarded.htmlhttps://www.thisamericanlife.org/668/transcript Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenjai Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Hi everyone, it's Dave and Jess here dropping into your feed. Hello, we are just dropping in to let you know that, I mean, we've let you know several times.

Surely by now you know, but we have a brand new web series up on YouTube. And what you're about to hear is a little taste of that web series. That's right, the audio only version. So this totally works as a podcast. But if you want to see the visuals, our faces, some animation, lots of sexy ones. stuff this week. Oh, yes. Oh my. Oh my gosh, to be honest. A little too sexy. Yeah, I thought, oh, boy. Yeah, for some of you, the audio may be enough. But if you want to see more of it, you can click the, uh, in the description of this episode, there's a very easy link to click and it'll

take you straight to the web series. And this week, I'm doing a report, as I'm about to tell you, on the great stalk derby slash derby. And it is a wild time. It's a lot of fun. This is a very fun episode. And there's a couple of more, uh, episodes of the web series still to come. But we've had a lot of fun with it. And we hope you've enjoyed listening slash watching them. All right. Thanks so much. Bye-bye. How far would you go to win a bet?

What if $10 million was on the line? When a Canadian lawyer died, he set up a bizarre will that would give his fortune to the woman that gave birth to the most children over the next 10 years. And things got a little weird. Let me tell you about the great stork derby. Hello and welcome to the library. My name is Dave Warnocky and I'm sitting in the library with Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart.

Hello. What are you doing? Trying to rebrand the show, you know, call it the library. Oh. Do you like that? No. Okay, well, whatever you want to call it, we'll call it that. Thank you, correct.

All right. No, we're calling it Thank you, Correct. Yeah, welcome to Thank you Correct. You want to run it again. Yeah, start again. Hello and welcome to Thank you Correct. My name is Dave Warnocky and I'm here. Sorry, I'm going to stop you right there.

Your name, Dave Warnocky. That doesn't sound too, I don't like it. Your name is Max. Power. Go again. Hello and welcome to Thank You Correct. My name is Max Power and I'm sitting here with Jeremy Withers and Christine Bloop. Oh Bloop. Sorry, Anu's my middle name. Christine Arnaud Blupe. Hello, I'm Jeremy Withers. So good to be here. Are you happy with what you've done?

Yeah, look what you've done. This all happened because you try to rebrand as the library and now we're here. I think we should have stuck with the library. But anyway, guys, today we're talking about a very strange will. When there's a strange will, there's a strange way. Yeah, there's a strange way about this episode. Now, often on our podcast, too, go on, over the years, we've talked about people that have given birth to lots of children. And every time we do that, we ask, what's the question we asked, yes?

Do they know what's causing it? And where does that come from? It comes from my dad. I mean, he definitely didn't think of it himself. He was the one causing all the kids. That's where he comes from? Yeah. He caused a lot of kids.

It's been busy old, John. No, something my dad always says if somebody is from a really large family, which he is, but he'll always say, well, do they know what's cool, isn't it? And he laughs every time. And others. No, honestly, John, I'm with you on this one. Every time is funny. Every time.

I feel like that question's going to come up a lot today. I feel like we're going to try and answer that question here today. Welcome to Inside the Actors Studio. This is where we go behind the scenes. Where some podcast sayings come from? Today we're talking about John Perkins and his classic saying, they know what's causing it. With me, Jeremy Withers.

Welcome, Jeremy. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm Jeremy Withers. That's another option we could use. I like it. I like it. I also like that Jeremy Withers catchphrases, I'm Jeremy Withers.

I think that's pretty cool, you know? He knows who he is. I respect that. Does he know who he isn't? No. Okay. Two separate questions. Obviously not.

All right, let me tell you about the great stalk derby. Now, Charles Vance Miller. Oh, good name. Was born in Canada in 1854 and died 72 years later in Toronto. 72. It's a good innings. You did all right in that time. And in that time, he built quite a fortune as a lawyer,

but also as the president and part owner of the Oak Heaf Brewing Company. Okay. Is it a brewing? Now Matt's listening. Yeah, a beer, okay. Brewing. Hello, that sounds fantastic. You had me, a lawyer.

Are you sure? You're saying derbish. Can you can Canadian say Darby, like the proper way? I'm sticking with Derby. Okay. I support you. Thank you so much. I will talk about you behind you back.

I know. Do you believe he's saying Derby? Derby? Derpy, more like it. Derpy derpy. Derby sounds, no. Just blame our Australian accent. So it's a different culture here.

We'd say Derby. Yeah, guys. And then you cover it. But we don't say Derby. Shut up. Okay. If we say it, then we're covered. And anybody who has a go at us for how we say it, we get to call them racist.

I'm pretty sure in North America, they say Derby. there you go derby but in the Queens Canada where they speak proper English A

Now Charles Miller never married and had no children Of his own He never figured out What was causing No He tried

He tried He didn't know how to make them Basically he didn't know How to talk to women Yeah That was his problem But he spent his spare time At the racing stable

Where he owned horses And there were good horses Too In 1915 His horse Tartarine it won the king's plate, now known as the Queen's plate, which is Canada's oldest thoroughbred horse race. Cool. You can only assume it's there, Melbourne Cartham.

Yeah. He later donated the large racing cash prize to the hospital for sick children. Aw. So you're thinking, he sounds like he's a great guy. Nice guy. He hates him in a good light. But he also held the view that every man has his price. And his idea of a good time was to leave $1 bills on the ground and hide behind a bush and watch as people picked them up.

prank you? What's the prank? How did he prank them? He put a dollar bill down and someone picked up and went, oh, I found a dollar. Yeah, it wasn't attached to a fishing rod or anything like that. It was just on the ground and he was going, I wouldn't pick up a dollar, but this person would. A dollar back then. It's worth three, four million bucks now.

Yeah, I'd pick that up. Told you he was rich. I'd pick up a dollar now, you know? Yeah. But when I go to the supermarket, I'm going to put a coin in to get a trolley. And I'm always like, God damn it, I don't have any coins. I was at the pub the other day and I went down. pick up a dollar. It was a bottle cap. And you still kept it?

I said. I've got it right now. Unfortunately, my local milk bar will not accept it. We're having a furious argument right now. Over text. You text your milk bar? Yeah. You don't text your milk bar? Absolutely. I'm always like morning Jerry, got me milk. And he's like, yeah, Jess, it's what I mostly sell. You ever rise back, no. Something's gone wrong at Jerry's milk. I know. And then I don't bother going. I need to make sure it's there before I go and get it. I just wrote a really sternly worded little missive there, and I don't think we'll be hearing another word out of old Kenny Jiminy. Kenny Jiminy runs the best milk bar this side of town.

You're just thinking it was to go with Kenny G, wasn't it? Well, I think I smoothly got away with it, just like our friend Kenny Jiminy. Imagine Kenny G owning a milk bar is pretty fun. That's a fun idea. But imagine this fun prank, right? You put a dollar on the ground and you hide behind a bush, wait, stay with me. And then someone picks it up and they walk away with it. And he just get to watch him go.

Because every man has his price. It's the lamest thing I've ever heard. Well, he had terrible pranks in life, but his pranks in death were a lot better. I already told you he died at the age of 72 in 1926 and he died a wealthy, wealthy man. But with no children or a partner, people wondered where his fortune would go. A lot of his friends thought he'd be donating to something like the local university as he sometimes talked about that. Oh, he sometimes talked about it. This is why I'm always nice to old people, because you never know.

They might have no one but you. You hear stories of like, yeah, people befriending their elderly neighbour and then they pass away and that person just inherits like something cool. So yeah, I'm always friendly to old people. I've never heard that story. It happens. But I'm trying to hear it when it happens to me. Well, I'm starting to wonder why you two became friends with me.

Yeah, you're so close to the grave. So close. And I assume you've got money somewhere. You could leave me a box of band t-shirts. Okay. You got a lot of them. I do. They're all yours.

I'd love them to, their legacy to live on. Beautiful. Great. There you go. See? It works. Great. So I'm going to wash the car with.

Love it. Rags. Rags. Hoor A box of rags. Appreciate that. Thank you. I thought you had nothing. Turns out he's got rags. So people thought you might donate it to Toronto University,

but he decided to do something very different indeed. He decided to prank people from beyond the grave by leaving a very unusual will. Two dollars on the ground. Pick it up, your pigs. Two dollars left in his coffin. Whoever finds it keeps it. Probably the grave digger.

Imagine the amount of rags you could buy, $2. Oh, so many rags. From rags to riches, in a way. He wrote the will himself, after all, he was a lawyer with intricate knowledge of the law. He was written in crayon, but still. But still, but it was exquisitely written in crayon. The will was written as if to push the very boundaries of what would be accepted, and he acknowledged this writing in the will, quote, this will is necessarily uncommon and capricious because I have no dependence or near relations, and no duty rests upon me to leave any property at my death, and what I do leave is proof of my folly in gathering and retaining more than I required in my lifetime.

End quote. Okay. That's a beautiful quote. I zoned out, actually. Basically, I've got a lot of money. I've got no one to leave it too. So I'm going to have fun with it. Okay.

What do you say about Confucius there? Confucius he say, leave the will to the way. Thank you. Thank you. Let's just move on. Some of the things he left are people included. There's a few notes in the will. He left his shares in the Ontario Jockey Club to three people, two of

Two of whom were upstanding members of the community and who publicly opposed bedding on horse racing. And a third man who was the absolute opposite. And as a saloon and racetrack owner, he was known in the gambling community. So two upright citizens who hate gambling, one person who supports gambling. All three could only claim their shares, which were very valuable at 1,500 pounds worth in the day. But they could only get the money if they joined the club and agreed to do so as a group. But if one was out, they were all out. The two Conservatives did join the club for a token five minutes

just long enough to cash in their shares but I guess they had to sell out on their principles to get the money. Yeah, I'd do that. You thought that was a good time. Every man has his price. I think I have many principles that I wouldn't bend. For 1,500 pounds.

Yeah. Like even in today's money. Yeah, big time. Because that's what, three grand in Australia. Yeah, great. Please. Imagine all the things I could buy with that. What about a holiday home?

In Kingston, Jamaica, which he left, to three lawyers that he knew hated each other. The deal was if one of them sold, all the money would be donated to feed the poor. It later turned out to be a double prank on the lawyers, and Miller had already sold the home two years before his death, but he just wanted to fuck with them. Okay, that I don't like that.

So they had to go through working out a way with two people you hate only to find, there's no property in Kingston. It's like a weird sort of jigsaw. Yeah. It's from the saw. It's a very, very soft version of the sore films. Yeah.

And if you sell, poor people get fed. Okay. All right. Sounds great, actually. I want to play a game too. All right. He also left some of his stock in the brewery to very conservative pastors who were publicly in favor of prohibition. Again, to cash out.

They had to sell out their principles. But the most famous entry in the will that would come to be associated with him is what is known as the Great Stork Derby. Or Derby. Or Derby. Edit as appropriate. It was the ninth clause. Really it was just two sentences that stated, the mother who gives birth in Toronto to the greatest number of children,

as shown by the registrations under the Vital Statistics Act, shall receive all the rest of my money. If one or more of the mothers have the equal highest number of registrations under the Act, they are to divide the said monies and accumulations equally between them. So if there's a tie, you split the cash. Super weird. And the money that he pledged was very sizable, equal to $9 million Canadian dollars in today's money,

which is $7 million US or $10 million Australian dollars. By today's money. That's insane. Crazy. So whoever has the most children in 10 years gets $10 million Australian dollars. That's so irresponsible. It's crazy. What?

It's irresponsible to reward people for giving birth to kids they possibly don't even want. Okay, if that's irresponsible then. Or can afford to look after? They can afford. They're going to get $10 million. Yeah, one of them's going to afford it. One of them. Yeah.

And the other ones can just put the babies in a bin or something. It doesn't matter. Just chuck them out. Just chuck them out if you don't need them. Is it a bin for the money or? Yeah. The bin is what he calls a cot. Oh, yeah.

Put him in the bin for a nap. Yeah, that's what we call it in Australia. I mean like in an old Victorian era orphanage. That's what I meant. In a bin. Oh, no. And what years is? Mush for dinner.

That sort of thing. Yeah. More mush. This is in like... 1926. Is that the Depression? Ah. Well...

It's getting up to it, isn't it? It's obviously a lot of money even in today's standards. Yeah, huge. But the decade after Miller's death would include part of the Great Depression. And Canada was hit very hard. Miller probably wouldn't have known this was coming.

Not many people saw it coming. Sure. But just to show how tough people had it, in 1933, between a quarter and a third of all working-edge Canadians were unemployed. People were really, really struggling to get by financially.

So this is a real carrot on the end of a stick. But if you don't win, then you have a bunch of kids and no jobs. This feels like a terrible idea. That's a lot of money. There's a lot of money. Is this a better prank than $1 on the ground and hide behind a bush? I don't know if he knows what a prank is. I don't think I know what a prank is based on this story.

I thought it would sort of be like holding a chair for someone and then when they go to sit down, you yank it out under them. And whoever does that the most intended. $10 million. Oh my God. The only difference is you yank the chair out from a pregnant woman. Yeah. He's about to have a record amount of babies.

That's funny. That is funny. Okay, now I get it. I know. I do. And in a 10-year period as well, like, there's no rest. It's like, pop one out, go again. How many do you reckon you can have in 10 years?

What are your predictions? What do you think, the most? Well, I know my Nana had 13 kids over a period of about 20 years. And, true, that was relatively non-stop. And that was without 10 million. million dollars on the line? No, no cash on the line. It was probably the opposite. Every kid was a little less money they had. My grandma had not eight in 15, 16 years, but there was twins in there. I think you've got to be going. You'd be hoping that twins or like triplets run in your family.

You know, most people if you found out you were pregnant with triplets, you'd be like, oh my God, you'd be a bit shocked. Excited, sure, but shocked. In this one, you'd be like, Thank you. You'd be like, take that. You'd be calling your kids Huey Dewey and Louie and opening up your money bin, I reckon. And any time you saw another mother in the park with one kid, you'd be like, nice try. Nice try, mona mum.

I'm so tired. But I'm going to be rich and tired. Yeah, that's perfect. So I'm guessing, based on maybe our family's experiences, maybe about seven, but probably we'll need a twin in there. Yeah, you've got to have a twin in there. You've got to have a multiple. It can't be, yeah, it's got to maybe.

So you have more than seven and ten years to be wild. So it's nine months it takes, right? Yeah. And if you're like, if you're getting it done straight away, what's that, nine months and then the next one's, like, 18 months. I don't think you can't even give birth the very next day. Let's speed up this gestation period. I know that you can see, can conceive one than a very next day, can you?

It can happen pretty soon after, but it's pretty rare. Let's say, let's say a year each, then it's 10. Yeah. So 10 is like, would be wild. 10 would be insane. Oh my goodness. That would be insane. So it's a crazy will.

And the will really took Miller's friends by surprise, and people started to speculate as to why he'd made the stipulation in the first place. Was it a joke? Had he figured that it would just be rejected by a judge? He's very good with the law, but nothing like this has ever been written before. Does he actually expect it to be upheld? Some said he was trying to shine a spotlight on contraception

and get people talking about it. He apparently was very pro contraception in life. I'm starting a conversation. But he is essentially doing the opposite though. Yeah, because he's making people do it. Oh. Without contraception. I reckon what happened here is he thought he'd become a ghost

and he'd get to watch a lot of people boning. Oh, yeah, he's a big pair. And he's like, I did this. I'm involved. You're doing this because of me. Yeah. Yeah, this is kind of a threesome technically. Technically, I'm in it.

I'm on you. I'm lying. I'm sort of floating through you. Oh, actually, that grossed me out. I'm going to go in the corner, but I'm going to still watch. Oh, I felt weird going through you. Oh, God. It's very cold.

What's his name again? Charles. Charles. You do. Dog, Charles. Giles, you dog. Charlie. So their two theories, the third theory, the one that I tend to favor is that was he just a dick?

I wanted to prove yet again his favorite phrase, every man has his prize. A lengthy court battle was also fought over the mill of fortune by some of his distant relatives that suddenly appeared after his death. As they do, yeah. As ghosts. No, as non- ghosts. And they all made claims to the cash.

The case continued through the court and eventually reached the Supreme Court, which was tasked with determining if the clause was in fact legal. Was it a moral to encourage women to give birth just for a competition? The case lasted for years and was, extremely complicated. So there's people arguing about whether it's legal and also relatives trying to sue and be like, yeah, that's illegal, I'll have it, and buy off the money. The media had fun reporting on Miller's Strange Will early on talking about the house in Jamaica

and the priests and all that kind of stuff, but it didn't actually seem to kick off any baby-making competition, especially when it might not actually be held up. Yeah. Imagine if you were giving birth to six babies only to discover that it's not, you're not eligible. Yeah, and then you've got six kids. Yeah, so people weren't rolling the dice on it until they're found out it's happening. To me, that's stupid. Because if you're going to roll the dice on it, roll the dice. Get started. You'd be smart to jump everyone else who is waiting back, especially if you could somehow already be pregnant when it started. Because some people would have been pregnant when... You are very on the money today. Oh, today. It is rare, yes.

We're pointing out. If we got a banner on here, Evan, saying congratulations, Matt. You're finally right? No, he's not... I mean, he's close. Well, let me tell you how you're right. Bill's good. Six years after Miller had died, the Attorney General got sick of the case and tried to pass a bill that would reject the will and instead donate all of the money to Toronto University.

But this was a bit of a mistake and actually drew more attention to the case and people rallied against this decision. Some groups, you might not actually expect to get behind it. Women's groups were in favour of the contest being recognised because as they saw it, why shouldn't women be allowed to have a crack of the money? Yeah, okay, yeah, sure. I mean, you can't do it alone, so it's, you can't, why shouldn't

people be allowed to, you know? But it is the woman who gives birth the most, who gets rewarded with the money. Other people just didn't want the government intervening. After receiving 14,000 letters that basically told them to keep their stinking mits off the money, the government withdrew their proposal and allowed the competition to go ahead. So six years in, it's officially on. Right. But is it starting back then?

No. The clock has been ticking this whole time. And now it's been widely publicised, the media went crazy for the story. But as I just stated, six of the ten years have already expired. Right. There were only four years left before the competition expired. It's a short of someone giving birth to octuplets, the woman who was most likely to win,

had probably already given birth to lots of children in the previous years. Yeah, she just had to top it up a little bit. Yeah, you just had four more years. I've already got eight kids. Four more years, let's kick on. I've already got eight kids. I can go for triplets. Yeah.

Take me up, round me up to a beautiful 11. The media looked up birth records and went and knocked on the doors of women who had had multiple births, being like, you're in, you're in with a chance. Someone had already had six births in the previous six years. So already one for one. All right. That's a hot streak. They're on a heater. Just don't think about it.

Don't get in your own way. Just keep it going. Just keep going. Be the ball and throw yourself or whatever. So in a way, it's less fucked than I'd originally thought because, I mean, this will is still definitely fuck. up, don't get me wrong. But the people that have a shot at winning have already had multiple births without any monetary incentive. Yeah, yeah. So you've already had six births in six years. That was just how you were living your life. The old days just used to be like that.

They didn't have a lot to do. Yeah. You know, there weren't, there wasn't Netflix. And so of course you just fuck the whole time. Controception was really, it was frowned upon, right? Yeah, yeah, big time. So those are the big Catholic families and stuff. Yeah. And you're right, no Netflix. No Netflix. So he's like, well, what do we do? but there was chill. I've read the newspaper. It was all chill, baby. I've read the newspaper three times.

Guess we may as well get our freak on. Let's go again. Lay the newspaper down. Let's not make a mess. I had sheets. Oh. I don't know. Wow, okay.

So some people already, that's crazy. You'd think they'd just started again, but they've just been fighting it for so long. Oh, yeah. So long it's four years to go. Because if it's written, it's got to be in the 10 years after he dies. Is that why?

Because it does feel unfair or very fair. So he died on Halloween 1926. Right. 10 years from that date, Halloween 1936, that's when it stops. Just to give you a bit of context, in 1933, six and a big years into the competition, technically time-wise, the five women leading the race had 56 kids between them. Sorry, what? 32 had been born in the competition stated time limit. So some of them had already six in six years, but before that, they've already got...

four or five. They've got 11 or something. Wow. What? We're going to keep going. Yeah. No. No. Five women, 56 kids between them. So it's an average of 11.2. Oh. Oh. You guys aren't feeling the same way I am because your bodies can't birth children. Yeah, I'm the other way. I'm like, well, it's 11.2 good times. Oh. But I also, I grew up with a fan, like, one side of my family with, third. kids. So it doesn't even seem crazy to me. I know. No, no, no. Me too. I came from big families, but I'm just thinking about them coming out of my body. That's what's getting in my head. Well, my Swiss Italian Nana, she lived

that. Yeah. But was it over 20 years she gave birth to 13 years. Yeah, I think it was around. So I think when my youngest auntie was born, my eldest auntie was already an adult. Yeah. Yeah. My dad's, oldest brother is 16 years older than him. Right. Something like that. Big gaps. Oh. The gaps is exactly what ended up happening. Don't you hide your regret face. You regret straight down that camera.

So it became huge news around Canada and around the world. And some newspapers even paid mothers for exclusive interviews and updates on their progress, creating sort of characters out of them. Let's check in with Mrs Smith. So they're all getting some cash anyway along the way. Yeah, a little bit just to make sure you don't talk to the other newspaper. You talk to me. You tell me when you're going.

you're pregnant, you announce it to me. Don't tell your husband. Tell me. Don't tell you family. I love these stories because people always talk about modern media of having lost the plot. All these, all this scandal bullshit. It's all sensationalist stuff. It's like, oh, that's the media forever by the same thing. Yeah, apparently it got a bit crazy. Like some of the women were being hounded and they weren't really interested. They were just like, I've just got six kids. Yeah. I'm living my life and now you're like, you know, making a character out of me. And if anything tragic ever happened, and they lost one of the pregnancies or anything like that.

They talk about it in the context of the competition rather than obviously a tragic event for a family. Yeah, exactly. Oh, you're not going to get the money now. How do you feel about that? It's like, I'm actually going through some serious tragedy here. Far out. But these are the reporters that coined the phrase the great stalk derby, derby.

So they came up with something good. Yeah, exactly. And that's what it's known to history has. So the 10-year period came to an end on Halloween 1936. Spooky. And at that time, it was not immediately clear who had won. Six women all claimed to have had nine births in the 10-year period. Perfect. That's a bunch of money for all of them. Yes. Great result. Well done. But then there's a one woman who's trying to beat the clock. She's pushing so hard. It's 1158. It's also only two months into her pregnancy. But she's trying. But still, it's 1158. But questions were asked. The competition didn't really have rules stated in Miller's two-sentence description. He was pretty vague about it.

Did the children have to be born in wedlock to count? Oh, come on. If that's not written, then no, surely. If you've birthed a kid, it counts. It counts, right? If your body's gone through trauma, it counts. Does it have to be a human? Because some of them got some puppies.

What about that? Didn't say anything about that. As long as the puppies were born in wedlock. Okay. If you were married to the puppy, it's okay. Well, to the dog. Tragically, they also debated whether still births counted in the total. So you've given birth, the baby hasn't survived.

Does that still count? Obviously, extremely traumatic event for any mother, and now they're debating about that. So there were legal challenges are plenty with each woman getting a lawyer to represent them. Cool. So six claiming. Racking out some kind of legal fees.

Well, I don't know, maybe this guy was a lawyer, was that his plan all along to get his lawyer friends rich. Now, in the end, the court ruled that four women should share the money for giving birth to nine children. The winning women were Annie Catherine Smith, Kathleen Ellen Nagel, Lucy Alice Timlek, and Isabel Mary McLean. All had nine children. Nine children, and they'd split the money four ways.

Wow. Cool two and a half million Aussie dollars these days. Two women were left out of this, because six were claiming it. Pauline May Clark's claims were rejected, because her children had been born to two different men, one of whom wasn't her husband, and it was ruled that only, quote, legitimate children should count, despite that stipulation not being written anywhere in Miller's world.

I mean, they're alive, they're human beings, and she gave birth to them. It's just a very conservative society, and the judge ruled that that's what Miller would have wanted, even though he never said that. That'd feel good for that kid, too, hey? Yeah. What's that? I'm not, oh, okay. Okay, thank you.

I'm not a real... Okay, I don't exist. The other lady who was left out is even more tragic, and that is Lillian Kenny, who had her claim rejected because two of her births were still born. And again, despite it not saying that in the will, remember, all it said was to the mother

who has since my death given birth in Toronto to the greatest number of children, but they didn't live, and the judge ruled that because the children didn't survive, that they didn't count on the total, and she was knocked down to seven. Imagine being that judge.

What a wild thing to... Yeah, so she doesn't get... Because it's not, it's like he had to make that decision. It would have been a, no. But they, yeah, it's like it would make sense. He would have had to have found a way to make that ruling rather than just going, oh, well, it's not written there. So obviously they will win.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So why not split it six ways and you're all still very rich? Totally. But I do have some better news. And that is Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Kenny both challenged the decision in court, resulting in an out-of-court settlement where each woman, received $12,500, which is about 10% of what the other winning women received. So in the end, they got something.

And where did that money come from? They actually challenged against the government, and they decided to, rather than have a lengthy court battle, we'll pay you out this money to stop the proceedings. I would have thought it would be nice if all the mum sort of banded together and the ones who did win just split it anyway. I know, because it was a lot of money. In the end, if the winner's got $2.5 million, Ozzy, Clark and Kenny both got about $250,000.

Still pretty good. So still sizable, especially during the Great Depression. Yeah. I have read that the families all lived quite sensibly and frugally after their windfalls. But according to the Torontoist, Kenny had a fondness for taxi rides and once paid for a round trip to Niagara Falls with a $100 bill, which is about $1,600 US dollars in today's money. Oh, my God. She just like taxis. I love taxis.

And the dead man. God, Uber would blow her mind. I reckon it would get a little mint and a wend, a wend, wow. Water model. I like. Imagine a helicopter. Oh my God. Oh yeah, there'd be so many other things

that would blow my mind to. Imagine Netflix. That'd blow my mind. Hovercraft. And the dead man miller's distant relatives laying claim to the money? Well, they got nothing. Good.

That must feel so weird. Oh, this guy, yeah, I believe that we're vaguely related. Give me his stuff. Please. Yeah, well, as you can see, money does weird things to people and every man has his price. Yeah, look, I don't deny that.

I would do nearly any. for the right amount of money. Yeah. Mewy? Probably anything. Make us an offer in the comments below. It's hard to say how many children were born because of the competition, again, because these people already had big families at the time.

But we finally have an answer. Do they know what's causing it? Turns out it's an eccentric Canadian millionaire with too much money. There you go, there's your answer, Dad. Now stop asking it. I hope you're watching Dad. Is he my dad too? Yes.

Yeah, I hope you're watching our Dad. what's his name again? John. John. Dad. Dad. I call him dad so I don't know his name. He never learned his name.

I never learned his name. Don't need to. Don't need to because he's dad to me. Just dad. Anyway, dad. Thanks for over then. Squire. You did it.

We did it. I'm sorry. I didn't want to. Hey, hey. I didn't want to do this. Shut the fuck up. Hey. I didn't.

Matt, shut the fuck up. Hey. Shh. You're really bringing us down. Thank you. Shut the fuck. Sorry, I've just got a text from my milk bar. You banned for life?

Yeah. No more musk sticks. Oh no. Oh, no more big bosses. Oof, big bosses. Well, that's it for the great stalk derby slash derby. Now, this is a spinoff of our podcast. Do go on with over 200 episodes to listen to.

If you like this topic, check out some of our other crazy but true story episodes like The Collar Bomb Heist, the Video Game Crash, the Mouse Universe, experiments and the Barclay Marathon. Subscribe for free on your favourite podcast app and be sure to subscribe to this channel to check out our other videos. Good job, Dave. Thank you.

How many kids do you reckon we could have? Oh, in 10 years? Yeah. What are the, nine? Nine in ten. Nine and ten. That annoys me. Go for one more.

All right. You know, have twins. Is it that much to ask? None of them have twins. None of them had twins. Six had nine. Amazing. Nice.

Okay, now I'm back on board. Nice. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to Manchester. We were just in Manchester.

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Ha ha ha.