Futility Closet - 033-Death and Robert Todd Lincoln

Episode Date: November 10, 2014

Abraham Lincoln's eldest son, Robert, is the subject of a grim coincidence in American history: He's the only person known to have been present or nearby at the assassinations of three American presidents. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we describe the circumstances of each misfortune and explore some further coincidences regarding Robert's brushes with fatality. We also consider whether a chimpanzee deserves a day in court and puzzle over why Australia would demolish a perfectly good building. Sources for our segment on Robert Todd Lincoln: Jason Emerson, Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln, 2012. Charles Lachman, The Last Lincolns: The Rise and Fall of a Great American Family, 2008. Merrill D. Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, 1994. Ralph Gary, Following in Lincoln's Footsteps, 2002. Sources for the listener mail segment: "Lyman Dillon and the Military Road," Tri-County Historical Society (accessed 11/06/2014). Charles Siebert, "Should a Chimp Be Able to Sue Its Owner?", New York Times Magazine, April 23, 2014. This week's lateral thinking puzzle is from Paul Sloane and Des MacHale's 1994 book Great Lateral Thinking Puzzles. Some corroboration is here (warning: this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [e-mail]. Thanks for listening!

Welcome to Futility Closet, a celebration of the quirky and the curious, the thought-provoking and the simply amusing. This is the audio companion to the popular website that catalogs more than 8,000 curiosities in history, language, mathematics, literature, philosophy, and art. You can find us online at futilitycloset.com. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to episode 33. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In today's show, we'll learn about Robert Todd Lincoln, sometimes known as the presidential angel of death because of his connection to three different presidential assassinations. We'll also consider whether a chimp deserves a day in court and puzzle over why Australia would demolish a perfectly good building. The first few decades of this country's history saw a fairly peaceful presidency, but after Lincoln's shooting in 1865, there was actually a spate of presidential assassinations.

After Lincoln, there was James Garfield in 1881 and William McKinley in 1901. So in the space of 36 years, three different presidents were shot to death. And it's an unhappy coincidence that there was one man who was nearby or involved somehow personally in all three of those, and that's Robert Todd Lincoln, Lincoln's eldest son. There's no particular pattern or significance to any of this. It's just a really unhappy coincidence. The most wrenching, I'm sure, for him personally was the death of his own father on April 15, 1865. Robert, that time was 21 years old. He was an officer in the army and had just returned from witnessing Lee's surrender at

Appomattox on April 9th, about a week earlier. After dinner on the 15th, Lincoln was planning a visit to the theater. He stopped by Robert's room in the White House and asked him about Lee's surrender, and they talked for a while. He invited Robert actually to come with him to the theater, but Robert declined. He said he was too tired after two weeks in the field and chose to just spend the night at the White House. And wound up spending it with his friend John Hay, his closest friend in the White House and the president's private secretary. They spent a quiet evening together, and then at 10 p.m. a guard found Robert in his room and told him that there were reports, confused reports abroad, that the president had been shot. Some people also said that members of the cabinet had been shot. It

seemed like there was just a lot of confusion. It wasn't clear that anyone had been shot. But the guard said, you'd better go down to the theater and see what it is. So he and John Hay got in a carriage and went. They were still half disbelieving the news until they were about a block and a half from the theater, and the carriage tried to turn into 10th Street, and there's just an enormous crowd blocking the whole street outside what's called the Peterson House, which is across the street from Ports Theater. And at that time, he started to believe that the reports were true. They got out of the carriage and made their way on foot there where a guard tried to block them. Robert said, it's my father, my father, I'm Robert Lincoln. And they let him inside.

Robert said, it's my father, my father, I'm Robert Lincoln, and they let him inside. And the doctors, his father's personal physician, Robert Stone, told him what had happened. And he got into the room where his father was lying on a bed, but had to sort of suppress his own grief because his mother was beside herself, as you can imagine, after what had happened. One witness reported, Captain Robert Lincoln bore himself with great firmness and constantly endeavored to assuage the grief of his mother by telling her to put her trust in God and all would be well. Occasionally being entirely overcome, he would retire to the hall and give vent to the most heart-rending lamentations. He would recover himself and return to his mother, and with remarkable self-possession,

try to cheer her broken spirits and lighten her load of sorrow. His conduct was the most remarkable exhibit of calmness in a trying hour that I have ever seen. So that was the first of, unfortunately, three different assassinations that he attended. The next one didn't happen for another 16 years, during which Robert, Mary and Abraham Lincoln actually had four children, all sons, and Robert was the oldest. He was actually the only one to survive into adulthood. So by the time he got to the Garfield administration,

where he served as Secretary of War, he'd lost not just his father but all of his brothers. So he was just surrounded by death all his life, really. But in July 1881, he was serving as Secretary of War with James Garfield. Garfield, after only four months in office, was traveling, departing on a trip to deliver a commencement address at his alma mater, Williams College in Massachusetts. And they were waiting, Lincoln was with him, they were standing on the train platform at the train station in Washington, D.C., and actually in the waiting room of the train station,

when a disgruntled office seeker named Charles Guiteau shot Garfield twice. Robert was right there. He said, I think I reached him in 15 seconds after the shot sounded. He found Garfield on his back with his eyes closed and his face as pale as death. Robert ran out of the station first, found his driver, and ordered him to get a doctor and then rushed back to the president. He wrote later, I was standing by the president as he lay on the floor upstairs on his mattress when he opened his eyes, saw me and reached out his hand to me. His color had greatly improved and he was at once

apparently the coolest man in the room, telling in a clear, strong voice the location of his pains in answer to the surgeons. In about half an hour, an ambulance was ready, and they drove Garfield to the White House. And Robert Todd Lincoln said from that time until Tuesday morning was hardly out of the White House. He chose the leader of the medical team, and he watched their efforts. We don't know his thoughts. He never said or wrote publicly about what he was thinking, but one reporter later wrote the scene undoubtedly called to his mind a similar tragic event in his own family history. Yeah, I was thinking it would be really hard to... It would be impossible to think that he didn't reflect on it. Right.

He was heard to mutter, how many hours of sorrow I have passed in this town, just muttering that to himself. Garfield lasted a long time, but died a few weeks later, unfortunately, as much due to an infection as to the bullet. There was a bullet in him that they couldn't find, and doctors didn't understand N-acestis very well at that point, so they kept feeling around for it, and he eventually died of the associated infection. So the doctors may have killed him more than the bullet. Unfortunately, I think that's true. Robert Lincoln's wife's friend, Minnie Chandler, wrote to her,

What an awful time these last two weeks must have been for your husband with the all-too-vividly revived associations. Think how near he comes to our two great national tragedies. So again, we don't know what he's thinking about all this, but there's another national tragedy just 20 years after that, William McKinley in September 1901. At this time, Robert was 58 years old. Robert wasn't an active part of the McKinley administration, but he had influence in there because his friend

John Hay, who he'd spent the night of his father's assassination with, was now Secretary of State in the McKinley administration. They were still friends. So McKinley invited Robert to meet with him at the Pan-American Exposition, which is a sort of World's Fair in Buffalo, in September 1901. McKinley there was shaking hands with the public when an anarchist named Leon Chogos shot him twice. At the time that he was shot, Lincoln's train was just pulling into the Buffalo station. He was just about to disembark when he received word that McKinley had been shot. And he rushed to the exhibition grounds where he found 25,000 people assembled outside the hospital.

And the New York Times reported that he visited with the president who died six days later. So he wasn't in Ford's Theater when his father was shot, but he was in the Peterson house when his father died. He was just a few yards from Garfield when he was shot, and his train was just arriving at the Buffalo station when McKinley was shot. He's sometimes called the presidential angel of death, and biographers can't seem to resist saying that he came to believe that he himself was cursed. The two quotes that you see nearly always thrown around when people talk about this is that supposedly he was invited to some future presidential event and said, if only they knew they wouldn't want me there. And there is a certain fatality about presidential functions when I am present.

There is no proof that he ever said either of those things. Did he actually say those? It's just you and I keep discovering this. People can't resist making something into a good story, even if it takes bending facts. It certainly is a good story. The closest quote I can find that has anything to do with this, and perhaps nothing, is that after McKinley was shot, his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt, assumed the presidency, and Lincoln wrote to Roosevelt, I do not congratulate you, for I have seen too much of the seamy side of the presidential robe to think of it as a desirable garment.

But I think that's probably just a quote about general cynicism about politics after so long, and it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the assassinations. I can't find anything that he ever said or wrote specifically about being involved with so many assassinations. I imagine he just regarded it as a coincidence,

which is really all it was. But I'll give you two further coincidences. I mean, this coincidence regarding death seemed to just follow him around. The first one, we have to go back to slightly before Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Robert Todd Lincoln couldn't remember whether this happened in 1863 or 1864. It's one of those two, so it's either one or two years before Lincoln's assassination. And it happened on a train platform in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Robert Todd Lincoln was standing on the platform waiting to get on the train and the press of the crowd kind of pushed him against the train, which started moving, and he slid down into the gap between the train and the platform, and someone pulled him out. This is how he described what happened later. The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from a conductor who stood on the station platform at the entrance of the car. The platform was about the height of the car

floor, and there was of course a narrow space between the platform and the car body. There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation, the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet and had dropped somewhat with feet downward into the open space and was personally helpless when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer, I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him and in doing so called him by name. He was well known because Edwin Booth was a celebrity. He was one of the foremost Shakespearean actors of the day. I don't think Booth recognized Robert Lincoln. At least I don't, I can't find any confirmation of that.

But it's an interesting coincidence because Edwin Booth was the older brother of John Wilkes Booth, who would kill Lincoln only a year or two later. So that is a weird coincidence. In about 1863, a member of the Booth family saved a Lincoln, and then one or two years later, a Booth killed a Lincoln. And then there's just one last coincidence here. There have only ever been four American presidents who have been assassinated, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and the last one was John Kennedy.

Robert Todd Lincoln died in 1926, so he was nowhere near John Kennedy when he was shot. But the last coincidence is that they're both buried at Arlington National Cemetery. So you could say that Robert Todd Lincoln was connected personally in some sense with the deaths of all four assassinated American presidents. That is like an astounding coincidence. I mean, there have been so few assassinations. There were only three in his lifetime, and he was somehow connected with each one of the three that occurred in his own lifetime. And there had been none before that. I mean, his father, Lincoln, was the 16th president. So when Robert was a boy, no American president had ever

been shot. And then this just calamitous misfortune, one after another, just seemed to dog him during his life. Too bad we don't know what he thought about it. No. It would have been interesting to know his own thoughts on it. Yeah. As we mentioned on our show last week, there's now a new Futility Closet book. Futility Closet 2, a second trove of intriguing tidbits. Like the first book, it's filled with hundreds of little chunks of mental candy. A mix of quirky oddities and curiosities, funky inventions, nifty words, and brain-teasing puzzles. Perfect for whenever you need a few minutes of mental entertainment.

So look for it on Amazon and learn about an 1864 letter from Charles Dickens to a chimney sweep, a British Army private who spent three years in a French cupboard, and the astronaut who submitted a travel voucher for his trip aboard Gemini 10. In episode 32, Greg mentioned that he had come across a reference to Lyman Dillon plowing a furrow between Iowa City and Dubuque in 1839. He asked if anyone was able to confirm this or had more information about it to please let us know, and both Kyle Davis and Kieran Leopold in Iowa did just that. Kieran says, I am not a native Iowa Citian, but I live here now and travel along Dillon's furrow frequently as I visit my in-laws in Dubuque. The route is approximately 80 to 90

miles. Dillon was a merchant living in the town of Cascade, south of Dubuque, and was hired to create the furrow as a guideline for settlers making the voyage until a road could be constructed. Both Kyle and Kieran sent in a link to an account of the furrow by the Tri-County Historical Society. This account says, Lyman began his work in the fall of 1839. He used a team of 10 oxen and a large sod-breaking plow. Dillon was paid $3 a mile to plow the 86-mile furrow. His provisions were carried in a covered wagon drawn by two horses.

Interestingly, the society doesn't say how long it actually took Lyman to complete his furrow. I don't know how long a furrow. I'd like to know. That must have taken. Yeah, how long does that take to make a furrow? And Greg, Kieran goes on to ask, has anyone ever told you that you sound like Adam Scott, the actor? No, no one has, but

I'll take your word for it. That is a new one. Yeah, exactly. So I was right then. That's basically a guy plowed a furrow 80 miles long. 86 miles long, yes. And we don't know how long it took him, but it sounds like, I mean, if he had to have his provisions carried along with him, it must have taken a while.

Thanks to both Kyle and Kieran, and we'll have a link to the Tri-County Historical Society's account of Dylan's furrow in our show notes. In episode 31, we heard about pigs and other animals that were put on trial to answer for crimes that they had supposedly committed. Carl Jones commented that the Romans used to put trees on trial, and he cites a passage from I, Claudius by Robert Graves. A few days later, Dracillus was dead. He was found lying behind a bush in the garden of a house at Pompeii. A small pear was found stuck in his throat. It was said at inquest that he had been seen throwing fruit up in the air and trying to catch it in his mouth. His death was unquestionably due to an accident. But nobody believed this. It was clear that Livia,

not having been consulted about the marriage of one of her own great-grandchildren, had arranged for the child to be strangled and the pear crammed down his throat afterwards. As was the custom in such cases, the pear tree was charged with murder and sentenced to be uprooted and burned. Now, see, to me, that sounds like the tree was framed, so I don't know.

Not very fair. Kurt Heinz sent us a very interesting email about episode 31. He wrote, You might be interested to know that the fact that animals used to be tried in court to some degree seems to inform the current efforts to award certain animals, currently chimpanzees, the status of legal personhood through a writ of habeas corpus suit in New York. Stephen Wise, who wrote Rattling the Cage Toward Legal Rights for Animals, which cites that history, heads the group bringing the suit. Kurt sent in a link to a very interesting New York Times Magazine article from April 23, 2014, entitled Should a Chimp Be Able to Sue Its Owner, written by Charles Siebert. This article

focuses on the activities of Stephen Wise, who is a legal scholar in the field of animal law and has been working with the Non-Human Rights Project and other lawyers on behalf of wild animals that they believe are suffering in captivity. Last December, the group filed a legal memo and petition in New York on behalf of Tommy, a chimpanzee who lives alone in a small squalid cell in a dark shed. Wise gathered several affidavits from leading primatologists around the world, which detail the cognitive capabilities of chimps in order to show the physical and psychological pain that Tommy would be suffering in his confinement. The legal memo reads in part, like humans, chimpanzees have a concept of their

personal past and future. They suffer the pain of not being able to fulfill their needs or move around as they wish, and they suffer the pain of anticipating never-ending confinement. The Non-Human Rights Project plans to file similar lawsuits on behalf of other members of the great ape family, as well as dolphins and orcas, belugas, elephants, and African gray parrots, as these are all beings with higher order cognitive abilities. They chose chimps as their first clients because of the amount of existing research on the chimpanzee's cognitive sophistication, and because there are sanctuaries available that could take in these plaintiffs if they did manage to win their freedom. In his article, Siebert mentions the animal trials of the previous centuries,

noting that the new twist here is that this is the first time the animals are actually plaintiffs rather than defendants. He also notes that as recently as 1906, animals were still being convicted of crimes in court. In that year, a father and son team and their trained attack dog were prosecuted in Switzerland for robbery and murder. The two men were found guilty and received life in prison, but the court determined that the crime could not have been committed without the dog, and they condemned the dog to death. Seems like a bit of an unfair standard that the humans were just put in prison, but they killed the dog.

And you'd think if an animal can be accused of a crime, it ought to be able to sue. It can't be defended without a plaintiff. Yeah, that does seem kind of like a double standard. It's only in the last few decades that there's even been a field of what we call animal law. Wise taught one of the very first law school classes on the topic in 1990. Currently, animal welfare laws focus primarily on the regulation of how we humans can use and treat animals for our own purposes or ownership. The fundamental legal status of animals remains that they are things or property with no rights of their own. The issue here is that animals currently don't have what is called standing, which is the legal requirement that plaintiffs personally speak to the injury that has been done

to them by a defendant and show that such harm can be properly redressed by the court. The only way animals can currently seek any kind of remedy through the courts is if the human plaintiffs representing the animals can prove that the injury done to the animals has in some way injured the humans. Oh, not the animals. Not the animals, right. The animals have no standing, so it doesn't matter what's done to them pretty much. Humans have to be injured. Wise, in speaking about earlier cases that were dismissed says what lawyers and judges have been calling an animal standing problem was really a not being a legal person problem. We could show the animals had been injured, that the defendants were responsible and that the judge could remedy it. But because animals are not legal persons, they don't even have the capacity to sue in the first place.

They're totally invisible. I knew if I was going to begin breaking down the wall that divides human and non-humans, I first had to find a way around this issue of personhood. So Wise came to recognize the similarity between his animal cases and court cases that had been brought on behalf of slaves, who also used to have no legal standing in courts. Slaves couldn't sue on their own behalf because they had no legal standing, just like animals can't now. That's an interesting strategy.

It's an interesting parallel. So another, a human who did have legal rights could sue on behalf of the slave? Right, but the human with the legal rights had to have been injured. You couldn't just show that the slave had been injured. Just like now, you can't just show that an animal has been injured. The animal doesn't have standing on its own. Some of the slave cases that Wise looked at involved a writ of habeas corpus, which is a court order requiring that a prisoner be brought before a judge by his or her custodian

in order to rule on the legality of the prisoner's detainment. Any prisoner or another person acting on the prisoner's behalf can petition the court for writ of habeas corpus. Wise began exploring these habeas corpus cases and noted that many of them were filed on behalf of those who are unable to appear in court themselves, such as prisoners or children or mentally incapacitated adults. So habeas corpus cases have the most relaxed standing requirements because the circumstances around them do often require that a proxy plead the plaintiff's case for them. So you could maybe apply that to Tommy the Chimp who can't. Who can't plead for himself. All right. Wise saw that the habeas corpus cases often hinge on a legal person's rights rather than a human being's rights. And that's an important distinction

because a legal person is any entity that the legal system considers important enough to have interests and certain types of rights, as distinct from a human being. So you can be a legal person without being a human being. Wise discovered that there have been a number of legal cases in which non-humans have been held to be legal persons. And these are things such as ships or corporations, partnerships, and states. And there have been cases in India involving holy books or religious idols. And in New Zealand, there was even a case involving a river.

Wow. So in the eyes of the law, the river is a person. Well, a legal person. Legal person. Legal person. And so he's thinking, well, if a river could be a legal person, why not a chimpanzee? In his animal law classes, Wise has his students consider the actual legal case of a four-month-old baby with anencephaly. That was a child born without a complete brain.

The child can breathe and digest food, but she has no consciousness, no feelings, no awareness at all. Wise asks his classes, why can't we do anything we want with such a child, even eat her? Now, he notes that we do anything we want with such a child, even eat her? Now, he notes that we're all instantly repelled by this idea. It sounds really repugnant to us. But people have a hard time saying why. Why does that sound so repellent?

And Wise says, I'm not saying that a court or legislature can't say that just having a human form is in of itself a sufficient condition for rights. I'm simply saying that it's irrational. That's a good question. Recent neurological and genetic research has shown that animals like chimpanzees and orcas and elephants have many of the attributes that have been traditionally thought to distinguish humans from other animals. These other mammals possess self-awareness and self-determination, and they have a sense of the past and the future. They have their own distinct languages, they show complex social interactions, and they use tools. They can grieve and they empathize with others, and they pass acquired knowledge from one generation to the next. So Wise believes he can make the case

that his clients are autonomous beings, which he defines as those who are able to freely choose, to self-determine, to make their own decisions without acting from reflex or innate behavior. So he thinks that these abilities should be the minimum sufficient requirement for legal personhood. And he notes that all humans have these rights, even those that are not capable of acting autonomously. You know, these chimps are more autonomous than some humans are. That's a compelling argument. Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit stated in a debate on the topic that the special status that we humans accord ourselves is based not on tests or statistics, but on a moral intuition deeper than any reason that could be given for it and impervious to any reason that you or anyone could give against it.

This inherent emotionality that forms the basis of human beings' sense of exceptionalism is what worries Wise the most. He says, It's those deeply held beliefs that I'm concerned about. The judge who either doesn't recognize that he's ruling against us on those grounds, or who does and decides that way anyway. Our challenge is to lay bare that bias against our facts. I will say, Judge, you know we've been here before. We've had people who've essentially said, I'm sorry, but you're black, or I'm sorry, you're not a male or a heterosexual,

and that has led us to some very bad places. So the Non-Human Rights Project is modeling their efforts now on those of the other civil rights movements from the past, and they don't expect to win their first round of cases or even their 20th round. Wise's aim is a continued and repeated airing of the latest evidence so that eventually judges and society as a whole can get past what Wise considers to be the arbitrary distinction of species as determining who should hold a right. Wise says, for me this has been a 25-year plan. All my books and my courses were designed to help me think through this problem. And now I want to spend the rest of my life litigating. If we lose, we keep doing it again and again until we find a judge who doesn't feel that this way is closed off.

And when it happens, it will be huge. I wouldn't be spending my life on this otherwise. I hadn't thought about this before. That's a really good point. And I respect Posner, but that's not an argument just to say, well, people are just different and they just are. And that's all there is to it. Yeah. This whole thing made me really question why do we feel we're entitled to feel so special?

I mean, we make the rules, we make the laws, so we give ourselves this very exceptional place in them. But what grants us that right to be so special? And if you study the history of science, if it's trying to tell us anything, it's that we're not as special as we think we are. Every big revolution, Copernicus and Darwin is just saying we're not. And people don't like to hear that. So they kind of fight against it. But I also thought the parallel to the slave cases was interesting because now the idea of slaves having no rights is just repellent to us. You know, we just shudder at the thought. But I wonder in the future, is the idea of slaves having no rights is just repellent to us. You know, we just shudder at the thought.

But I wonder in the future, is the idea of our holding intelligent beings captive, will that seem repellent to future people? Will they look back on us and be like, how could you have done that? I was telling you before I can't watch Westerns anymore because I can't. I find it upsetting the way people treat horses.

They're living creatures, but we, you know, you can just drive them around like a vehicle. People, it's so natural people don't think about it. the way people used to whip them. Someday we're going to look back on that. I think maybe really regret it. Um, uh, one thing that I noted in this is that the judges that have been hearing these cases, um, at least as reported in Siebert's article, they've seemed like they've been sympathetic to the arguments that Wise is making. The judges are saying that he has compelling arguments and he has really good evidence, but unfortunately they feel that the laws

as they currently are written just can't be interpreted the way Wise is trying to. So, so far the cases have gone against them, but it's interesting that the judges do note that he makes really compelling arguments and has very good evidence. And that's, all right. I mean, obviously if this did go through,

it would change everything. Yeah, it would. But that's, all right. I mean, obviously, if this did go through, it would change everything. Yeah, it would. But that's not a reason not to do it. Well, thanks so much to Kurt for writing in on this. This was something very new to us and very interesting. Yes, thank you. We'll have a link to Siebert's New York Times Magazine article in our show notes at futilitycloset.com.

And if you have any questions or comments for us, please send them to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. And if you have any questions or comments for us, please send them to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. This week, it's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg's going to give me a situation and I'm going to have to try to figure it out asking only yes or no questions. This one is from Paul Sloan and Des McHale's 1994 book, Great Lateral Thinking Puzzles. In Australia, a perfectly good building was demolished and an almost identical one erected on exactly the same site. The original building was in good condition, it had no defects, and there was no issue of safety or planning permission. Why was it demolished? Did this really happen?

Yes. Oh, interesting. Okay, does it matter? Did this really happen? Yes. Oh, interesting. Okay. Does it matter where in Australia it was? No. No. Does it matter in what time period or year the building was originally built? Not really. Does it matter what the purpose of the building was? Yes. Okay. Was it a building for public use? No. Well, no. Like public use, like a library, a hospital? Okay. Was it somebody's residence?

No. Or somebody's residences? Is the building, would you say it's connected to government in some way? Yes. A jail? No. A legislative building? I don't know what you call these things. No.

A building the legislature meets in? A courthouse? No. Am I on the right track? You're asking good questions. Okay, it's a building connected to the government somehow. Yes. Was it a building that would have been considered like a landmark or had historic value? No. No.

Connected to the government. Okay. The executive branch of the government? No. The legislative branch of the government? The judicial branch of the government? The judicial branch of the government? No. I guess I'd have to...

Prison? Did I ask that already? No, you asked that already. I don't want to mislead you. Okay. I guess you'd have to say executive, but that would be kind of misleading. Okay. And it's not that somebody lives there.

That's right. Not like the equivalent of our White House. Somehow connected to the executive branch of the government. Let's try something else. And it doesn't matter where in Australia it is. Does this need to have been in Australia? No. Okay, this could have happened in another country.

That's right. Does it matter how it was demolished no okay um they demolished a perfectly good building and built a very similar one that's right did it have something to do with budgets like they needed to spend money to use up budgets or you they needed to spend a certain amount of money and... No. No, not exactly. Were they trying to change the appearance of the building? No. The function of the building?

No. The form of the building? What do you mean, form? The shape that it's in? No. Would they consider this an improvement, that they've improved the building somehow? Yes, I'll say yes.

And they put it in the exact same spot, you said? Yes. And this is somehow connected to the government, vaguely the executive branch. I'm just so blanking on... More administrative than executive. Okay, do I need to know what takes place in that building normally? Yes. A specific thing takes place normally in that building. That's right.

A specific thing that is somehow a function of the government. Right. Taxes? No. Something to do with money in some way? Yes. The production of money? Yes. Okay, of money? Yes.

Okay. Is this like a mint? Yes. Okay. So they had a working mint. That's right. And they demolished it and built a new mint. That's right.

And does this reason make sense only because this thing is a mint? Yes. Okay. Does it have something to do with preventing counterfeiting? No. Does it matter whether it's paper or coins that were produced there? Yes. Okay.

Was it paper? No. Money? Coins? Yes. Okay. Was it paper? No. Money? Coins? Yes. Coins were produced in this mint, but they needed to demolish it and build a new mint. Not exactly. Coins were produced in this mint. Did some mishap take place that I need to know about? No. No. Do I need to know more about the coins that were produced there? Yes. Oh, I need to know more about the coins that were produced there. Some specific kind of coin was produced there?

Yes. Oh, I'm so confused. Okay. Normal currency? Yes, I think. Did Australia go through some kind of change in that they were going to have a different currency that was going to be used? No, not that matters here. Not that matters for this. But I mean normal currency as opposed to like commemorative something or others. Normal currency. Do I need to know about Australian coins? Not.

Do I need to know which denomination of coin? No. But you said it's some particular kind of coin. Does it matter what the metal was that the coins were made out of? Oh. Was this presenting a health hazard? No. No.

Okay. Were the coins made out of gold? Yes. And there was a lot of gold dust around? Yes. And this was a problem because people, no, this was not a problem that there was a lot of gold dust around. Correct. They were trying to recover the gold dust?

Yes. So they somehow demolished the building in such a way that the gold dust would be recovered. Yes. would be recovered. Yes. And I have to figure out how. How they demolished the building in a way to recover all the years' worth of gold dust that is sort of in the building. You're basically there.

Sloan and McHale's answer is, the building was the Australian National Mint. Over many years, so much gold dust had been absorbed into the fabric of the building that it was well worthwhile to demolish the building, extract the gold, and rebuild it. Really? I find in looking into this that it's sort of based on truth, but that's not quite accurate. This is a story from UPI, December 20th, 1985. A new Australian gold strike was declared Thursday, 100 ounces stuck in the walls and ceilings of the Western Australian mint. During the 86 years the mint has operated, the gold vaporized and became impregnated in the walls and ceilings of the Western Australian Mint. During the 86 years the mint has operated, the gold vaporized and became impregnated in the walls and ceilings of a factory section, which is soon to be demolished.

John Horgan, chairman of the Western Australia Development Corporation, did not disclose how he plans to get the gold out of the aging structure. He said most of the vaporized gold, valued at around $32,000, was lost during the early days of the mint when refining techniques were less efficient. It will make a handy windfall to go toward the cost of building a new mint, he said. So $32,000 isn't enough to build a whole new building, but at least for persons with a puzzle, they're saying that it's conceivable there was so much gold impregnated in the walls that it would pay to tear down the aging structure and build a whole new building.

And they don't say how the gold was going to be recovered, which is good. I couldn't figure that out, but they don't say how the gold was going to be recovered, which is good. I couldn't figure that out. But they don't even say. Right. Okay. Well, if anybody out there has a puzzle that they'd like to send in for us to try to use on the show, you can send them to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. That's another episode for us.

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