Futility Closet - 065-The Merchant Prince of Cornville

Episode Date: July 13, 2015

Edmond Rostand's hit play Cyrano de Bergerac met an unexpected obstacle in 1898 -- a Chicago real estate developer who claimed that it plagiarized his own play. In this week's podcast we'll review the strange controversy and the surprising outcome of the lawsuit that followed. We'll also hear an update on the German author who popularized an American West that he had never seen and puzzle over a Civil War private who refuses to fight. Sources for our feature on Cyrano de Bergerac and The Merchant Prince of Cornville: "Gross-Rostand Controversy," in George Childs Kohn, New Encyclopedia of American Scandal, 2001. Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, 1897. Samuel Eberly Gross, The Merchant Prince of Cornville, 1896. Jay Pridmore, "Recalling 'Merchant Prince' of the 1880s," Chicago Tribune, Feb. 28, 1992. "Chronicle and Comment," The Bookman, November 1910. The Critic, February 1899, p. 116. "Samuel Gross's Cyrano," New York Times, June 1, 1902. "Rostand Indignant," The Pittsburgh Press, June 1, 1902. "Rostand's Champion," The Carroll Herald, June 4, 1902. "'Cyrano de Bergerac' a Plagiarism," Boston Evening Transcript, May 21, 1902. "The Law and the Nose," Pittsburgh Press, Sept. 10, 1902. "Dollar Is Spent," The Milwaukee Journal, Sept. 17, 1902. Listener mail: Wikipedia, Hadschi Halef Omar (retrieved July 8, 2015). Dschinghis Khan's disco song "Hadschi Halef Omar" is here. Translated lyrics are here. Listener Krisztián Vida sent links to some pages and a video on "American Indians" in Central Europe. Wikipedia, Emilio Salgari (retrieved July 8, 2015). This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Jackie Speir. 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. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. 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]. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. 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 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 65. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. Cyrano de Bergeac is famous around the world, but when the French play reached Chicago in 1898, it hit an unexpected obstacle. A local real estate developer claimed that it plagiarized his own play. In today's show, we'll review the strange controversy and the surprising outcome of the lawsuit that followed. We'll also hear an update on the German author who popularized an American West that he had never seen

and puzzle over a Civil War private who refuses to fight. Everyone today knows the play Cyrano de Bergerac, or at least the character, a man with a huge nose who expressed his feelings for a woman he loved by speaking to her through the guise of another person, a handsome but inarticulate other man. That's famous around the world now. It's based on a play called Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, which is set in the 1600s.

It's actually based on a poet and a playwright who lived back then. But the play came out in 1897 and was a huge hit at the time, but it hit an odd stumbling block in its first few years that I think most people don't know about, and I think it makes a very interesting story. The play, as I say, came out in 1897, was a huge hit in Europe, and was translated into English and German and Russian, and put on productions throughout the continent and in America, which was great news for everyone concerned, until it hit Chicago in 1898.

It opened there at the Garden Theater, and everyone in that production, all the audience who attended it, loved it, with the exception of one man who didn't. The man's name was Samuel Eberle Gross. He was a 44-year-old real estate developer, and the reason he hated the play is that he said he had written it, or at least he'd written another play that was suspiciously similar to it 20 years earlier, and basically accused Rustin of plagiarism and tried to shut down the production. Gross's play has the entertaining name The Merchant Prince of Cornville. He says that's what Rustin based Serena de Bergerac on, and he filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court alleging plagiarism and trying to stop the whole business. He said that he'd first conceived the idea for The Merchant Prince of Cornville way back in 1875,

just sort of as an idle project when he wasn't doing real estate, composed the manuscript in 1878, and started shopping it around trying to get people to put it on, and had much less success than Rostand did. Everyone loved Rostand's play, and no one really quite loved Samuel Gross's play. He did at least get it submitted to a publisher to be printed up to distribute among his friends. He did that in 1895. And they printed, for private circulation, 250 copies. And that's important because he submitted those to the Library of Congress, establishing copyright in his work at that time.

Oh, so he can prove when he wrote it. Yeah, so he can prove that this was in existence before Edmund Rustan's much more famous play came out. He printed up these 250 copies, and on the interleaf of each one it said, This comedy, written at an earlier period as a diversion amidst business pursuits, is now printed for private circulation only. This edition is limited to 250 copies, of which this is number blank. So as I say, he was having trouble getting the play actually produced, and someone finally told him he might have better luck in Europe, specifically in France.

So he took the play overseas and at one point gave the manuscript to the manager of the Port St. Martin Theatre in Paris and left it with him for several weeks. That man's name was a French actor named Constant Coquelin, who managed the theater. He kept it for several weeks and returned it without comment. The interesting thing here is that Constant Coquelin became the actor who originated the role of Cyrano de Bergerac.

In other words, when Rostand first put on his play, Cyrano de Bergerac, it was this man who played the lead role, which makes Gross's whole contention seem a little less crazy. Did this actor know Rostand? Yes. Oh, he did. Okay. Oh, so he could have theoretically have told Rostand about this play. Right. Or conceivably even put it into his hands. Certainly he could have at least talked about it. He had it for several weeks. I see. Which is not to say that happened, but that was Gross' worry, at least. Okay. Gross finally did get his play performed at the Novelty Theatre in London, but it didn't really draw that happened, but that was Gross' worry, at least. Okay. Gross finally did get his play performed at the Novelty Theatre in London,

but it didn't really draw much notice, and that was pretty much the whole run of it. He just couldn't really get it to go anywhere. But people started telling him about this new French play that everyone loved called Cyrano de Bergerac. Someone wrote, Most remarkable of all in the book is your dual wooing scene. Do you know that you anticipated the the most, do you know that you anticipated the most effective device in Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac? The balcony scene

where Christian stands in view and speaks the words of Cyrano, who prompts him from the shadow, is quite the most successful in the performance of that very triumphant play. And in The Merchant Prince of Cornville, there is a scene where pretty much exactly that happens. The hero, exactly that happens. The hero, a man named Bluegrass, is feeding lines to another character who's wooing the woman that Bluegrass loves. And in fact, even in that scene, it takes place at a balcony,

just as in Cyrano de Bergerac. And Bluegrass in that scene is wearing a mask with a long nose. Plus some of the names are similar. It just seems, it could be innocent, but it just seems like a huge coincidence that two plays would come out so close together with such a similar unusual scene.

That was Gross' contention, anyway. So Gross thought that either Coquelin or Rostand had either explained some of these ideas to Rostand or perhaps given him the manuscript or given him a copy of the book that had been printed up by that point. So all this fell into the lap of Judge Christian Colsat, who sat at the U.S. District Court in the city of Chicago. And what Colsat did was appoint a Chicago attorney named E.B. Sherman to sift through all the evidence on both sides and just sort of come to some sort of recommendation about what ought to be done. And Sherman did that.

The first thing that happened is that Coquillant testified, he and Rostand gave somewhat different accounts of the dates as to when each of them had come across the manuscript and when they'd begin to discuss the ideas behind Cyrano de Bergerac. And they conflicted, which may not mean anything, but it just seems a little worrying. Rostand claimed that he'd never heard of the Merchant Prince and that he didn't find any resemblance between the two plays.

So Sherman kept going with his investigation and found, basically, he thought that the plots were not identical, but he did come up with a list of 30 similarities, noting, for instance, this balcony scene, which is sort of the pivotal act in both plays, and each involves the use of a surrogate, just as I was saying. So it just seems... It's not proof, but it don't look good. So finally, Sherman summarized all this by writing,

A careful study of the plot, construction, characters, situations, and language of the climax of the two plays, the balcony scene, reveals a manifest appropriation by Monsieur Rostand of the corresponding part of the complainant's play. And Colesat endorsed that completely. In fact, he issued a perpetual injunction against the production in the United States of Cyrano de Bergec. It was illegal in this country to perform that play because a Chicago real estate developer claimed that he had written it first, originated the ideas. And Colesat, the judge, didn't mince any words about this. He gave a long and elaborate opinion

he said it was, quote, as plain as holy writ that Monsieur Rostand was enormously indebted to the author of The Merchant Prince of Cornville he said Rostand was, quote, a plagiarist and by inference a perjurer for borrowing from Gross's play and for denying that he had any knowledge of it and he wrote, quote, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the melodrama of Cyrano de Bergerac performed by the defendant Mansfield And he wrote, quote, the principal thing and just said, in the eyes of the law, it looks, you know, I just want someone to validate my claim here. And Colesat, the judge, actually offered him some accounting, some proportion of the profits from the Chicago production, and Gross turned those down,

accepted the dollar, and in fact, even donated the dollar to charity. He just wanted validation. Make of that what you will. He certainly wasn't in it for the money. One question I have that maybe a listener can help me figure this out. The trickiest part of researching this whole story is to decide what the status of this whole case is legally today. And there's all kinds of different accounts of this in the research I was able to do. Some say that the injunction went through shutting down the Chicago production, but they went ahead with it anyway because they owed a lot of money to Rustan for royalties for the right to put it on in the first place. So they had to keep going, even though it was technically illegal. Some say that it was enjoined. They were prevented from

going on with it, but they battled it out in the court some more. And finally in 19, I think it was in 1915, they got it reversed. And so it was only illegal to perform the play in the United States through 1923. And a few sources actually say that technically it's still on the books, that right now, even today, it's still illegal to perform Cyrano de Bergeac in the United States. I think that's probably not true, but I'm not an attorney, and I don't know how these things work. If there's anyone who can dig that up, I'd love to know. We can maybe explain it better in a future show. explain it better on in a future show. This decision surprised everyone but Gross. Richard Mansfield, who was the wildly successful lead actor in the Chicago production, said he'd never heard of Gross and said, quote, his claim to the prior authorship of a similar play was rather

startling to us. He said, there is no denying that the plot and many of the situations of the two plays, The Merchant Prince of Cornfield and Cyrano de Bergerac, present many startling points in common. I would not like to believe that Monsieur Rostand has been guilty of plagiarism, as Mr. Gross's friends contend, but rather that the two pieces show a striking example of parallelism in literature. Which is interesting, because he's on the other side. He's on Rostand's side and wants to continue performing the play, and even he acknowledges there are a lot of similarities between the two. Rostand, who'd written Cyrano de Bergerac, told a correspondent of the Pittsburgh Press,

I never heard of Grosse or The Merchant Prince of Cornville until after my Cyrano had appeared. The absurdity of charging me with plagiarism becomes evident when you reflect that I can neither read nor speak English, and I do not think The Merchant Prince of Cornville has been translated into other language. That's a good point, though, unless somebody translated it for him. Well, it got, yeah, I mean, you could still, it depends how, there's enough leeway here that you can see it either way. It's not impossible, because we know that a friend of his had the actual manuscript. Rastan's quote continues, the first time I ever met this American was when I was invited

to dinner at the University Club two years ago. Cyrano is an old poet known to all Frenchmen of letters, but such a character is not likely to be known to Mr. Gross. You might as reasonably expect me to know thoroughly a local Chicago character. So as I say, for at least a number of years, theater companies were prohibited from producing the play Cyrano de Bergerac in the United States, and Gross followed this up. He'd got his victory in American courts, and now he tried to sue Rostand for plagiarism in the British and French courts and had much less luck this time. He pursued the same strategy. He hired literary experts to try to testify to the similarities in characters' dialogue, just the same sort of thing that they had done in the American courts and which had worked there, but here they just weren't

going for it. A colleague of Rostand named Victor and Sardou said, the claims of gross in the present case have not a leg to stand on. The method adopted in the judgment in Chicago of enumerating resemblances without alluding to dissimilarities is a most useless and misleading game. The idea of Rostand finding Cyrano already prepared, perhaps in canned form on the shore of Lake Michigan, is very funny. So the whole thing was sort of a 90s wonder. It was kind of an international scandal and, I guess, a curiosity for a while. But nothing really came of it, and he lost both cases. And so Gross just went home. He had his American victory, but didn't succeed in Britain or in France.

That's just interesting that, I mean, you know, that one court seemed to find that they were very similar and another court did not. Didn't, which just shows how sort of ambiguous the whole thing. I mean, Colesat, the American judge, seemed completely convinced, but in Europe they just really didn't go for it. So the question still remains today, how much, you know, how guilty, is Rostand guilty of plagiarism? And as I say, you can sort of support either view. It doesn't sound totally crazy.

You can see how it could have happened if it did, but whether it actually did, I suppose no one will ever know. At the very least, the balcony scene in particular in both, you'd have to say that's a huge coincidence if it wasn't a case of someone appropriating someone else's work. And this was thrown about in the papers and in literary journals, you know, at the time, just sort of lots of comments on it. One person said, Captain Gross and Monsieur Rostand have simply made use of a certain number of stock situations that have belonged to the stage since the days of Euripides.

That is all. The key situation of the two plays, that of one man speaking for another, is the same, but is that not almost the idea of Romeo and Juliet or of Miles Standish? I've read a lot of this stuff. The best comment I can find comes, believe it or not, from the mayor of Chicago at the time, Carter Harrison Jr. Someone, because this was in his city and they were asking everyone about it, so someone asked him, and he said, conceding for Mr. Gross all that was claimed and all that the courts decided, I am for Rostand, the mayor said. It is just like this. Suppose some wonderful French chef were to break into a man's larder and steal from it flour, sugar, rare spices, and condiments, and then go by himself and produce a delicious bit of pastry which no one could create but him. That is what Rastan did with Gross's materials. Practically all of

The Merchant Prince of Cornville is, I admit, to be found in Cyrano, but there is something in Cyrano that is not in The Merchant Prince. The charm in Cyrano is the soul breathed into it by the poet, just as the inimitable quality of the pastry is breathed into it by the French chef. As for the points of resemblance between the two plays, these points seem to exist in many plays in common. And that's honestly a decent point. I mean, not excusing plagiarism, certainly, but most of Shakespeare's plays are based on existing stories,

and no one really cares. What people admire about Shakespeare is what he did with those stories. Yeah, so the chef analogy is really apt. Yeah, W.H. Auden once said that time worships a language, meaning that what really tends to last, in people's estimation, is use of the language, not what a writer is writing about, but how well he deploys his craft

and how well he can write it. And in this case, apparently, a Chicago real estate developer, however ambitious he was, was not as good a writer as Edmund Rustin. Our podcast is supported by our phenomenal patrons. Greg and I spend many hours a week researching and creating each episode,

and we need your help to keep making the show. So if you enjoy Futility Closet and want to help keep it going, then check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset. You can pledge any amount that you choose, and if you pledge at least a dollar an episode, you get access to the podcast activity feed,

where you can get a peek behind the scenes of the show, listen to outtakes and extralateral thinking puzzles, Thanks so much to everyone who has contributed so far. We really appreciate every donation we get. As I mentioned last week, I have an update to my segment on the German author Karl May. In episode 61, I described how May had written an enormously popular series of books about the American Wild West in the late 1800s, despite not having been to the U.S. I said that May's American Indian hero, Venetu, is still beloved throughout Germany today, although May's works are surprisingly mostly unknown in the U.S. Some of our listeners wrote to let us know that the popularity of Mai's

stories extends beyond Germany to other European countries. Brendan A. wrote, I used to be an EFL teacher and had many Swiss-German students who were absolutely drop-dead flabbergasted that I knew nothing of Vinotitu. They refused to believe me and thought I was teasing them. Alexander Lowe wrote that he grew up in Switzerland in the 70s with the Vinitu movies on TV. He said that by that time, people knew that Mai hadn't been to the U.S. and the movies weren't completely accurate, but that they were just good stories. He goes on to say, And if you compare them to American Western movies, they actually had something going for them, which I realized early on and put me off The Lone Ranger and John Wayne.

The depiction of Native Americans in those was slightly to strongly derogatory. They were either depicted as primitive or as antagonistic or both. Carl My on the other hand, yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah, it is unfortunately true. I May, on the other hand, yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah, it is unfortunately true. I mean, that's when we were growing up. Cowboys are good guys and Indians are bad guys. Or bad or stupid or both.

And they have this weird generic quality. They were sort of interchangeable. Yeah, there was very negative stereotyping going on. But Alexander says that Carl May, on the other hand, depicted them as just another people. In his stories, there were good and bad Indians as well as good and bad whites. Vinatou was just as noble, capable, and heroic as old Shatterhand. So as a child playing cowboys and Indians, there was a role model where both working together on either side instead of us against them. Yeah, that's good. That is a real distinction. Kind of sad about how it was in the U.S., yeah.

Alexander also says, My parents grew up reading these books and were both avid fans. My father could recite all of Hachi Halif Omar's names by heart. And here Alexander is referring to another popular series of books that Mai wrote, which were set in the Middle East. The character's full name is, in my clumsy pronunciation, in the Middle East. The character's full name is, in my clumsy pronunciation, Hachi-Halif Omar Ben-Hachi-Abul Abbas ibn Hachi Dawud al-Ghassara. That's one name. That's one name. And knowing that full name is basically considered to be fundamental for any real Carl My fan. Wikipedia wanted a

citation for that point on the article about the character and his full name, and someone left this comment. I, being a German, can safely say this. Every one of my playing companions since the age of five years, regardless of being boy or girl, has learned Hachi Halaf Omar's name by heart. I can say it even when drunk. This being sometimes used as a test for being drunk. If too drunk, the ibn will be misplaced.

The commenter goes on to say that you're not going to find a citation about water being wet, and you won't find one for Carl Mai fans knowing this name. So it's apparently that fundamental. One more fact that I came across while looking into this was that there is actually a German disco group that released a song entitled Hachi, Halif, Omar in 1980. The whole song is about Halif, and the chorus is their singing Halif's full name. That's the whole chorus, yeah. I found this on YouTube, and we'll put a link in the show notes for those who want to check out some classic German disco. I thought it was worth checking out just to see what the men in the group were wearing.

Three of them are dressed in some kind of attempt at Middle Eastern outfits, while the fourth guy looks to me like a disco version of the 1971 Willy Wonka. It was a very catchy song, though. It was in my head for some time after seeing the video. So apparently he's so popular he gets a disco song. Well, the song would help you keep it memorized. That's true. Christian Vito wrote from Hungary to say, I was really surprised to hear that the works of Carl May are basically unknown in the U.S. You only mentioned Germany in your latest episode, but

those books and the movies were extremely popular even outside Germany. You can easily find whole movies on the internet in Czech, Polish, Romanian, and Hungarian, just the first hits, that were shot in the old Yugoslavia, so I would guess the whole eastern bloc was fond of them. It was at least an integral part of a kid's life to make his own bow and play Indian back then when kids used to play outside. make his own bow, and play Indian, back then when kids used to play outside. Some went even further. In the early 1960s, a new Indian tribe was founded, and they held Indian war games regularly in a small Hungarian village, trying to do everything as authentic to about the 1850s state as possible, except the food, as they decided not to harm any animals or plants of the forest. Unfortunately, the information on these events is quite sparse, even in Hungarian, but it seems there are still going on since then

for over 50 years. There are about 200 Indians now. Obviously, these people were watched by the communist intelligence back then to see if this is some kind of anti-system conspiracy. Can you just imagine like the communist officials trying to make sense out of this? That's fascinating, though, that Hungarians were sort of making a Native American tribe in Hungary. They were, they were. And Christian sent links to photos and a video of people and they're dressed like you would think of traditional American Indians. And they're in a grouping of teepees that they've apparently constructed and put up themselves. And they appear to be performing traditional dances and other rituals with just the different accoutrements that we would associate with American Indians. If I hadn't known they were in Central Europe, I would have assumed that they were American Indians in America, just reenacting some of their traditions.

American Indians in America, just reenacting some of their traditions. But one of the things that I had read when I was researching the original Carl My piece that I did was that Vinitu appealed to the people in the communist bloc because he was an example of someone heroically facing oppression with dignity and nobility. He was seen as maybe like a role model for coping with the oppression of the communist regime. And the people of these countries maybe felt a kinship with the American Indians and what they had endured. There was also, I think there was just something appealing about the back to nature kind of movement too. That's interesting, though, because it would, in that sense, it would resonate more with those people than it would with Americans. Americans, yeah, exactly. You know, both were pretty oppressed.

Exactly. You know, both were pretty oppressed. So yeah. Similarly, Stanislav Stankovic wrote in to say that Karl May was very popular throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Stanislav said, Karl May is one of my father's favorite childhood authors. My father belongs to a generation that was born right after the Second World War in what used to be known as Yugoslavia. While talking about May's works with my father, I was always under the impression that he, as his avid reader, was aware that the descriptions were not always accurate or authentic, but that he loved his stories for their tone and message simply as great adventure stories about courage, honor, chivalry, and strong moral values. I guess that his works had a great influence on many young readers. So it seems that at least by like the 1970s,

people were aware that Mai had not lived through these things as he had claimed in his own time. But they're just as popular all the same. Right, they were just as popular all the same. For one more perspective on the topic, Davide Tazzanari wrote, I'm astonished by the similarity between Carl Mai and his Italian equivalent, Emilio Salgari.

Both were born in the mid-1800s. Both pretended to have lived adventurous lives full of travel and mystery while never actually leaving their country. And both shaped the imagination of whole generations with novels first and then movies and TV shows. Apparently, the late 19th and early 20th centuries were the perfect time for such characters. So we had never heard of Emilio Salgari any more than we had heard of Carl May. And it turns out he was an Italian writer of action-adventure novels that were apparently just about mandatory reading for many generations in Italy. Wikipedia claims that in Italy he has been more widely read than Dante and is still among the 40 most translated Italian authors. Many of his most popular novels have been adapted into comics, animated series, and feature

films, and he's considered to be the father of Italian adventure fiction and the grandfather of the spaghetti western. In total, Salgari wrote more than 200 adventure stories and novels in the late 19th and early 20th century, setting his tales in exotic locations such as Malaysia, Bermuda, and the American Wild West. Apparently, everybody found that such an interesting place. His heroes were usually pirates, outlaws, or barbarians who were fighting against greed, abuse of power, and corruption. Similar to Carl May, Salgari claimed that he had explored the Sudan desert, that he had met Buffalo Bill in Nebraska. They had actually met while Buffalo Bill was in Italy, um, and that he had sailed the seven

seas. He wrote biographies filled with adventurous tales set in the Far East, events that he claimed were the basis for many of his works, although apparently he never actually ventured any further from Italy than the Adriatic Sea. Uh, early in his career, he began signing his tales Captain Salgari, a title he once although apparently he never actually ventured any further from Italy than the Adriatic Sea. Early in his career, he began signing his tales Captain Salgari, a title he once defended in a duel when his claim to it was questioned. That seems like a gigantic coincidence that he and Carl May would both... Yeah.

Not even just that they both existed at all, but they were pretty much contemporaneous. They were, and I gather they were writing somewhat similar types of being against this sort of oppression and abuse of power. Maybe that was just a theme in Europe in that time period. Or maybe one of them influenced the other side. It's possible. And that they both also claimed that they'd lived all these things themselves. Many late 19th century writers wrote further adventures of some of Salgari's heroes, mimicking his style of fast-paced stories filled with great battles, blood and violence, and punctuated with humor.

His works were not only enormously popular in Italy, but also in Portugal and most of the Spanish-speaking countries. Many authors such as Umberto Eco, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, and Carlos Fuentes have said that they read Salgari when they were younger. He was also apparently an influence on Federico Fellini and Che Guevara. More than 50 film adaptations have been made of Salgari's novels, and many more were inspired by his style, and we had never heard of him. Also similar to Carl May, Salgari had a rather unhappy life despite his enormous popularity He didn't earn much money from his works And lived hand to mouth for most of his life His father committed suicide in 1889

And his wife had serious health problems Which increased their financial difficulties Salgari committed suicide himself In 1911 Using the Japanese method of sapuku Which is a form of ritualized suicide By disembowelment originally practiced by samurai. He left a letter to his publisher that read, To you that have grown rich from the sweat of my brow while keeping myself and my family in misery,

I ask only that from those profits you find the funds to pay for my funeral. I salute you while I break my pen. Emilio Salgari. So a bit dramatic. But thanks so much to everyone who wrote into us about this and who writes into us about everything. If you have any questions or comments to send to us, you can send them to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him an interesting sounding situation, and he's going to have to see what he can make of it using only yes or no questions. Today's puzzle comes from Jackie Spear of Wake Forest, North Carolina. Oh, good. So not too far from where we are right now.

And Jackie says, here's my first effort at constructing a lateral thinking puzzle, and it may be too easy. I recently discovered your podcast and am listening to all the back shows. I'll be so sad when I'm done. What will I listen to at work to while away the hours? Glad we could entertain you. So here's Jackie's puzzle. Glad we could entertain you. So here's Jackie's puzzle.

Private James Milroy served in the Union Army with the first New York independent battery, light artillery, from 1861 until he mustered out in 1863. His unit operated various light cannon to support cavalry and infantry units. However, although Private Milroy was strong in mind and body and knew how to handle the cannon expertly, he never fired a single artillery weapon and refused to participate in battle. In spite of that, his fellows held him in high regard. How did he get away with refusing to fight? Okay, I assume this is true.

Mm-hmm. What's the name? private james milroy is private james milroy human yes oh man i thought he's gonna get a home run on the first swing he's like a dog or a mule or something oh a mule now i have to back up and turn around oh that was a good answer all right he just completely torpedoed me. All right. So he served. I like your answer.

In a New York unit. Yes. Artillery unit. Yes. In the Civil War. Yes. For sounds like two or three years. Yes.

But never, say it again. Never fired a single artillery weapon and refused to participate in battle. Yikes. Wow, this is a good puzzle. And this really happened. Uh, alright then. Uh, so this unit he's with, this artillery

unit, was engaged in battle? Yes. With Confederate troops? Yes. I mean, this is part of what I think of as a Civil War. They were actually engaged with, in fighting. So his unit, he was in the unit while the unit was fighting? Yes. But he himself didn't fight? Correct. But he was held in high regard, et cetera, et cetera, and wasn't punished for not fighting?

Correct. But it's accurate to say that he didn't fight? Correct. Did you tell me his, you told me his rank, did you tell me his... He's private. Okay, so he's just a private. Is it something like he just wasn't in some combat role, like he's a cook or a, I don't know much about the Civil War, I guess?

I mean, in some other, he was useful in some other role, not. Yes, but why would he be a private? Because like cooks weren't usually privates. All right. Was it, were there others, was this a unique role? I mean, if he was a cook, there's cooks all over the Union Army, I'm sure. So he's one of many. Right.

Would you say that's true of this guy? Yeah, I guess so. So there were other people who were doing, fulfilling the same purpose, whatever that was. Yeah. As he. And, okay, but that just didn't involve fighting. Right. Would you say?

He'd still be given the rank of private. As opposed to, I guess, cooks probably didn't have any rank at all or something, you know? Is his age important? No. He's not like a drummer boy or something. I come with all these great guesses. You sure he's not a mule? I'm quite sure he's not a mule.

No offense to the descendants of Private James Miller. All right. Maybe metaphorically he was a mule. Okay. So he's... All right. Maybe metaphorically he was a mule. Okay. So he's, all right. So he has some assigned task to do. Yeah. And he does it.

Yeah. And his fellow soldiers are pleased with what he's doing. Yeah. Okay. So he does that task. Is he doing that actively while the unit is fighting? Probably not. Probably not. So he's doing it,

would you say it's helping the other soldiers in some way? Sure. Is he a chaplain? Yes, he is. Very good. Good for you. Jackie writes, James Milward was an army chaplain. The canon is very good good for you um jackie writes james milroy was an army chaplain the canon he handled expertly was the bible because she put in there he knew how to handle

the canon which i thought that was a really cute twist the canon he handled expertly was the bible civil war chaplains were usually assigned the rank of private but did not assume the role of a soldier they preach and prayed and counseled they buried the dead delivered mail and performed various non-fighting duties. Yeah, but never fought. Yeah. That's good. Thank you so much, Jackie.

And if anyone else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to use, you can send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. That wraps up another episode for us. If you're looking for more Futility Closet, check out our books on Amazon. us. If you're looking for more Futility Closet, check out our books on Amazon, follow us on Twitter or Facebook, or visit the website at futilitycloset.com, where you can sample over 8,000 absorbing tidbits. At the website, you can also see the show notes for the podcast and listen to previous episodes. Just click podcast in the sidebar. If you'd like to support Futility Closet, please consider becoming a patron to help keep us going. You can find more information at patreon.com slash futilitycloset. You can also help us out by telling your friends about us or by clicking on the donate button on the sidebar of the website.

If you have any questions or comments about the show, you can reach us by email at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and produced by Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.