Futility Closet - 143-The Conscience Fund

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 9,000 quirky curiosities from a grower of chairs to a disastrous physicist. This is episode 143. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. This is episode 143. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross.

Starting point is 00:00:32 200 years ago, the U.S. government had to decide what to do with money it was receiving from guilt-stricken people who had stolen from it. The answer was to set up a special account just for this purpose. In today's show, we'll describe the history of this conscience fund and some of the more memorable contributions it's received over the years. We'll also ponder Audrey Hepburn's role in World War II, and puzzle over an illness cured by climbing poles. The U.S. Treasury Department maintains three so-called gift funds for people to donate money directly to the government. One is designated for the military. One is for people who just want to contribute money straight to the government out of patriotism or friendliness.

Starting point is 00:01:10 And the last is something called the Conscience Fund, which is an account that's expressly set up for people who have stolen from or defrauded the U.S. government and want to make voluntary contributions to it just out of guilt or just out of wanting to redress the wrong. There are several stories as to how this got started. One says that during the Civil War, the treasurer, Francis Spinner, received a letter with a check for $1,500. The sender said he was repaying some government funds that he'd misappropriated when he was a quartermaster in the army. He wrote, suppose we call this a contribution to the conscience fund and get it announced in the newspapers,

Starting point is 00:01:42 and perhaps we will get some more. That doesn't seem to be the beginning of it, though, because there's another common story that says it started in 1811 when President James Madison found a $2 bill on his desk with a note saying the writer had stolen that amount from the government. Madison ordered that the money should be credited to account conscience. The incident was published in all the newspapers and the conscience fund was established. I think the truth is that it goes back even further than that. People were giving money, at least in small amounts, to the government prior to 1811, but the government was just turning those donations into general revenues without anyone keeping track of them.

Starting point is 00:02:15 But in 1811, they were so heavy that a special fund was created. In any case, this has been going on for a long time, more than 200 years. And the fund is there, and new donations even today come in every week from guilt-stricken citizens. According to what I've been reading, they tend to drop off a bit in hard times and to increase around holidays, Christmas and Easter in particular, and around tax time. Any money that's donated to the Conscience Fund is deposited into the Treasury's general account as miscellaneous receipts, and then it's just used for general expenses for any purpose that the government deems proper. Because they feel guilty about their transgressions, people tend to be cautious about making donations. They send cash, and they

Starting point is 00:02:53 often hide their identities by using an intermediary, such as clergymen, attorneys, relatives, friends, people have even used jailers, to avoid being tracked down. But generally, as one spokesman said, the treasury is not in the business of prosecution. Generally, the government doesn't ask questions as far as they know the donor is innocent, and in most cases, they don't even know of the indebtedness. And it occurs to me that if they prosecuted even one person, that would scare away everyone else,

Starting point is 00:03:18 which kind of defeats the whole purpose. Yeah, exactly. And the spirit of the thing. I know of only two cases where the government tried to track down a contributor, and in both of those, they were trying to return the money rather than to punish the sender. In 1925, three checks totaling $6,100 were received by a collector of the Internal Revenue Department. The checks were from the John Doe Company and were drawn on three different Chicago banks. The accompanying letter said they were for tax and interest and that the sender, quote, trusted the money would be received in the spirit in which it was sent.

Starting point is 00:03:48 The government couldn't trace any outstanding debts that matched that payment, so they began to think he was just mistaken, the donor, that he didn't really owe this money. They tried to trace him in order to return the money, but the bank said the man who drew the checks was not known to them. He'd identified himself as John Smith of Cleveland, Ohio, and the trail just ended there. They had no way to return the money. The other case where I know they tried to track someone down and here they succeeded is that during World War I, a young woman worked as a clerk at a local draft board. Her job was to send notices to men who'd been selected for service, who had been drafted. She used to write encouraging messages on the notices, and she realized only afterward that this was official mail sent free of postage, and hence it shouldn't be used for private correspondence. So she sent the Treasury a check for $340 to make amends for this.

Starting point is 00:04:31 She signed her name, which identified her, so the Treasury was able to track her down and return the check, saying, you don't have to pay us for that. So over the past few weeks, I've been rooting around through newspaper reports of all the letters they've received over the years, and I've made a little list of some of the notable ones. These are in no order. When Grover Cleveland was president in the 1890s, he received a letter from a 15-year-old girl. She wrote, To His Majesty President Cleveland,

Starting point is 00:04:56 Dear President, I am in a dreadful state of mind, and I thought I would write and tell you all. About two years ago, as near as I can remember, it was two years, I used two postage stamps that had been used before on letters, perhaps more than two stamps, but I can only remember of doing it twice. I did not realize what I had done until lately. My mind is constantly turned on that subject, and I think of it night and day. Now, dear President, will you please forgive me, and I promise you I will never do it again. Enclosed fine cost of three stamps.

Starting point is 00:05:23 Please forgive me, for I was then but 13 years old for I am heartily sorry for what I have done. And she signed it from one of your subjects. But that's real contrition. I mean, her parents didn't make her write that. You can tell she really felt bad about it. In 1932, the New York Times reported, some years ago, a Civil War veteran confessed to a minister out in Indiana that he had never felt the same since he had left the army and taken with him a government mule. His penitence brought $200 into the treasury. In 1912, a laborer in Kittery, Maine sent monthly contributions for more than a year to repay a debt that he never explained. At one point, he sent President Taft a $2 bill with a note saying, I am sorry to keep troubling

Starting point is 00:05:59 you in this manner, but I am anxious that all money shall reach its proper destination as it is close work saving it. In 1904, a letter from West Virginia read, I have settled with the Lord. I am due the government two dollars which find enclosed herewith. You need not send receipt as the Lord has already receipted. It was signed yours in the Lord. In 1987, a government contractor stole some room dividers. He wrote, my conscience hurts. I am extremely sorry for this rotten act. Enclosed is a $50 bill to cover the cost. He enclosed a brand new $50 bill. This really bothers some people.

Starting point is 00:06:32 Well, I think it's kind of sweet because they don't, there's no way to gain by this. And it's, people don't even know who it's coming from. So the only reason to do this is real guilt. Just to clear your conscience and feel like, okay, I got those stamps off my conscience. Right. And a lot of them are just very, just a few pennies. In 1930, the chief of finances of the war department received a check for $50 from a former soldier who now lived in Colorado. He included a letter that read, while on the service during 1918 to 1920, I stole equipment and clothing to the amount as near as I can tell of about $50. Since that time, God has wonderfully saved me and I am going back over my tracks and making

Starting point is 00:07:08 every wrong right that I possibly can. Enclosed fine check for same, and by his grace, I hope nothing of its kind will have to be repeated. One contributor who sent $625 to make up for back taxes added, P.S. I would not call myself a patriot, not in any fanatical sense at least, but let me say that I do love this country. I especially appreciate the way we take care of the poor, the unemployed, and the homeless. I just thought I'd add that. In 1929, a veteran with an unusually severe attack of conscience sent the War Department a check for $110.76 with an itemized list of his transgressions. It reads,

Starting point is 00:07:42 Marksman's extra pay received but not deserved, $14. Three weeks pay while sick, not in line of duty, $24. Five days AWOL, never discovered by commanding officer, $5. Request for reduced railroad fare, illegally used, $10. One small spark coil, may have been government property, $5. Ten yards of target cloth stolen, $5. Government stationery and envelopes used, $5. Interest for 10 years at 5%, $42.76. One former federal employee felt guilty about copying private letters on a government duplicating machine, so he sent in $20. He said he figured the copying cost came to $5, but he sent more, quote, because the Bible says to repay fourfold. And that's a common theme in these letters. The

Starting point is 00:08:28 Bible says that if you acquire something by theft or fraud, you should make restitution by repaying four times the amount of the debt. Many of the Conscience Fund contributors did this. In 1905, Treasury Secretary L.M. Shaw received $12,000 in paper money with a note that read, Dear Sir, I am sending you here with $12,000, which is to go to the use of the United States government. Years ago, I defrauded the government of money, but have returned it all, and now I'm paying fourfold in accordance with the teachings of the scriptures. The way of the transgressor is hard, and no one but God knows how I have suffered the consequences, and I would seek to do a bountiful restoration. May God pardon while

Starting point is 00:09:02 the United States government is benefited. And he signed it, A Sinner. Most impressively in this line, in the early 1900s, someone who had stolen $20,000 sent in $80,000 in installments over several years to repay the debt. The last installment, $30,000, came in 1916 with a letter that read, May every thief understand the awfulness of the sin of stealing is the sincere wish of a penitent. Let no one claim any of this amount on any pretext. These get increasingly strange. In 1904, one 1904 article says,

Starting point is 00:09:34 Mingled with the truly pathetic cases are quite a number of more or less ludicrous atonements. One man wrote, While I was employed as a letter carrier in a town which I don't mention here, I stole $10 from a letter. I got religion since, thank the Lord, and that $10 has been bothering me considerable. Nobody ever knew I took it, and there ain't no chance of me ever getting arrested for it, so I send hereby $5, which you will please put in the conscience fund, for I want to do what's right and proper, spelled R-I-T-E and P-R-O-P-P-E-R. Another man informed the treasurer of the United States that he had experienced many twinges of conscience

Starting point is 00:10:06 because of owing the government $65. He had finally decided to ease his conscience by sending the $10, which he enclosed, and he added that if this did not give him complete relief from the twinges, he might send another $10 at a later date. It's like, send as little as I can until I can finally feel okay about it.

Starting point is 00:10:24 In 1906, a Kansas man wrote to say that 36 years earlier, he had bought a horse from army deserters who had stolen it from Fort Leavenworth. He had paid them $40 for it and eventually sold it again for $40. So he'd made no profit. But the fact that he dealt in a contraband horse had preyed steadily upon his conscience. And so he sent $40 to the conscience fund. A Chicago man sent $1 for taking a small apple tree from the government orchard at Fort Sheridan years earlier. In 1906, a letter from the West confessed that the writer had stolen two sheets and a pillowcase from an Indian school. He enclosed a dollar. In late 1905, a farmer in Michigan sent $30 as the duty on a

Starting point is 00:11:00 horse that he had driven across the border from Manitoba a number of years earlier. Nearly a month later, he sent a second letter with $6.65 to cover the harness and the buggy. Not all the Conscience Fund money is sent by people with troubled consciences. This is interesting. Some of it is money that came in a perfectly legal way into the hands of people who didn't think they were entitled to it. Sometimes this gets political. In 1873, Congress gave itself a pay raise, and many of the members who opposed it donated the extra money to the Conscience Fund to show that they would have felt guilty accepting it.

Starting point is 00:11:29 Somewhat conversely, when President Herbert Hoover and his cabinet volunteered to reduce their pay in 1932 during the Depression, they asked the Treasury not to put the money in the Conscience Fund so that they wouldn't look as they were returning the money out of guilt. It went into the General Fund instead. Some people send in money that they simply find on the street. One sent in a dime and a letter that read, this afternoon I found the enclosed coin on the pavement. So I thought I'd send it to the government. Sure. In the 1980s, someone in St. Louis sent in at least four separate coins he'd found on the street. In 1984, he sent a dime and a penny. And in 1985, he sent two nickels, one at a time, explaining that the owner could not be found. When I read about that, I wondered why these wound up in the Conscience

Starting point is 00:12:09 Fund, and I think the reason is that the sender wasn't making a free donation of his own money, he was returning money that he felt belonged to the government. I guess there's not a bright line between the funds. Some letters are just incomprehensible. Enclosed is $210 for some letters I read many years ago and some food I didn't pay for. No one at the Treasury knows what that means. One Chicago man who considered that he owed the government $1,665 assembled the money in cash and then cut the bills in half, sending one half of each piece of currency to the Treasury at Washington and the other to the sub-Treasury at New York. That was to guard against theft.

Starting point is 00:12:44 The halves would be worthless until the government reattached them so he could be sure they would reach their destination safely. Which is odd, but clever. Two last odd ones. Some people just get the wrong idea. In 1914, a young woman heard of the Conscience Fund and decided it was a fund created by the government to reward people with clear consciences and asked for $100 to fund her education. She wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury saying that she had a perfectly good

Starting point is 00:13:08 conscience and would repay the money in time with interest. She guaranteed that the government would lose nothing. They turned her down. And sadly, and finally, even the conscience fund itself is subject to fraud. Sometimes when a large gift is reported in the news, someone will try to get his hands on it by deceit. When the story of a $30,000 donation appeared in the newspaper, one woman wrote in to claim half of it. She said her husband had been drunk at the time he had sent in the money and that he'd sent twice as much as he'd intended. She asked them to send her $15,000. They didn't. In addition to helping me see better, I expect my eyeglasses to stay clean and clear. But if you've worn glasses, then you know that's not always the case.

Starting point is 00:14:00 Thankfully, Grizol no-glare lenses are life-tested to protect against annoyances like fingerprints, smudges, scratches, and glare, so you can focus on what's going on around you rather than your lenses. That means you don't have to worry about your lenses getting dirty when you take them on and off, or getting scratched when you clean them on your shirt. Crizal no-glare lenses even make it safer for you to drive at night by reducing any reflection caused by the headlights of oncoming traffic. They also protect your eyes from harmful UV light, which can contribute to long-term damages like eye disease. And with Crizal no-glare lenses, your friends and family can actually see your eyes, Thank you. I have some updates on the Audrey Hepburn question that I covered in episode 140 on whether she had participated in the Dutch resistance during World War II. This question sprang from a lateral thinking puzzle in episode 138, in which Hepburn was

Starting point is 00:14:55 said to have danced to raise money for the resistance. Samantha Lisk wrote to say, Dear Sharon, Greg, and Sasha, I am a newcomer to Futility Closet and I listen to the podcast throughout the day, often to the detriment of my productivity at work. Everything is so interesting. I was particularly happy to learn that you live in the Research Triangle area because that is where I live as well and I don't know of many other podcasts originating from here. I'm writing in regards to the debunking of the Audrey Hepburn blackout performance story that you mentioned in episode 140 of the podcast. Classic films are a hobby of mine, and it is documented in several

Starting point is 00:15:30 places, often in Audrey's own words or those of her children, that she did make such performances to benefit the Dutch resistance during the war. One example is found at Audrey Hepburn's official site, AudreyHepburn.com. There is an image of Audrey and her mother Ella in one such performance. The caption reads, Audrey and Ella performing in a Tableau Vivant musical benefit concert in Arnhem, January 1940. The website also describes their life in occupied Holland and specifically mentions Audrey's benefit performances. Ella did her best to keep Audrey's spirits up and enrolled her in ballet

Starting point is 00:16:06 lessons at the Arnhem Conservatory. For her part, Audrey participated in blackout performances held to benefit the resistance and gave ballet lessons in her grandfather's house to refugee girls in the area. In addition, Hepburn herself described her efforts to aid the resistance during the occupation in her screen test for Roman Holiday, though I think you may have quoted this directly in the podcast episode. And Samantha sent a link to a video of Hepburn saying the words that I had quoted in episode 140 about how she gave secret dance performances in 1944 to help raise money for what she called the underground. I had seen this quote on the CNN website and hadn't known in what context she had said it, so it was interesting to learn that it was part of a screen test and also to see

Starting point is 00:16:49 the video of her saying it herself. Samantha also notes that Hepburn's oldest son, Sean Hepburn Ferrer, wrote a book entitled Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit, in which he mentions her aid to the Dutch resistance, and Samantha includes a quote from the book. Audrey participated in several benefit performances whose moral uplifting value to the Dutch-occupied population concealed fundraising efforts on behalf of the Dutch resistance. So that seems like some decent evidence in the support for the story column. Yeah. We also heard from a couple of our Dutch listeners about this topic. Right before we had released episode 140 with the follow-up on Hepburn, John Seegers wrote, it has only been six

Starting point is 00:17:32 weeks since I discovered your podcast and I was instantly addicted to both the stories and the lateral thinking puzzles. One puzzle that was based on an actual piece of history I found particularly enthralling, the puzzle about the ballet dancer whose performances had to be kept secret and who was later to become famous as an actress. Indeed, I am talking about Audrey Hepburn, who was one of the few people with a Dutch background that became celebrities in Hollywood. It so happens that right around the time you published episode 138, an exhibition was opened in a Dutch war museum that addresses Ms. Hepburn's wartime years in the Netherlands and the role her mother played during this time. In addition, the research done in preparation for the exhibition gave rise to a psychological novel entitled Et Keheim van Audrey H., or The Secret of Audrey H.

Starting point is 00:18:17 All of this I learned from a late night show on Dutch television two days after listening to episode 138. What an incredible coincidence, don't you think? It really is. It is. Many thanks for the wealth of interesting stories that you research and publish. I hope that my message contributes a tiny bit to one of them. So thanks for that, John. And yes, you certainly did.

Starting point is 00:18:37 And yeah, the timing was a complete coincidence because Sid had sent us that puzzle back in October, and we just happened to use it right before this exhibition opened in the Netherlands, apparently. It's a pretty obscure topic to come up twice like that. Yeah. And Robert Der Hart wrote in response to my asking for help with the translation of the Airborne Museum's news article with their claim that Hepburn had not worked for the resistance. This was the article that seems to have prompted the whole question in the first place, and Robert's translation made a lot more sense than the Google translated version I'd been trying to understand. So I really appreciated both that and his very

Starting point is 00:19:12 helpful pronunciation tips for names and places that he included in his email. It seems that the Airborne Museum in Osterbeek has concluded that the idea of Hepburn working for the resistance was a myth that was spread by her biographer, Barry Paris, among others. The museum says that there were nearly two dozen stories about Hepburn's work for the resistance, which ranged from smaller things like dancing to raise money or delivering messages, to claims that she had helped evacuate British soldiers after the 1944 Battle of Arnhem. The museum's director said that they searched archives from Australia to Brussels and spoke to numerous sources

Starting point is 00:19:47 but could not find any evidence for these claims. The investigation did, however, turn up enough material for the museum to put together an exhibition on the influence of Hepburn's mother, Ella von Heimstra, on her career. This exhibition, which I think is the same one that Robert, that, excuse me, John was writing about, was opened on January 26th by Hepburn's sons. And Robert sent some extra information on the exhibit,

Starting point is 00:20:10 which according to the museum is partly about how Van Heemstro was the driving force behind Hepburn's career. The museum also says that part of the purpose of the exhibit is to show that for the majority of Dutch people during the Second World War, daily life went on as usual and that the population did not consist only of collaborators or resistance fighters. The exhibition is about the core values of citizens who were under pressure at that time. The storyline shows how a Dutch mother tried to find a moral compass in a chaotic world, but also how she was sometimes led by opportunistic motives to offer her daughter the chances that she herself had never enjoyed. The exhibition is not intended to show good or bad, but to disclose the gray area in between. And the museum points out that Hepburn's mother had been involved with fascist groups earlier in her life. This had given her a large social network that may

Starting point is 00:21:01 have helped to launch Hepburn's international career, but also caused the family some disgrace right after the war. As for whether Hepburn did participate in the resistance, Robert says, I wouldn't be surprised if, after the war, Hepburn and or her mother embellished the odd story, singing to raise money, or left an inaccurate claim by an overzealous biographer or publicity agent unchallenged. An heroic story about a young girl during the war can't have been bad for her public image. Better in any case than the truth. But that is pure speculation. I'm inclined to think Hepburn did not work for the resistance. As the museum says, people weren't all resistance fighters. For most, ordinary life continued as

Starting point is 00:21:40 normal. So I guess overall, it seems to me that it looks unlikely that Audrey Hepburn participated in any serious resistance activities such as helping to transport soldiers. But there does seem to be at least some good reasons to think that she very well may have participated in at least some fundraising for the underground, as she said. I guess it would be hard to definitively prove either side at this point. Yeah, but that's interesting. If there were bolder claims that are being thrown out, that doesn't mean these sort of milder ones are false too. Right.

Starting point is 00:22:08 It seems like the museum was kind of throwing them all out together. And I don't know how they accounted for the fact that Audrey herself seems to have said it, but I can understand why they would want to say she probably didn't help transport soldiers. Yeah, I certainly buy that. But I think you already made the point. If she did dance as she did in this puzzle, it would be hard to prove that, especially now. Right.

Starting point is 00:22:32 There's probably no written records of, you know, who was participating in secret performances. Right, exactly. On a rather different facet of Audrey Hepburn's wartime doings, Brian Arnold wrote, Hello, Greg, Sharon, and Sasha. We just finished listening to podcast episode 138 and as always thoroughly enjoyed it. The puzzle about the ballerina who actually ended up being Audrey Hepburn made me recall an obituary in the New York Times about Michael Byrne, a British man

Starting point is 00:22:58 who passed away in 2010. It feels like there could be a whole episode about him, but some highlights. He flirted with Nazism, ended up being a decorated British Army commando, was a POW, an author, and was the gay lover of a KGB agent. He had had an affair with Audrey Hepburn's mother, and she sent him a Red Cross package while he was a prisoner of the Nazis. After his release, he returned the favor by sending cigarettes to her in the Netherlands, which she was able to sell on the black market to buy penicillin, which was needed to treat Audrey's malnutrition-related infection. I thought this was funny because it must be the first time in history when cigarettes were

Starting point is 00:23:33 actually responsible for drastically improving someone's health. And by the account of the New York Times obituary, it does seem that Byrne had an extremely colorful and eventful life. The Times goes as far as to say that Byrne saved Audrey Hepburn's life. And I wondered if maybe that was overstating things a bit. But so I looked into it a little bit. And his obituary in The Telegraph says, he helped save Audrey Hepburn's life by sending food parcels to her in occupied Holland, where she was critically ill in hospital and where she and her mother were subsisting on tulip bulbs burn also sent them hundreds of cartons of cigarettes which commanded

Starting point is 00:24:10 high prices on the black market the money raised from their sale bought audrey hepburn supplies of the new drug penicillin which were crucial in her recovery from an infection brought on by malnutrition she had a really hard life yeah she did she did. And so overall, I think I'm going to go with that he sounds like he helped to save her life. And I also think that it would make a great lateral thinking puzzle to ask how cigarettes managed to save someone's life if anyone wants to try that out on their family or friends. And on a non-Audrey Hepburn related note, Brian Ford wrote in about episode 108 and the story of Ruth Belleville, a London woman who, until 1939, would set her watch at the Greenwich Observatory and bring the correct time to her customers in the city. never heard of this. You may be interested to know that a similar service still existed up until this century. We have a friend who was a clockmaker living in Greenwich. He repairs and maintains the most wonderful timepieces you can imagine. One of the things he used to do was go to the

Starting point is 00:25:13 City of London each week, where many venerable institutions have antiquarian clocks on display. Every Friday he would go and do his rounds, which consisted of winding these clocks and setting the time. So it's not exactly what the Greenwich Time Lady did, and certainly not for the same reason, but as recently as the last 15 years, the time was still being taken from Greenwich to the city. I like that. So thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. And if you have anything you'd like to say, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. to say, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com.

Starting point is 00:25:51 It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg is going to give me a strange sounding situation and I have to try to figure out what is actually going on, asking only yes or no questions. This is from listener Alexander Louvre. The doctors of the French court asked their patients to climb a tall pole in order to alleviate the symptoms of their disease. What were they trying to cure? This is really real? Yes. Well, we think so. We think so. I mean, that could be almost anything, depending on how confused they were about physiology at the time. Okay. Would you have expected one gender more than the other to be told to climb the tall pole? No. Oh, either gender. Okay. Would you have expected one age group more than another to be doing this? No. Okay. Would there be some characteristics about the patients other than what disease they have that you would expect to be relevant here?

Starting point is 00:26:45 Aha. It's not gender. It's not age. Nationality? Yes. Oh. You're making good progress already. Okay.

Starting point is 00:27:00 So some people that were not French who were in the French court would be having some kind of malady. Would this be like, I don't know, they didn't know about jet lag back then so adapting to a new time zone no good guess um so it'd be people that were from a so should i work out what what other country they were from yes okay was it like one specific country yes oh my i must say you're already doing much better than i thought you might i I am too. Okay, a country in Europe? Yes. A country that's like at a high altitude, so they thought they needed to get them back up to a high altitude?

Starting point is 00:27:31 Yes. Oh, gosh. Okay, Switzerland? Yes. I'm trying to think of high altitude countries. You're almost there. So, okay, so Swiss people were coming to the French court and suffering from some problem.

Starting point is 00:27:46 And they thought, well, if we can get them back to altitude, a high altitude, that would solve it. Was this a problem they were having truly related to altitude? No. Like, so I shouldn't even bother. No, don't try to make actual sense of it. Don't make actual sense of it. Okay. Was this a problem that French people could have had also?

Starting point is 00:28:08 Yes. sense of it okay was this a problem that that french people could have had also um yes but but the swiss were more likely to have it yes would all visitors to the french court be likely to have it um or most visitors as opposed to like no you really would expect the swiss to be having this problem more no let's say all visitors not the french themselves but the Swiss to be having this problem more. No, let's say all visitors, not the French themselves, but the visitors. Visitors could be having this problem. Yes. Is it like, I don't know, indigestion because they're not used to French food? No. No.

Starting point is 00:28:36 Okay, so the visitors would be more likely to have it. Would this be something that you would consider communicable? No. A disease you would catch from someone else? No. A problem you're having yourself. insomnia no no allergies no these are all good guesses um is this something that people would normally you would think they would die from no no so this is more of a nuisance kind of a problem yes and i'd call it a problem think less a problem. Yes, and I'd call it a problem. Think less, think more psychological and less somatic.

Starting point is 00:29:07 Okay, and so do I need to know the time period? Well, yes or no. I'll just tell you it's the 1600s, 17th century. Okay, okay. But it's not related to anything particularly that's going on at that time, any particular geopolitical events or historical events that I need to know about at that time. Nope. geopolitical events or historical events that I need to know about at that time.

Starting point is 00:29:30 Okay, so visitors to the French court in the 1600s would have been likely to have had some kind of discomfort or problem. All right, would it be related to the gastrointestinal system? No. Respiratory system? No. Again, it's not so much bodily as mental. Homesickness? Yes, that is exactly oh my gosh no uh swiss soldiers served as guards at the french court as was the custom for many heads of state this is the so-called swiss guard alex says some thought that since they lamented the longing for their mountains

Starting point is 00:29:58 mountains equals altitude let's raise their altitude i should say here that alex said he couldn't confirm the actual business about making them climb poles, and I tried to and couldn't either, so we're not sure about that part of it, but the rest of this is true. In modern times, homesickness was thought specifically to afflict Swiss people, since Swiss mercenaries served in various countries across Europe, often for long periods of time. This dates back to 1688, when Swiss doctor Johannes Hofer referred to it as a neurological disease of essentially demonic cause. There was even a name for it, Mal de Suisse, which means Swiss illness, or Schweizer Heimweh, which means Swiss homesickness. It was thought that Swiss mercenaries serving in lowland

Starting point is 00:30:35 France or Italy would pine for their native mountains. Additional symptoms were thought to include fainting, high fever, indigestion, stomach pain, and even death. The cause was uncertain. Military physicians thought that the condition might be due to damage to the victim's brain cells and eardrums caused by the clanging of cowbells in their native land. I'll put a link in the show notes. So, well done. And thank you, Alex, for sending that in. And maybe if you're busy climbing a pole, like, you just forget to be homesick for a little while.

Starting point is 00:31:01 Thank you. And if anybody else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to try, you can send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet is a full-time commitment for us, and we really do depend on the support of our listeners. While we have some advertising on the show,

Starting point is 00:31:19 it doesn't cover the big commitment of time that it takes to make the podcast each week. If you would like to help support the show and get bonus material such as extra discussions, outtakes, more lateral thinking puzzles, and updates on Sasha, the hardest working podcast mascot in the business, then check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futilitycloset or see the support us section of the website. If you're looking for more quirky curiosities, check out the Futility Closet books on Amazon or visit the website at futilitycloset.com

Starting point is 00:31:51 where you can sample more than 9,000 Magnolias Scrimptons. At the website, you can also see the show notes for the podcast with links and references for the topics in today's show. 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 performed by the amazing Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 143-The Conscience Fund

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