There are already a lot of reasons why I’m thankful to not live in the 1800s, and I just discovered one more. Nowadays we don’t do April Fool’s Day the way some of those crazy bastards did April Fool’s Day. Near train derailments, sick babies…and this, which is what Not Funny tags are made of.
Sneaked into the kitchen, filled the pepper castor with gunpowder, and placed a cartridge in the coal scuttle. Ordered cook to keep up a good fire, and give me a beef bone for breakfast. Determined that wife should see that other people could blow up as well as herself. Went up stair and waited for row. Cook peppered the bone when it was on the gridirion, and, frightened into fizgigs, dropped castor into the fire. Both went off together — castor into atoms, cook into hysterics. Sam, the porter, who was toasting his bread and butter, that he might have a dejeune a la fourchette, said he was “narvish,” and popped on a few coals to make up the fire.
Grand explosion: last scene of Miller and his Men. — Boiler blown up, scalding cat and three kittens, who jumped about, giving fine specimens of animal magnetism. Sam, with a live coal in his eye, dancing about, blind with rage, cleared the shelves of crockery with his toasting fork; and coming to anchor in a large block-tin dish cover, sat down to swear. Never laughed so much in my life.
via the Baltimore Sun (1839)
Holy shit. Like seriously.
There’s also mention of an accidental hanging during an attempted prank, which I’m surprised hasn’t happened more recently, come to think of it.
Anyway, I think I’m going to hate everyone’s stupid fake press releases a little less this year. Well, maybe. Some of those things are really damn awful.
