Black Hood Research Articles

2 - Marginal Youths or Outlaws? Youth Street Gangs, Globalisation, and Violence in Contemporary Sierra Leone


 
 
 
 
 
 Sierra Leoneans were shocked when video clips of the Central Correctional Centre gallows began circulating on social media after the Minister of Internal Affairs instructed the prison authorities to get ready to take life. The Minister’s pronouncement came hot on the heels of a series of alleged gang-related murders that rocked Freetown in 2016. What are the complex linkages between street violence and youth marginalisation? How might violence among marginal youth relate to unplanned urbanisation, the retreat of the state, the neoliberal paradigm, and the wider political economy – all trappings of an exclusionary globalisation process that continues to exclude those at the periphery? This article describes the appropriation by marginal actors of global cultural influences and their transcription into deadly weapons of the weak in furtherance of a survivalist objective anchored in citizenship. The research is based on fieldwork conducted in five cities in Sierra Leone – group discussions and in-depth interviews with over 300 participants, all identifying themselves as gangsters belonging to one of the three dominant team/ set federations: Crip, Blood, and Black (Black Hood or Black Game). Problematising their quotidian existence in contemporary Africa raises fundamental questions about globalisation and citizenship in the making of subaltern subjectivities.
 
 
 
 Ibrahim Abdullah, Department of History and African Studies, Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone. Email: Ibdullah@gmail.com
 
 

Vacation

Vacation Caroline Crew (bio) Vacation, all I ever wanted. Vacation, had to get away. Vacation, meant to be spent alone. The Go-Go's, "Vacation" (1) This refrain leaks over and over the candy-coloured synchronized watering skiing dream puff of the Go-Go's 1982 video for their single "Vacation." Tiaras and pearls and tutus and giggling. The splashing is palpable. A 1950s teenage dream of kitsch that Katy Perry is still singing. From the opening shot, Belinda Carlisle guides the pile of white women, sullen in their magazine flipping, to the promised land: vacation. Not saved by a white knight but instead given the freedom of their own tomorrow: Tomorrow's a day of mine that you won't be in. Perhaps you were not alive in 1982. Perhaps you wrote off the Go-Go's as a girl band, "ugly punklings turned America's sweetheart" in one contemporaneous reviewer's eyes. Perhaps you have lived a life that never brought you near Belinda Carlisle's voice. But perhaps you'd still recognize the song: it plays in the background of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 as George W. Bush golfs prior to the 9/11 attacks. It soundtracks car commercials, it is montage music for countless sitcoms, it is covered in Glee: whenever you need the carefree sense of summer's good clean fun, there it is. Vacation, all I ever wanted. Vacation, had to get away. Vacation, meant to be spent alone. [End Page 180] (2) The personal is political. To vacate: freedom from obligations, leisure, release. The personal is political, unless, for a time, we have the leisure of vacating from our person. I do. I can vacate whenever I want. (3) We are in Minneapolis, at the Walker Art Center. A welcome, if brief, vacation. I sit in front of Joan Mitchell's Hemlock (1954) for fifteen minutes. I get up, leave the white room and mistake myself. I come back. This occurs three times. Later, outside, the steel skies draw me back to Joan Mitchell's exploding deep green and white. Hemlock (1954) is clearly not one of Mitchell's more famous canvases—and later proves impossible to find in facsimile, all Googling showing the painting to be overtaken by Hemlock (1956). But this earlier Hemlock is, for a few minutes, mine. I know that another person's recollection of a painting is almost as boring as listening to a friend recall a dream from last night, but hear me out. I can't tell you to Google it. Centered in a vast white block, what looks like a black hood unbillowing reveals after repeated looking to be greens emerging with darkness from the canvas. Some blue emerges, a breath of grey. The ochre emerges most slowly. As the colour moves like smoke up out of the canvas, I exhale deeply. I forget the academic struggles awaiting my return. I forget the twenty-four people killed in a bus accident in Bangladesh, the three people shot and murdered in a Milan courtroom. I exhale so deeply my shoulders drop. I forget. (4) What I forget is what I have vacated. In graduate school, my closest friend, Rana, is the only black woman in a program of sixty-six people. Our supposedly liberal faculty of fiction writers and poets repeatedly ignored her experiences of racism, labeling her an angry black woman that "hated white people" and "hated men." Perversely, a white female professor tells us the voice of Rodney King is speaking through her and that complaints must be deescalated. Read: quiet down. When hundreds of students (predominantly white) signed a letter of [End Page 181] solidarity with Rana, note was taken. The terms libel and slander were sent by the head of the department to explain Rana's description of her experiences. Those people who offered solidarity with Rana, who shared her story and their eye-witness accounts of these events, were told their actions, the act of speaking out, was "cyberbullying" against the white man as well as the tenured faculty whose behavior was in question. Repeated legal threats were made, and all for questioning the behavior of an institution that...

War Ready, and: Ode to the G.R.S. (Graves Registration Service)

War Ready, and: Ode to the G.R.S. (Graves Registration Service) Janice N. Harrington (bio) War Ready for above the shrieks and groans, could be heard a sound . . . similar to hail upon a tin roof—the extracted teeth being thrown into tin buckets at the sides of the chairs. —Chester D. Heywood, Negro Combat Troops in the World War Splinters of jawbone, blue gums, pus-swollen roots, tarry stumps that usedtabe teeth, Lord have mercy and Lord, Jesus! Molars, canines, eyeteeth wrenched, pried, yanked like bent nails from hard lumber. Teeth dropping like hail on a tin roof. Men from m’lasses and ribbon cane, from snuff, from suga’ teats to soothe teething gums, from knuckle-busted teeth and buck teeth. Teeth that yassah-smiled and bit off what they had to chew, took what they just had to swalla. Men who knew root doctors and home medicine, who used whiskey or turpentine, saltwater swishes. Men who softened aspirins beneath their tongues or learned to “Jus’ grab a holt of it and twist.” Black men marching, marching. Soldier bound, they thought. Black men digging, toting, hammering, hauling. Black men the army signed into Supply and Service. The 371st infantry heading over there, over there, black backs and black muscle. [End Page 751] Two dentists for the entire regiment, no fillings, no drills, no crowns, the army chose the cheaper route. Black mouths moanin’, spittin’ blood, blood-tainted pus from swollen tongues, half-dead roots rooted out or torn free, splintered bones and bruised gums. Damn, God damn. Black recruits from a far older war, steady fighting, steady dying, not their first battle, and sho not their last. Teeth fell like hail. Grown men screamed and cried out. Hell, no. Nothing given for the pain. [End Page 752] Ode to the G.R.S. (Graves Registration Service) Ferrying bones. Rags of meat. Stench. A hidden flask to still a mind that has seen and seen too much. Grave mud. Maggot mud. They pulled from those fetid muds bodies and parts of bodies, pulled from no man’s land ribs tangled in tatters of wool, char still clutching a rifle stock, what was once this weight, somebody’s son, somebody’s father. When they found him what did they think, unearthing the black hood still covering his head, the rope binding legs and wrists, the muddied rope around his dark neck? What did they think? Digging, digging, searching for gurneys of dead, for corpses to pry up, gather, move. Learning that skulls still grin and that trench rats will eat anything. Did they slip rags over their mouths to ward the smell? Did they gag, or try to? Did they lift their flasks to rinse away what left them choked? Did they try to? Returning weary, sore, and soiled to lay on rough cots, trying not to see, they hated the day with its skull-white skies, but they hated night even more, the bloated moon, the maggot stars. The reports say they sang in their camps at night, anything with joy in it, and maybe that’s so, maybe so. But still the one they found who looked as they looked, when they found him there, half-rotted and tied— did they lift him tenderly? Cut the noose? Uncover his face and socket eyes? Did they think of home then? Had they removed such rope before? The photos never show their faces clearly, the men of the G.R.S., dark bodies bearing [End Page 753] ill-shaped burdens on canvas stretchers, black men chucking shovels into grey earth, swinging mattocks, lowering a body, something like a body, into a waiting box, and then their hammers, and then their shovels. Black backs bent and slick with sweat. They stabbed their shovels down like bayonets. [End Page 754] Janice N. Harrington JANICE N. HARRINGTON teaches creative writing at the University of Illinois. Her latest book is Primitive: The Art and Life of Horace H. Pippin (BOA Editions, 2016). Copyright © 2017 Johns Hopkins University Press

Shooters and Shifting Sands: The Wild West Life of Texas Ranger Captain Frank Jones by Bob Alexander (review)

Reviewed by: Shooters and Shifting Sands: The Wild West Life of Texas Ranger Captain Frank Jones by Bob Alexander Richard F. Selcer Shooters and Shifting Sands: The Wild West Life of Texas Ranger Captain Frank Jones. By Bob Alexander. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2015. Pp. 495. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) We are told that there were four great Texas Ranger Captains in the glorious days of “one riot, one Ranger”: William McDonald, John Rogers, James Brooks, and John Hughes. To that legendary pantheon we need to add a fifth name, Frank Jones, argues award-winning western author Bob Alexander. The retired lawman turned author is a stalwart of the University of North Texas Press stable (having published five titles now), and he is obviously a big fan of the Texas Rangers, and that is not a reference to the baseball team. Whether Jones (1856–1893) actually belongs in the exalted company of the Big Four is the main question. He was obviously an extraordinary lawman, a man of action and also a good administrator with a sharp mind and a willingness to mentor young up-and-coming Rangers. Those are rare qualities individually, but to find them all in the same man is truly remarkable. Alexander’s book has much to recommend it, including an up-close view of law enforcement along the Texas–Mexico border when that border was wide open, the sometimes strained relations between the Rangers and local law enforcement, and details about late nineteenth-century law enforcement in wild-and-wooly Texas. The best part of the book may be Captain Jones’s dramatic death on June 30, 1893, in a shootout [End Page 325] on the “shifting sands” of Pirate Island, complete with last words worthy of the popular Western novelist Louis L’Amour: “Boys, I am killed” (357). The book’s weakness is that the author is a charter member of “the Riders of the Purple Prose.” A few examples: The Rangers have “backbones of steel” (xvi); people do not fire a shot, they “pop a cap” (216); men are not hanged, they “die draped with the black hood while suspended beneath . . . a jail yard scaffold.” (247); and nobody just dies, they “pass to the other side” or something similarly colorful. This goes on for page after page. The reader has to work hard to dig Jones out from under the layers of purple prose. Other stylistic problems are a love of rhetorical questions, exclamation points, anticipation, and too many editorial asides. Much of the first half of the book is “life-and-times” stuff because Jones did not leave any writings except a few letters and official reports. This may be why the author devotes so much space to Comanche raids, especially Comanche barbarism, going back in time even before Jones was born. This material seems only distantly related to Jones’s life. Personally, I have one small bone to pick with the author: His otherwise extensive bibliography is arbitrarily selective, consigning all primary sources to the endnotes alone. If you enjoy blood-and-thunder lawman’s biography, this one will sweep you along at a full gallop. It may or may not convince you that Frank Jones was a great captain, but you will have no doubt that the man possessed “true grit.” And you will certainly have no doubt where Bob Alexander stands on the question. Richard F. Selcer Fort Worth, Texas Copyright © 2015 The Texas State Historical Association

Development of pulmonary oxygen toxicity in rats after hyperoxic exposure

Abstract The aim of the study was to examine the effects of hyperbaric oxygen on lung aeration on an animal experimental model and compare the obtained results with the anticipated scope of damage to pulmonary parenchyma in humans under the same exposure conditions. The research was carried out on Black Hood rats that were kept in a hyperbaric chamber designed for animals in an atmosphere of pure oxygen and at overpressures of 0.15, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 MPa for 1, 2 or 4 h. After sacrificing the animals, histopathological specimens were obtained encompassing cross-sections of entire lungs, which were subjected to qualitative and quantitative examination with the use of the 121-point Haug grid. A statistically significant decrease in pulmonary parenchyma was observed as a result of an increasing oxygen partial pressure as well as with prolonged exposure time. The intensification of changes observed was much higher than expected on the basis of calculations performed with the use of tables.

Maestro di Pico i iluminacije u inkunabuli De Civitate Dei (Nicolas Jenson, Venecija, 1475.) u samostanu Sv. Duje u Kraju na Pašmanu

Maestro di Pico i iluminacije u inkunabuli De Civitate Dei (Nicolas Jenson, Venecija, 1475.) u samostanu Sv. Duje u Kraju na Pašmanu

African American Stereotypes in Reality Television

In the early 1990s, reality television was a fledging type of voyeuristic television programming that was catching the attention of American viewers. Twenty years later, reality television is the format of choice for many traditional and cable networks. This study analyzes ten reality television shows airing in 2005 and 2008 to investigate whether producers cast participants who fit into traditional and new African American stereotypes. The analysis determined all ten shows had at least one participant who fit into stereotypical characters, including the angry black woman, hoochie, hood rat, homo thug, sambo, and coon.

Magnifying gastroscopy using a soft black hood for difficult colonoscopy

Various methods are reported as aids to cecal intubation for cases in which colonoscopy is difficult. This study aimed to investigate prospectively whether a gastroscope with magnification function, narrow-band imaging (NBI), and a soft black hood can aid insertion in cases of difficult colonoscopy and facilitate both accurate diagnosis and safe treatment. This prospective study recruited 177 patients. All were examined with a magnifying gastroscope. A commercially available soft black hood was attached to the gastroscope during insertion and magnification. Difficult colonoscopy was anticipated before colonoscopy in cases of patients with at least one of the following factors: low BMI (<20kg/m(2)), adhesion due to previous surgery, or previous colonoscopy that could not reach to the cecum. The success rate and duration of cecal intubation then were assessed. All detected lesions were evaluated by magnifying NBI and then classified as non-neoplastic or neoplastic for endoscopic diagnosis. Subsequently, all the lesions were removed and examined histologically for comparison. The overall success rate of cecal intubation was 100% (177/177), and the mean time taken to reach the cecum was 5.9min. A total of 156 lesions were detected endoscopically, and the overall diagnostic accuracy of NBI with magnification was 98.7%. No associated complications occurred. Magnifying gastroscopy using a soft black hood and NBI is useful for cecal intubation in cases wherein colonoscopy is difficult, facilitating accurate diagnosis and safe treatment.

Reproductive characteristics of captive greater rhea (Rhea americana) males reared in the state of São Paulo, Brazil

Rheas (Rhea americana) belongs to the ratite group. Considering the commercial significance of this birds, some techniques, such as semen collection, were standardized. In this study, 107 male rheas (3 to 4 years of age) reared in commercial farms in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, were used. Semen was collected during the breeding and off-breeding seasons of 2001, 2002, and 2003. Bird hierarchical behavior was observed. Birds were restrained performed using a box and a black hood. Semen was collected by digital pressure on the base of the phallus, which size was measured, and the presence or absence of spiral shape was observed. Immediately after collection, semen samples were evaluated for volume, motility, sperm concentration, and morphology. In a limited number of birds, blood samples were collected to measure testosterone levels. Among the 69 birds studied during the breeding season, 44 presented large phalluses, out of which 26 showed spiral shape. The method of semen collection was efficient. The following semen parameter results were obtained: volume (0.68 ±0.14 ml), motility (61.11±11.54%), sperm concentration (3.29±1.33 x109 sptz/ml), and number of spermatozoa per ejaculate (2.40±1.38x109 sptz/ml). Morphological abnormalities were analyzed and recorded. Testosterone levels were statistically different (p = 0.0161) between the breeding and non-breeding season (53.28±18.41 ng/ml and 5:57±3.81 ng/ml, respectively). Variations in phallus size were also found between the breeding and non-breeding seasons. Larger phalluses and higher testosterone levels were correlated with dominant behavior. The results of the present experiment confirmed that it is possible to collect semen from rheas, allowing the future use of biotechnologies such as artificial insemination.

A Fairy Tale and a Falling Library, a Bloody Ghost, and a Rabbit-Skinning: Shakespeare (and Ford) on Stage in 2009

During an eleven day stretch in August 20091 managed to see eight Shakespeare productions (three in Stratford, three at the Globe, one at the Old Vic, and one at the National Theatre) along with London Fringe version of Ford's 'Tis Pity She's Whore. Out of this batch emerged some memorable choices and images. Director Joanna Turner's 'Tis Pity at the White Bear Theatre for the Baseless Fabric Company was my second excursion away from the West End to see this script performed (the first was 2005 version at the Southwark Playhouse). Both shows had world-class Annabellas: in 2005 Mariah Gale (recently Ophelia and Celia for the RSC) and in 2009 Siobhan McMillan who charted powerfully the stages in the journey of this figure from her original incestuous love to repentance, self-sacrifice, and horrible death at the hands of her brother. The 2005 version with only nine actors was heavily pared back (the Bergetto sub-plot was gone completely), whereas Turner, with fifteen actors, presented nearly uncut script yet told the story efficiently and dearly in just under two hours (and as bonus playgoers as they entered were treated to heart-shaped chocolate wrapped in red). The small playing space in this pub theatre did pose some problems. In particular, with no playing area above, the scene in which Annabella drops the letter written in blood that is picked up by the friar (5.1) had to be adjusted so that, standing on the same level, she made short stage cross and dropped it on the floor, then retreated. The other scenes scripted above, however, did make sense when played on the same level, and overall the intimacy of the space made possible the admirable speed and clarity of the presentation. As played here the Bergetto-Poggio-Philotis plot made excellent sense and, to my surprise, I found Donado as played by Robbie Telfer of special interest. Another surprise came in the final scene where (as in 2005) Giovanni entered not with heart on his dagger (as in the famous stage direction) but with heart held in his hand dripping blood. Perhaps the shish kabob image few feet from seated playgoers was deemed too risky. Matthew Dunster's Troilus and Cressida at the Globe was presented in classical dress with an occasional exception, most notably in 4.1 when Antenor was returned to Troy clad in black hood and jumpsuit so as to evoke the image of 2009 political prisoner. Several scenes in this often puzzling script worked well for me. The sending up of Ajax (Chinna Wodu) by the other Greeks (2.3) was delight, as was the Helen-Paris encounter with Pandarus (3.1) where the scene started with decadent foursome (the two lovers lounging on pillows with two boys) and climaxed with much singing and dancing to Pandarus' song (though the scripted lyrics were gone). The failed attempt to prevent Hector (Christopher Colquhoun) from going to battle (5.3) was another strong scene with high passion from Hector, Troilus, Andromache, and Cassandra (the latter made her dire prophecy of Hector's fate by assembling on the floor Hector's helmet and armor so as to suggest dead body). Here and elsewhere Paul Stocker's Troilus was strongest in moments of high emotion, as when in act four he fell to his knees with scream at hearing that Cressida was to be exchanged for Antenor. Paul Hunter's one-eyed Thersites was suitably scabrous and deflationary, and Matthew Kelly got much mileage out of campy Pandarus. Several of Dunster's choices puzzled me. Pandarus' distinctive Epilogue in which he bequeaths his diseases to the playgoers was replaced by pastiche of quotations from his previous speeches, including fines from the 3.1 song that we had not heard and repeated emphasis on love as a generation of vipers (1) (3.1.133). Presumably the goal was to exhibit madness or despair. The Myrmidons who at Achilles' command killed an unarmed and seated Hector were played by four boys not in armor but dressed in blue and wearing sandals, one of whom slit his throat, so that one reviewer (Kate Bassett) complained: why, amid Grecian army sporting horned helmets and breastplates, do Achilles' Myrmidons join the fray in shorts and espadrilles? …

Do male plumage and song characteristics influence female off-territory forays and paternity in the hooded warbler?

Extra-pair fertilizations are common in many socially monogamous species, and paternity studies have indicated that females may use male vocal performance and plumage ornaments as cues to assess male quality. Female off-territory forays may represent a key component of female choice and male extra-pair mating success, and female foray behaviour is expected to be strongly influ- enced by indictors of male quality. In this study, we examined how male song and ornamentation affect how often females left their territories, which males they visited and extra-pair paternity in a socially monogamous passer- ine, the hooded warbler (Wilsonia citrina). We radiotracked 17 females during the fertile period and quantified male vocal performance (song output and rate) and plumage characteristics (size of the black melanin hood and colour of the black hood, yellow cheeks and breast areas). We obtained blood samples and determined paternity at 35 nests including those of 14 females that we radiotracked. Eleven (65%) of the 17 females forayed off-territory, whilst fertile and female foray rate was positively correlated with the number of extra-pair young in the nest. Females that left their territories more frequently were paired with males that sang at a low rate. In addition, extra-pair mates had higher song rates than the social mates they cuckolded (5.3 songs/ min vs. 4.4 songs/min). Female off-territory forays or extra- pair paternity were not significantly related to male plumage characteristics. Our results indicate that a high song rate influences both the foray behaviour of a male's social mate and the likelihood that he will sire extra-pair offspring with neighbouring females.

Gossip

Gossip Lenore Weiss (bio) About a poetry coordinator sitting beneath an umbrellawho reports so and sois booking readings all over townnow that she's screwing you know who. About an editor who thinks she's singlebecause her husband has goneon a business trip to Italy for two weekswhile she stays home with her son. About a manager cut and pasting grantsfor a million dollar project into a Word documentwho's pissed his boss doesn't knowthe first thing about leadership. About the head of armed forces in Fallujawho said Abu Ghraib happenedbecause an enlistee tucked his brainsup a black hood. [End Page 74] About the Israeli government who saidPalestinians are terroristswho should go back to where they came fromor get pushed back into the sea. About Palestinians who saidIsraelis see history with one eyeand who don't understandhow a tree can die standing even when it's been cut down. [End Page 75] Lenore Weiss Lenore Weiss lives in Oakland, California. When she's not working as a Webmaster, she's practicing her guitar. Formerly the coordinator of Kehilla Community Synagogue's Middle East Peace Committee, Lenore recently finished teaching a class entitled, "Exploring What it is to be An American Jew in a Violent World." Her most recent collection of poetry, Sh'ma Yis'rael, was released this year from Pudding House Publications. Copyright © 2007 Bridges Association

Magnification Endoscopy with Narrow Band Imaging in the Cardia Shows a High Prevalence of Intestinal Metaplasia Which Has Identical Microstructural and Microvascular Patterns with Barrett's Epithelium

Background: Gastric cardia has been defined as an area which occupies few mms distal to the gastroesophageal junction (GEJ). It is unclear whether cardia is a normal structure, and whether it lines the esophagus or the proximal stomach. Cardia intestinal metaplasia (CIM) is a premalignant condition with a prevalence of 5-34% on ‘blind biopsies’. Since no endoscopic features exist that can distinguish CIM from normal cardia, biopsy specimens are randomly obtained with potential sampling errors. Our aim was to assess the value of high resolution magnification (HRME) endoscopy with Narrow Band Imaging (NBI) in the detection of CIM. Patients–Methods: Consecutive patients undergoing upper gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy due to dyspeptic symptoms were included in the study. Patients were included if the squamocolumnar junction and the GEJ were at the same level. Endoscopy was performed using the GIF-Q160Z/ and GIF Q240-Z (Olympus, Japan) magnifying endoscopes (× 115). with a black hood mounted on the tip of the scope. Twenty minutes before the endoscopy, all patients drank a mixture consisting of 150 mL of water with acetylcysteine and simethicone. The cardiac area (5 mm below the GEJ) was scrutinized with HRME with NBI. Targeted biopsies were obtained from different microstructural/microvascular patterns. The H. pylori status was examined by histology (biopsies from body and antrum) and by the magnified endoscopic findings in the body mucosa. Results: 157 areas from 50 patients (24 male, mean age 54 years, range 24-72) were studied. Cardiac epithelium was classified into 4 types: type I, round type; type II, tubular type; type III, villous type and type IV flat type. Interestingly, these magnified endoscopic types are the same types described by the Kansas/Amsterdam groups in Barrett's esophagus (BE). The overall frequency of CIM was 76%. The yield of CIM according to the types was: round 0/52 (0%), tubular 42/50 (84%), villous 43/48 (89.6%), and flat type 4/7 (57%). H. pylori infection was detected in 13 patients (26%). 9/13 patients with H. Pylori infection had CIM while 29/37 patients without H. pylori infection had also CIM (p = ns). The specificity/PPV of type 2 and type 3 for the prediction of CIM were 86.7% (78-92.7/84% (73.7-91.3), and 91.2 (82.9-96.1)/89.6% (79.7-95.3) respectively. The sensitivity and NPV of the combination of types 2-3 for the prediction of CIM was 95.5% (90.7-98.1) and 92.9% (85.4-97). Conclusion: HRME with NBI in the cardia shows a high prevalence of IM which has identical magnified endoscopic patterns with BE. Larger studies from other centers involving also control groups are needed in order to validate our findings.

'The Production of a Female Pen'. Anna Larpent's Account of the Duchess of Kingston's Bigamy Trial of 1776 (review)

Reviewed by: 'The Production of a Female Pen'. Anna Larpent's Account of the Duchess of Kingston's Bigamy Trial of 1776 Elaine Chalus 'The Production of a Female Pen'. Anna Larpent's Account of the Duchess of Kingston's Bigamy Trial of 1776. Facsimile edition with transcription and introduction by Matthew J. Kinservik. (Lewis Walpole Library, Miscellaneous Antiquities, no. XVII.) New Haven: LewisWalpole Library, Yale University. Distributed by the University of New England Press. 2004. 120 pp. $25.00. ISBN 0845731548. This volume marks the LewisWalpole Library's revival of the Miscellaneous Antiquities series, first begun by Horace Walpole in 1772 to cater for the 'taste for anecdotes and historic papers, for ancient letters that record affairs of state, illustrate characters of remarkable persons, or preserve the memory of former manners and customs'. The two documents which form the heart of this volume are well-suited to the relaunch of this series: they are little-known and the author - Anna Porter (later Larpent) - and her subject - the bigamy trial of Elizabeth Chudleigh, duchess of Kingston in 1776 - will be of interest to historians and English scholars alike. It is indicative of our increasingly digital age, however, that the reader is left wondering why the Library has chosen to publish a facsimile edition, complete with scanned documents and transcriptions, for a project which would lend itself so well to a digital format. Given the focus on the scanned documents and their overall high quality, it is unfortunate that some of the scans cut off lines of text. Although a minor annoyance, as the transcriptions are complete, this undermines the importance accorded the documents and, given scanning technology, could surely have been rectified prior to publication. Matthew J. Kinservik's introduction provides both an accessible narrative of the events leading up to trial and a more critical examination of Anna Porter as an eighteenth-century woman writer. Recent publications by John Brewer and others have spawned an interest in the older Anna Larpent, whose diaries, self-conscious reading strategies and activities as an unofficial censor (her husband was examiner of plays for the London stage between 1782 and 1824) enable studies of female subjectivity at the end of the eighteenth century. Kinservik uses these early sources and the much shorter account of the trial from Anna's later 'Methodized Journal' (where it occupies less than two hundred words) not only to demonstrate the extent to which Anna tailored her writing to suit her audience, but also to provide insights into how this intelligent and ambitious, yet highly conservative, woman negotiated the public/private divide. The two documents published in this volume are the earliest-known surviving Larpent sources. They capture the responses of the 18-year-old Anna to the people and the proceedings of the trial. The first, a gossipy, vividly descriptive, six-page [End Page 420] letter-journal to an unknown friend named Gertrude, was added to daily over the course of the trial; the second, at 32 pages, is a longer and more consciously formal account of the legal proceedings. It was written shortly after the event and intended for circulation in manuscript among friends, as 'the production of a Female Pen may be most pleasing to a Female reader'. Taken together, the documents provide a fascinating introduction to a lively young woman, who, while ambivalent about advertising her understanding of the law and the arguments being made, was more than able to provide a lucid summary of the case as it progressed. Moreover, whether she is rhapsodizing over Attorney General Thurlow, 'I think of nothing else . . . He has such a Tongue! & such sensible Eyes! that he may plead any cause even to a Lady'; or complaining of the 'heat & vehemence' in the style of Mr Wallace, counsel to the duchess; or remarking upon the duchess's appearance on the first day of the trial, in a 'long Black hood . . . most becomingly put on . . . exactly the head-dress of Mary Queen of Scots in the old Pictures', she pays attention to detail and character in a way that brings the event to life. For five days, beginning on 15 April 1776, 4,000 spectators crowded in to Westminster...

Ascent by Balloon from the Yard of Walnut Street Jail

Ascent by Balloon from the Yard of Walnut Street Jail John Edgar Wideman (bio) I am the first of my African race in space. For this achievement I received accolades and commendations galore. Numerous offers for the story of my life. I’m told several unauthorized broadsides, purporting to be the true facts of my case from my very own lips, are being peddled about town already. A petition circulates entreating me to run for public office. Clearly my tale is irresistible, the arc of my life emblematic of our fledgling nation’s destiny, its promise for the poor and oppressed from all corners of the globe. Born of a despised race, wallowing in sin as a youth, then a prisoner in a cage, yet I rose, I rose. To unimaginable heights. Despite my humble origins, my unworthiness, my sordid past, I rose. A Lazarus in this Brave New World. Even in a day of crude technology and maddeningly slow pace, I was an overnight sensation. A mob of forty thousand, including the President himself, hero of Trenton and Valley Forge, the father of our country as some have construed him in the press, attended the event that launched me into the public eye. The event—no doubt you’ve heard of it, unless you are, as I once was, one of those unfortunates who must wear a black hood and speak not, nor be spoken to—the event that transformed me from convict to celebrity received the following notice in the Pennsylvania Gazette: “On January 19, 1793, Jean-Pierre Blanchard, French aeronaut, ascended in his hydrogen balloon from the yard of Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia to make the first aerial voyage in the United States. In the air forty-six minutes, the balloon landed near Woodbury, New Jersey, and returned the same evening to the city in time for Citizen Blanchard to pay his respects to President Washington, who had witnessed the ascension in the morning.” Though I am not mentioned by name in the above, and its bland, affectless prose misses altogether the excitement of the moment, the notice does manage to convey something of the magnitude of the event. Imagine men flying like birds. The populace aghast, agawk, necks craned upward, every muscle tensed as if anticipating the tightening of the hangman’s knot, its sudden yank, the irresistible gravity of the flesh as a trap door drops open beneath their feet. Men free as eagles. Aloft and soaring over the countryside. And crow though I was, my shabby black wings lifting me high as the Frenchman. I was on board the balloon because little was understood about the effect of great height upon the human heart. Would that vital organ pump faster as the air grew [End Page 1] thinner? Would the heart become engorged approaching the throne of its maker, or would it pale and shrink, the lusty blood fleeing, as once our naked parents, in shame from the Lord’s awful gaze? Dr. Benjamin Rush, a man of science as well as a philanthropic soul, well known for championing the cause of a separate Negro church, had requested that a pulse glass be carried on the balloon, and thus, again, became a benefactor of the race, since who better than one of us, with our excitable blood and tropically lush hearts, to serve as guinea pig. The honor fell on me. I was the Frenchman’s crew. Aboard to keep the gondola neat and sanitary, a passenger so my body could register danger as we rose into those uncharted regions nearer my God to thee. Jean-Pierre Blanchard was not my first Frenchman. Messrs. De Beauchamp and De Tocqueville had visited my cell in the Walnut Street Jail on a humanitarian, fact-finding mission among the New World barbarians to determine whether this Quaker invention, “the penitentiary,” reformed criminals and deterred crime. The Frenchmen were quite taken with me. Surprised to discover I was literate. Enchanted when I read to them from the dim squalor of my cage the parable of the Good Shepherd, the words doubly touching, they assured me, coming from one who was born of a degraded and outcast race...

Ascent by Balloon from the Yard of Walnut Street Jail

I am the first of my African race in space. For this achievement I received accolades and commendations galore. Numerous offers for the story of my life. I'm told several unauthorized broadsides, purporting to be the true facts of my case from my very own lips, are being peddled about town already. A petition circulates entreating me to run for public office. Clearly my tale is irresistible, the arc of my life emblematic of our fledgling nation's destiny, its promise for the poor and oppressed from all corners of the globe. Born of a despised race, wallowing in sin as a youth, then a prisoner in a cage, yet I rose, I rose. To unimaginable heights. Despite my humble origins, my unworthiness, my sordid past, I rose. A Lazarus in this Brave New World. Even in a day of crude technology and maddeningly slow pace, I was an overnight sensation. A mob of forty thousand, including the President himself, hero of Trenton and Valley Forge, the father of our country as some have construed him in the press, attended the event that launched me into the public eye. The event-no doubt you've heard of it, unless you are, as I once was, one of those unfortunates who must wear a black hood and speak not, nor be spoken to-the event that transformed me from convict to celebrity received the following notice in the Pennsylvania Gazette: On January 19, 1793, Jean-Pierre Blanchard, French aeronaut, ascended in his hydrogen balloon from the yard of Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia to make the first aerial voyage in the United States. In the air forty-six minutes, the balloon landed near Woodbury, New Jersey, and returned the same evening to the city in time for Citizen Blanchard to pay his respects to President Washington, who had witnessed the ascension in the morning. Though I am not mentioned by name in the above, and its bland, affectless prose misses altogether the excitement of the moment, the notice does manage to convey something of the magnitude of the event. Imagine men flying like birds. The populace aghast, agawk, necks craned upward, every muscle tensed as if anticipating the tightening of the hangman's knot, its sudden yank, the irresistible gravity of the flesh as a trap door drops open beneath their feet. Men free as eagles. Aloft and soaring over the countryside. And crow though I was, my shabby black wings lifting me high as the Frenchman. I was on board the balloon because little was understood about the effect of great height upon the human heart. Would that vital organ pump faster as the air grew

Does Male-like Coloration of Female Hooded Warblers Increase Nest Predation?

We tested the hypothesis that male-like coloration of female birds increases the risk of nest predation in a sexually dimorphic songbird, the Hooded Warbler (Wilsonia citrina). Female Hooded Warblers vary greatly in the extent of the black hood, ranging from no black in yearlings to an almost complete black hood in some older females. However, the frequency of nest predation did not vary significantly with extent of male-like plumage during the egg stage, nestling stage, or over all nest stages. In addition, yearling females whose crown and throat was dyed black did not suffer a higher nest predation rate than unmanipulated and control yearlings. We found no evidence that breeding experience of yearling versus older females affects nest predation rate. In addition, yearling females did not tend to build more visually conspicuous nests. These results strongly suggest that predators did not use conspicuous plumage coloration as a cue for locating nests.

The Breeding Behaviour of Sabine's Gull, Xema Sabini

[Sabine's Gull, Xema sabini is a morphologically aberrant gull, breeding in the Arctic. This paper describes its breeding behaviour, as recorded in the region of Hooper Bay, W. Alaska (61° 35' N, 166° 05' W) in the summer of 1960. The object of this study has been, not just to describe the behaviour, but to try to relate it to the species' ecology, and also, by comparisons with other gulls, to clarify the taxonomic position of Sabine's Gull. Much of Sabine's Gull behaviour is similar to that of other gulls, but there are some aberrancies which occur either rarely or not at all in other species. Chief among these are the Quarter Upright, the emphasis on Hunched, as opposed to Upright, postures, the attraction of unmated females by Arch-and-Bow rather than Long Call, the direct feeding (as opposed to regurgitation) of the female early in the season, the rarity of Head Tossing in courtship feeding and copulation, and the throwback and Crouch in the Long Call postures. Evidently, Sabine's Gull is behaviourally as well as morphologically aberrant. It seems to be most closely related to such species as Franklin's Gull, Larus pipixcan. Contrary to MOYNIHAN'S (1959) suggestion, based on morphological criteria, there is no evidence of any relationship with the Swallowtailed Gull, Creagrus furcatus. The functions of the grey and black hood are discussed. It is also suggested that some of Sabine's Gull's morphological and behavioural peculiarities may be related to its breeding in small, loose groups rather than in dense colonies, on the flat tundra, and during the short Arctic summer. A partial analysis of the motivation of the agonistic and sexual behaviour was also made. The relations of the various agonistic postures to the tendencies to flee and attack are discussed. It is also concluded that the different postures adopted during the loud-calling phase of the Long Call depend on the position of the opponent and not on any motivational differences. The sexual behaviour seems to consist of two relatively independent systems - the Meeting Ceremony and Luring. The interrelationships of the different patterns in Luring are analysed in more detail., Sabine's Gull, Xema sabini is a morphologically aberrant gull, breeding in the Arctic. This paper describes its breeding behaviour, as recorded in the region of Hooper Bay, W. Alaska (61° 35' N, 166° 05' W) in the summer of 1960. The object of this study has been, not just to describe the behaviour, but to try to relate it to the species' ecology, and also, by comparisons with other gulls, to clarify the taxonomic position of Sabine's Gull. Much of Sabine's Gull behaviour is similar to that of other gulls, but there are some aberrancies which occur either rarely or not at all in other species. Chief among these are the Quarter Upright, the emphasis on Hunched, as opposed to Upright, postures, the attraction of unmated females by Arch-and-Bow rather than Long Call, the direct feeding (as opposed to regurgitation) of the female early in the season, the rarity of Head Tossing in courtship feeding and copulation, and the throwback and Crouch in the Long Call postures. Evidently, Sabine's Gull is behaviourally as well as morphologically aberrant. It seems to be most closely related to such species as Franklin's Gull, Larus pipixcan. Contrary to MOYNIHAN'S (1959) suggestion, based on morphological criteria, there is no evidence of any relationship with the Swallowtailed Gull, Creagrus furcatus. The functions of the grey and black hood are discussed. It is also suggested that some of Sabine's Gull's morphological and behavioural peculiarities may be related to its breeding in small, loose groups rather than in dense colonies, on the flat tundra, and during the short Arctic summer. A partial analysis of the motivation of the agonistic and sexual behaviour was also made. The relations of the various agonistic postures to the tendencies to flee and attack are discussed. It is also concluded that the different postures adopted during the loud-calling phase of the Long Call depend on the position of the opponent and not on any motivational differences. The sexual behaviour seems to consist of two relatively independent systems - the Meeting Ceremony and Luring. The interrelationships of the different patterns in Luring are analysed in more detail.]

Some Recent Canadian Records

IN view of the fact that a number of Canadian bird occurrences have not been formally recorded, it seems well to collect them for presentation to the ornithological public. With these occurrences are a few others which have been published in media that may not be generally available for reference and which it seems advisable to include even at the expense of some repetition. The list here presented contains all unrecorded occurrences of interest, with which I am acquainted up to February 1926, the date of its compilation. Larus hyperboreus. GLAUCOUS GULL.-June, 1925, I examined a specimen of this species mounted in the collection in the Provincial Parliament Building, Edmonton, Alberta. I was informed on the authority of Mr. Benjamin Lawton, Chief Game Guardian of the Province who is in charge of the collection that it was taken 12 years ago at Gull Lake about eight miles west of Lacombe, Alberta. It is a gull of large size, pure white all over except for many small light brownish flecks evenly and generally distributed. It is therefore a juvenile and seems to be the first record for the species in the Province. Laxus atricilla. LAUGHING GuLL.-August 27-28, 1924, -three specimens of this species were taken for this Museum by Chas. H. Young at Clam Point, Cape Sable, Nova Scotia. They are females, two of them adult with the black hood of summer changing to the white of winter. The other is juvenile in full winter plumage. These birds with some other straying waifs, hereinafter noted, were taken after and probably as a result of an exceptional storm. The most definite previous record for this species on the Canadian east coast is cited by C. W. Townsend (Canadian Field-Naturalist, XXXVII, 1923, pp. 8-9), as having occurred at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia about 1858. The only other Canadian record I know of is for Toronto, Ontario, 1898 and 1890, Fleming (Auk, XXIII, 1906, p. 442). Larus franklini. FRANKLIN'S GuLL.-I have lately had the satisfaction of examining a specimen of this species taken by Allan L. Moses at Grand Menan, North Head, New Brunswick, December 6, 1925. The bird was mounted by him and sent to me for corroboration of his

THE BLACK HOOD. By Thomas Dixon. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1924, 336 pp. $2.00

The Black Hood. By Thomas Dixon. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1924, 336 pp. $2.00 Carl A. Williams Carl A. Williams Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 2, Issue 5, September 1924, Page 792, https://doi.org/10.2307/3006280 Published: 01 September 1924