Barber's Pole

[a1call]

Ever wondered what was the origin of the spiral red & white pole?
Had to read through some fascinating facts before getting there.
You might find it interesting as well:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_surgeon

[kladner]

Originally Posted by a1call

Ever wondered what was the origin of the spiral red & white pole?
Had to read through some fascinating facts before getting there.
You might find it interesting as well:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_surgeon

Before looking, I will say that I was taught that it represented blood and bandages. I will certainly read the entry in wiki.
EDIT: Well, that account is a more extensive explanation of the whole history of the trade than I imagined. It perhaps gives some context to stories like that of Sweeney Todd.

[a1call]

As horrific as that tale is, unfortunately it is well within the realm of what the human animal is capable of.
I have heard tales of the mob selling their victims flesh to restaurants as well. There are certainly much more horrible facts committed in recent news.
I wonder how long will it be before humanity matures enough that no crime is committed by anyone alive. In a way we are close to that level of maturity, since the majority of peoples of the world are civilized and are disgusted by such behaviour. Insanity will be eventually a treatable disease as well.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Fascinating. The Sweeney Todd article has an early reference to a related persistent urban legend:

The original story of Sweeney Todd quite possibly stems from an older urban legend, originally based on dubious pie-fillings. In Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers (1836–37), the servant Sam Weller says that a pieman used cats "for beefsteak, veal and kidney, 'cording to the demand", and recommends that people should buy pies only "when you know the lady as made it, and is quite sure it ain't kitten."

This legend has transmogrified over the years -- cats said to have disappeared from the alleys behind Chinese restaurants, and later, from the alleys behind London purveyors of cheap vindaloo curry. When I was one kid among many being carted off to summer camp in a bus, one of the songs the counsellors led us in singing was the story of a man named Johnny Verbeck, and his wonderful sausage machine:

Now all the neighbors' cats and dogs will never more be seen
They've all been ground to sausages in Johnny Verbeck's machine

[nomead]

Well, when people are hungry, they will eat anything. City sieges have resulted in all sorts of emergency food being eaten to avoid the final option, cannibalism, or just death by starvation.

For example the Siege of Vienna (1683) resulted in this term being more "popular" for a while:
Dachhase "roof rabbit", and more on the origin in German Wikipedia

And the Siege of Paris (1870) produced this menu
Menu-siegedeparis.jpg

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by nomead

Well, when people are hungry, they will eat anything. City sieges have resulted in all sorts of emergency food being eaten to avoid the final option, cannibalism, or just death by starvation.

For example the Siege of Vienna (1683) resulted in this term being more "popular" for a while:
Dachhase "roof rabbit", and more on the origin in German Wikipedia

And the Siege of Paris (1870) produced this menu
Menu-siegedeparis.jpg

Hmm. My French is more than a bit sketchy, but that Paris menu looks like it features zoo animals.

In 1992, during the siege of Sarajevo, the last zoo animal, a bear, died because it could not get enough food. The people who were trying to care for the animals were getting picked off by snipers.

In Chapter 33 of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer we find the following description of the fate of Injun Joe, who had been trapped in a cave:

Ordinarily one could find half a dozen bits of candle stuck around in the crevices of this vestibule, left there by tourists; but there were none now. The prisoner had searched them out and eaten them. He had also contrived to catch a few bats, and these, also, he had eaten, leaving only their claws. The poor unfortunate had starved to death.

I remember hearing an interview on the radio many years ago, in which the man being interviewed mentioned a conversation he'd had with an older man who had lived through the Great Depression. Then older man had mentioned eating possum. The younger man had said, "I would never eat possum!" The older man had replied, "Son, if you were hungry enough, you would not only eat possum -- you would enjoy it."

I heard stories that during WWII, in London and other places, people were making meat pies out of mice. And that was just to supplement meager diets due to rationing.

In Leningrad during the siege, livestock and other domestic animals were eaten. And rats. And mice. And other things like wallpaper paste.

Also during WWII, the Red Army was on such short rations the soldiers were starving. So, units in the field were not reporting their KIA so the survivors would keep getting the dead soldiers' rations.

In the famine caused by the Great Leap Forward, people were picking through feces looking for undigested kernels of grain. People did resort to cannibalism. Often, one family with an infant that had starved to death would give the body to another family to eat. They just couldn't eat their own flesh and blood.

And, of course, there's Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal.