I've Never Been Boared at a Cemetery

A large cemetery south of Berlin has been overrun by wild boar.

Stahnsdorf cemetery has 120,000 graves, including some famous personalities including Werner von Siemens, the founder of the Siemens industrial group, and the artist Heinrich Zille.

The marauding boar didn't dig deep enough to uncover coffins, but they did ruin an area of 1,070 German wartime graves containing civilian victims of bombing raids and soldiers, said Ihlefeldt. They left a fenced-off section of British and Italian war graves untouched, however. [Link]

Advice for family historians planning a trip to Germany: When running from the wild pigs, be careful not to trip over the Nazi raccoons.

Steal a Fish, Go to Australia

Ancestry.com has released the Australian Convict Index, 1788-1868, with data on 165,000 criminals transported to Australia from the British Isles and British colonies. They were the worst of the worst.

Some of the crimes they were punished for included stealing from a pond or river and setting fire to undergrowth.

One convict of note was the father of Ned Kelly, Australia's famous bush ranger. His Irish father, Red, was sentenced to seven years for stealing two pigs and sent to Tasmania.

The first female convict to set foot in Australia was Elizabeth Thackery, sentenced to seven years for the theft of five handkerchiefs. [Link]

The landing page for this database includes the statement "Web sites concerning convicts can be accessed at http://www.familytreeresearch.net," linking to a domain formerly operated by the late Janet Reakes, but now full of advertisements and empty of useful content. The correct address is here.

Skinning Dogs and Farming Gunge

Emily Cockayne's new book, Hubbub: Filth, Noise and Stench in England, 1600-1770, is now sullying bookstore shelves.

It was a muddy, desperate world of licentious fustilugs, determined dog-skinners, essential gunge-farmers, and rootling "piggs," of dissolute rakehells, and the drabs who serviced them, a world of urban dunghills and city "hog-styes," a world inhabited by people marked by tetters, morphew, "psorophtalmy" (eyebrow dandruff, since you ask), and pocky itch, and clothed in grogram tailored by botchers. If you suspect that one of the many pleasures of "Hubbub" is the exuberant vocabulary that so enriches the texts cited by its author, you'd be right. [Link]

This Little Piggy Went to Court

Footballer Bastian Schweinsteiger successfully sued a Bavarian company for selling bratwurst under the name "Schweini." It means "piggy," and is the athlete's nickname.

Bastian's surname means "pig climber". How the 22-year-old's ancestors came by this moniker I am not sure. Perhaps scaling pigs is a job in Germany. Maybe it was once a popular hobby. Or perhaps it was just an isolated incident culminating in the punch line, "But you clamber on one pig . . . " [Link]

What's in a Name? Sometimes a Free Pig

A Danish artist is handing out free pigs and goats to Ugandan villagers. All they have to do is change their names to "Hornsleth."

The peculiar donation funded by Kristian von Hornsleth started in June this year when the Hornsleth Village Project Uganda 2006 was registered as a community-based organisation. The beneficiaries must be 18 years and above.

According to Kristian Hornsleth's website, the project is an exposure of the games donors play on the poor people they claim to help. It says donors claim they give free aid, yet they actually take something in return. [Link]

Any Last Bequests?

Here are a few selections from Virgil M. Harris's 1911 classic Ancient, Curious, and Famous Wills—mentioned a couple of weeks ago on Randy Seaver's blog.

A Woman Hater

Altogether unique was the whim of a rich old bachelor, who, having endured much from "attempts made by my family to put me under the yoke of matrimony," conceived and nursed such an antipathy to the fair sex as to impose upon his executors the duty of carrying out what is probably the most ungallant provision ever contained in a will. The words are as follows: "I beg that my executors will see that I am buried where there is no woman interred, either to the right or to the left of me. Should this not be practicable in the ordinary course of things, I direct that they purchase three graves, and bury me in the middle one of the three, leaving the two others unoccupied." [p. 131]

Will of an English Farmer

A Hertfordshire farmer inserted in his will his written wish that "as he was about to take a thirty years' nap, his coffin might be suspended from a beam in his barn, and by no means nailed down." He, however, permitted it to be locked, provided a hole were made in the side through which the key might be pushed, so that he might let himself out when he awoke. However, as his death took place in 1720, and in 1750 he showed no signs of waking, his nephew, who inherited his property, after allowing one year's grace, caused a hole to be dug and had the coffin put into it. [p. 143]

Must Marry "Anton" or "Antonie"

An eccentric Frenchman left his estate to his six nephews and six nieces on the condition that "every one of my nephews marries a woman named Antonie and that every one of my nieces marries a man named Anton." They were further required to give the Christian name Antonie or Anton to every first-born child according to the sex. The marriage of each nephew was to be celebrated on one of the St. Anthony's Days, either January 17th, May 10th, or June 13th, and if, in any instance, this last provision was not complied with before July, 1896, one-half of the legacy was in that case to be forfeited. [p. 178]

A Premium on Pigmanship

A wealthy tradesman, M. Thomas Heviant, died at the village of Crône-sur-Marne in 1878. In his will he made a number of singular bequests, among which is the following, which is carried out at the annual fête of the village. He ordered that among the amusements should be a race with pigs, the animals to be ridden either by men or boys. The sum of 2000 francs was set apart as the prize to the lucky rider of the winning pig. The prize was not to be handed over, however, except on the condition that the winner wore deep mourning for the deceased during two years after the competition. The municipality accepted the eccentric bequest, and these singular races have been held agreeably to the terms of the will. [p. 102]

No Underclothes in Winter

A crabbed old German professor, who died at Berlin in 1900, entertaining a great dislike for his sole surviving relative, left his property to him, but on the absolute condition that he should always wear white linen clothes at all seasons of the year, and should not supplement them in winter by extra undergarments. [p. 159]

Must Pay for her Drinks

Mr. Davis of Clapham, England, left the sum of 5s. "to Mary Davis, daughter of Peter Delaport, which is sufficient to enable her to get drunk for the last time at my expense." [p. 160]

Of Emus and Enumerators

Collecting census data can be a dangerous job—especially in Australia.

A 1986 inquiry found 9 per cent of collectors were the victims of dog attacks, or had their clothing damaged by a pooch.

That same report found one collector bitten by a horse, another stopped by a large bull, and others chased by geese, emus and a large pig. [Link]

The Clerical Hogreeve

Janice at Cow Hampshire yesterday defined "hog reeve" for her readers. This was a job with curious qualifications, traditionally reserved for those men who had taken wives in the year previous. In this poem, copied in the Middlesex Gazette of Sept. 16, 1819, one officeholder makes the misogynist townsmen the butt of their own joke.

THE CLERICAL HOGREEVE

It happened in a certain place,
Not overstock'd with grace,
A steady cheerful parson preach'd and pray'd,
And had his salary paid,
For forty years; but with no great effect,
Except that vice was somewhat check'd,
And virtue aided some, and piety,
For the well being of society.
But still the flock, in matters of opinion,
Knew not a Calvinist, from an Armenian,
Each jogg'd along, and labor'd on his farm,
And thus did much more good than harm.

The forty years expir'd—so did his wife,
Whom he had wedded in the bloom of life,
And so the loss of her,
Made him, of course, a widower.
Feeling that 'twas "not good to be alone,"
He chose another "bone,"
Ere long to grace the ministerial pew,
And round the parsonage to tew.

Now 'tis the custom of the town,
If parson, doctor, 'squire or clown,
Gets married, at March meeting he will hear,
That he's appointed hogreeve, for the year.
So far'd it with our priest, so witty,
Who soon was waited on by the committee,
Who told him, that the voice
Of all the town had made the above said choice.

The parson smil'd and said "I am no novice;
Full forty years I've been in the same office,
In this appointment, all that's new
Is four legg'd hogs to drive instead of two."