A fighter for our freedom
QUESTION In Thetford, Suffolk, a statue of Thomas Paine (1737-1809), author of Rights Of Man, shows him holding the book with the title upside down. Is there a reason for this? Thomas Paine was born in Thetford on January 29, 1737, educated at Thetford Grammar school and emigrated to america in 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin. on January 10, 1776, he published the pamphlet Common sense, in which he argued in plain language that the colonies should break away from British rule.
The pamphlet sold more than 100,000 copies in just a few months, and it became so influential that later founding father John adams declared that ‘without the pen of the author of Common sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain’.
Throughout most of the 1790s, Paine lived in France and was involved in the French Revolution. imprisoned in the Bastille in December 1793, he nearly met his end, but american diplomatic pressure saw him released in november 1794.
Returning to Britain, he became notorious for his three-part pamphlet The age of Reason (1794, 1795 and 1807), in which he advocated deism, promoted reason and free thought, and argued against institutionalised religion in general and Christian doctrine in particular.
in 1802, he returned to the U.s., where he died on June 8, 1809. only six people attended his funeral because he had been ostracised for his criticism of Christianity.
after his death, a suggestion by napoleon is supposed to have launched a scheme to have gold-plated statues of Paine erected in every ‘free-thinking city’.
american philanthropist Joseph Lewis, who believed Paine was the true author of the american Declaration of independence, was shocked to discover there was no statue to the great man in Thetford.
he commissioned the gilded bronze statue of Paine in wig and period dress, holding a quill pen and his book Rights of man, for Thetford. it was sculpted by Charles Wheeler Ra (1892-1974), unveiled in 1964 and bears the legend World Citizen, englishman by birth, French citizen by decree, american by adoption.
The upside-down book was a conceit of Wheeler’s, intended to stimulate discussion — and seems to have succeeded.
James Coyne, Holbrook, Suffolk. QUESTION Are there any documented cases of the Mafia using cement shoes for one of their victims? ‘CemenT shoes’ as they are known were, until recently, the stuff of fiction.
in the Fifties and sixties — the mafia heyday — cement wasn’t at all quick setting, and to fit a set of concrete shoes the captive would have had to be held down for the best part of a day before the ‘shoes’ would hard.
Concrete had, though, been used as a weight to dispose of a body. in 1941, the body of Philadelphia racketeer Johnnie Goodman was found by crab fisherman in a new Jersey creek, weighed down with a 40lb block of concrete.
on august 24, 1964, the body of ernest Rupolo, aged 52, a trigger man and informer on Vito Genovese in 1944, was found in Jamaica Bay, new York, with concrete blocks tied to his legs.
The first genuine case of ‘cement shoes’ was, however, reported as recently as this month. The body of Brooklyn gang member Peter martinez, aged 28, aka Petey Crack, washed up near manhattan Beach in Brooklyn.
his head was wrapped in duct tape, and his feet and shins were encased in concrete set inside a five-gallon bucket. That his body floated to the shore was due to air in the concrete because it was not given enough time to dry before being thrown into the ocean.
Paula French, London Se4. QUESTION I am getting unpleasant static shocks from plastic chairs. Is there anything I can do to stop it? FURTheR to the earlier answer, the fact that we humans act as a vehicle for static electricity causes great problems for the electronics manufacturing industry and organisations dealing with repair and maintenance of electronic equipment. many electronic components, particularly integrated circuits (iCs) often referred to as ‘chips’, suffer irreversible damage if ‘zapped’ while being handled by humans. Collectively, these components are referred to as electrostatic sensitive devices (esDs).
To complicate matters, an esD which has received damage due to incorrect handling might continue to function correctly, but is likely to fail during its subsequent life. esDs damaged in this way are referred to as ‘ walking wounded’.
organisations dealing with esDs have to impose precautions during handling. This is particularly important with any safety equipment used in the defence, medical and automotive environments.
esD precautions involve the use of specialist packaging, operator clothing, dedicated workstations and furniture, anti-static floors and wrist straps.
equipment containing esDs will feature a warning sticker, which is often referred to as a ‘banned hand’. These stickers are common on electronic equipment found both at home and in the workplace.
David Marks, MCQI, Orpington, Kent. QUESTION What is ‘slipper’ farming? UnDeR the eU Common agricultural Policy, farmers get a subsidy for every hectare of land they own, and a farmer can sell on the right to claim the money. an investor buys the right from the farmer and then buys any old equivalent area of land and the government pays the investor the subsidy. The farmer walks away with a one-off lump sum.
Under certain circumstances, the investor doesn’t even have to farm the land: his only obligation is to keep the land in good condition, and this is referred to as ‘slipper farming’ — because the recipient can sit back and relax in his slippers and wait for the money to roll in.
slipper farming is a particular phenomenon in scotland, where there’s a large area of land eligible for payments because it’s in good agricultural and environmental condition.
This might, for example, be because it has slow-growing species or because it is grazed by wild deer i.e. ‘naked acres’. it has allowed investors to claim high-value entitlements on poorer quality land for little if any activity.
in 2015, the scottish government secured a scottish Clause in the CaP, strengthening the link between payments and farming activity. We have yet to see if the clause is strong enough to prevent this problem.
gordon Murray, North Berwick, east Lothian. n
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