Birth of the super slur
QUESTION The following is a famous verbal exchange: ‘You, sir, will certainly either die upon the gallows or of a social disease.’ The sharp retort being: ‘That depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress.’ Did this conversation ever take place? Many versions of this exchange have been presented in books and periodicals and many candidates put forward.
Those most often named are John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792) on one side, with either Samuel Foote (1720-1777) or the radical MP John Wilkes (1725-1797) on the other.
Samuel Foote was perhaps the great lost figure of the 18th century. Born in Truro, the little dandy comedian became the darling of London society. He was a brilliant mimic and an irresistible wit, full of what was termed ‘animal spirits’.
not even a leg amputation above the knee came between him and a good joke. He was back on stage within five months, bringing the house down with his series of plays for one-legged actors, accordingly not much revived.
The earliest evidence of the exchange comes from a London periodical called The European Magazine (1784). ‘Bon Mot of the late Sam Foote. Sam was invited to a convivial meeting at the house of the late Sir Francis Blake Delaval. Lord Sandwich was one of the guests upon the same occasion.
‘When the Comedian entered, the Peer exclaimed: “What are you alive still?” “yes, my Lord,” replied Foote. “Pray Sam,” retorted his Lordship, “which do you think will happen to you first, the experience of a certain disease, or an intimate acquaintance with the gallows?” “Why,” rejoined the Comedian, “that depends upon circumstances and they are these, whether I prefer embracing your Lordship’s mistress or your principles.” ’
By 1809 another version was in circulation in The Memoirs Of The Life and Writings Of Percival Stockdale. The protagonists remained the same but the word ‘pox’ (syphilis) was used in place of ‘certain disease’ and ‘ halter’ (noose) replaced gallows. The setting of the tale was moved from the house of Francis Blake Delaval to a restaurant in Covent Garden.
By 1839, John Wilkes had replaced Foote in the story. Henry Brougham claimed in The Edinburgh Review that he had been told about the dialogue by the Duke of norfolk who had been present. We cannot be certain whom the exchange was between but contemporary reports make Foote a more likely suspect. There are good reasons why Wilkes might have replaced the actor. Foote’s later life was dogged by scandal and accusations of homosexuality and his story was suppressed. also, Wilkes and the Earl of Sandwich were participants in another exchange.
In 1763, Wilkes wrote an Essay On Woman, a lewd parody of alexander Pope’s an Essay On Man. Sandwich said he was ‘never so shocked’ and read it to a horrified House of Lords to discredit Wilkes because he had made a vulgar joke at Sandwich’s expense in the tract.
The sight of Lord Sandwich, one of the most prominent whoremongers and vulgarians of the period (he was a member of Francis Dashwood’s Hellfire Club), abusing the poem for obscenity was so absurd that Lord Le Despenser noted that he ‘never before heard the devil preach a sermon against sin’.
Liz Miller, Worcester. QUESTION I have a ceiling light with a mirror-effect finish which when looked at directly is blue but when its reflection is looked at in the mirror it is pink. What causes this? THIS light will be a quartz incandescent assembly in a reflector casing where there is a faceted reflector behind the bulb.
They run very hot and this reflector will be treated with a dichroic (literally, ‘two colour’) coating which is designed to separate the bulb’s heat at the red end of the spectrum from the white light needed for illumination.
There are two reasons for this: to stop heat being beamed into the room and on to your neck, and, more importantly, to focus heat back on to the bulb to increase its efficiency. In this way, a standard 50 watt unit without the coating can be replaced with a 33 watt dichroic one having the same light output.
These coatings are dependent on the angle you look at them from and viewed directly it can appear a little blue because the red end of the spectrum has been removed. Its mirror reflection will be a view from a small angle and here it is possible to see red reflected off the bulb in the middle which will often show a bright red area on it where this part of the spectrum ends up.
Despite this, these lights are still not very efficient and it is possible now to have similar style LED lighting at a fraction of the electricity cost. Keith Matthews M.Inst.P.
Ferndown, Dorset.
QUESTION In the title credits to The Avengers Series 6, Tara King runs between a line of suits of armour to the waiting John Steed. The armourer was a gentleman from Sutton in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire who used to have a pet fox, which he kept in a cage in his back garden. Does anyone know his name? THIS gentleman was, I believe, Ian Sutcliffe, known as ‘Sooty’.
He lived on Salmon Lane, annesley Woodhouse, which is a couple of miles from Sutton in ashfield. He used to make very realistic glass fibre and plastic arms and armour for the medieval period for TV and film companies.
In the late Sixties or early Seventies he acquired a Maserati Sebring from a garage as payment for a debt. It was in a bit of a state and had a Jaguar engine fitted, its Maserati engine being in bits in an oil drum. The car had been owned by The Bee Gees.
Sooty had the car rebuilt and would let only my brother-in-law, a mechanic, work on the engine. The crankshaft was machined by Maserati and the electrics and fuel injection went to Lucas Industries in Birmingham to be refurbished. It was resprayed pale blue and instead of being rechromed, the fittings were gold-plated. The inside was in blue leather.
My brother-in-law died last year and could have supplied much more detail about the car.
Mike Astill, Mansfield, Notts.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow, G2 6DB. You can also fax them to 0141 331 4739 or you can email them to charles. legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.