I was ruminating on this news item today. Short version: Australian politician has just come back from fighting with Kurdish forces against ISIL, may be up for serious jail time since there’s a ban on civilians going there to fight, even on the side we support. Similar cases are popping up in the UK.
And it struck me - if these sort of laws had been in place during the Spanish Civil War, then probably some quite large numbers of young English guys would be off to jail, probably most famously George Orwell, since going off to fight in what was basically that era’s version of the great moral military struggle was quite a common thing in certain circles.
Who else?
Well, a lot of people have their suspicions about Lewis Carroll, who would at the very least be under serious police investigation if he was alive today.
Who else would be headed off to the Big House under today’s legislation?
Not even historical, as he’s still alive, but in the age of gossip websites and modern journalism, there’s no way 28-year old Jimmy Page would have gotten away with essentially kidnapping a 14-year old groupie and keeping her (willingly) under lock and key in his hotel rooms for an entire concert tour.
I think Hemingway ran off to the Spanish Civil War and did something on one side or another.
The Eagle Squadron pilots who flew for England. The Lafayette Esquadrille who flew for Fance. The Flying Tigers who flew for China. The American Brigade who fought against Franco.
Will Durant, a 28-year-old school principal and teacher in New York, hit on and married one of his 14-year-old students in 1912-13. Mmm yeah, that would go over real big today.
They were married for 68 years and co-authored the monumental Story of Civilization.
It was worse than that–Burr was the VP! He challenged and plugged Alexander Hamilton, the former Secretary of the Treasury.
And he wasn’t acquitted, he never stood trial at all! He was indicted in New York and New Jersey, so he just avoided those states until the trouble blew over.
He was acquitted of treason, probably fairly, in an unrelated case.
Police today would not be likely to care if there were a good reason for it; if Paul Revere were to race his Mustang up and down the streets of Boston, shouting and waking up everyone in the neighborhood, you can be sure they’d arrest him first and ask questions later.
Photoshopping aside, kissing on the mouth was more acceptable once upon a time. You see it in silent movies all the time, between just about everyone except lovers. You see it between people who are playing parent and child all the time.
I don’t know for certain, but I think it became less common when the germ theory and the one of the first PDAs for handwashing came around.
Of course, it probably was exaggerated in the movies, which is why you see it quite a bit less rather abruptly in the talkies.
I think there’s no question whatsoever that Lizzie Borden would be convicted today, even with just the same circumstantial case that existed at the time. The main reason she wasn’t convicted, most likely, was that no one wanted to execute a woman, and there was no facility to house a woman for a lifetime prison sentence. The women’s prisons were mostly to hold prostitutes short-term until their fines had been paid. There may have even been some sympathy for Lizzie’s position regarding her being left destitute when all her father’s money went to her step-mother, with whom she had recently had a falling-out (prior to that, she could have assumed her step-mother would have taken care of her). The law provided for a very small stipend for each of the sisters, but even if their father willed them money, his widow could contest it.
The law is no longer like this, and the motive for the murder would be pure greed, not concern for her future. Mass doesn’t have the death penalty, but it does have the capability of keeping a woman in prison for life.
