Ten Thousand Wonderful Things: Comprising whatever is marvellous and rare, curious, eccentric and extraordinary in all ages and nations
History
Ten Thousand Wonderful Things: Comprising whatever is marvellous and rare, curious, eccentric and extraordinary in all ages and nations
Curiosities and wonders; Encyclopedias and dictionaries; Folklore
In 1432, several kinds of artillery are mentioned, cannons, bombards,
vulgaires, coulverins. The vulgaires were ordinary artillery. In the
year 1460, James II. of Scotland was killed by the accidental bursting
of a cannon. The artillery of the Turks, in the year 1453, surpassed
whatever had yet appeared in the world. A stupendous piece of ordnance
was made by them; its bore was twelve palms, and the stone bullet
weighed about 600 lbs.; it was brought with great difficulty before
Constantinople, and was flanked by two almost of equal magnitude:
fourteen batteries were brought to bear against the place, mounting 130
guns; the great cannon could not be loaded and fired more than seven
times in one day. Mines were adopted by the Turks, and counter-mines
by the Christians. At this siege, which was in 1453, ancient and
modern artillery were both used. Cannons, intermingled with machines
for casting stones and darts, and the battering-ram was directed
against the walls. The fate of Constantinople could no longer be
averted: the diminutive garrison was exhausted by a double attack; the
fortifications were dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman cannon;
a spirit of discord impaired the Christian strength. After a siege
of fifty-three days, Constantinople, which had defied the power of
Chosroes, the Chagan, and the Caliphs, was subdued by the arms of
Mahomet II.
A MAN IN A VAULT ELEVEN DAYS.
_St. Benedict Fink._--"1673, April 23, was buried Mr Thomas Sharrow,
Cloth-worker, late Churchwarden of this parish, killed by an accidental
fall into a vault, in London Wall, Amen Corner, by Paternoster Row,
and was supposed had lain there eleven days and nights before any
one could tell where he was, _Let all that read this take heed of
drink._"--Truly, a quaint warning!
BLIND GRANNY.
[Illustration: [++] Blind Granny.]
This miserable, wretched, drunken object, who was blind of one eye,
used to annoy the passengers in the streets of London, while sober,
with licking her blind eye with her tongue, which was of a most
enormous length, and thickness; indeed, it was of such a prodigious
size, that her mouth could not contain it, and she could never close
her lips, or to use a common expression, keep her tongue within
her teeth. This wonderful feat of washing her eye with her tongue
was exhibited with a view of obtaining money from such as crowded
around her, and no sooner had she obtained sufficient means, but
she hastened to the first convenient liquor-shop, to indulge her
propensity in copious libations, and when properly inspired, would
rush into the streets with all the gestures of a frantic maniac, and
roll and dance about, until she became a little sobered, which was
sometimes accelerated by the salutary application of a pail of water,
gratuitously bestowed upon her by persons whose doorway she had taken
possession of, as shelter from the persecuting tormentings of boys and
girls who generally followed her.
ANCIENT FEMALE COSTUME.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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