WEIRD AND WONDERFUL
Who was the ‘rabbit woman’ of Godalming?
Mary Toft, a young woman from Godalming, Surrey, caused a sensation in 1726 when she convinced a number of doctors that, after seeing a large rabbit while pregnant, she had given birth to parts of the long-eared mammals. John Howard, a local surgeon and midwife who attended some of the purported births, believed her and informed a number of eminent medics including Nathaniel St André, surgeon to the royal household of George I. St André examined some of the animal parts that Toft claimed to have birthed, and concluded that the case was genuine – that she had indeed spawned rabbits. However, a second royal surgeon, Cyriacus Ahlers, was decidedly sceptical. Toft was later questioned closely in London.
Finally, after being threatened with “a very painful experiment”, Toft confessed that she had faked the births by stuffing animal parts inside herself. She was imprisoned, but was soon released and lived out the rest of her days in Godalming. Satirists and pamphleteers had a field day, though, and St André’s career never fully recovered from the humiliation.
Who was the ‘Ice King of Boston’?
The chink of cubes in a cocktail glass, the joy of an ice-cold beer on a hot day – for most people living in warmer climes before the advent of the modern freezer, such delights were long unheard-of luxuries. But in the 19th century, ice became the cool (pun intended) new must-have, thanks to an enterprising man named Frederic Tudor.
Ice was plentiful in New England winters, cut from frozen lakes. But at the start of the 19th century, Tudor – who became known as the ‘Ice King of Boston’ – saw the commercial potential of selling it elsewhere, a venture that quickly became hugely successful. Nearly half of the ice transported to cities across the US came from Tudor, and he supplied destinations as far away as the Caribbean, Europe and India. Ice was cut in colossal blocks from rivers and lakes during winter, and stored in cellars, caves and tunnels
