The following is not meant to show how stupid people are, but rather how fear of the unknown can actually create a situation that is most unbelievable now, but MOST believable then. "In the town of Haverpool, England. At the end of the 18th Century, beginning of the 19th Century, during the Napoleonic Wars, when a French man-of-war ship, founded off the shore of Haverpool, and in so doing, it went down with all hands on board. The only survivor from the ship was in fact the ships' pet monkey. Now you imagine the people of Haverpool are not well educated at the time, and very simple folks that had never seen a Frenchman in their life. And all they knew was that France was our enemy, and this poor monkey comes floating in on a piece of raft; and when it's picked up by one of the fishing boats, they tried to talk to it, and naturally the monkey can't speak English. And they assumed that since it couldn't speak English that it must be a French spy, because it's not wearing a uniform. And the jury gave it a summary trial and hanged the monkey. DOCUMENTATION: Tape from Alan Watson, Editor, SWORD AND LANCE MAGAZINE Back to Empire, Eagles, & Lions Table of Contents Vol. 1 No. 8 Back to EEL List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Jean Lochet This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com