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Yucks Digest V3 #9 (mixed, one long)
Yucks Digest Thu, 18 Mar 93 Volume 3 : Issue 9
Today's Topics:
"In the past we have tried too much to prevent the making of mistakes"
hacking from a hospital bed
Standard Usenet Reply Form
The Wit and Wisdom of Dan Quayle
the young and the clueless....
Top Ten Lessons Learned by the BATF in the Waco Raid
Hannibal the Cannibal's Ancestors
The "Yucks" digest is a moderated list of the bizarre, the unusual,
the sometimes risque, the possibly insane, and the (usually) humorous.
It is issued on a semi-regular basis, as the whim and time present
themselves.
Back issues and subscriptions can be obtained using a mail server. Send
mail to "yucks-request@cs.purdue.edu" with a "Subject:" line of the single
word "help" for instructions.
Submissions and problem reports should be sent to spaf@cs.purdue.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 25 May 92 23:23:51 CDT
From: Patricia O Tuama <rissa@cs.uchicago.edu>
Subject: "In the past we have tried too much to prevent the making of mistakes"
To: eniac
the Quayle Quarterly people have just published "What a Waste
it is to Lose One's Mind; the Unauthorized Autobiography of
Dan Quayle." it even has an unauthorized foreword by george
bush which includes the following quote:
"Take out the word `Quayle' and insert `Bush' where-
ever it appears, and that's the crap I took for eight
years. Wimp. Sycophant. Lap dog. Poop. Light-
weight. Boob. Squirrel. Asshole. George Bush."
the book covers quayle's family and upbringing, his college
education, golfing, the years he spent in the national guard
bravely defending his country, his drug experiences (including
the DEA coverup), golfing, his admission to law school via an
affirmative action program, golfing, marilyn, marilyn's hair,
col robert thieme, golfing, indiana politics, golfing, the house
of representatives, golfing, the senate, golfing, national poli-
tics, jack kennedy, the vice-presidency, golfing, anatomically-
correct dolls from chile, foreign dignitaries' funerals, south
america, golfing, the council on competitiveness, deregulation,
golfing, NASA, fund-raising for the GOP, golfing and, perhaps
most chillingly, quayle's plans to run for president in 1996
("I am interested in vice presidents who have served as presi-
dents. I can't say the thought [of the presidency] hasn't
crossed my mind." "We will lay the groundwork for our next
great triumph; a fifth straight conservative victory in the
year 1996.")
some choice quotes:
"I know one committee I don't want -- Judiciary. They
are going to be dealing with all those issues like
abortion, bussing, voting rights, prayers. I'm not
interested in those issues and I want to stay as far
away from them as I can."
"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."
"I believe we are on a irreversible trend toward more
freedom and democracy -- but that could change."
"Who would have predicted that Dubcek, who brought the
tanks into Czechoslovakia in 1968 is now being pro-
claimed a hero in Czechoslovakia?"
(When asked to define wetlands) "How about if we say
when it's wet, it's wet?"
"Our future competitiveness demands that true environ-
mentalists and responsible leaders not allow the well-
intentioned concerns of the American public to be mani-
pulated and exploited as a means to re-establish unnec-
essary regulatory, economic and social controls."
"I've played there (Burning Tree Country Club) before
and I'll play there again. I'm not going to protest
Burning Tree. Maybe they'll change. I think it would
be a good idea for them to take women into the club.
I don't have any problem playing there in the meantime."
(Commenting on SDI as described in Tom Clancy's novel,
Red Storm Rising) "They're not just novels, they're read
as the real thing."
"Think of all the things we rely upon in space today:
Communications from ... Japan, detection of potential
ballistic missile attacks. Ballistic missiles are still
here. Other nations do have ballistic missiles. How do
you think we were able to detect some of the Scud mis-
siles and things like that? Space, reconnaissance, wea-
ther, communications -- you name it. We use space a lot
today."
"Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that
teach our children. It's a unique profession and, by
golly, I hope when they go into the teaching field that
they do have that zeal and they do have that mission and
they do believe in teaching our kids and they're not get-
ting into this just as a job or a way to put food on the
table."
"We're going to have the best educated American people in
the world."
and my favorite,
"Mars is essentially in the same orbit ... somewhat the
same distance from the sun, which is very important. We
have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe,
and water. If there is water, that means there is oxy-
gen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
---------------
What a Waste it Is to Lose One's Mind; the Unauthorized Autobio-
graphy of Dan Quayle, by the editors of The Quayle Quarterly.
Bridgeport, CT. c1992.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 25 May 92 13:19:19 EDT
From: bala@ulysses.att.com
Subject: hacking from a hospital bed
To: systems
------- Forwarded Message
From: Vaughan Pratt <pratt@cs.stanford.edu>
Subject: X10 control
To: suns-at-home@coraki.Stanford.EDU
There is a line of X10 products, I think called PowerHouse, will look
it up when I get home. (I'm typing this from my Sun in a Stanford
hospital bed where I'm recovering from bypass surgery. The room has an
ethernet in it, very nice.) The line includes a controller that you
can attach to an RS-232 line. I bought it at Fry's three years ago for
around $50, I think they still must sell it. It comes with a nice PC
driver, which I chucked out and wrote my own crummy Unix driver, as
follows. Typical usage is
[...]
------- End of Forwarded Message
[Ethernet in the hospital room? Gee, nothing like checking sci.med for
a second opinion on your care, misc.consumers to talk about how to pay
for the surgery, and alt.alien.visitors to try to identify the food.
--spaf]
------------------------------
Date: 31 May 92 08:30:04 GMT
From: JSL@vms.cis.pitt.edu (John Lundberg)
Subject: Standard Usenet Reply Form
Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
STANDARD USENET REPLY FORM
To :_________________________
From:_________________________
I have read your recent post concerning_________________________
posted to _____________________. I regret that due to severe time
constraints I am unable to respond to your posting directly. However,
I would like to advise you that I believe that your posting:
__contains an unacceptable ____logic
number of errors in: ____fact
____spelling/grammar
__is based on stereotypes of: ____race, ethnic, national origin
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__violates commonly-accepted ____.signature size
net standards concerning: ____posting to world distribution subjects
not of general interest
____posting elementary technical questions
which should be resolved at local site
____limiting postings to appropriate groups
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____editing of quoted material
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__is uninteresting because it ____contains hackneyed expressions
____contains outright stupidities
____is inherently self-contradictory
____reflects inadequate intellectual
development or maturity
____reiterates points made better by others
____is a gratuitous attack on an obvious
provocateur
__contains inane offers to ____SAT scores
make comparisons with other ____genital size
readers concerning: ____frequency of sexual activity
____age at first exposure to computers
____knowledge of obscure technical
information not of general interest
__reflects serious mis- ____the basic functioning of USENET
understandings concerning: ____your role in the functioning of USENET
____other's interest in what you do or don't do
____the nature of sarcasm or satire
or humor in general
------------------------------
Date: 26 Jul 91 15:46:00 GMT
From: johnson@mot.com ("Johnson")
Subject: The Wit and Wisdom of Dan Quayle
Newsgroups: rec.humor
Thanks to Brian Branson of Motorola SPS for supplying these pearls of wisdom.
I'll continue to collect contributions through E-mail and will repost if
the list grows appreciably. I'd especially like the exact verbage of his
quote, while visiting Latin America, that he wished he'd studied Latin more
in school.
"Johnson"
johnson@mot.com
*** A Collection of Quaylisms ***
Bobby Knight told me this: 'There is nothing that a good defense
cannot beat a better offense.' In other words a good offense wins.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle comparing the
offensive capabilities of the Warsaw Pact
with the defensive system of NATO
Why wouldn't an enhanced deterrent, a more stable peace, a better
prospect to denying the ones who enter conflict in the first place
to have a reduction of offensive systems and an introduction to
defensive capability. I believe that is the route this country
will eventually go.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
Mars is essentially in the same orbit... somewhat the same distance from the
Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals,
we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If
oxygen, that means we can breathe.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
Hawaii has always been a very pivotal role in the Pacific. It is IN
the Pacific. It is a part of the United States that is an island that
is right here.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle,
Hawaii, September 1989
What a terrible thing to have lost one's mind. Or not to have a mind
at all. How true that is.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle winning friends while
speaking to the United Negro College Fund
You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are, happy
campers you have been, and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you
will always be.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, to the American Samoans,
whose capital Quayle pronounces "Pogo Pogo"
Quayle stumbled in response to a question about his opinion of the
Holocaust. He said it was "an obscene period in our nation's history."
Then, trying to clarify his remark, Quayle said he meant "this century's
history" and added a confusing comment. "We all lived in this century,
I didn't live in this century," he said.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
We expect them [Salvadoran officials] to work toward the elimination
of human rights.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
El Salvador is a democracy so it's not surprising that there are many voices
to be heard here. Yet in my conversations with Salvadorans... I have heard a
single voice.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and
democracy - but that could change.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president,
and that one word is 'to be prepared'.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, to the Phoenix Republican
Forum, March 1990
It's rural America. It's where I came from. We always refer to ourselves
as real America. Rural America, real America, real, real, America.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
Target prices? How that works? I know quite a bit about farm policy.
I come from Indiana, which is a farm state. Deficiency payments -
which are the key - that is what gets money into the farmer's hands.
We got loan, uh, rates, we got target, uh, prices, uh, I have worked
very closely with my senior colleague, (Indiana Sen.) Richard Lugar,
making sure that the farmers of Indiana are taken care of.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle on being asked to
define the term "target prices."
Quayle's press secretary then cut short the press
conference, after two minutes and 30 seconds.
I not going to focus on what I have done in the past
what I stand for, what I articulate to the American people.
The American people will judge me on what I am saying and what I
have done in the last 12 years in the Congress.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
I want to be Robin to Bush's Batman.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
We should develop anti-satellite weapons because we could not have prevailed
without them in 'Red Storm Rising'.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
The US has a vital interest in that area of the country.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle Referring to Latin America.
Japan is an important ally of ours. Japan and the United States of
the Western industrialized capacity, 60 percent of the GNP,
two countries. That's a statement in and of itself.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
Who would have predicted... that Dubcek, who brought the tanks in in
Czechoslovakia in 1968 is now being proclaimed a hero in Czechoslovakia.
Unbelievable.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
Actually, Dubcek was the leader of the Prague Spring.
May our nation continue to be the beakon of hope to the world.
-- The Quayle's 1989 Christmas card.
[Not a beacon of literacy, though.]
Well, it looks as if the top part fell on the bottom part.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle referring to
the collapsed section of the 880 freeway after
the San Francisco earthquake of 1989.
[this may be a joke; the source is unclear.
but it's still funny]
getting [cruise missles] more accurate so that we can have precise precision.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle referring to his legislative
work dealing with cruise missles
I can identify with steelworkers. I can identify with workers that
have had a difficult time.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle addressing workers at
an Ohio steel plant,1988
[I will never have] another Jimmy Carter grain embargo, Jimmy,
Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter grain embargo, Jimmy Carter grain embargo.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle during the Benson debate
Certainly, I know what to do, and when I am Vice President -- and
I will be -- there will be contingency plans under different sets of
situations and I tell you what, I'm not going to go out and hold a news
conference about it. I'm going to put it in a safe and keep it there! Does
that answer your question?
-- Vice President Dan Quayle when asked what he
would do if he assumed the Presidency,1988
Lookit, I've done it their way this far and now it's my turn. I'm
my own handler. Any questions? Ask me ... There's not going to be any more
handler stories because I'm the handler ... I'm Doctor Spin.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle responding to press reports of
his aides having to, in effect, "potty train" him.
I would guess that there's adequate low-income housing in this
country.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
The real question for 1988 is whether we're going to go forward to
tomorrow or past to the -- to the back!
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
We will invest in our people, quality education, job opportunity,
family, neighborhood, and yes, a thing we call America.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, 1988
We'll let the sunshine in and shine on us, because today we're
happy and tomorrow we'll be even happier.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, 1988
We're going to have the best-educated American people in the
world.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
This election is about who's going to be the next President of the
United States!
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, 1988
Don't forget about the importance of the family. It begins with
the family. We're not going to redefine the family. Everybody knows the
definition of the family. [Meaningful pause] A child. [Meaningful pause] A
mother. [Meaningful pause] A father. There are other arrangements of the
family, but that is a family and family values.
I've been very blessed with wonderful parents and a wonderful
family, and I am proud of my family. Anybody turns to their family. I have
a very good family. I'm very fortunate to have a very good family. I
believe very strongly in the family. It's one of the things we have in
our platform, is to talk about it.
I suppose three important things certainly come to my mind that we
want to say thank you. The first would be our family. Your family, my
family -- which is composed of an immediate family of a wife and three
children, a larger family with grandparents and aunts and uncles. We all
have our family, whichever that may be ... The very beginnings of
civilization, the very beginnings of this country, goes back to the family.
And time and time again, I'm often reminded, especially in this
Presidential campaign, of the importance of a family, and what a family
means to this country. And so when you pay thanks I suppose the first thing
that would come to mind would be to thank the Lord for the family.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1993 12:08:37 -0600
From: cdash@herky.cs.uiowa.edu (Charles M. Shub)
Subject: the young and the clueless....
To: spaf
If this ISN'T an attempt at humor, it is a sad commentary....
> From: gowen@jade.tufts.edu (G. Lee Owen)
> Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.programming
> Date: 9 Mar 93 05:43:23 GMT
> Sender: news@news.tufts.edu (USENET News System)
> Distribution: na
> Organization: Tufts University - Medford, MA
> Lines: 28
> In-Reply-To: joe@erix.ericsson.se's message of 5 Mar 93 14:07:10 GMT
>
>
> > If we hire a CS we expect similar competence, only this time its
> > LL(1), LR(1) grammars, compiler construction, discrete mathematics, ...
>
> I hope you'll forgive me for asking this. I am a third-year
> undergraduate in Computer Science, have been a Teaching Assistant for
> three semesters, and am a system programmer for the department,
> working on Suns with SunOS 4.1.1 and SunOS 5.1. But I have not heard
> of LL or LR grammars, and a thorough check of the man pages (each
> section, as well as man -k) failed to yield anything except an obscure
> proprietary Convex "Logical Link Device Driver."
>
> I'd like to think I'm not particularly stupid with computers,
> but it has been repeated in this thread that LL(1) and LR(1) grammars
> are important. It bothers me that I am, well, ignorant. Can someone
> give me a pointer so that I can figure it out?
>
> (Oh yes -- ll and lr in man section 1 on Convex Unix (BSD, ah, 4.2, I
> believe) are variations of the 'ls' command, interpreted as 'ls -l'
> and 'ls -R', respectively... I don't think that's what is being
> discussed, either.)
>
> I'd appreciate any help.
>
> --
> --Greg Owen
> gowen@forte.cs.tufts.edu, gowen@jade.tufts.edu
> ...You can awk me, you can sed me, just DON'T grep me!
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 93 18:45:28 PST
From: ross@qcktrn.com (Gary Ross)
Subject: Top Ten Lessons Learned by the BATF in the Waco Raid
To: eli@cisco.com, pdh@rational.com, phz@cadence.com, rigleyj@vertex.com, sbs@frame.com, yucks
Top Ten Lessons Learned by the BATF in the Waco Raid
10. If you're going to seize guns, bring along some guns of your own.
9. Bullet-proof vests are not quite as bullet-proof as the manufacturer
may claim.
8. To ensure the element of surprise, be sure to commence the raid before
the media sets up its cameras.
7. Make sure the raid is near a military installation, so you can get
re-enforcements quickly.
6. 'Taking out' the children first is not a particularly effective
technique for suppressing hostile fire.
5. When planning for a no-knock raid, do not assume that the victims
sleep-in till noon.
4. Be sure that God is not on their side.
3. Don't bring along the media unless you're really, really, really sure
you are not going to get your ass kicked.
2. Stick to raiding pacifist religious cults in California.
1. Don't Mess with Texas!
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jun 92 00:49:55 GMT
From: meachen@med.wcc.govt.nz
Subject: Hannibal the Cannibal's Ancestors
Newsgroups: alt.best.of.internet
Here's an article from alt.folklore.urban.
[This is a long post about a historic cannibal family. Some people
may find this disgusting. Others may find themselves a bit peckish
after reading it. If you suspect either may happen, you may wish to
skip the following; it is the last item in this issue. --spaf]
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Cannibalism in the UK
From: rab@pub.govan.glasgow (Rab C Nesbitt)
Date: 2 Jun 92 13:39:43 GMT
This is a tale which originally appeared in soc.culture.celtic some
time back but I've lost the header so I can't remember who took the
trouble to type it in so apologies to the individual concerned.
Madam Tousauds (sp?) waxwork museum in Edinburgh has a display of
this event.
Enjoy your lunch...
"The People Eaters"
From time to time in the course of human history natural depravity plumbs
new depths--and not only during wars. The Sawney Beane case in the early
seventeenth century concerned a family that lived in a cave and chose
murder, cannibalism, and incest as its way of life. For twenty-five years
this family, rejecting all accepted standards of human behaviour and
morality, carried on a viscious guerilla war against humanity. Even a
medieval world accustomed to torture and violence was horrified.
Because over the years a large family was ultimately inolved, most of whom
had been born and raised in fantastic conditions under which they accepted
such an existence as normal, taking their standars from the criminal
behaviour of their parents, the case raises some interesting legal and moral
issues. Retribution when it finally came was quick and merciless, but for
many of the forty-eight Beanes who were duly put to death it may have been
unjust.
The case is simple enough, though scarcely credible, and has been well
authenticated. Sawney Beane was a Scot, born within a few miles of Edinburgh
in the reign of James VI of Scotland, who was also James I of England. His
father worked the land, and Sawney was no doubt brought up to follow the
same hard working but honourable career. But Sawney soon discovered that
honest work of any kind was not his natural metier. At a very early age he
began to exhibit what today would be regarded as delinquent traits. He was
lazy, cunning and viscious, and resentful of authority of any kind.
As soon as he was old enough to look after himself he decided to leave
home and live on his wits. They were to serve him well for many years. He
took with him a young woman of an equally irresponsible and evil
disposition, and they went to set up "home" together on the Scottish coast
by Galloway.
Home turned out to be a cave in a cliff by the sea, with a strip of yellow
sand as a forecourt when the tide was out. It was a gigantic cave,
penetrating more than a mile into the solid rock of the rather wild
hinterland, with many tortuous windings and side passages. A short way from
the enterance of the cave all was complete darkness. Twice a day at high
tide several hundred yards of the cave's entrance passage were flooded,
which formed a deterrent to intruders. In this dark damp hole they decided
to make their home. It seemed unlikely that they would ever be discovered.
In practice, the cave proved to be a lair rather than a home, and from
this lair Sawney Beane launched a reign of terror which was to last for a
quarter of a century. It was Sawney's plan to live on the proceeds of
robbery, and it proved to be a simple enough matter to ambush travellers on
the lonely narrow roads connecting nearby villages. In order to ensure that
he could never be indentified and tracked down, Sawney made a point of
murdering his victims.
His principle requirement was money with which he could buy food at the
villaige shops and markets, but he also stole jewellery, watches, clothing,
and any other articles of practical or potential value. He was shrewd enough
not to attempt to sell valuables which might be recognized; these were
simply stock-piled in the cave as unrealizeable assets.
Although the stock-pile grew, the money gained from robbery and murder was
not sufficeint to maintain even the Sawney Beanes modest standard of living.
People in that wild part of Scotland were not in the habit of carrying a
great deal of money on their persons. Sawney's problem, as a committed
troglodyte, was how to obtain enough food when money was in short supply and
any attempt to sell stolen valuables taken from the murdered victims might
send him to the gallows. He chose the simple answer. Why waste the bodies of
the people he had killed? Why not eat them?
This he and his wife proceeded to do. After an ambush on a nearby coastal
road he dragged the body back to the cave. There, deep in the Scottish
bedrock, in the pallid light of a tallow candle, he and his wife
disembowelled and dismembered his victim. The limbs and edible fish were
dried, salted and pickled, and hung on improvised hooks around the walls of
the cave to start a larder of human meat on which they were to survive,
indeed thrive, for more than two decades. The bones were stacked in another
part of the cave system.
Naturally, these abductions created intense alarm in the area. The
succession of murders had been terrifying enough, but the complete
disappearance of people travelling alone along the country roads was
demoralizing. Although determined efforts were made to find the bodies of
the victims and their killer, Sawney was never discovered. The cave was too
deep and complex for facile exploration. Nobody suspected that the unseen
marauder of Galloway could possibly live in a cave which twice a day was
flooded with water. And nobody imagined for a moment that the missing people
were, in fact, being eaten.
The Sawney way of life settled down into a pattern. His wife began to
produce children, who were brought up in the cave. The family were by no
means confined to the cave. Now that the food problem had been
satisfactorily solved, the money stolen from victims could be used to buy
other essentials. From time to time they were able to venture cautiously and
discreetly into nearby towns and villages on shopping expeditions. At not
time did they arouse suspicion. In themselves they were unremarkable people,
as in the case with most murders, and they were never challenged or
identified.
On the desolate foreshore in front of the cave the children of the Beane
family no doubt saw the light of day, and played and excercised and built up
their strength while father or mother kept a look-out for
intruders--perhaps as potential fodder for the larder.
The killings and cannibalism became habit. It was survival, it was normal,
it was a job. Under these incredible conditions Sawney and his wife produced
a family of fourteen children, and as they grew up the children in turn, by
incest, produced a second generation of eight grandsons and fourteen
grandaughters. In such a manner must the earliest cavemen have existed and
reproduced their kind, though even they did not eat each other.
It is astonishing that with so many children and, eventually, adolescents
milling around in and close to the cave somebody did not observe this
strange phenomenon and investigate. The chances are that they did, from time
to time--that they investigated too closely and were murdered and eaten. The
Sawney children were no doubt brought up to regard other humans as food.
The young Sawneys received no education, except in the arts of primitive
speech, murder and cannibal cuisine. They developed as a self-contained
expanding colony of beasts of prey, with their communal appetite growing
ever bigger and more insatiable. As the children became adults they were
encouraged to join in the kidnappings and killings. The Sawney gang swelled
its ranks to a formidable size. Murder and abduction became refined by years
of skill and experience to a science, if not an art.
Despite the alarming increase in the number of Sawney mouths which had to
be fed, the family were seldom short of human flesh in the larder.
Sometimes, havign too much food in store, they were obliged to discard
portions of it as putrefaction set in despite the saltling and pickling.
Thus it happened that from time to time at remote distances from the cave,
in open country or washed up on the beach, curiously preserved but decaying
human remains would be discovered. Since these grisly objects consisted of
severed limbs and lumps of dried flesh, they were never identified, nor was
it possible to estimate when death had taken place, but it soon became
obvious to authority that they were connected with the long list of missing
people. And authority, at first disbelieving, began to realize with
gathering the nature of what was happening. Murder and dismemberment were
one thing, but the salting and pickling of human flesh impled something far
more sinister.
The efforts made to trace the missing persons and hunt down their killers
resulted in some unfortunate arrests and executions of innocent people who
se only crime was that they had been the last to see the victim before his,
or her, disappearance. The Sawney family, securing in their cave, remained
unsuspected and undiscovered.
Years went by. The family grew older and bigger and more hungry. The
programme of abduction and murder was organized on a more ambitious scale.
It was simly a matter of supply and demand--the logistics of a troglodyte
operation. Sometimes as many as six men and women would be ambushed and
killed at at time by a dozen or more Sawney's. Their bodies were always
dragged back to the cave to be prepared by the women for the larder.
It seems strange that nobody ever escaped to provide the slightest clue to
identify the domicle of his attackers, but the Sawney's conducted their
ambushes like military operations, with "guards" concealed by the road at
either side of the main centre of attack to cut down any quarry that had the
temerity to run for it. This "three-pronged" operation proved effective;
there were no survivors. And although mass-searches were carried out to
locate the perpetrators of these massacres, nobody ever thought of searching
the deep cave. It was passed by on many occasions.
Such a situation could not continue indefinitely, however. Inevitably
there had to be a mistake--just one clumsy mistake that would deliver the
Sawney Beane family to the wrath and vengance of outraged society. The
mistake, when it happened, was simple enough--the surprising thing was that
it had not happened earlier. For the first time in 25 years the Sawney's,
through bad judgement and bad timing, allowed themselves to be outnumbered,
though even that was not the end of the matter. Retribution when it finally
came was in the grand manner, with the King himself talking part in the end
game--the pursuit and annihilation of the Sawney Beane tribe.
It happened this way. One night a pack of the Sawney Beanes attacked a man
and his wife who were returning on horse-back from a nearby fair. They
seized the woman first, and while they were still struggling to dismount the
man had her stripped and disembowelled, ready to be dragged off to the cave.
The husband, driven beserk by the swift atrocity and realizing that he was
hopelessly outnumbered by utterly ruthless fiends, fought desperately to
escape. In the vicious engagement some of the Sawney's were trampled
underfoot.
But he, too, would have been taken and murdered had not a group of other
riders, some twenty or more, also returning from the fair, arrived
unexpected on the scene. For the first time the Sawney Beanes found
themselves at a disadvantage, and discovered that courage was not their most
prominent virtue. After a brief violent skirmish they abandoned the fight
and scurried like rats back to their cave, leaving the mutilated body of the
woman behind, and a score of witnesses. The incident was to be the Sawney's
first and last serious error of tactics and policy.
The man, the only one on record known to have escaped from a Sawney
ambush, was taken to the Chief Magistrate of Glasgow to describe his
harrowing experience. This evidence was the break through for which the
magistrate had been waiting for a long time. The long catalogue of missing
people and pickled human remains seemed to be reaching its final page and
denouement; a gang of men an youths were involved, and had been involved for
years, and they had to be tracked down. They obviously lived locally, in the
Galloway area, and past discoveries suggested that they were cannibals. THe
disembowelled woman proved the point, if proof were needed.
The matter was so serious that the Chief Magistrate communicated directly
with King James VI and the King apparently took an equally serious view, for
when he went in person to Galloway with a small army of four hundred armed
men and a host of tracker dogs, the Sawney Beanes were in trouble.
The King, with his officers and retinue, and he assistance of local
volunteers, set out systematically on one of the biggest manhunts in
history. They explored the entire Galloway countryside and coast--and
discovered nothing. When patrolling the shore they would have walked past
the partly waterlogged cave itself had not the dogs, scenting the faint
odour of death and decay, started baying and howling and trying to splash
their way into the dark interior.
This seemed to be it. The pursuers took no chances. They knew they were
dealing with vicious, ruthless men who had been in the murder business for a
long time. With flaming torches to provide a flickering light, and swords at
the ready, they advanced cautiously but methodically along the narrow
twisting passenges of the cave. In due course they reached the charnel house
at the end of the the mile-deep cave that was the home and operational base
of the Sawney Beane cannibals.
A dreadful sight greeted their eyes. Along the damp walls of the cave
human limbs and cuts of bodies, male and female, were hung in rows like
carcasses of meat in a butchers cold room. Elsewhere they found bundles of
clothing and piles of valuables, including watches, rings and jewellery. In
an adjoining cavern there was a heap of bones collected over some twenty
five years.
The entire Sawney Beane family, all forty-eight of them, were in
residence; they were lying low, knowing that an army four hundred strong was
on their tail. There was a fight, but for the Sawney's there was literally
no escape. The exit from the cave was blocked with armed men who meant
business. They were trapped and duly arrested. With the King himself still
in attendance they were marched to Edinburgh--but not for trial. Cannibals
such as the Sawneys did not merit the civlized amenities of judge and jury.
The prisoners numbered twenty seven men and twenty one women of which all
but two, the original parents, had been convceived and brought up as
cave-dwellers, raised from childhood on human flesh, and taught that robbery
and murder were the normal way of life. For this wretched incestuous horde
of Scottish cannibals there was to be no mercy, and no pretence of justice
if every any one of them merited justice.
The Sawney Beanes of both sexes were condemned to death in an arbitrary
fashion because their crimes over a generation of years were adjudged to be
so infamous and offensive as to preclude the normal process of law, evidence
and jurisdiction. They were outcasts of society and had no rights, even the
youngest and most innocent of them.
All were executed the following day, in accordance with the conventions
and procedures of the age. The men were dismembered, just as they had
dismembered their victims. Their arms and legs were cut off while they were
still alive and conscious, and they were left to bleed to death, watched by
their women. And then the women were burned like witches in great fires.
At not time did any one of them express remorse or repentance. BUt, on the
other hand, it must be remembered that the children and grandchildren of
Sawney Beane and his wife had been brought up to accept the cave dwelling
cannibalistic life as normal. They had known no other life, and in a very
real sense they had been well and truly "brain-washed", in modern
terminology. They were isolated from society, and their moral and ethical
standards were those of Sawney Beane himself. He was the father figure and
mentor in a small tightly integrated community. They were trained to regard
murder and cannibalism as right and normal, and they saw no wrong in it.
It poses the question as to how much of morality is the product of the
environment and training, and ho wmuch is (or should be) due to some
instinctive but indefinable inner voice of, perhaps, conscience. Did the
young members of the Beane clan know that what they were doing was wrong?
Whether they knew or not, they paid the supreme penalty just the same.
[I'm sure there's a moral to this, but I don't want to try to
articulate it. --spaf]
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End of Yucks Digest
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