3:15 And Solomon awoke; and, behold, it was a
dream. And he came to
Jerusalem, and stood before the ark of the
covenant of the LORD, and
offered up burnt offerings, and offered peace
offerings, and made a
feast to all his servants.
3:16 Then came there two women, that were
harlots, unto the king, and
stood before him.
3:17 And the one woman said, O my lord, I and
this woman dwell in one
house; and I was delivered of a child with
her in the house.
3:18 And it came to pass the third day after
that I was delivered,
that this woman was delivered also: and we
were together; there was no
stranger with us in the house, save we two in
the house.
3:19 And this woman's child died in the
night; because she overlaid
it.
3:20 And she arose at midnight, and took my
son from beside me, while
thine handmaid slept, and laid it in her
bosom, and laid her dead
child in my bosom.
3:21 And when I rose in the morning to give
my child suck, behold, it
was dead: but when I had considered it in the
morning, behold, it was
not my son, which I did bear.
3:22 And the other woman said, Nay; but the
living is my son, and the
dead is thy son. And this said, No; but the
dead is thy son, and the
living is my son. Thus they spake before the
king.
3:23 Then said the king, The one saith, This
is my son that liveth,
and thy son is the dead: and the other saith,
Nay; but thy son is the
dead, and my son is the living.
3:24 And the king said, Bring me a sword. And
they brought a sword
before the king.
3:25 And the king said, Divide the living
child in two, and give half
to the one, and half to the other.
3:26 Then spake the woman whose the living
child was unto the king,
for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she
said, O my lord, give her
the living child, and in no wise slay it. But
the other said, Let it
be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.
3:27 Then the king answered and said, Give
her the living child, and
in no wise slay it: she is the mother
thereof.
3:28 And all Israel heard of the judgment
which the king had judged;
and they feared the king: for they saw that
the wisdom of God was in
him, to do judgment.
4:1 So king Solomon was king over all Israel.
The story of the true mother was a tale spread by Solomon’s people at a time of civil crisid.
Solomon had an elder brother, Adonijah, who was the rightful heir to the throne, (or had, at least, a more legitimate claim than Solomon) but Adonijah had already been executed at Solomon’s command, along with a number of Adonijah’s supporters. Solomon’s tale of justice was actually a warning to any remaining supporters of Adonijah. “I am not the legitimate heir,” he was telling them. “I’ll not hesitate to split the Kingdom, just as my father David warred against King Saul.” The “wisdom of God” that was in him, was, in fact, the ruthless calculation of a warlord. “If I cannot be King,” he told the people of Israel, “No one will.”
But history is strange, and is written by the victors. So ruthless cunning is now recorded for all time as wisdom and justice.
Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemic of 1793 was the largest in the history of the United States, claiming the lives of nearly 4000 people, nearly 10% of the entire population of the city. In late summer, as the number of deaths began to climb, 20,000 citizens fled to the countryside, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other members of the federal government (at that time headquartered in Philadelphia).
Into the grizzly landscape stepped a hero: Benjamin Rush, physician, public figure, signer of the Declaration of Independence. He mobilized medical efforts, orchestrated the construction of makeshift tent hospitals, personally oversaw the treatment of hundreds, if not thousands of the stricken. He gave the city hope, when others offered nothing but stoicism, or despair.
His treatments were as heroic as the man himself. He favored bleeding, to the point of anemia, for a host of ailments, including Yellow Fever. To counter the “buildup of yellow bile,” he prescribed, calomel (mercurous chloride), as a purgative, and jalap, a powerful laxative. These sometimes caused his patients’ hair and teeth to fall out. "Rush's pills," otherwise known as "Thunderclappers," remained popular for decades, and were carried on the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Rush also formed the opinion that Africans were immune to Yellow Fever. At Rush’s urging, the support of Philadelphia's free black community was enlisted by Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, and William Gray, men who had secured support to build the African Church the previous year. Philadelphia's black community dedicated themselves to working with the sick and dying, as nurses, cart drivers, and gravediggers. Over 200 of those so enlisted died of the fever.
Let no one say that Rush was an evil man. He was, in fact, a very good man, a hero, using heroic measures in times that seemed to call for strong remedies. And his medicines were powerful; they just lacked efficacy. Indeed, they undoubtedly added to the death toll.
But there is magic in words like “strong,” and “tough,” and even “heroic.” Even today, advertisements for medicines often contain such power words, as if medical treatment were a form of armed combat. Who, after all, wishes to take a “mild,” medication, when “maximum strength” is available? And when death impends, will “heroic” treatment be ignored?
The English word thug, meaning a violent criminal,
comes from the Hindi word thag (and originally from the Sanskrit word sthaga),
meaning a thief or villain. The
original Thugs were bands of roving criminals in India who strangled and robbed
travelers. It was said these gangs committed murder following precise religious
rites to honor Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction. However, although Kali is a Hindu goddess,
there were said to be Muslim Thugs as well.
To further complicate matters, by the 19th century there were 40,000 people a
year strangled in robberies, but by then many cases accredited to Thuggee were
straightforward robbery with no religious significance.
In Confessions Of A Thug, written in 1837, Phillip Meadows described how
the members of a band of Thugs specialised in different roles. There were the sothaees
who lured travelers; the lughaees, who dug the graves in advance; and
the bhuttotes, who killed. The victims were strangled with a scarf
called a roomal. Although the book is fictional, Meadows based some of
it on the evidence of a captured Thug called Ameer Ali.
A typical Thug killing was done by joining a group of travelers and
entertaining and cooking for them so that the travelers were soon off their
guard. At a pre-arranged signal (the
code phrase was bring the tobacco) the Thugs would strangle the male
travelers and take everything of value. The Thugs kept the valuables themselves
and dedicated the corpses to Kali.
The history of the Thuggee is clouded and rife with speculation masquerading as fact. In the early nineteenth century, both the British Occupation Government of India and the East India Company were incredulous as to the very existence of such a cult. By 1830, however, owing largely to the single-minded efforts of one man, Captain William Sleeman, the British were conducting a policy of eradication. In the first four months of 1833, for example, Francis Curwen Smith, the Governor-General's agent in the Saugor and Narbada Territories, tried 203 suspect Thugs. All were found guilty; 40 were hanged, 156 were sentenced to transportations for life and to be branded; five were given short sentences, and two died after trial while awaiting sentence. All of this was for the murder of 112 persons, only 56 of whose bodies were ever actually found.
Thugs never attacked English travelers, but the British government of India
decided to eliminate them, and over 3000 Thugs were captured personally by
Sleeman during the 1830s. 483 Thugs gave evidence against the rest, 412 were
hanged and the rest imprisoned or rehabilitated. I can find no record of a finding of innocence in the trial of an
accused Thug.
Our leaders are wise. Our leaders are strong. Our leaders are just. Let no history show otherwise, for otherwise we have lost.