Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Accusing the wrong person
Speaker 1: for a crime can ruin their life. Countless individuals have
Speaker 1: wrongfully gone to jail or been executed, while the real
Speaker 1: perpetrators go free. It often doesn't until much later that
Speaker 1: the truth comes out, but by then it can be
Speaker 1: too late. Those who have been wrongfully convicted can't get
Speaker 1: back that time, and the ones who are executed, well,
Speaker 1: it's not like they get a do over. At the
Speaker 1: turn of the century, before forensic science became a standard
Speaker 1: part of police procedure, a man named will West was
Speaker 1: sent to Leavenworth Prison in New York. But clerk checking
Speaker 1: him in took a series of measurements and checked them
Speaker 1: against his current lineup of prisoners. He found a match,
Speaker 1: a man named William West. The only problem was that
Speaker 1: the William West on record was already serving a life
Speaker 1: sentence for murder for the past two years. The will
Speaker 1: West in front of him, whose measurements equaled those of
Speaker 1: the other Mr West, almost exactly had never been convicted
Speaker 1: of a crime before. The clerk checked his data again,
Speaker 1: examining will West's bone structure, how far apart his eyes were,
Speaker 1: the shape of his mouth, everything down to the last detail,
Speaker 1: and this man was practically the convicted murderers twin. As
Speaker 1: far as the clerk could tell, they were the same person.
Speaker 1: The confusion wouldn't be sorted out for another few years,
Speaker 1: when fingerprint analysis would prove the two will Wests to
Speaker 1: be two completely different people. But perhaps the strangest case
Speaker 1: of mistaken identity occurred much earlier. During the Napoleonic Wars,
Speaker 1: happened off the coast of Hartlepool, a small town in
Speaker 1: northeastern England. A French ship was sinking and the people
Speaker 1: of Hartlepool were unsure of what to do. After all,
Speaker 1: that ship could have been a decoy or a kind
Speaker 1: of trojan horse waiting to be accepted onto English shores.
Speaker 1: But the locals didn't really have to worry about much.
Speaker 1: Only one survivor washed up on the beach, still clad
Speaker 1: in his military uniform. He was found, but rather than
Speaker 1: giving him the help he needed, the residents took him
Speaker 1: in as a prisoner of war. They had never seen
Speaker 1: a Frenchman before, and used the satirical cartoons they had
Speaker 1: read about to guide their identification. Those cartoons often depicted
Speaker 1: the French as furry creatures with sharp claws and long tails.
Speaker 1: In a way, they looked a bit like monkeys, which
Speaker 1: was bad news for the castaway who washed ashore because
Speaker 1: he was a monkey. He'd been dressed as one of
Speaker 1: the soldiers, probably to amuse the crew on the ship,
Speaker 1: but the locals had no idea the animal had been entertainment.
Speaker 1: To them, he must have been a French spy sent
Speaker 1: to obtain information about their town. So they did the
Speaker 1: only logical thing they could think of. They put the
Speaker 1: monkey on trial, since it couldn't answer any of the
Speaker 1: questions or defend itself in any way. It was eventually
Speaker 1: found guilty of being a spy, and the townsfolk didn't
Speaker 1: waste any time doling out justice to the interloper. They
Speaker 1: took it to the town square and fitted it for
Speaker 1: a noose, hanging the animal for all to see. At
Speaker 1: least that's the legend according to modern day residents of
Speaker 1: the town. That is, there's an alternate version of the
Speaker 1: story that's much darker. Cannons on military ships were often
Speaker 1: primed with gunpowder by adolescent boys called powder monkeys. It's
Speaker 1: possible that one of the boys had made it off
Speaker 1: the ship only to find himself at the center of
Speaker 1: an international conspiracy. But it's not like the town is
Speaker 1: eager to own up to the more macabre version of
Speaker 1: the tail. They're sticking with the monkey, And if you
Speaker 1: attend to Hartlepool United football match, you'll probably hear the
Speaker 1: crowd chant who hung the monkey. The team's mascot is
Speaker 1: even a monkey named Angus. In fact, the town is
Speaker 1: so dedicated to the legend that Stuart Drummond, a two
Speaker 1: thousand two candidate for mayor of town, dressed up as
Speaker 1: Angus the Monkey and promised free bananas for school children
Speaker 1: as part of his platform, and the voters liked him
Speaker 1: enough to elect him to office not once but three times. Sadly, though,
Speaker 1: the children never got their free bananas. John Montague, the
Speaker 1: second Duke of Montagu, accomplished a lot in his short
Speaker 1: forty years on this earth. During the early seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 1: he governed the islands of St. Vincent and St. Lucia.
Speaker 1: He was a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians,
Speaker 1: and he helped build the Foundling Hospital, a first combination
Speaker 1: medical center and children's home in London. He was also
Speaker 1: father to five children, three of whom died quite young.
Speaker 1: In fact, he outlived all of them, which might explain
Speaker 1: Montague's peculiar quirk. He kind of let his inner child
Speaker 1: run his life. You see, Montague love to be entertained.
Speaker 1: More than that, he loved to entertain, to joke around
Speaker 1: with friends and family. He was known to playfully lure
Speaker 1: people into his garden and then squirt them with water,
Speaker 1: or to invite guests to stay in his home only
Speaker 1: to put itching powder in their beds. Whether that was
Speaker 1: more entertaining for him than the people staying with him,
Speaker 1: well that remains to be seen. But he wanted more.
Speaker 1: He wanted to be enthralled by something he'd never seen before,
Speaker 1: something astounding he'd heard of. A man called the bottle
Speaker 1: conjuror a performer who could do things most people only
Speaker 1: dreamt about. For example, if someone was wearing a mask
Speaker 1: during the show, the bottle conjurer could name them without hesitation,
Speaker 1: even if he had never met them before. He would
Speaker 1: then ask an audience member to name someone they knew
Speaker 1: who had passed away. For the next several minutes, he
Speaker 1: would become the deceased person, talking with that audience member
Speaker 1: as if he was their loved one and had returned
Speaker 1: from the dead. The Bottle Conjurer was a wonder. He
Speaker 1: could look at someone and tell them their deepest, darkest
Speaker 1: secrets from a past life. He could take a walking
Speaker 1: stick from a random person in the crowd and play
Speaker 1: it like any musical instrument, all while singing perfectly at
Speaker 1: the same time. And then there was the reason for
Speaker 1: his name. His most impressive feet would always come later
Speaker 1: in the evening, when he would present a simple wine
Speaker 1: bottle to the audience. Someone would be invited on stage
Speaker 1: to examine the bottle to make sure there was nothing
Speaker 1: funny or strange about it, and once it was confirmed
Speaker 1: to be a normal tavern bottle, the Conjurer would place
Speaker 1: it on a table in the middle of the stage,
Speaker 1: lean in, squeeze his entire body inside of it, and
Speaker 1: then sing for the crowd. And Lord Montague wanted to
Speaker 1: see this for himself, and he wanted as many people
Speaker 1: as possible to see it with him, so he put
Speaker 1: an advertisement in the local newspaper on the night of
Speaker 1: January seventeen forty nine, the Bottle Conjurer would appear at
Speaker 1: the theater in the Haymarket and perform all the amazing
Speaker 1: feats described. The show sold out. The theater was packed
Speaker 1: that night as people waited for the Conjurer button. By showtime,
Speaker 1: he still hadn't appeared. Minutes passed and the crowd grew
Speaker 1: increasingly agitated. Ushers and management assured the audience that if
Speaker 1: the Conjuror didn't begin soon, they would all be refunded
Speaker 1: their money, but that didn't help. Everyone had come to
Speaker 1: see a show unlike anything they could have imagined. Eventually,
Speaker 1: someone in the audience, who felt that they had waited
Speaker 1: long enough, shouted for double the prices the Conjurer will
Speaker 1: go into to a pint size bottle, and that did it.
Speaker 1: Everyone leapt to their feet and anger. They knew that
Speaker 1: they had been had and no refund was going to
Speaker 1: satisfy them. Spectators started pulling down curtains and ripping their
Speaker 1: seats out of the floor. They tossed everything into a
Speaker 1: giant bonfire outside the theater and watched it all burn.
Speaker 1: One audience member managed to get away with the ticket receipts,
Speaker 1: so no one was able to get their money back.
Speaker 1: In the end, however, despite their protests and rage, no
Speaker 1: one could figure out who had placed the ad or why.
Speaker 1: Some names were floated around as possible perpetrators, but all
Speaker 1: of them denied it until one day when it was
Speaker 1: revealed that it had all been John Montague, who had
Speaker 1: promised everyone a show featuring the bottle conjuror apparently it
Speaker 1: had all started been the Duke, talking with another nobleman,
Speaker 1: had made a bet. He wagered that if he advertised
Speaker 1: an impossible spectacle for the public to witness, it would
Speaker 1: draw and I quote, enough fools in London to fill
Speaker 1: a playhouse. That nobleman took him up on that bet
Speaker 1: and lost, and the Duke of Montague turned the English
Speaker 1: into a punchline for years to come, much to their dismay.
Speaker 1: And I guess that means the old saying really is true.
Speaker 1: Some people just can't take a joke. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Manky, in partnership with how Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the world of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.