What is it? CCXXVI

As always, posting from rec.crafts.metalworking.

1263) To me -- this looks like a combination of a walking cane and a hook to hold down the head of a snake prior to killing it.

A little more detail at the small end might help if you can still get it.

An alternative might be a sceptre for a ruler or a cleric, but that does not seem to make sense given the time and location.

1264) A tape cartridge. The Ampex name supports that part. However it seems to be an unusually wide tape. Not large enough spools to justify considering it to be a predecessor to the U-matic video cartridges (which were 3/4" tape IIRC), and this looks closer to 1-3/4" or perhaps even 2". And it would require spooling out from the cartridge to wrap around a drum for helical scan to get a sufficient data rate. I think that perhaps it is for some kind of multi-track data recorder. 1265) Perhaps for producing shaved ice for beverages? 1266) Perhaps part of an air-dropped minefield marker? The end cap threads would accept a rod with a flag to mark the minefield. It could be dropped folded at the chain, and on the way down the flag would cause the parts to align so when the point hit the ground it would dig in and the cap would snap into place. 1267) Perhaps the upper end of a sword scabbard? 1268) Interesting hammer. One end for chipping, one for driving and a flange on the top perhaps for prying a board loose from a crate?

Now to see what others have guessed.

Enjoy, DoN.

I've shown this to a number of artifact experts and they agree with you that it's probably a walking stick, except it appears to be missing the ferrule on the small end and the owner may have later added a hook for some unknown reason.

Here is a close-up of the small end:

Rob

O.K. I agree that it once had a ferrule and no longer does. Looking at the hook shows that it is not suitable for snake capture as I had first thought (it would have to be rigid for that). It also appears to have had that hook in place for quite some time, based on the wear visible where the eye forks out. It might have been for hanging it on a wall or fence, or for pulling found objects on the path closer.

Are the insignia and the date on the head stamped into gold? Or is that brass which has been kept polished? I would expect more wear on that if the latter.

Thanks, DoN.

According to the owner, the metal is lead.

Below are two more close-ups, the owner thinks that they show some type of crest carved into the wood:

I didn't post them earlier because there isn't much detail and they're almost impossible to read.

Rob

[ ... ]

Interesting. Problems in the white balance during the photography, then.

To me, they look more like natural structures in the wood grain, perhaps where a branch split off from the main trunk used for carving that.

Enjoy, DoN.

The use of flawed wood suggests to me that it was made for personal use and not for sale. It appears to be tapered to about 0.6" in diameter. Wouldn't a walking stick with a tip that small poke holes in the ground?

"Walking stick" might be a good generic description, but I think it was patterned after a device made for protection and not support. I recall three dogs who were persistent in trying to get behind me: a full-blooded wolf, a doberman, and a chow. I would not have gone empty-handed.

In the 19th Century there were a lot of men on foot and a lot of dogs running loose. If the device had a metal point like a target arrow, I would consider it an ideal "walking stick" to deter an aggressive and treacherous dog. Held by the knob, it could jab and whip like a fencing sword. It's short and light enough for agility but long and strong enough to stop a lunging dog. One could also use the knob to club. To keep it upright and handy while you worked, you could stick the point in the ground or set the flat base on a level surface. The fancy lathe work may have been to keep it from looking like something made to harm pets.

I think a surveyor's assistant made the "walking stick" on a lathe for protection, then began hanging his plumb bob off the end over Point B so the surveyor at Point A had a good view past him to Point C. Once the surveyor set up his tripod, the assistant would hold his bob precisely over the center of his pin by stepping closer and holding the baton with two hands; that would be better than holding the cord with his hand.

The end of the stick has been shaped as if perhaps to attach a homemade metal point. Perhaps the assistant decided that the danger of stabbing himself was greater than the danger of meeting a dog that couldn't be deterred except by stabbing. So he removed the point and added a hook. He may have kept the point in his field tools in case he had to work in a dangerous location.

Perhaps other surveyors made similar devices.

[ ... ]

Well ... that depends. I have a friend who is a quite successful decorative woodturner, and he often incorporates flaws into his works -- to a very nice effect.

Well ... I have two old straight canes.

The first of them (which I described before in this thread) has a copper ferrule around the tip and the OD measures at 0.582".

The second is a dark wood (mahogany or ebony, with black lacquer), with a handle in the form of a hand griping something about the size of cigar (whale tooth for both parts), and an ivory or bone tip at the ground end which measures 0.607" diameter.

And as both of these have rubber cane caps on them to allow use indoors without slipping or marring finely finished wooden floors, these measurements were made perhaps 5/8" up from the bottom, so slightly larger in diameter than the smallest end. And I've had no problems using them outdoors on normal paths without the caps. Granted, on soggy ground they would sink in, but then so would the feet. :-)

Granted, There are times when something to protect yourself is advisable.

There were also a lot of people who carried small pistols for such confrontations.

Hmm ... you might want to try it with that and with a real fencing sword for comparison. I think that ball handle would lose in terms of control.

This I consider the more useful end for dog repelling.

Perhaps so -- but you would need tools to remove the hook and install the point given the diameter of the wire which forms the eye.

Perhaps -- or perhaps not.

Enjoy, DoN.

If you shoot a dog before it bites, the owner might charge or sue you. (IIRC, it was about 9 years ago that a professor at the University of Southern Mississippi shot a dog that ran after him as he jogged. He was arrested and, IIRC, convicted. The prosecutor alleged he'd overreacted because another dog had once bitten him.

If you plan not to shoot until the dog attacks, you have to keep the gun at hand with a round in the chamber as you work. You might shoot yourself or it might be stolen. A stick seems more practical.

I know what I'm thinking of, an umbrella! The tip seems like a good deterrent. I'd hold it a few inches from the handle for balance to move the tip faster. If the walking stick was shaped for defense against dogs, the ball may have been for balance.

I once clubbed an attacking dog three times on the head so hard I thought I might kill it. It wasn't deterred. Fortunately I had it by the collar. I've read that an attacking dog is pretty impervious to pain.

Another time a neighbor's dog circled me as I worked on a fence post at a farm. It looked treacherous, so I always carried a hammer or a 16" screwdriver. The dog seemed more afraid of the screwdriver. (The owner later shot that dog.)

I don't know how people thought a century ago, but I'd want a deterrent that could be used like a large screwdriver. If I thought a big dog might attack anyway, I wouldn't depend on clubbing. I'd want a point like a big target arrow so I could inflict severe pain or kill the animal.

I usually used that screwdriver as a marker for surveying. If the walking stick was designed for defense against dogs, the owner may have added a hook for an other use. Maybe that use was surveying.

You're talking about current times. Since the cane was dated

1870, and it was presumed that it was dated for the date of birth of the owner, then we can probably consider the period in which iw might have been used to be around 1890 to 1940 or so -- before it was problematic to shoot a dog which was attacking you.

Enjoy, DoN.

Who in his right mind takes a gun with them when jogging ?

cheers, robby

When I discovered that a big screwdriver is a great deterrent, it was in a situation that might have been the same a century ago. I was erecting a corner post for a property fence 350 yards from the house and 30 yards from the house where the dog came from. It was a big doberman. Instead of barking, it raced in circles around me. I had two dobermans but didn't trust this one because the look in its eye reminded me of a shark.

If it had been a century earlier, would I have shot a dog that hadn't attacked and was in its own yard or just over the invisible line because I didn't like the look in its eye? I might have been arrested or shot by an enraged owner. Anyway, it would have been harmful to neighborly relations. Besides, it could be hard to shoot a dog racing in circles. Eventually, the owner shot that dog, but when I erected that post, there was probably no real evidence that the dog was dangerous.

About 1920, an unpaved highway near here had a lot of foot traffic. There was a notorious dog at a farm along the way. One night a young man walking home from his girl's house heard the dog approach. He held out a sharp knife and the lunging dog was apparently sliced long and deep. It wasn't seen again.

I doubt anyone would have objected if he'd shot a notorious dog on a public highway, but his girl's parents might not have welcomed a suitor packing heat. Besides, shooting an animal in the dark is tricky.

A chow on my street used to escape and hunt people. I couldn't very well keep a gun in my hand every time I stepped outside. Never knowing when it would get loose, I made a 20", 20-ounce club that hung below my shoulder and could be released in one second. When I was armed, the dog would linger a moment and move slowly away.

Once it got loose as I walked past on the other side of the street. I had no club. Often, acting like a tree can stop even an attack dog from attacking, so I put my hands in my pockets and stood still. I turned to stay facing it as it circled ten feet away. My pocket knife was in my hand in my pocket. I didn't pull it out because trees don't do that sort of thing. It would take two hands to open it, but I had it aligned and ready.

The dog lunged. Somehow I had that knife out and open before the dog reached me. It ran away. It never again came near me. Apparently a knife can make a bigger impact on a dog's mind than a club.

When the wolf used to stalk pedestrians, some people would throw stones. I thought that kind of aggression was a bad idea in the long run. I used to carry a hay fork with sharpened tines. It was not aggressive, but I figured it was a good deterrent and if necessary, could stop a lunging wolf. A neighbor from Shanghai simply carried a slender stick about 3 feet long. Other pedestrians did likewise. It didn't look like an effective weapon but seemed an effective deterrent.

I think dogs instinctively fear things that could poke because unlike humans, they can't parry. My umbrella is 39" long including a rounded

4" tip of bright metal. The extra length makes the umbrella a little harder to stow or to carry without bumping things. I see no function except to look menacing to an aggressive dog.

Traditionally, canes were considered weapons. At one time, a Londoner needed a license to carry one. Waving a cane or carrying it under your arm was illegal. The walking stick in question would be too short as a cane for somebody over 5' tall. The handle doesn't look good for supporting someone's weight while walking. So I imagine it was made primarily to deter dogs.

by a surveyor?

Somebody altered the cane by putting a hook in it. That person may have been a surveyor. He may or may not have been the one who made the cane.

Beyond that, I was imagining why somebody designed the cane that way. When a cane is used for support, the length is important. For 98 percent of people, half their height is ideal. This one seems too short for most adults. The handle should make it easy to pick up, and your weight should flow from your arm through your wrist to the tip of the cane. The flattened ball on this cane doesn't look efficient for that.

When a chow in the neighborhood used to get loose and circle me in my yard, I fashioned a club. As a deterrent, it seemed ambiguous to the dog. As a defensive weapon, it wasn't foolproof. To avoid a bite, I would have had to land a disabling blow on a leaping dog.

Twenty years earlier, when pedestrians would spot a "tame" wolf slinking up behind them, those who understood predatory dogs better than I did, kept it well away by carrying flimsy sticks.

One day I looked down the street and saw that the chow had gotten loose and gone after a 90-year-old woman across the street. I grabbed a spade. Before I got there, she used her walking cane to get the best of it in a standoff. She didn't swing it. Instead, she kept the rubber tip between her and the dog and kept menacing it by jabbing. After deciding it couldn't get past that cane, it ran back home. I think her old-time knowledge of aggressive dogs saved her from what had looked like a very bad situation.

Her support cane was clumsy for poking at a menacing dog. In the days when people walked many miles on rural roads, they may have wanted shorter, lighter canes as security against dogs. With a lathe you could make your own.

I can't help wondering whether you watch only a very little television, or perhaps even none at all. Let me explain why I wonder. Lest the faint-hearted be reading this, fear not - no dogs are involved!

In Gloucester (UK) city centre, there is (or was) a Sainsbury's supermarket with a (well-used) back exit onto a side road. Across the street is (or was) a seating area, perhaps 30 yards from the shop exit. One busy, sunny Saturday morning about - oh, it has to be at least N years ago, if not longer, I was sitting on one of the benches, half-reading one of those wastes of moneyESC3b3cwcomputer magazines and half-watching the world go by.

A woman emerged from the supermarket, pushing a trolley about half-full of heavy shopping. A very young child (maybe 2-3 years) rode in the child seat. Unwittingly, the woman pushed the trolley over an extremely uneven part of the paving, and the trolley started to tip. She tried to correct for it, but wasn't quite strong enough to do so, and it was clear that she was going to lose this battle. The shopping would soon be all over the road - and the child might easily sustain an injury.

But the woman wasn't giving up easily, and was losing the battle sslloowwllyy. I could see that all she needed was one kind person to offer her an extra Newton or two in the required direction, and there were at least ten people closer to her than I was, most of whom had noticed what was happening and several of whom had actually stopped walking, so I just watched, waiting for one of them to react. After all, they were much, much closer than I was, and they were already standing up!

But nobody went to her. Not *one* person.

After about 10 seconds (half an eternity if you're the one fighting the trolley), I realised that nobody was going to move an inch for this poor woman, so I ran over as fast as I could, grabbed the basket *just* in time, hauled it upright, and moved it to safer paving.

By the time I'd got home, I'd worked out what I consider to be the most likely explanation for the lack of help - TOO MUCH TV!

People have become accustomed to seeing the most distressing situations unfold before their eyes, without being able to *do* anything. Que sera, sera! They are so used to not being in a position to help, that they have got out of the way of helping. They have become de-sensitised to other people's danger, so they just watch, and watch, and watch. And then they say how terribly sad it all is.

(Note that the "fear for personal safety" explanation, which also occurred to me, didn't really apply here - nobody could seriously believe, surely, that the woman would turn on them if they helped her.)

Having been a television non-watcher for quite a few years, I had not been de-sensitised in the same way, and so I was free to help. (I claim no great credit for this - I know that any rec.puzzler, metalworker, or woodworker would have done the same if they'd been present.)

My closing moral is taken from the theme song of a weekend television program in the late 1970s:

Sitting at home, watch TV Turn it off, no good to me Why don't you? Why don't you? Why don't youswitchoffyourtelevisionsetgoanddosomethinglessboringinstead?

ObPuzzle/ObMetalwork/ObWoodwork: can you devise a suitable ObPuzzle/ObMetalwork/ObWoodwork suffix to a cross-post to rec.crafts.metalworking, rec.puzzles, and rec.woodworking, that could possibly compensate for straying so far off-topic? Recursive solutions are acceptable!

This is actually a very plausible explanation

Well done!

I agree with Gunner. If it's true that's very unfortunate. I think it's also education. No one seems to be taught to help others. Slightly sideways to that: When I was home at Christmas my nephews (kids) were playing Halo 3. I said to one of them that I thought they should get shocked if they got hit. Basicly he said no one would play if it hurt to screw up. On the other hand. He's the only nephew that isn't trained in a martial art. I think they should all be trained in first aid and martial arts from the time they're little. Karl

This is quite a co-incidence. I live in the UK and on Wednesday of this week I visited Gloucester and looked around. I went into a folk museum that was opposite a church, it was free entry and an excellent way to spend an hour or two. There was a section on eels/elvers, very popular around that area because of the River Severn. There on the wall was... a cane like stick with a pointy bit at the bottom very similar to RH's "What is it" pic! PS to EZ Peaces There was no mention of a surveyor :)

Across the

This is from the New York Times, September 17, 1904:

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St Louis, Mo., September 16. ? Mme. Mariana Cervera, widow of the Spanish bull fighter, who was killed in St. Louis last June by Carleton Bass, the American matador, attacked Felix Roberts, one of the alleged bull fighters on trial in the Circuit Court at Clayton this afternoon with a cane having a sharp dagger point. Roberts saved himself by a quick motion of his hand, brushing aside the cane with a dexterity attained in the arena.

Witnesses of the attack say that Mrs. Cervera walked quietly from the courtroom to the bench upon which Roberts and several of his companions were seated, and addressing him in Spanish, struck at him with the pointed cane.

Mme. Cervera refused to discuss the matter, merely remarking, "I'll get even with him yet."

Men understanding Spanish who were seated beside Roberts at the time say they judge from the words used by Mme. Cervera a moment before the attack that she believed Roberts had been talking about her.

**********

In not stating Mme. Cervera's occupation, the NYT leaves the reader to assume she was a surveyor. I guess Roberts didn't know that Mme. Cervera could understand Spanish. If there's anything surveyors fear more than vicious dogs, it's slander about the validity of their surveys.

In America I blame it mostly on education. In the 19th Century, Prussia proved that compulsory education could be used to produce a docile work force and electorate. In the 20th Century American education followed their lead.

A compassionate pupil might notice many cases where a teacher's remarks or grading seemed unkind or unfair to another child, but the pupil is expected to shut up and stay out of trouble.

In American colleges, a 50% dropout rate in the freshman year used to be common. When I was a freshman, others would come to me in a panic that they were flunking out. I knew less than they did, but they mistook my superlative complacency as evidence of scholastic competence.

I'd show my concern by asking questions about the subject matter. The guy who was flunking wrongly assumed I knew the answers. In answering, he would gain confidence. Confidence would transform him into an outstanding student.

Discussing schoolwork with peers could be helpful to most students, but when I was in public school this was discouraged; each student was supposed to study and pass or fail on his own. Isn't that the same morality that says to mind your own business if you see somebody in trouble on the street?