Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 July 26

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July 26

Help finding an old Newspaper

Could I have some help finding the article "McKenzie bridge about finished" in the Eugene Daily Guard from June 28, 1900? Thank you! Best, Tyrone Madera (talk) 03:09, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, on page 4 of that issue. It's available on Newspapers.com. That's a pay site, but maybe they'll let you have a trial subscription? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:59, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

A free clip is available.[1] Hack (talk) 05:13, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Ask at Resource Exchange for a copy of the article.-gadfium 05:13, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Gadfium, Baseball Bugs, & Hack: I've managed to view a copy via Newspapers.com at the Resource Exchange. Thank you all for your help! Best, Tyrone Madera (talk) 20:17, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

How were maps of Empires made?

This may seem like a silly question today, but it has been something that has been bugging me lately. How are maps of the greatest territorial extent of Empires made? For example, to my knowledge, not even the Romans had much knowledge of cartography. Are modern-day maps of old Empires based on the maximum extent of archeological evidence confirming that that specific Empire/civilization was present? Or is it based off of some other method?

There is also documentary evidence based on contemporaneous historic sources. For example, the Romans documented their battles and conquests or losses, of which Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico is a prime example. We know from historic sources that the Romans did not manage to pacify Germanic territory north of the river Rhine (see Battle of the Teutoburg Forest and this TLDR). If reference is made by name to a region, an ethnic group or a ruler, it may not always be clear which region this corresponds to in present day terms, and history sleuths can use all kinds of evidence, also linguistic cues, or cues obtained by aligning time lines recreated from different sources, to come up with plausible hypotheses.  --Lambiam 08:57, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Roman Administration was actually quite advanced, there was an extensive system of Roman provinces which were granted governors that had administrative and military control of them. Provinces had well defined geographic boundaries (often natural barriers such as rivers and mountain ranges, etc.) Whether Romans had maps in the sense we tend to think of them is a bit of an open question, this article comes down firmly on the side of "maybe", they had fairly accurate maps of things like individual city plans and the like (contemporary maps of Rome carved in marble are extant) and there is some evidence they had road network maps, see Tabula Peutingeriana, but they also did not have accurate maps for distance and borders and the like. The descriptions of the Empires borders would have been written down somewhere, and well defined, but not necessarily mapped. --Jayron32 14:30, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

See also the Antonine Itinerary, a guide book giving the road distances in paces between the major towns of the empire and the smaller settlements along the way, which is thought to date from the 1st century AD. Alansplodge (talk) 20:17, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Why is AMLO imposing austerity on Mexico?

Apparently, President AMLO of Mexico has been enacting fiscal tightening policies which many have described as Reagan/Thatcher tier austerity for the past couple years when other governments even those in Europe have been spending big on fiscal stimulus to keep their economies afloat during the pandemic. Why is he doing this? Isn't he supposed to be a leftist who constantly bashes neoliberalism? StellarHalo (talk) 10:06, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm not saying you're wrong about his policies and third party descriptions of them, but can you point us to some reliable sources that actually say this? Our article weakly suggests the opposite ("He has implemented a wage increase for workers by 16.21% in 2019 and by 20% months later"), so perhaps needs improvement.

As I understand it (which is not very well), "austerity" is an economic strategy not necessarily related to political philosophy/orientation, which has recently been shown to have underlying mathematical flaws which invalidate it, leading to it being quietly backpedalled by many of its former proponents – perhaps AMLO hasn't got the message yet. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.27.141 (talk) 12:43, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

On June 23, which appears to be the most recent meeting, the Central Bank monetary policy committee raised interest rates by 25 basis points (to 4.25%), the first increase since Dec 2018 when the policy rate was 8.25%. This should not be considered "imposing austerity." DOR (HK) (talk) 14:20, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I am not talking about the Mexico's Central Bank or its monetary policies, which are autonomous of the federal government. I am talking about the fiscal policies of AMLO. A google search of "AMLO austerity" or "AMLO austeridad" brings up plenty of articles such as this and this. StellarHalo (talk) 05:13, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, many people think of austerity as a quick monetary policy response. On the very-slow-to-react fiscal side, Keynesian economics recognizes what are knows as “automatic stabilizers,” which is the term for what happens to government spending and revenues when the economy slows sharply (spending on things like social support and unemployment rises, and revenues fall). Austerity measures are generally efforts to counteract those long, slow fiscal trends, usually because of a belief that a large(r) budget deficit is A Bad Thing. (A Keynesian approach would be to wait a year or more until private demand returns, spending falls and revenues rise without any special intervention.) In the case of Mexico, the OECD in April said the economy would grow 5% this year (fast) and 3.2% (normal) in 2022, but poverty, inequalities, and gender gaps have increased due to the pandemic. It advises that if inflation edges down in the second half of 2021, monetary policy should be eased. Inflation is running at 5-6% (vs. 3-4% a few months ago). According to 'The Economist' this week, ALMO is shifting his economic attention to the less well-off, at the expense of the middle class. DOR (HK) (talk) 14:58, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Sources for date of death

I'm stuck for sources of information about a British actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mrs George Canninge (b. about 1843 from the 1891 and 1901 censuses) created the role of Miss Prism in the original production of The Importance of Being Earnest and is mentioned in many reviews in the online press archives, but I can't find an obituary or any mention of her death. Who's Who in the Theatre doesn't oblige, and nor do The Stage or The Era. Any suggestions for where else to look would be gratefully received. I have a reader's ticket at the British Library and so can get to see practically any book published in the UK in the 19th or 20th centuries, but the question is which? - Tim riley talk 10:29, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

With your British Library access, you should be able to search the GRO death records (https://www.gov.uk/research-family-history) - would that give you what you need? Canninge is quite a rare spelling, which should make the search easier. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 13:52, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll try that. Tim riley talk 14:10, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

She is also in the 1881 census - mistranscribed as Sarah Conninge - at 20 Duke St, Marylebone; and the 1911 census - as Cannings - retired actress, at 35 Belsize Avenue, Bowes Park. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:42, 27 July 2021 (UTC) PS: She was 68 in the 1911 census - so it may be worthwhile checking burial records in nearby cemeteries. Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:55, 27 July 2021 (UTC) PPS: George Canninge was still living in Belsize Ave. in 1925, but the city directory does not mention whether or not his wife was still alive. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:08, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

FreeBMD shows three or four female Cannings (one called Georgina) registered as births in 1843. There are none for Canninge and (not surprisingly) none for Conninge. You might be able to guess an age at death and search accordingly? Regards. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:59, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

If Canninge is her married name ("Mrs. George" etc. often meaning that a woman's husband's name was George at that time), then presumably her birth surname would have been different. AnonMoos (talk) 15:08, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Multiple censuses give her name as Sarah, with a marriage date to George c.1881, but I have not found any other details of their marriage or her maiden name. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:10, 27 July 2021 (UTC) PS: As she was about 38 when she married (George was about 35), it's quite possible she had been married previously. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:15, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm most grateful for all these helpful suggestions, which I'll certainly follow up. Many thanks, all! Tim riley talk 15:47, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Vatican jurisdiction

[2] Article about a fraud trial in progress in the Vatican right now (seems that some Vatican financial management including a Cardinal were running real estate scams). Question is about the jurisdiction for that: can the Vatican put people in jail, and that sort of thing? Of course the obvious ironic comments are being made in the obvious places, about how if convicted, the guilty parties will simply be quietly moved to another diocese. I sympathize, but for here, I think it's enough to focus on this specific trial. Thanks. 2601:648:8202:350:0:0:0:2B99 (talk) 16:39, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

The Vatican has a fully-functioning judiciary, though it only has a limited space to hold prisoners, by treaty Italy houses prisoners convicted of crimes in the Vatican City. See Law of Vatican City. --Jayron32 18:24, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Councilmen of the City of London, and a William Heath cartoon

Hi, I'm currently raising an article on early nineteenth-century industrialist and politican Vincent Figgins to GA status. The reviewer kindly suggested I try to give more context to a few quotes from newspaper articles about his political career, which has led me to two questions on an area of his career I hadn't previously given much thought to. I don't want to push into own research, but I was wondering if anyone had ideas for answers to these questions from reliable sources:

• Is there any directory of Common Councilmen of the City of London? I know he was a Councilman during the 1820s, but I haven't been able to find when his period of office started and ended. From listings I've seen these office holders didn't overtly belong to a political party-are there any directories which say which political parties Councilmen were seen as aligned to, if that happened? (There is a reference in a book (I'm not sure if this book is intended to be fiction or not) to a Solomon Figgins being a councilman from exactly the same ward twenty years earlier-is there any way of knowing from a reliable source if this is a relative, a mistake for Vincent, or a staggering coincidence?
• I've found a cartoon by William Heath imagining city nightwatchmen leading a procession in support of him. (He preferred them to stay in watch-boxes where they could be easily found by people seeking them, something they heartily approved of as it let them sleep on the job when nothing was happening. Others preferred them to go out on patrol.) It doesn't seem to be on Google Art Project or Wikimedia Commons-what are the best options for getting a picture of it uploaded? The best image I've seen is by the British Museum, but there's one by Princeton as well as I understand US law is more favourable to treating scans of out-of-copyright images as public domain (I am not in the USA).

Thanks for any thoughts. Blythwood (talk) 17:04, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

The controlling legal precedent is Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.. Wikimedia Commons policies would allow you to upload any accurate reproductions of early 19th-century caricatures there regardless of source (many are already there). AnonMoos (talk) 17:53, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Or if you want to play by the British Museum's rules, the image can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license which is one of the options of the upload wizard. On the museum's page that you linked above, click on "use this image" (bottom right of the page) for all the details. Alansplodge (talk) 21:51, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Well spotted! I'd missed that option behind the GDPR notice (give us a reject all cookies option, guys, please). Unfortunately CC BY-NC images aren't allowed on Commons. I think I'll leave it for now-while Wikimedia is a U.S. website I'm not in the USA nor a U.S. citizen, so I suspect I would be legally liable for uploading it even if Wikimedia isn't. Blythwood (talk) 23:09, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps a friendly American editor can do the deed on your behalf? Alansplodge (talk) 11:16, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

A "naturally acidic"™ British editor has taken the chance. File:William Heath cartoon of city watchmen.jpg DuncanHill (talk) 11:55, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

As to political allegiance in the City, by ancient custom councilmen and aldermen were aloof from the tawdry political parties, a tradition that is still mostly observed: "In terms of the political composition of the Court of Common Council, the majority of councillors have not been elected on a party political basis and their political status is therefore listed as Independent".

However, "The old joke was that party affiliation is not necessary because they are all supporters of one party anyway - the Conservatives".

Alansplodge (talk) 18:45, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Quite so, and with Figgins I think the opposition of Hunt and Cobbett tells us plenty about his political position. DuncanHill (talk) 18:54, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Not really answering your question, but I found Aldermen of the City of London: Farringdon ward without, which lists for 1873 one "James Figgins, Stationer", which suggests a Figgins dynasty in the ward. Possibly the location of the family business? Alansplodge (talk) 20:06, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Indeed. That's his son and heir to the business, who was a Conservative M.P. Blythwood (talk) 20:08, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

The type foundry (probably a late-Victorian rebuild) is still standing at 3-7 Ray Street (apologies for the digression). Alansplodge (talk) 20:33, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, an editor very kindly took some photos of it at my request when I began the GA nom. Built after Figgins' own time. Blythwood (talk) 23:03, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

There *is* a directory up to c. 1912 The aldermen of the city of London temp. Henry III.-1908. With notes on the parliamentary representation of the city, the aldermen and the livery companies, the aldermanic veto, aldermanic baronets and knights, etc. but I can’t find Vincent Figgins in it.70.67.193.176 (talk) 15:29, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Nice spot! Unfortunately he was a Councilman not an Alderman, so he won't be listed. Still, hopefully there's a list out there. Blythwood (talk) 15:43, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Ah, my bad! So sorry, I didn’t realize Councilmen and Aldermen were different things. All I’ve got then are some single year references. First, though, for the range: [3], mentions “for several years Common Councillor for the Ward of Farringdon Without” which at least sets an upper bound of his death in 1844.

Then, this newspaper article from 1820 [4] refers to his standing for election though I’m unclear if it means he was elected? You will probably understand the terminology used.

And finally, archive.org also as a series of Royal Kalendars which show him as a Councilman: 1827 (plus, two pages later, as a Commissioner of Sewers, Lamps and Pavements), 1828 (still, two pages later, a Commissioner of Sewers, Lamps and Pavements), 1830, 1837 (plus, two pages later, member of the Irish Society).

I have to go, but if you continue at https://archive.org/search.php?query=%22vincent+figgins%22+farringdon&sin=TXT&page= and keep scrolling down it looks like there are more Royal Kalendars and you should be able to complete the set and work out all the years. Fingers crossed, 70.67.193.176 (talk) 17:10, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

The removal of the works from Smithfield to Farringdon in 1865 meant also that they were no longer within the City of London. Ray Street, travelling west from Farringdon Road, is the last street which is wholly within the London Borough of Islington. The boundary with the London Borough of Camden runs down the middle of Warner Street, turning at the junction with Ray Street to run down the middle of Herbal Hill. I know the area well - what I didn't know till yesterday is that Crawford Passage (off Ray Street) is London's narrowest [5][6]. 84.9.101.54 (talk) 14:52, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

The current requirements for election to the Court of Common Council are that you either have to be a City resident or a freeholder. I can't imagine that they change very often. Alansplodge (talk) 20:31, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Quantity demand in economics

I am taking a basic economics course, and I have a question about quantity demand. If the price of a good increases, the quantity demanded will decrease. However, if the quantity demanded increases, the price increases as well. Are those two propositions contradictory in some way? I'm having trouble reconciling them. --Puzzledvegetable^{Is it teatime already?} 21:57, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

If price drops, demand increases (rule of thumb, not always), if demand decreases, price decreases (again, not always). No contradiction. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:15, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

The issue is explained at some length in our article Supply and demand. Figure 1 shows two curves relating the price of a product and the quantity sold of the product. One curve (blue, labelled S) is determined by the seller (the producer), the other (red, labelled D) by the buyer (the consumer). The S curve slopes upwards, the D curve slopes downwards. This is not a contradiction but a reflection of the fact that sellers and buyers have contrary interests. The point where these two curves meet determines the market prize where the sellers earn the highest profit. If the price of a good increases (which will happen if the S curve shifts up, possibly because of a shortage of raw materials), demand decreases along the D curve. But an increase in demand means that the D curve shifts to the right, from D1 to D2, and the intersection with the S curve (which does not change) is then higher up, meaning a higher price.  --Lambiam 09:20, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Not all goods demand drops when price increases. See Veblen good and conspicuous consumption, as well as Giffen good. --Jayron32 10:51, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

See also Price elasticity of demand. Alansplodge (talk) 12:06, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Maybe this is covered in the above links, but I recall from Econ class, decades ago, the concept of an "inflexible demand curve". The example given was a street drug such as heroin. The demand will stay about the same, no matter the price. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:19, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

That is called an inelastic demand. --Jayron32 13:06, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

The OP might want to think of price/demand dynamics like a see-saw: When one is up, the other is down … and then, there is a transitional period when the two switch positions. First, price is up (rising) and demand is down (falling), and then prices fall and demand rises. DOR (HK) (talk) 13:41, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Please, this is a request for an explanation of basic economics, which is already confusing enough as it is.  --Lambiam 16:00, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Men actitudes about breasts in places where toplessness is the norm

Reading the toplessness made me curious if there are recordings on men´s opinion of breasts in tribes or places where toplessness is the norm and not the exception. I mean, in Western countries is normal for women to have their legs uncovered, but that does not make men to stop liking them, so my initial guess is that something equivalent would happen there. Surely some anthropologist has commented on that?85.58.45.75 (talk) 22:25, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

I recently read something quoting an anthropologist commenting that, in some culture, when the anthropologist explained the attraction of Western men for breasts, the tribal women laughed "So men are like babies there?". Searching now for Mali "men act like babies" breast finds the story in several instances but none seems reliable to me. --Error (talk) 00:47, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

According to this Reddit thread, the anthropologist was Daniel Everett, whose book Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle describes the Pirahã people, although I haven't been able to pin down the exact quote. Alansplodge (talk) 11:05, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Female humans are the only primates to possess prominent breasts, so there has been much speculation as to why this is. Most commentators suggest some role in sexual selection; we have an article, breast fetishism, which looks at some of the issues. See also this preview. Alansplodge (talk) 10:47, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

We can't all be Harvey Pincher, can we? Yes, one wonders if Old Beardie would still enjoy his motorboating? Martinevans123 (talk)