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Prize-Winning Duck Eats Yeast, Quacks, Explodes; Man Loses Eye

Yithian

Yithian

Parish Watch
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Quite an arresting headline from the Indianapolis Star in 1910:

EXWRDyBU8AEdp0x.jpeg


Featured in other publications, including here:
https://books.google.co.kr/books?id...Q#v=onepage&q=duck eye explodes yeast&f=false
 
Is it wrong that the above made me laugh out loud? I particularly appreciated the duck's name.
 
Poor spelling in that article, which is unusual.
 
Well, I'll be... educated further. And there we were, ignorami, thinking it was just a scientific suffix.
2020-05-07 19.00.32.png

(and, if he'd ducked when it quacked, he might've lost his hat and not his 'optic)
 
Min Bannister said:
I am not sure I can believe in this duck explosion. Can we be sure Rhadamanthus wasn't sniped by a disgruntled rival duck owner?
Click to expand...
I'm somewhat sceptical, myself. I have vague memories of other discussions of avian accidents arising from gastric gas, which seemed to conclude it was something of an urban legend - see e.g. here and subsequent posts.
 
Yep, it seems quite unlikely inner gas would have enough force to cause an explosion, or even a rupture of the duck.
 
Whilst of course I would hate to doubt the intrinsic veracity of the Indianapolis Star, the second souce cited (Popular Mechanics) is very-dear to my heart. But I've failed to find the specific page within that listed 1910 document wherein the reference can be found- this may be down the limits of the tiny screen on my smartphone, and my 'optics'.

(ps I learned to read in the 1960s, years before reaching primary school, by repeatedly-consuming from cover-to-cover a large pile of 1940s/50s Popular Mechanics magazines hidden in my grandmother's piano-stool...the lower reaches of which also contained concealed copies of Playboy & Club International...and Amazing Stories/DC comics etc. All shovelled onto the bonfire alongside her, when she died in 1970... :-( )
 
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Ermintruder said:
... Whilst of course I would hate to doubt the intrinsic veracity of the Indianapolis Star, the second souce cited (Popular Mechanics) is very-dear to my heart. But I've failed to find the specific page within that listed 1910 document wherein the reference can be found- this may be down the limits of the tiny screen on my smartphone, and my 'optics' ...
Click to expand...

The story is on the page to which the link leads (or should lead) - page 142. It's a small item nestled among the ads.

The version in Popular Mechanics isn't identical to the one pictured in the opening post. Here's the PM version:

DuckXplod-A.jpg
 
I believe I've located the original source for the Rhadamanthus story - a Sunday edition column-filler from the (Des Moines, Iowa) Register and Leader (later Des Moines Register) published on 2 January 1910.

The date and city of publication match all source references I've seen to date for the many retellings of this incident. The particulars of this seminal account include elements that are unique among the many versions of the story I've found, while reflecting most all the elements found in the presumably derivative versions.

Now for the bad news ... The expository tone and the sometimes surrealistic additional elements found only in this version of the story strongly suggest it's a well-gilded tall tale.

Here (below) are captured images of the scanned newspaper in which (so far as I can tell ... ) the story originated.

There are 4 images in total. Here are #1 and #2 ...


Rhadamanthus-1.jpg
Rhadamanthus-2.jpg
 
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Geez, Yithian and EnolaGaia, where on EARTH do you find these articles?!!?
They're fabulous, in every way! Thank you so much!

Ermintruder said:
a large pile of 1940s/50s Popular Mechanics magazines hidden in my grandmother's piano-stool...the lower reaches of which also contained concealed copies of Playboy & Club International
Click to expand...
Your grandmother read Playboy?
She was so much more interesting that my grandmothers were! :D
 
What a great story. I love the details:

The fortune-telling grandfather duck

The blue lips

One blue wing

The lawyer Dave Gouge

The gnashing of teeth

The floating 6 feet above ground

The wrapper clutched in the dead duck's beak

Superb stuff.
 
IbisNibs said:
Your grandmother read Playboy?
Click to expand...
She had absolutely no idea they were there: I always presumed they were stashed there by my (then, late) grandfather, who certainly was the former owner of the Pop Mechs. I instinctively knew they were far too rude to be seen in public (I don't know how I knew, but I did).

EnolaGaia said:
Now for the bad news ... The expository tone and the sometimes surrealistic additional elements found only in this version of the story strongly suggest it's a well-gilded tall tale.
Click to expand...
Just very....

Can you please explain (in a summarised way) the North American traditions about reported tall tales in newspaper?

I've never properly-understood whether this was the maintenance of an unsustained 18thC European journalistic style, or a unique US development that complimented the more-exuberant frontier style of American citizenry (in comparison with us indescribably-boring Anglo-Europeans)
 
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I've researched this story, and can identify the author. It was George Henry "Farmer" Smith who was a publisher, newspaper childrens' editor, and writer of many whimsical tales set in Cedar Grove.

EnolaGaia, above, unfortunately misidentified and misdated the original place of publication.

See: https://data.hexencyclopedia.xyz/2023/01/rhadamanthus-exploding-duck-neither.html for chapter and verse.
 
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