WASHINGTON'S CROSSING FAKED Ripley's Believe It Or Not - Great & Strange Works of Man

"Washington Crossing the Delaware" was painted in Germany on the Rhine - and a German washwoman posed for the figure of Washington. The boat is too small to be rowed thru such ice which is too thick and too plentiful for the Delaware - a boat this size would not have supported 12 people - it would be impossible to stand under these conditions... besides the flag depicted was not created until one year after the crossing.

Textbooks teach that Peter Minuit bought Manhattan from the Indians in 1626 for only $24, thus bagging the greatest real estate bargain ever. But it, was those Indians who

came out ahead, because the island wasn't theirs to sell. Minuit had paid the wrong tribe.

Minuit, director-general of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, purchased Manhattan from the Canarsee Indians, who were native to Brooklyn. After pocketing the proceeds 160 guilders worth of beads, needles, fabric, button's and fishhooks - the Canarsees departed. It was only later that Minuit learned he'd been swindled. Most of Manhattan belonged to the Weckquaesgeeks who were angered at being left out of the deal and warred sporadically with the Dutch for years. In the interests of peace, the Dutch finally paid them for Manhattan too.

But for business acumen, the Canarsees had nothing on the Raritan Indians. They sold nearby Staten Island six times.

The chemical doctoring of foods is not a modern day phenomenon. Food additives date at least as far back as ancient Rome and Athens. And 100 years ago in England and the U.S., the problem was even worse than it is today.

England had regulations prohibiting food adulteration as early as the 1200s. With the growth of towns in the Middle Ages, food production moved from the home to the factory, and the pressures of large-scale manufacturing and marketing prompted merchants to resort to objectionable shortcuts. In Victorian England, cash-hungry bakers got more dough for their dough by adding alum and sulfur of copper. Dairymen sold cream thickened with flour, watered down milk and often added chalk or plaster of paris to perk up the color of milk from diseased cows. A conglomeration of calcium, gypsum, gelatin fat and mashed potatoes was passed off as butter, but oleomargarine was even worse. Known as "bogus butter," it was distilled from hog fat, bleach and other unsavory substances. To stretch sugar, grocers on both sides of the Atlantic routinely added sand.

But while the adulterants were merely sickening, the chemical additions were downright lethal. In 1892 in the U.S., federal investigators found large quantities of toxic tin chloride in molasses, aniline dyes in candy, and copper salts in canned peas. In England, candies took on bright colors from massive infusions of toxic salts of copper and lead. Gloucester cheese acquired its appealing orange hue from its red lead content. And beer contained additions like vitriol and cocolus indicus, known to induce paralysis, convulsions, gastroenteritis and fatal overstimulation of the respiratory system.

One of the most blatant cases of food adulteration occurred as recently as 1969, when a man in England was charged with selling phony grated Parmesan cheese. What he was really selling was grated umbrella handles.

BID TEMPTATION & TRAP R.Digest 1/83 p.150

An enthusiastic but somewhat unscrupulous salesman was waiting to see the purchasing agent of the engineering firm where my husband worked. The salesman was there to submit his company's bid, or price quote, for a particular job. He couldn't help but notice, however, that a competitor's bid was on the purchasing agent's desk. Unfortunately, the actual figure was covered by a can of juice. The temptation to see the amount quoted became too much, so the salesman lifted the can. His heart sank as he watched thousands of BB's pour from the bottomless can and scatter across the floor.

YOU'VE LOOKED WORSE R.Digest 4/93 p.100

My sister, Sharon, and I are close, and that allows us to be honest with each other. As I fidgeted in front of the mirror one evening before a date, I remarked, "I'm fat."

"No you're not," she scolded.

"My hair is awful."

"It's lovely."

"I've never looked worse," I whined.

"Yes, you have," she replied.

PAYING ON TIME SMELLS GOOD R.Digest 5/78 p.113

I know a Yankee carpenter who agreed to do some work for a man who was famous for not paying the local craftsmen. After the job was done, Everett presented the bill. He was told the check would soon be in the mail.

Two days later, Everett got a call. The man wanted to know if Everett knew anything about the odd smell in the study.

"I believe I might," said Everett. "I'll do what I can - as soon as I'm paid for the other job." Arriving at the house, Everett picked up his check, marched into the study, reached up into the fireplace and pulled out a dead codfish.

A MATTER OF BUSINESS ETHICS R.Digest 6/76 p.77

"Ethics are vital to the successful businessman," said the man to a friend. "To give you and example: an old customer paid his account today with a $100 bill. As he was leaving, I discovered that he had mistakenly handed me 2 hundreds stuck together. Immediately the question of ethics arose. Should I tell my partner?"

THEM'S MY BLUEBERRIES R.Digest 7/72 p. 120

My wife & I were driving to our place on Cape Cod, when she spotted a field loaded with blueberries. We stopped and proceeded to eat our fill. As we turned back to the car, I noticed that the rear door was open. In the back sat a Cape Codder munching away on the cantaloupe we had bought at a fruit stand. "That's my cantaloupe," I said.

The old fellow swallowed and, with a nod in the direction of the field replied, "Them's my blueberries."