August 8, 2024 • 52 mins
Sometimes the best way to make money is to literally make money. William Chaloner, a total dirtbag, made his living minting phony coins and framing his co-conspirators for all manner of crimes. That was until a genius stepped in and brought his whole operation down, just like an apple falling from a tree.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio zaren zaren Yo
over here, right, we got my hand up over here.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Elizabeth, Hi girl, how you doing doing well? Man?
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Oh? You straight? I'm fine.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Listen.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I need to know what's ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
Oh, sit down, I got something that's going to buckle
your knees. I don't want you to get hurt. I
heard about this woman. Oh Don Brook, she got pregnant. Okay,
she got She is the.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Oldest congratulations or I'm sorry to hear that kind of
like that, but she either basically it were really for
real though.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
She's the oldest person to ever get pregnant without IVF
or donor eggs. Oh how old those persons get pregnant
with the in vitro fertilization. The IVF was seventy three?
Whoa seventy three with IVF? They intentionally said, can we
get something going in here? And they're like, with enough
drugs into my ivfs? Yes they did?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Right, but this person, Don Brook, Yeah, in twenty seventeen
gave birth and was at the age.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Of fifty nine.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
No iv body went through menopause.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Elizabeth, Oh wait, she did well?
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Obviously not did went into menopause, went through menopause, and
then started taking a hormone replacement therapy. Yeah, and that
can kick start the system where it started producing eggs.
Dropped an egg that was still kicking inside. I guess
it was all the way live got in, it got exminated.
Now like a ten year old boy, she's sixty nine.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Kid, I guess he's seventy because you got the nine
ten months older.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
You are older when it's born.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
But I'm telling it to no. I mean like she's now.
She was fifty nine when she had the kid. Sixty
nine now, but can you believe it?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
She was? She got thought she was out, and they
dragged her back down with like we're gonna give you
this therapy. It's gonna be good for you. She's like, doctor,
I am pregnant. Would you stop it? I am a
fifty nine year old woman. I don't made this nonsense.
Oh y nonsense.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Wow, that is ridiculous nonsense us. Do you know what
else is ridiculous?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I was hoping you'd tell me.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Sir Isaac Newton Fighting Crime what this is? Ridiculous Crime?
(02:29):
A podcast about absurd and outrageous caper's heis and cons
it's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I know you heard that.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
You did. You watched that Netflix hit Peaky Blinders, Right?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I love that one.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
I loerve that show. I love it, especially when Tom
Hardy came on. Yes, look at how freely I can
talk about television. I'm like, hi on, all I do
is talk about TV. Tom Hardy was fantastic. But let's
give it up for killing Murphy.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yes, of course the best.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I've been a fan of his since The Wind That
Shakes the Barley, which, if you haven't seen it, fantastic film.
But anyway, Peaky Blinders takes place in Birmingham, England, after
World War One. In the show, it's this gritty industrial
city with a dirty underbelly of crime. Yeah, the Peaky Blinders,
the eponymous gang in the show is based on a
(03:24):
real gang from the late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Aren't all based on gangs in the show? Aren't the
all the gangs in the show based on gangs yet?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah? And there's a movie coming out, by the way,
It starts filming in September of this year. Let's go
crush the set. We should record an episode from the
set while Chase. Yes, but it's the movie's supposed to
wrap the whole thing up anyway. Birmingham, so it was
tough in real life back then, and apparently it was
(03:53):
tough even before then, hundreds of years before then. I mean,
settlement in Birmingham goes back to eight thousand BC.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Does it really? Yeah, that's not a Roman settlement. No, No,
I was assumed so many of the big cities.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Of Roman settlement they had their own thing.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I know they did, I just didn't know.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I'm talking though about the sixteen hundreds, mid to late
and so at that time it was known as the
counterfeiting capital of England.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
What counterfeiting, Oh, I was like like you were talking
like countertops, like they were fitting counters. Like there's pipe fitters,
there's counterfeitters.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
They like there's something head but like marble countertop. Anyway, Yeah,
it was badfitters.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
So money fakers, I got you counterfeits.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I mean. It was also at that time that a
kid from just outside of town in Warwickshire was born
to a family of weavers name of William Chilloner.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Okay, William Chillona.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, Chu Loaner Challoner, little homie was a bad one. Really, yeah,
he got into all sorts of troubles. So his parents
shipped him off to the big city Birmingham to become
an apprentice nail maker, not like at a nail salon.
But the nails are using construction like the old bang.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Bang Yeah, and you're handmaking nails exactly. A lot of
them are going into the of horses.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Right, So he was not doing acrylics. They sent They
sent him off to Birmingham a k A brum yeah,
AK a city of a thousand trades a k A
O one two one?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Are you for real?
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Aka Second City aka the pen Shop of the world
AK Venice of the North.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Second City. They're the Chicago of.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
That aka Workshop of the world. Yeah, they're the Venice
of the North.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
So no one call, No one calls them like b
Ham or bro How.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Sure they do? I don't know. This is just what
Wikipedia calls anyway, that's the list on Wikipedia. So they
send him off to the city, praying that he'll.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Straighten up and fly right make good nails.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah, well, they like you go out and make your living,
make and.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Nails with metal.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
But no, no, no, this was the counterfeit in capital
of it, like working with paper and here's a young
man of mischief and no integrity.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Oh yeah, perfect.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
So he of course fell in with a group that
made counterfeit groats.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Groats, groats.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Look at the look on your face, Elizabeth, not groats
that are grain.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
That's what I was, That's what my face was doing.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, counterfeit grains are intriguing to me. Like saw rolls
up a little bit. These are coins and they're made
of silver, and then originally they were all four pence,
but then some were eightpence and others were shilling. A
pence is basically a penny shillings twelve of those. So
(06:39):
so there's William making fake coins instead of nails. Tricky.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I'm still working with the metal mak Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Either way, bang bang groats. They first showed up in
England in the twelve hundreds and by the sixteen hundreds
they still weren't very refined. They're basically handmade. Edges are
rough and while they're supposed to be silver, it wasn't
always pure. What I'm trying to say is that they
were super easy to counterfeit.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
That's what it sounds like.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, the fakes.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Sounds like they're just like flattened bottle caps.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
That's a lot of them look like that. The fakes
were either not silver at all, or they had just
a little in there which had been taken from clips
around the edges of real coins because they weren't super
smooth on the edge, and so the weight would be
just slightly off. But you can clip enough off of
a coin to make another coin. William did this for
(07:26):
a while in Birmingham. He basically like apprentice.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Literally shaving profits.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah, exactly. But he wanted to go straight. He wanted
to get a real gig doing honest metalwork.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
He did.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yeah, so he went to London on foot. He walked
to London. Now today, if you wanted to walk from
Birmingham to London, Google Maps tells you it'll take forty
hours work week.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
That real.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, that's what it said. Did it take him that
long or did it longer? Historians, keep your answers to yourself. Okay,
I'm going to say it took him longer. Let's double it.
So so however you slice it, it's like one hundred
and fifteen miles.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Wow, I just know you can do it legally because
they have all those rules about you.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
To someone's yard and be like sorry, trade brow. Yeah,
so he did. He did this in the sixteen eighties.
He's in his thirties, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Good for him in his thirties. Yeah, he still hasn't
made good yet. Huh. I mean, I'm not judging him.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
He had no judgment.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
He's just knocking about looking for something that you call
his own.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Well, he gets to London.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
He's not getting married till he's got something in life,
right this period of time.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Right, So he gets to London, he's like, hey, fellas,
I'm here to work on metal, and everyone just like
stares at him. Come to find out there's a guild
system in place. Yeah, they're just sworn in. They're tight knit.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
And he's aged most of it.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
You got to be granted work at the behest of
the crown. That's William, the third bo hit.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Got a license and stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, So here's William. He's new in town, he's iced
out from his profession. He needed work. He found it
in japanning And that's the fake version of East Asian
lacquer work.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
So, like the real stuff at the time was super
popular and also super expensive and so and the real
stuff is used by coating objects like furniture, jewelry, bobbles
and such with like a thick coating made from the
sap of the toxicodendrum vernick flum tree.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Like a super strong lacker.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah and so, and then they'd be like in lays
of precious materials in the design. Well, like that tree
didn't grow in England or the rest of Europe for
that matter, so they made do with an enamel paint,
usually black tree or something. And in Europe they did
the same thing, but they used a shellac and it
came in.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
Like greens and blues and reds.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Japan Ors could make pieces on the cheap and then
sell them as the real deal for.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
The the sun exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
And that's that's what William did. He also got married
and he had kids and just lived his life. He
did try other businesses. One source said that William also
got work making quote, ten watches with dildo's in them.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I'm sorry, I'm going to need you to run that.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
You say he made ten watches, Elizabeth, why would I
want to watch a bit of tin? But what was
the part of it?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Also, I'm going to let you thank the ages that
I'm not about to tell you a picture of it. Yes,
So okay, when we say dildo in the sixteen hundreds,
what we really mean is dildo exactly as we used
it to say. So, Kieran Kanliffe wrote for Headstuff in
a footnote on an article about William Chill owner quote.
(10:39):
Dildo's had been available in England since at least the
time of Shakespeare, but had increased in availability over the
previous decade, mostly in the form of Italian imports. A
popular ballad of the day, Signor Dildo, drew a link
between this and the arrival of Mary of Modina, the
Italian wife of King James the second. Can I read
(11:02):
to you from that popular ballad of the day.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Oh you got some lyrics of mister Dildo dravus? You
got it? Bar please hit me?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
So it begins, you ladies of Mary England who have
been to kiss the Duchess's hand, pray, did you not
lately observe in the show a noble Italian called Senior Dildo.
This signor was one of the Duchess's train and helped
to conduct her over the main But now she cries
out to the Duke, I will go I have no
(11:31):
more need for signor dildo. Where there's this verse. Yeah,
the good lady Suffolk, thinking no harm, had got this
poor stranger hid under her arm. Lady Betty, by chance
came the secret to know and from her own mother,
stole senior dildo from her own mother.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
Yes, do see proof positive my theory. We always been
the same taking a dilda from her mom.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
We've always been the same. What the he be freaky?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Have always been free.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
People always act like I can't believe you know, I
don't want to be like whatever they want to. These
formers like propriety right. People think like I know I
want to I don't want to have inappropriate this or
inappropriate that. I'm like, Look, I hate to tell you this.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Everyone always grass and gross and freaking.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Two things everybody is which is corny and freaky.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Let me give you another another verse. Doll Howard, no
longer with his highness, must range, and therefore is proffered
this civil exchange. Her teeth being rotten, she smells best
below and needs must be fitted for senior dildo. Honestly,
most of the other verses, and there are a lot
(12:42):
of them, are way too filthy for me. To read
to you. Yes all. Poetry dot Com gives this assessment,
quote Senior Dildo stands as a unique and controversial example
of restoration poetry, challenging contemporary norms of propriety and offering
a glimpse into the libertine culture of the English court.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Say it again for the row and back.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
So back to Williams.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Libertine times then and our problems now.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Was like, he's he's apparently making watches with dildo's in them.
I do not know how that works. And googling was
so unhelpful, like, don't google quote dildo watch.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I just want to know how big these are big watches.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Don't or watch dil don't don't just yeah, I tried
dildo time pieces as people because watch dildo dildo watch
was like boyl yeah no, I mean it's like I'm
host situation. So dildo time piece. I mean I did
(13:44):
find one a historical article, but it was no help.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
I want to see the FBI anyway.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
That's what he.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Was up What the heck?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Like, that's what okay, So that's why that's what he
was up to for a while in London.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Oh good for him. I meant he did well.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, and apparently it was a brisk business, I tell you.
But then he moved on to other scams. Really yeah,
that he could have retired as a tildo time piece crafter.
He got into the early snake oil biz and he
sold phony plague cures because you know, they're not going
to come after you and it doesn't work rip. And
(14:27):
then he got into fortune telling and like so he
and this associate would steal things from people and then
they would go to them and offer to use their
psychic powers to find the item for a cost. You know,
They're like, give us, like, however much money and I'm
sure we can, like, oh, we robbed my temples. I
think I know where it is. In sixteen ninety, that
(14:48):
game came to an end because like someone was on
to him and his pal with the theft thing, and
they went to the authorities. So William he had to
go into hiding, and exactly he he ditched his wife
and kids forever he never saw them again. And it's
not like he left the country or the city. He
(15:08):
was just like, I gotta go into hiding.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Cross the street.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
He's like, He's leave you in the dildo watch in
a farewell. So he hit out for a while and
then he crossed town. He sold us clothing for a while,
clothing and.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Then not like it like not like a store where
it's like nice, use clothing, this is like it's not warm.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, so maybe it was. At the same time he
did a mini apprenticeship under a guy named Patrick Coffee
who is a goldsmith. Okay, so now we're in sixteen
ninety one. Sure, what a year I remember it well?
Oh man, what with me being old because I remember
cassette tapes.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Oh and we just survived that second ice Age, that
little mini ice age. It's been rough.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
So like at this point William has ditched the vintage
tunic and stockings trade and gone all in on counterfeiting. Really,
this is a big move. It's it's one thing to
dupe people dying of the plague, but counterfeiting was something else.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Are still alive, right, But in.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Those days, counterfeiting was treason and they could get you
by the government.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Oh yeah, hang them high capital crimes against the crown.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
And that was for men, right, men would get hanged.
For women who were caught making fake coin, the punishment
was worse. They were burned at the stake, and like, well,
because they're women, the I guess, and the government they're
just like, you know, these foul women, let's just burn
them up, but let's do let's do it nicely. They
thought they would have this humane way to do it.
(16:33):
They would tie a rope around the woman's neck so
that they could like strangle her before she's fully engulfed
in flames. Oh god, because they thought that would be merciful.
But the problem is that the rope would burn up
before it totally choked them out. Did the Romans, they
suffered even more justice zaren, but that didn't deter William
hanging or making money, you know, willing to take the risk.
(16:55):
And like I said, it was just so easy. So
counterfeiters were still doing the thing where they clipped off
the rough edges of the existing coins, cobbled together metals
to make new janky looking coins. But change was afoot.
The government was just starting to introduce milled edges to coins.
And then there was also the market itself. These are
(17:17):
silver coins, and so the silver itself was starting to
have a greater value than the coin, especially over on
the continent, So it made illegal sense to melt down
the groats and then move the bullion to Europe a
little something called deflationary arbitageh So this became more prevalent,
(17:38):
so there were fewer coins in circulation. So William he
gets to work making dummy coins to circulate in England.
Let's hear some ads and let's think about what we've done,
and when we come back, we'll check in with William
and his coin business. Zaren.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
That's mister dildo.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Thank you, senior dildo. When we last spoke, William Chiller
was making I don't know, I can't ask this dildo
how to say it. He's melting down English coins and
he's either selling the raw metal in Europe or actually
(18:37):
minting European coins himself. I'm guessing with like substandard metal.
He was getting paid some.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Can like stamps to get the right press.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Well he would. He's a counterfeiter. You have fake ones,
and then what they'd do is they'd have these dyes
and then you'd have to like smash it with a hammer.
So he bought this fancy house in knights Bridge. I'm
wondering where the abandoned wife and kids are, but whatever,
he had this nice whip like this gilded out carriage,
wore all these slick outfits, and he had totally mastered
(19:06):
creating those dies for the coins, you know, those press models.
So historians, sir John, he's actually very good.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
The gold silversmith who trained him really got him rest.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
He's very very good at this. There's this historian, Sir
John Craig. He wrote in nineteen forty six that William
was quote the most accomplished counterfeiter in the Kingdom. So
nice an artist of dies that it galled him to
spoil their perfection by use break them over. Didn want
to break them. So in sixteen ninety two, one of
William's buddies was arrested and he squealed. William knew the
(19:40):
law would be on his doorstep soon, so he got
to work for two days straight. He minted coins because
he needed cash to be able to make a run
for it, and run he did. He headed up to
Scotland and he waited until his pal was hanged for
his offenses. Oh and I told you he had no integrity.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, you didnt tell me the one person coming at me.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
So well that's no state.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
So while in Scotland he came up with a new plan.
This was a couple of years after the Jacobite Rising
of sixteen. Yeah, so that's when you know, the Jacobites,
believing in the divine rights of kings and the Stuart
claimed to the throne, rebell They tried to put James
the Second aka James the Seventh back in power. He's
James the Second in England and Ireland, James the Seventh
(20:27):
in Scotland. In a larger sense, it was part of
the Nine Years War France versus the Grand Alliance. So
the Scottish Highlands hot bed of Jacobite activity and it
was while in Scotland that William saw an opportunity. It
was seen as seditious to support the Jacobites, which meant
it was illegal to spread the message, like say, printing
(20:49):
and distributing pamphlets.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Ah, yes, I've seen outlander.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
So William he starts paying printers to run Jacobite pamphlets
and that was in his true crime. He would then
report the printers and get a reward from the state.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
No, It's like basically entrapman.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Wow, so in trapper Oh ye, I'll do this for you, don't.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Worry one time, he pays these four Jacobite sympathizers to
print copies of James's declaration denouncing King William. Dudes show
up to deliver the pamphlets and they were like cops
there waiting.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I got surprised for you.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
This was seditions. So they weren't in prison. They were
had and William he collects one thousand pound reward. It's
a huge amount. He had this guy, this protege named
Aubrey Price, and the two of them they came up
with another plan that would exploit the Jacobites. William and
Aubrey went to some government officials and they told him
(21:47):
they had a hot tip.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Did you have an exploiter named Aubrey in the story?
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Isn't that an incredible cursed name. So the JAT they like,
check it out. We have a hotline on this, a
hotline blank. The Jacobites are fixing to attack Dover Castle.
We have word and they tell the authorities look for
a fee, we'll go undercover and like report back. We
(22:12):
can foil the plot. I don't know what do you
guys have in mind? And the authorities are like, no,
get out of here. I don't think so Okay, this
is William. Okay, what about this. I have here a
list of Jacobite sympathizers. How about you hire me and
old Aubrey here to go investigate these fools. This, by
the way, was just a random made up list of names,
(22:35):
and they're like, okay, fine, you know what you're hired.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
That's a long list.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
That sounds great. So now William's getting paid to go
around to quote unquote investigate a fake list of enemies
of the state. So this gives him like some credibility.
He's not operating on the fringes anymore. He's part of
the machine, of course. But then it got a little dicey.
He and some bozone named Coppinger they wrote together this
Jacobite pamphlet to get all printed up, and they planned
(23:01):
to bust another printer and get the reward. When the
time came to go to the cops to bust the printers,
Coppinger tried to claim the full reward for himself.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Partner.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, but not for like the pamphlet thing. He rats
William out for his counterfeiting. But William had like established
himself he's almost a law man, right, so he's able
to talk his way out of the jam, and then
gets Coppinger pinched for writing the pamphlet and soliciting it
to be printed.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
So he actually flipped it back.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Coppingers hanged car, and William skates away. So he's just
leaving all these like you know, like co conspirators in
his wake. Back to legal Tender, I told you that
as people melted down the silver in the English groats
to sell in Europe, England starts running low on coins.
(23:52):
There just wasn't enough in circulation, and the Crown started
to notice this. As I said, it's during the Nine
Years War, William the Third needed cash and this is
starting to be a big problem everything. Yeah, and then
so like milling the edges of the coins, and this
is creating a before and after line. So there were
hand forged coins made before all the way up to
(24:15):
sixteen sixty two, and then after that it's machine minted ones,
like on a serious press. And the machine minted coins
had these milled edges to prevent the clipping. There was
even the text decus et Tutemann, the ornament and a
safeguard that was added around the coin rooms.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Okay, it's like the certificate of authenticity, but they.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Could still be melted down and like silver's worth more
in France and the Netherlands than as a coin in England.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
So flames don't care.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
And a lot of people proposed ways to address this issue,
and then William he chimes in, but he didn't do
so in his like trademark sleazy, underhanded negative way. He
didn't and he didn't really propose a solution. He had
a bunch of pamphlets printed up, like I'm surprised that
printers will still work with him. He accused, he does
(25:08):
know a paper guy. Okay, so he accused the Royal
Mint of incompetence, calls we don't have money, question as
you're messing it up. Then he said that there should
be this great recoinage, that is to say, old clip
coins collected melted down machine meant it.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
He has a person in mind to run and all the.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
New coins, he said, should have this like deeper impressions
that counterfeits can't counterfeiters can't mimic those lousy counterfeitters. What's
cracked down on them too, So he's in order to
crack down on them, he himself. He suggests a licensing
system for coiners tools, and remember, counterfeiting is an active treasons.
(25:49):
He's like, hello, killing these people, why is he going
so hard on counterfeitters? Calling for his own demise. He
wanted to rebrand himself as a coin expert, and as
you said, like he figured that way he'd get access
to the Royal Mint and fox.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
I'll take a stance, take a stamp, I'll take exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
So the Earl of Monmouth, who just recently lost his
gig as Lord of the Treasury, totally on board. He's like,
this guy makes so much sense. I love it, mainly
because his successor, the Earl of Halifax, he wanted him
to look foolish because if they're like, oh, the mint
is competent, he loses his job as Lord of the
Earl of Halifax. Also heard William out politics was that
(26:33):
he like, he hears what William has to say, but
then he went and fixed the issues on his own.
He's like, that's a great idea. I'm just going to
do it.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I'm an expert.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Am I going to bring this clown into the operation.
Thanks for the suggestions, dude, who needs a you got?
William's like, okay, cool, cool, huh. Well, he tries another
tack paper money. So this is a new thing. The
Bank of England was printing one hundred pound bills on
specially pattern paper, and William, of course, he gets his
hands on some of this paper and prints his own bills.
(27:03):
You know, he knows printers, but he wasn't as good
at that as he was with like crude coins.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, these are new counterfeit skills.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Yeah, and the phony bills get traced back to him
when the paper plug grasses him out. Oh, so he
gets picked up by authorities. But here's the thing. There
were no actual laws on the books about counterfeiting paper
money for the law. Too new for the law. So
they had to let him go. And they even let
him hang on to the cash that he laundered. Like
you know anyway, so.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
I liked it. He didn't have a paper guy, and
the paper guy tried to screw him.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
But then on top of it, he gets in he
makes another two hundred pounds a reward. Zaren remember his
old pal Aubrey Price.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
While in custody, William ratted him out for forging checks.
And see William had come up with a perfect way
to forge checks. He terrible, and he passed that technique
onto Aubrey and he needed a little juice with the authorities,
so he said he'd been told of a check. Counterfeitter
leads him to Aubrey's busted, eventually hanged, and William is
(28:03):
praised for his fraud busting, like, you are so good,
you are such a good citizen hacker. Yeah, so he
got accolades. But now people, people have their eyes on him,
i'd hope. So one very important person in particular the
Warden of the Mint, none other than Sir Isaac Newton,
Deep the applehead gravity him.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Newton.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
There was that great recoining that William came up with.
Charles Montague, Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, got
Newton the gig as Warden of the Mint. And at
this point the Mint is controlled by Parliament, not the Crown,
and Parliament wanted Newton. He was the one who was
going to oversee the whole process of this recoining. He
moved from Cambridge to London.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
To do just that. Really, they got him out of
Cambridge for this.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah, zaren my goodness, yes, I want you to picture it.
It's March of sixteen ninety six. I remember it like
it was yesterday. You are a worker at the Royal Mint,
located within the Tower of London. The mid buildings form
a narrow horseshoe shape around the three sides of the
(29:11):
tower that aren't along the Thames. It's a ramshackle place
and it's miserable. It's hot and dark. Your job is
to help turn a screw operated press that stamps the coins.
You are very restricted in being able to get in
and out of the place. This is a secure facility
and you have an important job. There's also a lot
of room for theft, which is why you've been totally
(29:32):
vetted and are watched like a hawk. You and another
man take turns pulling on a lever that turns round
and round, stamping out tuppets. Your dad worked here when
there were no machines. He was missing two fingers on
his left hand from accidentally leaving his hand too close
to the die as the hammer was slammed down by
his coworker. The wood of your press creaks. A horse
(29:54):
outside the windows snorts and winnies. You are stripped down
to what are basically your underthings, thin cotton shirt and
thin cotton long underwhere a man in the corner adds
coal to the furnace that melts down the precious metals.
You are sweaty, but you know it's an honest day's work.
You've been told the new big boss will be coming
by today. Look alive. They said. He's an important bloke.
(30:16):
You glance up and see a figure standing on the
wooden walkway above you. He's glorious. It's Isaac Newton. He's
not a sur yet, but you wouldn't be surprised if
he is one day. He's a famous scientist, you know
that much, A real genius, with long, wavy gray locks
down to his shoulders and a distinguished aquiline nose. He
looks down at the workroom. He's holding a sheaf of
(30:38):
paper and scribbles notes while talking to the foreman next
to him. You and your press partner take a break.
You lift the dyes and sweep the completed coins into
a bucket. The noise of the room settles a little,
and you listen in as Newton quizzes your boss. He
asks the foreman exactly how much coal the furnace burns
each day, how much ore can each melting pot hold?
(30:59):
And does that decrease over time. How long can these
men and these horses work before they're spent? How long
of a break do you give them? What's the output
each day? Where did you get those fabulous pants? Newton
scribbles on the answers on his paper, pausing occasionally to
scratch his chin, and thought, he looks down at you
in nods and thanks for your hard work. You nod
(31:19):
back and then return to the press. These shillings ain't
gonna mint themselves. Boys. So Newton visited the mint, got
all the data he needed, and then use that data
to calculate maximum efficiency for the operation. He figured out
how to best utilize the workforce both man and beast,
to get maximum work without overtaxing them, and he established
(31:42):
a peak working pace. So he analyzed the infrastructure, the building,
the workrooms. He also noted like improvements. But then he
saw it all through he came up. He just crunched numbers,
and before it looks so like here's the thing. Before
he came on board, the mint was like barely producing
fifteen thousand pounds a week in pretty unsafe environs. After
(32:03):
his overhaul, the place ran smoothly and put out more
than fifty thousand pounds a week.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
No problem, He's an efficiency expert. Henry Ford. Eat your
heart out.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Exactly, Isaac Newton, O g badass. Let's take a break.
Upon our return. I will tell you what happens when
you cross a virtuous genius like Isaac Newton with a
craven criminal like William chillowner.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
I love that apple attractor, Sir Isaac Newton.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Would you call me?
Speaker 1 (32:51):
I called you, Sir, Isaac, your new name Newton. I
love the figs, big fig fan. So perhaps the greatest
genius to ever live.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Definitely in the top three.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yeah. Please indulge me by allowing me to read his
epitaph from Westminster.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Please.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Here is buried Isaac Newton Knight, who, by a strength
of mind almost divine and mathematical principles, particularly his own,
explored the course and figures of the planets, the path
of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in
rays of light, and what no other scholar has previously
imagined the properties of the colors. Thus produced diligent, sagacious
(33:36):
and faithful in his expositions of nature, antiquity, and the
holy scriptures. He vindicated by his philosophy, the majesty of
God Mighty and Good, and expressed the simplicity of the
Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed
such and so great an ornament of the human race.
He was born twenty fifth December sixteen forty two and
(33:59):
died on twenty five March seventeen twenty six.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Dope.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Now, of course it's actually engraved in Latin. But you
don't want to hear me butcher that my butchering would
not surprise my college Latin proposals. But the way, anyway, Newton,
he's amazing.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
I forget how it goes, but I'm fairly certain that
it's like Galileo Newton and Stephen Hawking all have like
the same birthday or same death day or overlaps it.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
To them.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Either way, Newton, I'm telling you more than just an alchemist.
That guy, he was amazing.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Most people are like, oh, a little bit, kind of weird,
kind of quiet, stuck to himself. But what he did
with light and gravity, I'm telling.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Incredible, incredible. So there he is later in life, leading
the efforts of the Royal Mint to enter the modern age.
He done the job.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I bet he did the challenges.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Oh yeah, I'll except for one part. The warden was
responsible for both the capturing and prosecuting of counterfeitters.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Oh he was the UK Secret Service.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, that was not his jam.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
He's like, I'm not into this.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
He that part of the job was beneath him. I bet,
and I'm not going to argue with that. Isaac Newton
bounty hunter. So it was in March that he stopped
by the Mint to assess operations. A few months later,
throw a punch.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
No, I don't think so. I don't. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
I think he had soft hands, very.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Soft hands, like like fruit, so soft.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
We could bruise them. So end of July he catches
his first cases. Ward okay, a set of dies had
been stolen from the Mint, Sarah, did you steal this?
Speaker 3 (35:35):
No?
Speaker 2 (35:35):
I sold them. I didn't steal them.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Newton's told, like, you got to crack the case.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Really, you asked the science. You're so good with efficiency.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Can you ask the scientist to do something and the
means will be scientific? Totally? So he went to work
collecting data, nice number crunching. He went to Newgate Prison,
made an offer to the people on death row. You
tell me what you know, and I'll get you a
stay of execution.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
That's smart.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Then he goes under so it's efficient exactly. He's like, look,
I'm not going to mess around like you're dying soon,
so what do you know? Right, he goes undercover. He
puts on a bad boy costume.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Oh my goodness, like I'm undercover Newton.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yeah, I'm imagining a costume that like the dude who
played Huck on Scandal war for like how he looked
before he joined.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Yeah, the super Afroeddy k Unbomber, Rip van Winkle.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Totally. Okay, that's how I imagine Sir Isaac Newton going around.
He goes around all these like dives and dens of inequity,
kidding where the criminals drink and corrouse, and he chats
up the crowd and gets more intel. Are you he
went undercover?
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Like mister like talking to people? Is out there having
to chat it up and like divy bars like so,
uh do you see the Ruggers game? So fellow bad person, yeah,
do you also like to throw the die?
Speaker 1 (36:56):
So he just adds all that to his data set, right,
He just like goes home, amazing, pulls out his excels.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
And then going on with the data.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah. In his quest. He also at one point he
interviewed William what Yeah, And William took the opportunity to
rail against the mint and he went on and on
about how incompetent everyone was.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Did he interviewed as a suspector as an.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Expert, as like an expert, and he's like, you know,
such a crappy operation over there. So it just like
rolls his eyes and ignores him. He's like, okay, William
child loser and so Newton like he gathers all this
intel and it starts paying off. It would eventually lead
him to William, just just not yet. So as he
put together the Stuart Restoration period version of a corkboard
(37:43):
with pins and red thread, he developed a picture of
this large counterfeiting operation and so he had names and
locations and the whatnot.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
He invents a camera we could put photos.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Like photo realistic draw and.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
See what he's done.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
He needed to conduct cross examinations of the suspects and
like serious interviews for these witnesses. So he goes out
and he becomes a justice of the peace. Are you
like he gets official? Wow, He's yeah, and in the
process he successfully prosecuted twenty eight criminals that were involved
in this ring Isaac Newton for the people, dude, I'm
(38:27):
telling you. Like so he's still he hadn't been able
to connect everything to the mastermind behind the operation, Like
who was that? Yeah, and like so what's William the
mastermind doing? He's just running his mouth.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
So he's not afraid of Newton. He's got to know
that he's on his case a little right kind of.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
But like, okay, no one listens to his rants about
incompetence at the Mint. So he starts saying that the
die theft was an inside job, and he said that
the chief engraver at the Mint had sold the missing
dies to a fellow by the name of mister Chandler. Okay,
it's like mister Chandler, you say, William William knew him.
He knew him well because he was him. That was
(39:08):
his alias.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
John Baron.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
He's totally went around sold it to John Baron. It's
totally legal, totally cool. In sixteen ninety seven, William goes
to the House of Commons, and not to the House
of Common the.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Rapper, but the House of Commons in Chicago.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
No, and he accuses the Mint of this inside job. Okay,
Like so he's not just like the Whisper campaign. He
elevates it. He goes right in there and this proof.
He brings one of the coins that he himself had minted,
but he doesn't say that I minted them. He's like,
you know it's that no good, mister Chandler.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
This is on the streets.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Mister Chandler keeps getting away. He's a handsome guy.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
By the way, charming man, beautiful.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Dancer brings out the coin, gasps ring out.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
I like to see him coming. I like to see
him going. I love the guy.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
They're like, this man has cracked the case that Newton
could not. William's like, look, I just need to get
into the mint and fix the dies. Like I'll make
the impressions deeper. That would fix everything. So the house
they go to Newton. They're like, you have to let
William access the mint. He'll get to the bottom.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Newton said, no, I just got this running.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Well.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
He was like, legally I can't, because he had taken
an oath to forbid outsiders from having access to the
tools in the mint. He's like, I'm good with my word.
I can't go back on an oath. He also said
that William's thing about making the impressions deeper was total bulk,
and like they're like, I don't know, it sounds like
it's pretty logical. He's like, hold up. He does a
demonstration for them, and it's obvious that Newton's.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Right, He's got more patients than they.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
So the House of Comments is like, okay, yeah, never mind,
as you were.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
Brilliant.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Frustrated William, he goes back to his old ways. He
tries to set up a counterfeiting operation in Surrey, and
that fell apart when everyone else got bus did. He
tried to fire up another Jacobite conspiracy and he took
that ruse to court. Newton had his number. He had
finally pieced everything together, and he determined it was William
(41:12):
that he needed to catch. Like he's at the top
of the pyramids, so he keeps his eye on William.
Newton had all the other pieces of the counterfeiting operation
in place, had arrested and convicted pretty much all the
other players in this except for William Parliament. Newton sees William,
like this is his chance. William, what is he doing
(41:35):
just swanning around Parliament. Who knows. So Newton has William
arrested for that Surrey counterfeiting operation Parliament, Yeah, and sent
to Newgate Prison. And the problem is that William still
had connections, so there were those in power who bought
his act and there were those who could be bought.
William had someone else pay off witnesses for him and
(41:57):
like telling him to scram up to Scotland, like run
up to Scotland. The charges are drop, Williams released. So
but William needs money because like all of his operations
are shut down, he had to spend a lot of
money getting out of the jam with So he goes
back to accusing the Royal Mint of Malfeasan's contents. So
(42:18):
then he goes back to Parliament and he's like launch
an investigation. He said that he'd been arrested and imprisoned
because he knew too much. They're trying to shut him up.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Oh yeah, flips.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Newton gets called in front of Parliament and is made
to answer for these accusations.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Why are you deep state muses?
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Right? So they of course believe Newton and William's claims
are dismissed, but the whole affair only served to make
Newton white hot with rage. Like he's like me, now
he's just perpetually angry. So Newton, he's now on this
mission to destroy William Good He's like, that's it. He
goes out, he interviews every associate of Williams that he
(42:57):
could find, and they're all up against Syria charges. Don't
forget counterfeiting his treason. You can get hanged. The thing is,
that's why there were so few convictions, because juries didn't
want to take a life for something like that. So
like guilty verdicts were few and far between.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
They just let them languish.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Yeah, they just be like, well no, they just let
him off and just don't do it again.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
I was kind of like, oh, I didn't know he
was still in there.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
Yeah. No.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
So Newton he wasn't going for a high conviction rate
with these criminal associates. He wanted to gather an insane
amount of charges against William, just rack them all up
until a jury would have no choice but to convict.
So there was there had to be something in all
that he would have done that would come back as guilty.
You know, you don't just put before the one charge
(43:41):
and have that risk. Newton dedicated his life at this
point to the pursuit. He's determined to take him down.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
He set aside all math, all physics, everything, forget gravity.
He gets taken this guy down.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
One hundred and forty witness statements, he gathered troves of evidence,
and then he waited and he knew that William was
going to mess up. He's going to step out of line,
and that's when Newton's going to strike. In sixteen ninety eight,
William dun goofed. So he gets this new scheme going.
He's forging malt lottery tickets. So the malt lottery was
(44:15):
this like early English state lottery, and the benefits were
going to be paid out of excise duties on malt.
And the government like they came up with this because
the nine years of War was not going well. Coin
supplies dweling economic crisis for.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Our latest bad joys they had a lot.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Of which was a disaster. By the I'm sure it
wasn't whole other story. I mean, like the tickets, they
tried to use them as legal tender after the lotto.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Anyway, so selling children for these tickets.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
So William he here's about the Malt lottery, and he
engraved a copper plate of tickets for it, and he
thought he'd get away with it and like hide the plates,
but he got busted coming from two different sides. So
another counterfeiter ratted him out to the office of Charles Talbot,
first Duke of Shrewsbury, Secretary of State. That's the same
guy that William had tried to blackmail the year before,
(45:07):
so he's especially excited to get At the same time,
a pawnbroker to whom William had sold a ticket got
busted with the faky and he.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Rats with it where I got it? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
March third, sixteen ninety nine, William's case goes to trial.
Newton figured out a way to get a very specific judge,
assigned Judge Silathiel Lovel. What yeah s A L A
T H I E L Silathiel Lovel interesting a hanging
judge like known known to just like everyone's guilty, everyone's
(45:41):
hanging old fat Yeah, do mess with them. So I
told you Newton wants to die of course. Yeah, so
William rope too. Yeah. William thought the whole thing was
just about the lot of tickets, like no big deal,
and then Newton said, welcome to the show, son like
brings him in the court. He proceeds to bring out
(46:01):
witness after witness after witness to testify to crimes committed
by William. He brings out all these former associates, all
the ones that he's like has you know, they're basically
they're they're cooperating with the state.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
He brings out everybody but senior Dildo.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Well, then he brings out all these widows of guys
that William had double crossed and who'd been said to hang.
Oh yeah, and so they're like, all these women are
just lining up telling these.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
They got notes and everything, like I can give you
the documentation.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
William's freaking out right, he gets desperate. First he starts
acting like he's mentally ill and then mentally incompetent, like
just drooling. Then he says that absolutely everyone's lying, every
last one, right, and then his last move was just
to beg so he said if they found him guilty, please,
(46:52):
Well they're like, if you find me guilty, I'm going
to be sentenced to death. And that means you're basically
murdering me. So you're a murderer, now, can you live
with that.
Speaker 5 (47:00):
I save you.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
The judge and the jury shrugged and we're like, yeah,
I could be a murderer the rope. I can live
with that. So, after like no real deliberation at all,
william Is fund guilty. Was like yeah, I mean they
look over at all the widows and they're like all right.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Williams found guilty of high treason, sentenced to death by hanging.
Just a couple of weeks later, he's like awaiting his
fate and he's trying everything. He writes to Isaac Newton,
he said, quote, oh, dear sir, nobody can save me
but you. I shall be murdered unless you save me. Oh,
I hope God will move your heart with mercy and
pity to do this thing for me. Newton, the cold
(47:45):
blooded g that he has been forced to become through
this gig, didn't answer him.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
That's his move.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Yeah, William told anyone who would listen that he was framed.
So now he's going on that tack. They send a
priest out to read him his last He sends the
guy away like I wouldn't have wasted that chance, brother,
I would have had that chat. So he goes when
he goes to the gallows of Tyburn Tree in London.
He yells out to the crowd that he was about
(48:12):
to be quote murdered under pretense of law.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yeah, we all agree on that one.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
And he was yeah, and that that was curtains for him.
Speaker 4 (48:22):
So wait, the Tyburn Tree was an actual tree, like
that was their old hanging tree he turned into like
the place of justice, this wide branch tree being hanged
like three four at a.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Time, right, exactly, that's wild. So the Great Recoinage was
completed later that year, and with that and William out
of his way, Newton focused more of his time on science.
Seventeen oh four, he published Optics, foundational text on the
nature and behavior of light. He worked for the Mint
for the rest of his life.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
Whoa, because optics is it's probably my favorite thing he does.
And I was like, wait, I know that that happens
in seventeen.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Yeah, he wrote, he's a size Yeah, he's just all.
Speaker 4 (49:01):
That work asides. If he could deal with all this,
go be undercover Newton. And then he gets back He's like, okay,
now about the sun.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
I'm ready. Yeah, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2 (49:11):
I love Undercovered Newton.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
Oh, I want to see Newton in a bar trying
to turn to someone savory character back from the colonies.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Yeah, it's like, when was the last time you stabbed
a guy?
Speaker 2 (49:24):
I did like four hours ago. Nice cud piece, buddy,
So what's yours on Elizabeth?
Speaker 1 (49:29):
My ridiculous takeaway is that I, you know, just out
of principle, and it's my own personal philosophy. I'm not
a supporter of the death penalty, but I'm not sad.
It's terrible the number of people that he's set up
to be.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
If you think of that as murder, like knowing that
he knew that they were inno center that he was
not innocent, but that he was basically fingering them for
the guilt, then he basically, yeah, murked a bunch of people.
So yeah, he's not just a counterfeiter. He's a multiple figure.
Not serial murder. I don't want to say that, but
it was a multiple murder.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
I just when you when I start reading about him,
I'm like, oh, this is kind of funny, and then
you're just like, he's horrible. He's a horrible human being.
He doesn't deserve one. But Newton led a bad ass. Uh,
Daves after that, I think I need a talk back.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Oh my god, did you do Seper?
Speaker 3 (50:26):
I love you. I'm behind on episodes, but I just
listened to the furry episode. Zaren. You can get a
tail also ears, but a tail that attaches to your
belt instead of other ways. I know this because I
have a fox ear and tail set that I got
(50:47):
from Etsy for Spirit Animal Night at Adult Summer Camp,
which is a whole other story, but it comes in
handy if you forget that, you have a costume party
to go to.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
Dude, I'm getting to tell Elizabeth, you're gonna look at me.
You're gonna laugh on a show up here to record.
I got the ears, I got my nose, my tail on,
got some furry slippers.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
No, you know, it's the summer of dark Elizabeth and
yet all, if you all, if you get your giggles
at it.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Show up here in a fur bikini. I'm gonna go
with a tale. You're right, how is that attached?
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Just don't come with a tin watch. That's it for today.
You can find us online at ridiculous crime dot com.
We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram.
You can email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com,
Leave It Talkback, most importantly on the iHeart app, which
is free to download reach Out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted
(51:48):
by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by
Mintmaster Dave Cousten, starring Annals Rutger as Judith. Research is
by Dildo watchdealers Marissa Brown and Andre Song Sharpened Tear.
The theme song is by Birmingham Nail Salon owner Thomas
Lee and costume Friendly Criminal Dive Bar proprietor Travis Dutton.
(52:08):
Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair
and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are
Malt Lottery Scapegoat Ben Bolan and Chancellor of the ex
Checkerboard Van's Noel Brown.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
Dis Crime Say It One More Times Cry.
Speaker 4 (52:34):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four More Podcasts.
My Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio zaren zaren Yo
over here, right, we got my hand up over here.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Elizabeth, Hi girl, how you doing doing well? Man?
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Oh? You straight? I'm fine.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Listen.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
I need to know what's ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
Oh, sit down, I got something that's going to buckle
your knees. I don't want you to get hurt. I
heard about this woman. Oh Don Brook, she got pregnant. Okay,
she got She is the.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Oldest congratulations or I'm sorry to hear that kind of
like that, but she either basically it were really for
real though.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
She's the oldest person to ever get pregnant without IVF
or donor eggs. Oh how old those persons get pregnant
with the in vitro fertilization. The IVF was seventy three?
Whoa seventy three with IVF? They intentionally said, can we
get something going in here? And they're like, with enough
drugs into my ivfs? Yes they did?
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Wow?
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Right, but this person, Don Brook, Yeah, in twenty seventeen
gave birth and was at the age.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Of fifty nine.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
No iv body went through menopause.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Elizabeth, Oh wait, she did well?
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Obviously not did went into menopause, went through menopause, and
then started taking a hormone replacement therapy. Yeah, and that
can kick start the system where it started producing eggs.
Dropped an egg that was still kicking inside. I guess
it was all the way live got in, it got exminated.
Now like a ten year old boy, she's sixty nine.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Kid, I guess he's seventy because you got the nine
ten months older.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
You are older when it's born.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
But I'm telling it to no. I mean like she's now.
She was fifty nine when she had the kid. Sixty
nine now, but can you believe it?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
She was? She got thought she was out, and they
dragged her back down with like we're gonna give you
this therapy. It's gonna be good for you. She's like, doctor,
I am pregnant. Would you stop it? I am a
fifty nine year old woman. I don't made this nonsense.
Oh y nonsense.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Wow, that is ridiculous nonsense us. Do you know what
else is ridiculous?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I was hoping you'd tell me.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Sir Isaac Newton Fighting Crime what this is? Ridiculous Crime?
(02:29):
A podcast about absurd and outrageous caper's heis and cons
it's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
I know you heard that.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
You did. You watched that Netflix hit Peaky Blinders, Right?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I love that one.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
I loerve that show. I love it, especially when Tom
Hardy came on. Yes, look at how freely I can
talk about television. I'm like, hi on, all I do
is talk about TV. Tom Hardy was fantastic. But let's
give it up for killing Murphy.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yes, of course the best.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I've been a fan of his since The Wind That
Shakes the Barley, which, if you haven't seen it, fantastic film.
But anyway, Peaky Blinders takes place in Birmingham, England, after
World War One. In the show, it's this gritty industrial
city with a dirty underbelly of crime. Yeah, the Peaky Blinders,
the eponymous gang in the show is based on a
(03:24):
real gang from the late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Aren't all based on gangs in the show? Aren't the
all the gangs in the show based on gangs yet?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah? And there's a movie coming out, by the way,
It starts filming in September of this year. Let's go
crush the set. We should record an episode from the
set while Chase. Yes, but it's the movie's supposed to
wrap the whole thing up anyway. Birmingham, so it was
tough in real life back then, and apparently it was
(03:53):
tough even before then, hundreds of years before then. I mean,
settlement in Birmingham goes back to eight thousand BC.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Does it really? Yeah, that's not a Roman settlement. No, No,
I was assumed so many of the big cities.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Of Roman settlement they had their own thing.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
I know they did, I just didn't know.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I'm talking though about the sixteen hundreds, mid to late
and so at that time it was known as the
counterfeiting capital of England.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
What counterfeiting, Oh, I was like like you were talking
like countertops, like they were fitting counters. Like there's pipe fitters,
there's counterfeitters.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
They like there's something head but like marble countertop. Anyway, Yeah,
it was badfitters.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
So money fakers, I got you counterfeits.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I mean. It was also at that time that a
kid from just outside of town in Warwickshire was born
to a family of weavers name of William Chilloner.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Okay, William Chillona.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, Chu Loaner Challoner, little homie was a bad one. Really, yeah,
he got into all sorts of troubles. So his parents
shipped him off to the big city Birmingham to become
an apprentice nail maker, not like at a nail salon.
But the nails are using construction like the old bang.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
Bang Yeah, and you're handmaking nails exactly. A lot of
them are going into the of horses.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Right, So he was not doing acrylics. They sent They
sent him off to Birmingham a k A brum yeah,
AK a city of a thousand trades a k A
O one two one?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Are you for real?
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Aka Second City aka the pen Shop of the world
AK Venice of the North.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Second City. They're the Chicago of.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
That aka Workshop of the world. Yeah, they're the Venice
of the North.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
So no one call, No one calls them like b
Ham or bro How.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Sure they do? I don't know. This is just what
Wikipedia calls anyway, that's the list on Wikipedia. So they
send him off to the city, praying that he'll.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Straighten up and fly right make good nails.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Yeah, well, they like you go out and make your living,
make and.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Nails with metal.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
But no, no, no, this was the counterfeit in capital
of it, like working with paper and here's a young
man of mischief and no integrity.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Oh yeah, perfect.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
So he of course fell in with a group that
made counterfeit groats.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Groats, groats.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Look at the look on your face, Elizabeth, not groats
that are grain.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
That's what I was, That's what my face was doing.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, counterfeit grains are intriguing to me. Like saw rolls
up a little bit. These are coins and they're made
of silver, and then originally they were all four pence,
but then some were eightpence and others were shilling. A
pence is basically a penny shillings twelve of those. So
(06:39):
so there's William making fake coins instead of nails. Tricky.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I'm still working with the metal mak Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Either way, bang bang groats. They first showed up in
England in the twelve hundreds and by the sixteen hundreds
they still weren't very refined. They're basically handmade. Edges are
rough and while they're supposed to be silver, it wasn't
always pure. What I'm trying to say is that they
were super easy to counterfeit.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
That's what it sounds like.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah, the fakes.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Sounds like they're just like flattened bottle caps.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
That's a lot of them look like that. The fakes
were either not silver at all, or they had just
a little in there which had been taken from clips
around the edges of real coins because they weren't super
smooth on the edge, and so the weight would be
just slightly off. But you can clip enough off of
a coin to make another coin. William did this for
(07:26):
a while in Birmingham. He basically like apprentice.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Literally shaving profits.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah, exactly. But he wanted to go straight. He wanted
to get a real gig doing honest metalwork.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
He did.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yeah, so he went to London on foot. He walked
to London. Now today, if you wanted to walk from
Birmingham to London, Google Maps tells you it'll take forty
hours work week.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
That real.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, that's what it said. Did it take him that
long or did it longer? Historians, keep your answers to yourself. Okay,
I'm going to say it took him longer. Let's double it.
So so however you slice it, it's like one hundred
and fifteen miles.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Wow, I just know you can do it legally because
they have all those rules about you.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
To someone's yard and be like sorry, trade brow. Yeah,
so he did. He did this in the sixteen eighties.
He's in his thirties, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Good for him in his thirties. Yeah, he still hasn't
made good yet. Huh. I mean, I'm not judging him.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
He had no judgment.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
He's just knocking about looking for something that you call
his own.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Well, he gets to London.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
He's not getting married till he's got something in life,
right this period of time.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Right, So he gets to London, he's like, hey, fellas,
I'm here to work on metal, and everyone just like
stares at him. Come to find out there's a guild
system in place. Yeah, they're just sworn in. They're tight knit.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
And he's aged most of it.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
You got to be granted work at the behest of
the crown. That's William, the third bo hit.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Got a license and stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, So here's William. He's new in town, he's iced
out from his profession. He needed work. He found it
in japanning And that's the fake version of East Asian
lacquer work.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
So, like the real stuff at the time was super
popular and also super expensive and so and the real
stuff is used by coating objects like furniture, jewelry, bobbles
and such with like a thick coating made from the
sap of the toxicodendrum vernick flum tree.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Like a super strong lacker.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah and so, and then they'd be like in lays
of precious materials in the design. Well, like that tree
didn't grow in England or the rest of Europe for
that matter, so they made do with an enamel paint,
usually black tree or something. And in Europe they did
the same thing, but they used a shellac and it
came in.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
Like greens and blues and reds.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Japan Ors could make pieces on the cheap and then
sell them as the real deal for.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
The the sun exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
And that's that's what William did. He also got married
and he had kids and just lived his life. He
did try other businesses. One source said that William also
got work making quote, ten watches with dildo's in them.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
I'm sorry, I'm going to need you to run that.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
You say he made ten watches, Elizabeth, why would I
want to watch a bit of tin? But what was
the part of it?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Also, I'm going to let you thank the ages that
I'm not about to tell you a picture of it. Yes,
So okay, when we say dildo in the sixteen hundreds,
what we really mean is dildo exactly as we used
it to say. So, Kieran Kanliffe wrote for Headstuff in
a footnote on an article about William Chill owner quote.
(10:39):
Dildo's had been available in England since at least the
time of Shakespeare, but had increased in availability over the
previous decade, mostly in the form of Italian imports. A
popular ballad of the day, Signor Dildo, drew a link
between this and the arrival of Mary of Modina, the
Italian wife of King James the second. Can I read
(11:02):
to you from that popular ballad of the day.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Oh you got some lyrics of mister Dildo dravus? You
got it? Bar please hit me?
Speaker 1 (11:09):
So it begins, you ladies of Mary England who have
been to kiss the Duchess's hand, pray, did you not
lately observe in the show a noble Italian called Senior Dildo.
This signor was one of the Duchess's train and helped
to conduct her over the main But now she cries
out to the Duke, I will go I have no
(11:31):
more need for signor dildo. Where there's this verse. Yeah,
the good lady Suffolk, thinking no harm, had got this
poor stranger hid under her arm. Lady Betty, by chance
came the secret to know and from her own mother,
stole senior dildo from her own mother.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
Yes, do see proof positive my theory. We always been
the same taking a dilda from her mom.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
We've always been the same. What the he be freaky?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Have always been free.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
People always act like I can't believe you know, I
don't want to be like whatever they want to. These
formers like propriety right. People think like I know I
want to I don't want to have inappropriate this or
inappropriate that. I'm like, Look, I hate to tell you this.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Everyone always grass and gross and freaking.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Two things everybody is which is corny and freaky.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Let me give you another another verse. Doll Howard, no
longer with his highness, must range, and therefore is proffered
this civil exchange. Her teeth being rotten, she smells best
below and needs must be fitted for senior dildo. Honestly,
most of the other verses, and there are a lot
(12:42):
of them, are way too filthy for me. To read
to you. Yes all. Poetry dot Com gives this assessment,
quote Senior Dildo stands as a unique and controversial example
of restoration poetry, challenging contemporary norms of propriety and offering
a glimpse into the libertine culture of the English court.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Say it again for the row and back.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
So back to Williams.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Libertine times then and our problems now.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Was like, he's he's apparently making watches with dildo's in them.
I do not know how that works. And googling was
so unhelpful, like, don't google quote dildo watch.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I just want to know how big these are big watches.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Don't or watch dil don't don't just yeah, I tried
dildo time pieces as people because watch dildo dildo watch
was like boyl yeah no, I mean it's like I'm
host situation. So dildo time piece. I mean I did
(13:44):
find one a historical article, but it was no help.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
I want to see the FBI anyway.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
That's what he.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Was up What the heck?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Like, that's what okay, So that's why that's what he
was up to for a while in London.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Oh good for him. I meant he did well.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Yeah, and apparently it was a brisk business, I tell you.
But then he moved on to other scams. Really yeah,
that he could have retired as a tildo time piece crafter.
He got into the early snake oil biz and he
sold phony plague cures because you know, they're not going
to come after you and it doesn't work rip. And
(14:27):
then he got into fortune telling and like so he
and this associate would steal things from people and then
they would go to them and offer to use their
psychic powers to find the item for a cost. You know,
They're like, give us, like, however much money and I'm
sure we can, like, oh, we robbed my temples. I
think I know where it is. In sixteen ninety, that
(14:48):
game came to an end because like someone was on
to him and his pal with the theft thing, and
they went to the authorities. So William he had to
go into hiding, and exactly he he ditched his wife
and kids forever he never saw them again. And it's
not like he left the country or the city. He
(15:08):
was just like, I gotta go into hiding.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Cross the street.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
He's like, He's leave you in the dildo watch in
a farewell. So he hit out for a while and
then he crossed town. He sold us clothing for a while,
clothing and.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Then not like it like not like a store where
it's like nice, use clothing, this is like it's not warm.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, so maybe it was. At the same time he
did a mini apprenticeship under a guy named Patrick Coffee
who is a goldsmith. Okay, so now we're in sixteen
ninety one. Sure, what a year I remember it well?
Oh man, what with me being old because I remember
cassette tapes.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Oh and we just survived that second ice Age, that
little mini ice age. It's been rough.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
So like at this point William has ditched the vintage
tunic and stockings trade and gone all in on counterfeiting. Really,
this is a big move. It's it's one thing to
dupe people dying of the plague, but counterfeiting was something else.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Are still alive, right, But in.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Those days, counterfeiting was treason and they could get you
by the government.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Oh yeah, hang them high capital crimes against the crown.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
And that was for men, right, men would get hanged.
For women who were caught making fake coin, the punishment
was worse. They were burned at the stake, and like, well,
because they're women, the I guess, and the government they're
just like, you know, these foul women, let's just burn
them up, but let's do let's do it nicely. They
thought they would have this humane way to do it.
(16:33):
They would tie a rope around the woman's neck so
that they could like strangle her before she's fully engulfed
in flames. Oh god, because they thought that would be merciful.
But the problem is that the rope would burn up
before it totally choked them out. Did the Romans, they
suffered even more justice zaren, but that didn't deter William
hanging or making money, you know, willing to take the risk.
(16:55):
And like I said, it was just so easy. So
counterfeiters were still doing the thing where they clipped off
the rough edges of the existing coins, cobbled together metals
to make new janky looking coins. But change was afoot.
The government was just starting to introduce milled edges to coins.
And then there was also the market itself. These are
(17:17):
silver coins, and so the silver itself was starting to
have a greater value than the coin, especially over on
the continent, So it made illegal sense to melt down
the groats and then move the bullion to Europe a
little something called deflationary arbitageh So this became more prevalent,
(17:38):
so there were fewer coins in circulation. So William he
gets to work making dummy coins to circulate in England.
Let's hear some ads and let's think about what we've done,
and when we come back, we'll check in with William
and his coin business. Zaren.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
That's mister dildo.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Thank you, senior dildo. When we last spoke, William Chiller
was making I don't know, I can't ask this dildo
how to say it. He's melting down English coins and
he's either selling the raw metal in Europe or actually
(18:37):
minting European coins himself. I'm guessing with like substandard metal.
He was getting paid some.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Can like stamps to get the right press.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Well he would. He's a counterfeiter. You have fake ones,
and then what they'd do is they'd have these dyes
and then you'd have to like smash it with a hammer.
So he bought this fancy house in knights Bridge. I'm
wondering where the abandoned wife and kids are, but whatever,
he had this nice whip like this gilded out carriage,
wore all these slick outfits, and he had totally mastered
(19:06):
creating those dies for the coins, you know, those press models.
So historians, sir John, he's actually very good.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
The gold silversmith who trained him really got him rest.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
He's very very good at this. There's this historian, Sir
John Craig. He wrote in nineteen forty six that William
was quote the most accomplished counterfeiter in the Kingdom. So
nice an artist of dies that it galled him to
spoil their perfection by use break them over. Didn want
to break them. So in sixteen ninety two, one of
William's buddies was arrested and he squealed. William knew the
(19:40):
law would be on his doorstep soon, so he got
to work for two days straight. He minted coins because
he needed cash to be able to make a run
for it, and run he did. He headed up to
Scotland and he waited until his pal was hanged for
his offenses. Oh and I told you he had no integrity.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, you didnt tell me the one person coming at me.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
So well that's no state.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
So while in Scotland he came up with a new plan.
This was a couple of years after the Jacobite Rising
of sixteen. Yeah, so that's when you know, the Jacobites,
believing in the divine rights of kings and the Stuart
claimed to the throne, rebell They tried to put James
the Second aka James the Seventh back in power. He's
James the Second in England and Ireland, James the Seventh
(20:27):
in Scotland. In a larger sense, it was part of
the Nine Years War France versus the Grand Alliance. So
the Scottish Highlands hot bed of Jacobite activity and it
was while in Scotland that William saw an opportunity. It
was seen as seditious to support the Jacobites, which meant
it was illegal to spread the message, like say, printing
(20:49):
and distributing pamphlets.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Ah, yes, I've seen outlander.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
So William he starts paying printers to run Jacobite pamphlets
and that was in his true crime. He would then
report the printers and get a reward from the state.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
No, It's like basically entrapman.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Wow, so in trapper Oh ye, I'll do this for you, don't.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Worry one time, he pays these four Jacobite sympathizers to
print copies of James's declaration denouncing King William. Dudes show
up to deliver the pamphlets and they were like cops
there waiting.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
I got surprised for you.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
This was seditions. So they weren't in prison. They were
had and William he collects one thousand pound reward. It's
a huge amount. He had this guy, this protege named
Aubrey Price, and the two of them they came up
with another plan that would exploit the Jacobites. William and
Aubrey went to some government officials and they told him
(21:47):
they had a hot tip.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Did you have an exploiter named Aubrey in the story?
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Isn't that an incredible cursed name. So the JAT they like,
check it out. We have a hotline on this, a
hotline blank. The Jacobites are fixing to attack Dover Castle.
We have word and they tell the authorities look for
a fee, we'll go undercover and like report back. We
(22:12):
can foil the plot. I don't know what do you
guys have in mind? And the authorities are like, no,
get out of here. I don't think so Okay, this
is William. Okay, what about this. I have here a
list of Jacobite sympathizers. How about you hire me and
old Aubrey here to go investigate these fools. This, by
the way, was just a random made up list of names,
(22:35):
and they're like, okay, fine, you know what you're hired.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
That's a long list.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
That sounds great. So now William's getting paid to go
around to quote unquote investigate a fake list of enemies
of the state. So this gives him like some credibility.
He's not operating on the fringes anymore. He's part of
the machine, of course. But then it got a little dicey.
He and some bozone named Coppinger they wrote together this
Jacobite pamphlet to get all printed up, and they planned
(23:01):
to bust another printer and get the reward. When the
time came to go to the cops to bust the printers,
Coppinger tried to claim the full reward for himself.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Partner.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, but not for like the pamphlet thing. He rats
William out for his counterfeiting. But William had like established
himself he's almost a law man, right, so he's able
to talk his way out of the jam, and then
gets Coppinger pinched for writing the pamphlet and soliciting it
to be printed.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
So he actually flipped it back.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Coppingers hanged car, and William skates away. So he's just
leaving all these like you know, like co conspirators in
his wake. Back to legal Tender, I told you that
as people melted down the silver in the English groats
to sell in Europe, England starts running low on coins.
(23:52):
There just wasn't enough in circulation, and the Crown started
to notice this. As I said, it's during the Nine
Years War, William the Third needed cash and this is
starting to be a big problem everything. Yeah, and then
so like milling the edges of the coins, and this
is creating a before and after line. So there were
hand forged coins made before all the way up to
(24:15):
sixteen sixty two, and then after that it's machine minted ones,
like on a serious press. And the machine minted coins
had these milled edges to prevent the clipping. There was
even the text decus et Tutemann, the ornament and a
safeguard that was added around the coin rooms.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Okay, it's like the certificate of authenticity, but they.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Could still be melted down and like silver's worth more
in France and the Netherlands than as a coin in England.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
So flames don't care.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
And a lot of people proposed ways to address this issue,
and then William he chimes in, but he didn't do
so in his like trademark sleazy, underhanded negative way. He
didn't and he didn't really propose a solution. He had
a bunch of pamphlets printed up, like I'm surprised that
printers will still work with him. He accused, he does
(25:08):
know a paper guy. Okay, so he accused the Royal
Mint of incompetence, calls we don't have money, question as
you're messing it up. Then he said that there should
be this great recoinage, that is to say, old clip
coins collected melted down machine meant it.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
He has a person in mind to run and all the.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
New coins, he said, should have this like deeper impressions
that counterfeits can't counterfeiters can't mimic those lousy counterfeitters. What's
cracked down on them too, So he's in order to
crack down on them, he himself. He suggests a licensing
system for coiners tools, and remember, counterfeiting is an active treasons.
(25:49):
He's like, hello, killing these people, why is he going
so hard on counterfeitters? Calling for his own demise. He
wanted to rebrand himself as a coin expert, and as
you said, like he figured that way he'd get access
to the Royal Mint and fox.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
I'll take a stance, take a stamp, I'll take exactly.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
So the Earl of Monmouth, who just recently lost his
gig as Lord of the Treasury, totally on board. He's like,
this guy makes so much sense. I love it, mainly
because his successor, the Earl of Halifax, he wanted him
to look foolish because if they're like, oh, the mint
is competent, he loses his job as Lord of the
Earl of Halifax. Also heard William out politics was that
(26:33):
he like, he hears what William has to say, but
then he went and fixed the issues on his own.
He's like, that's a great idea. I'm just going to
do it.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
I'm an expert.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
Am I going to bring this clown into the operation.
Thanks for the suggestions, dude, who needs a you got?
William's like, okay, cool, cool, huh. Well, he tries another
tack paper money. So this is a new thing. The
Bank of England was printing one hundred pound bills on
specially pattern paper, and William, of course, he gets his
hands on some of this paper and prints his own bills.
(27:03):
You know, he knows printers, but he wasn't as good
at that as he was with like crude coins.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah, these are new counterfeit skills.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Yeah, and the phony bills get traced back to him
when the paper plug grasses him out. Oh, so he
gets picked up by authorities. But here's the thing. There
were no actual laws on the books about counterfeiting paper
money for the law. Too new for the law. So
they had to let him go. And they even let
him hang on to the cash that he laundered. Like
you know anyway, so.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
I liked it. He didn't have a paper guy, and
the paper guy tried to screw him.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
But then on top of it, he gets in he
makes another two hundred pounds a reward. Zaren remember his
old pal Aubrey Price.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
While in custody, William ratted him out for forging checks.
And see William had come up with a perfect way
to forge checks. He terrible, and he passed that technique
onto Aubrey and he needed a little juice with the authorities,
so he said he'd been told of a check. Counterfeitter
leads him to Aubrey's busted, eventually hanged, and William is
(28:03):
praised for his fraud busting, like, you are so good,
you are such a good citizen hacker. Yeah, so he
got accolades. But now people, people have their eyes on him,
i'd hope. So one very important person in particular the
Warden of the Mint, none other than Sir Isaac Newton,
Deep the applehead gravity him.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Newton.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
There was that great recoining that William came up with.
Charles Montague, Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, got
Newton the gig as Warden of the Mint. And at
this point the Mint is controlled by Parliament, not the Crown,
and Parliament wanted Newton. He was the one who was
going to oversee the whole process of this recoining. He
moved from Cambridge to London.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
To do just that. Really, they got him out of
Cambridge for this.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah, zaren my goodness, yes, I want you to picture it.
It's March of sixteen ninety six. I remember it like
it was yesterday. You are a worker at the Royal Mint,
located within the Tower of London. The mid buildings form
a narrow horseshoe shape around the three sides of the
(29:11):
tower that aren't along the Thames. It's a ramshackle place
and it's miserable. It's hot and dark. Your job is
to help turn a screw operated press that stamps the coins.
You are very restricted in being able to get in
and out of the place. This is a secure facility
and you have an important job. There's also a lot
of room for theft, which is why you've been totally
(29:32):
vetted and are watched like a hawk. You and another
man take turns pulling on a lever that turns round
and round, stamping out tuppets. Your dad worked here when
there were no machines. He was missing two fingers on
his left hand from accidentally leaving his hand too close
to the die as the hammer was slammed down by
his coworker. The wood of your press creaks. A horse
(29:54):
outside the windows snorts and winnies. You are stripped down
to what are basically your underthings, thin cotton shirt and
thin cotton long underwhere a man in the corner adds
coal to the furnace that melts down the precious metals.
You are sweaty, but you know it's an honest day's work.
You've been told the new big boss will be coming
by today. Look alive. They said. He's an important bloke.
(30:16):
You glance up and see a figure standing on the
wooden walkway above you. He's glorious. It's Isaac Newton. He's
not a sur yet, but you wouldn't be surprised if
he is one day. He's a famous scientist, you know
that much, A real genius, with long, wavy gray locks
down to his shoulders and a distinguished aquiline nose. He
looks down at the workroom. He's holding a sheaf of
(30:38):
paper and scribbles notes while talking to the foreman next
to him. You and your press partner take a break.
You lift the dyes and sweep the completed coins into
a bucket. The noise of the room settles a little,
and you listen in as Newton quizzes your boss. He
asks the foreman exactly how much coal the furnace burns
each day, how much ore can each melting pot hold?
(30:59):
And does that decrease over time. How long can these
men and these horses work before they're spent? How long
of a break do you give them? What's the output
each day? Where did you get those fabulous pants? Newton
scribbles on the answers on his paper, pausing occasionally to
scratch his chin, and thought, he looks down at you
in nods and thanks for your hard work. You nod
(31:19):
back and then return to the press. These shillings ain't
gonna mint themselves. Boys. So Newton visited the mint, got
all the data he needed, and then use that data
to calculate maximum efficiency for the operation. He figured out
how to best utilize the workforce both man and beast,
to get maximum work without overtaxing them, and he established
(31:42):
a peak working pace. So he analyzed the infrastructure, the building,
the workrooms. He also noted like improvements. But then he
saw it all through he came up. He just crunched numbers,
and before it looks so like here's the thing. Before
he came on board, the mint was like barely producing
fifteen thousand pounds a week in pretty unsafe environs. After
(32:03):
his overhaul, the place ran smoothly and put out more
than fifty thousand pounds a week.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
No problem, He's an efficiency expert. Henry Ford. Eat your
heart out.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Exactly, Isaac Newton, O g badass. Let's take a break.
Upon our return. I will tell you what happens when
you cross a virtuous genius like Isaac Newton with a
craven criminal like William chillowner.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
I love that apple attractor, Sir Isaac Newton.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Would you call me?
Speaker 1 (32:51):
I called you, Sir, Isaac, your new name Newton. I
love the figs, big fig fan. So perhaps the greatest
genius to ever live.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Definitely in the top three.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yeah. Please indulge me by allowing me to read his
epitaph from Westminster.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Please.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Here is buried Isaac Newton Knight, who, by a strength
of mind almost divine and mathematical principles, particularly his own,
explored the course and figures of the planets, the path
of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in
rays of light, and what no other scholar has previously
imagined the properties of the colors. Thus produced diligent, sagacious
(33:36):
and faithful in his expositions of nature, antiquity, and the
holy scriptures. He vindicated by his philosophy, the majesty of
God Mighty and Good, and expressed the simplicity of the
Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed
such and so great an ornament of the human race.
He was born twenty fifth December sixteen forty two and
(33:59):
died on twenty five March seventeen twenty six.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Dope.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Now, of course it's actually engraved in Latin. But you
don't want to hear me butcher that my butchering would
not surprise my college Latin proposals. But the way, anyway, Newton,
he's amazing.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
I forget how it goes, but I'm fairly certain that
it's like Galileo Newton and Stephen Hawking all have like
the same birthday or same death day or overlaps it.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
To them.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Either way, Newton, I'm telling you more than just an alchemist.
That guy, he was amazing.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Most people are like, oh, a little bit, kind of weird,
kind of quiet, stuck to himself. But what he did
with light and gravity, I'm telling.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Incredible, incredible. So there he is later in life, leading
the efforts of the Royal Mint to enter the modern age.
He done the job.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I bet he did the challenges.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Oh yeah, I'll except for one part. The warden was
responsible for both the capturing and prosecuting of counterfeitters.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Oh he was the UK Secret Service.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, that was not his jam.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
He's like, I'm not into this.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
He that part of the job was beneath him. I bet,
and I'm not going to argue with that. Isaac Newton
bounty hunter. So it was in March that he stopped
by the Mint to assess operations. A few months later,
throw a punch.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
No, I don't think so. I don't. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
I think he had soft hands, very.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Soft hands, like like fruit, so soft.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
We could bruise them. So end of July he catches
his first cases. Ward okay, a set of dies had
been stolen from the Mint, Sarah, did you steal this?
Speaker 3 (35:35):
No?
Speaker 2 (35:35):
I sold them. I didn't steal them.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Newton's told, like, you got to crack the case.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Really, you asked the science. You're so good with efficiency.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Can you ask the scientist to do something and the
means will be scientific? Totally? So he went to work
collecting data, nice number crunching. He went to Newgate Prison,
made an offer to the people on death row. You
tell me what you know, and I'll get you a
stay of execution.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
That's smart.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Then he goes under so it's efficient exactly. He's like, look,
I'm not going to mess around like you're dying soon,
so what do you know? Right, he goes undercover. He
puts on a bad boy costume.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Oh my goodness, like I'm undercover Newton.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Yeah, I'm imagining a costume that like the dude who
played Huck on Scandal war for like how he looked
before he joined.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Yeah, the super Afroeddy k Unbomber, Rip van Winkle.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Totally. Okay, that's how I imagine Sir Isaac Newton going around.
He goes around all these like dives and dens of inequity,
kidding where the criminals drink and corrouse, and he chats
up the crowd and gets more intel. Are you he
went undercover?
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Like mister like talking to people? Is out there having
to chat it up and like divy bars like so,
uh do you see the Ruggers game? So fellow bad person, yeah,
do you also like to throw the die?
Speaker 1 (36:56):
So he just adds all that to his data set, right,
He just like goes home, amazing, pulls out his excels.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
And then going on with the data.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah. In his quest. He also at one point he
interviewed William what Yeah, And William took the opportunity to
rail against the mint and he went on and on
about how incompetent everyone was.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Did he interviewed as a suspector as an.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Expert, as like an expert, and he's like, you know,
such a crappy operation over there. So it just like
rolls his eyes and ignores him. He's like, okay, William
child loser and so Newton like he gathers all this
intel and it starts paying off. It would eventually lead
him to William, just just not yet. So as he
put together the Stuart Restoration period version of a corkboard
(37:43):
with pins and red thread, he developed a picture of
this large counterfeiting operation and so he had names and
locations and the whatnot.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
He invents a camera we could put photos.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Like photo realistic draw and.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
See what he's done.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
He needed to conduct cross examinations of the suspects and
like serious interviews for these witnesses. So he goes out
and he becomes a justice of the peace. Are you
like he gets official? Wow, He's yeah, and in the
process he successfully prosecuted twenty eight criminals that were involved
in this ring Isaac Newton for the people, dude, I'm
(38:27):
telling you. Like so he's still he hadn't been able
to connect everything to the mastermind behind the operation, Like
who was that? Yeah, and like so what's William the
mastermind doing? He's just running his mouth.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
So he's not afraid of Newton. He's got to know
that he's on his case a little right kind of.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
But like, okay, no one listens to his rants about
incompetence at the Mint. So he starts saying that the
die theft was an inside job, and he said that
the chief engraver at the Mint had sold the missing
dies to a fellow by the name of mister Chandler. Okay,
it's like mister Chandler, you say, William William knew him.
He knew him well because he was him. That was
(39:08):
his alias.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
John Baron.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
He's totally went around sold it to John Baron. It's
totally legal, totally cool. In sixteen ninety seven, William goes
to the House of Commons, and not to the House
of Common the.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Rapper, but the House of Commons in Chicago.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
No, and he accuses the Mint of this inside job. Okay,
Like so he's not just like the Whisper campaign. He
elevates it. He goes right in there and this proof.
He brings one of the coins that he himself had minted,
but he doesn't say that I minted them. He's like,
you know it's that no good, mister Chandler.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
This is on the streets.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Mister Chandler keeps getting away. He's a handsome guy.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
By the way, charming man, beautiful.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Dancer brings out the coin, gasps ring out.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
I like to see him coming. I like to see
him going. I love the guy.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
They're like, this man has cracked the case that Newton
could not. William's like, look, I just need to get
into the mint and fix the dies. Like I'll make
the impressions deeper. That would fix everything. So the house
they go to Newton. They're like, you have to let
William access the mint. He'll get to the bottom.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Newton said, no, I just got this running.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Well.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
He was like, legally I can't, because he had taken
an oath to forbid outsiders from having access to the
tools in the mint. He's like, I'm good with my word.
I can't go back on an oath. He also said
that William's thing about making the impressions deeper was total bulk,
and like they're like, I don't know, it sounds like
it's pretty logical. He's like, hold up. He does a
demonstration for them, and it's obvious that Newton's.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Right, He's got more patients than they.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
So the House of Comments is like, okay, yeah, never mind,
as you were.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
Brilliant.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Frustrated William, he goes back to his old ways. He
tries to set up a counterfeiting operation in Surrey, and
that fell apart when everyone else got bus did. He
tried to fire up another Jacobite conspiracy and he took
that ruse to court. Newton had his number. He had
finally pieced everything together, and he determined it was William
(41:12):
that he needed to catch. Like he's at the top
of the pyramids, so he keeps his eye on William.
Newton had all the other pieces of the counterfeiting operation
in place, had arrested and convicted pretty much all the
other players in this except for William Parliament. Newton sees William,
like this is his chance. William, what is he doing
(41:35):
just swanning around Parliament. Who knows. So Newton has William
arrested for that Surrey counterfeiting operation Parliament, Yeah, and sent
to Newgate Prison. And the problem is that William still
had connections, so there were those in power who bought
his act and there were those who could be bought.
William had someone else pay off witnesses for him and
(41:57):
like telling him to scram up to Scotland, like run
up to Scotland. The charges are drop, Williams released. So
but William needs money because like all of his operations
are shut down, he had to spend a lot of
money getting out of the jam with So he goes
back to accusing the Royal Mint of Malfeasan's contents. So
(42:18):
then he goes back to Parliament and he's like launch
an investigation. He said that he'd been arrested and imprisoned
because he knew too much. They're trying to shut him up.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
Oh yeah, flips.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Newton gets called in front of Parliament and is made
to answer for these accusations.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Why are you deep state muses?
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Right? So they of course believe Newton and William's claims
are dismissed, but the whole affair only served to make
Newton white hot with rage. Like he's like me, now
he's just perpetually angry. So Newton, he's now on this
mission to destroy William Good He's like, that's it. He
goes out, he interviews every associate of Williams that he
(42:57):
could find, and they're all up against Syria charges. Don't
forget counterfeiting his treason. You can get hanged. The thing is,
that's why there were so few convictions, because juries didn't
want to take a life for something like that. So
like guilty verdicts were few and far between.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
They just let them languish.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Yeah, they just be like, well no, they just let
him off and just don't do it again.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
I was kind of like, oh, I didn't know he
was still in there.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
Yeah. No.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
So Newton he wasn't going for a high conviction rate
with these criminal associates. He wanted to gather an insane
amount of charges against William, just rack them all up
until a jury would have no choice but to convict.
So there was there had to be something in all
that he would have done that would come back as guilty.
You know, you don't just put before the one charge
(43:41):
and have that risk. Newton dedicated his life at this
point to the pursuit. He's determined to take him down.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
He set aside all math, all physics, everything, forget gravity.
He gets taken this guy down.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
One hundred and forty witness statements, he gathered troves of evidence,
and then he waited and he knew that William was
going to mess up. He's going to step out of line,
and that's when Newton's going to strike. In sixteen ninety eight,
William dun goofed. So he gets this new scheme going.
He's forging malt lottery tickets. So the malt lottery was
(44:15):
this like early English state lottery, and the benefits were
going to be paid out of excise duties on malt.
And the government like they came up with this because
the nine years of War was not going well. Coin
supplies dweling economic crisis for.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Our latest bad joys they had a lot.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Of which was a disaster. By the I'm sure it
wasn't whole other story. I mean, like the tickets, they
tried to use them as legal tender after the lotto.
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Anyway, so selling children for these tickets.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
So William he here's about the Malt lottery, and he
engraved a copper plate of tickets for it, and he
thought he'd get away with it and like hide the plates,
but he got busted coming from two different sides. So
another counterfeiter ratted him out to the office of Charles Talbot,
first Duke of Shrewsbury, Secretary of State. That's the same
guy that William had tried to blackmail the year before,
(45:07):
so he's especially excited to get At the same time,
a pawnbroker to whom William had sold a ticket got
busted with the faky and he.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Rats with it where I got it? Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
March third, sixteen ninety nine, William's case goes to trial.
Newton figured out a way to get a very specific judge,
assigned Judge Silathiel Lovel. What yeah s A L A
T H I E L Silathiel Lovel interesting a hanging
judge like known known to just like everyone's guilty, everyone's
(45:41):
hanging old fat Yeah, do mess with them. So I
told you Newton wants to die of course. Yeah, so
William rope too. Yeah. William thought the whole thing was
just about the lot of tickets, like no big deal,
and then Newton said, welcome to the show, son like
brings him in the court. He proceeds to bring out
(46:01):
witness after witness after witness to testify to crimes committed
by William. He brings out all these former associates, all
the ones that he's like has you know, they're basically
they're they're cooperating with the state.
Speaker 2 (46:14):
He brings out everybody but senior Dildo.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Well, then he brings out all these widows of guys
that William had double crossed and who'd been said to hang.
Oh yeah, and so they're like, all these women are
just lining up telling these.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
They got notes and everything, like I can give you
the documentation.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
William's freaking out right, he gets desperate. First he starts
acting like he's mentally ill and then mentally incompetent, like
just drooling. Then he says that absolutely everyone's lying, every
last one, right, and then his last move was just
to beg so he said if they found him guilty, please,
(46:52):
Well they're like, if you find me guilty, I'm going
to be sentenced to death. And that means you're basically
murdering me. So you're a murderer, now, can you live
with that.
Speaker 5 (47:00):
I save you.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
The judge and the jury shrugged and we're like, yeah,
I could be a murderer the rope. I can live
with that. So, after like no real deliberation at all,
william Is fund guilty. Was like yeah, I mean they
look over at all the widows and they're like all right.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Williams found guilty of high treason, sentenced to death by hanging.
Just a couple of weeks later, he's like awaiting his
fate and he's trying everything. He writes to Isaac Newton,
he said, quote, oh, dear sir, nobody can save me
but you. I shall be murdered unless you save me. Oh,
I hope God will move your heart with mercy and
pity to do this thing for me. Newton, the cold
(47:45):
blooded g that he has been forced to become through
this gig, didn't answer him.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
That's his move.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Yeah, William told anyone who would listen that he was framed.
So now he's going on that tack. They send a
priest out to read him his last He sends the
guy away like I wouldn't have wasted that chance, brother,
I would have had that chat. So he goes when
he goes to the gallows of Tyburn Tree in London.
He yells out to the crowd that he was about
(48:12):
to be quote murdered under pretense of law.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yeah, we all agree on that one.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
And he was yeah, and that that was curtains for him.
Speaker 4 (48:22):
So wait, the Tyburn Tree was an actual tree, like
that was their old hanging tree he turned into like
the place of justice, this wide branch tree being hanged
like three four at a.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Time, right, exactly, that's wild. So the Great Recoinage was
completed later that year, and with that and William out
of his way, Newton focused more of his time on science.
Seventeen oh four, he published Optics, foundational text on the
nature and behavior of light. He worked for the Mint
for the rest of his life.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
Whoa, because optics is it's probably my favorite thing he does.
And I was like, wait, I know that that happens
in seventeen.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Yeah, he wrote, he's a size Yeah, he's just all.
Speaker 4 (49:01):
That work asides. If he could deal with all this,
go be undercover Newton. And then he gets back He's like, okay,
now about the sun.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
I'm ready. Yeah, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2 (49:11):
I love Undercovered Newton.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
Oh, I want to see Newton in a bar trying
to turn to someone savory character back from the colonies.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Yeah, it's like, when was the last time you stabbed
a guy?
Speaker 2 (49:24):
I did like four hours ago. Nice cud piece, buddy,
So what's yours on Elizabeth?
Speaker 1 (49:29):
My ridiculous takeaway is that I, you know, just out
of principle, and it's my own personal philosophy. I'm not
a supporter of the death penalty, but I'm not sad.
It's terrible the number of people that he's set up
to be.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
If you think of that as murder, like knowing that
he knew that they were inno center that he was
not innocent, but that he was basically fingering them for
the guilt, then he basically, yeah, murked a bunch of people.
So yeah, he's not just a counterfeiter. He's a multiple figure.
Not serial murder. I don't want to say that, but
it was a multiple murder.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
I just when you when I start reading about him,
I'm like, oh, this is kind of funny, and then
you're just like, he's horrible. He's a horrible human being.
He doesn't deserve one. But Newton led a bad ass. Uh,
Daves after that, I think I need a talk back.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
Oh my god, did you do Seper?
Speaker 3 (50:26):
I love you. I'm behind on episodes, but I just
listened to the furry episode. Zaren. You can get a
tail also ears, but a tail that attaches to your
belt instead of other ways. I know this because I
have a fox ear and tail set that I got
(50:47):
from Etsy for Spirit Animal Night at Adult Summer Camp,
which is a whole other story, but it comes in
handy if you forget that, you have a costume party
to go to.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
Dude, I'm getting to tell Elizabeth, you're gonna look at me.
You're gonna laugh on a show up here to record.
I got the ears, I got my nose, my tail on,
got some furry slippers.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
No, you know, it's the summer of dark Elizabeth and
yet all, if you all, if you get your giggles
at it.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Show up here in a fur bikini. I'm gonna go
with a tale. You're right, how is that attached?
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Just don't come with a tin watch. That's it for today.
You can find us online at ridiculous crime dot com.
We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram.
You can email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com,
Leave It Talkback, most importantly on the iHeart app, which
is free to download reach Out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted
(51:48):
by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by
Mintmaster Dave Cousten, starring Annals Rutger as Judith. Research is
by Dildo watchdealers Marissa Brown and Andre Song Sharpened Tear.
The theme song is by Birmingham Nail Salon owner Thomas
Lee and costume Friendly Criminal Dive Bar proprietor Travis Dutton.
(52:08):
Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair
and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are
Malt Lottery Scapegoat Ben Bolan and Chancellor of the ex
Checkerboard Van's Noel Brown.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
Dis Crime Say It One More Times Cry.
Speaker 4 (52:34):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four More Podcasts.
My Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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