From: twcaps@tennyson.lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Thomas Crapper and Spread Spectrum
Date: 31 Aug 1992 06:28:14 GMT
Organization: Department of Redundancy Department
Reply-To: TWChan@lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.12.117

rocher@husc8.harvard.edu (Jean-Marc Rocher) writes:
  +
  +>I believe this started with the book "Flushed with Pride: The Life of Thomas
  +> Crapper", by the same person who wrote "Bust Up: The Life of Otto Titzling"
  +>(The supposed inventor of the bra). I also believe that Cecil Adams wrote 
  +>that these two books were full of it. 
  
mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin) writes:

  +It's more complicated than that, apparently; I believe that some hint of
  +the story is in the FAQ.  "Flushed with Pride" was a hoax, but Crapper was
  +a real person who did manufacture toilets.

Yep, and it's even more complicated than that.  But anyways Cecil does
note that the Titzling one was bogus, but really doesn't address the
issue of the Crapper one one way or the other (other than to relay
that many thought the Crapper book was bogus since the Titzling one
obviously was).

Adams cites Ken Grabowski, a researcher at the Field Museum of Natural
History (Chicago, IL) who found that Crapper (1836-1910) was indeed
a sanitary engineer who started a plumbing company in 1861.  While he 
did not actually invent the flush toilet, he did make certain 
improvements to its design. 

This is supported by field research by our own Jack Campin (who is
seen much too infrequently these days) who visited the Gladstone
(or was it Disraeli?  Oh, never mind) Pottery Museum in Stoke-on-Kent,
England and viewed a number of items relating to Crapper and his
firm.  Jack also notes that what Crapper did invent was the modern
valve flushing mechanism.

I will finally note that this story gets confused by people because
Martin Garder wrote a joke column in the April 1, 1975 _Scientific 
American_, which supported the Crapper story with the Reyburn book as
a reference.  In the July 1975 issue, he says that the entire story
was true EXCEPT for the reference to Crapper and backs up his case
by saying:

  1.  _The Slang Dictionary_ (London:   Chatto and Windus, Rev. 1873),
      on "Crap and Crapping Case", and

  2.  The book on Titzling which was a known hoax.

Apparently, Gardner concluded that since the Titzling book was a hoax
the Crapper book was also a hoax.  (I never understood the reference 
to the _Slang Dictionary_ although I presume it had something to do 
with the fact that it does not note that Crapper was the origin of 
the words "crap" and "crapper case" as many people had seemed to think 
in the wake of the Reyburn book.)

However, the later research by Adams/Grabowski, Jack, and the comments
by Gardner lead to me write the FAQ entries as they are.  One of these 
days, I'll send this stuff over to the FTP site.

BTW, in addition to Jack's post of February 1992, I also relied on an 
article posted by Richard M. Matthews for Gardner's comments.  The 
latter post was a response to Jack's post. 

Terry "Ahhhhh, relief!" Chan
--
Internet:  TWChan@lbl.gov                  This is illegal, but I know jujitsu
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory                         so I don't care.
Berkeley, California  USA  94720                      
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban