A spring-loaded fish hook? Sounds intriguing. For fishing, I assume? Wonder if there is a picture of the device on-line somewhere.

Here is a picture:
http://theclementslibrary.blogspot.de/20...n.html?m=1

Thank you Eva. I've never seen anything like it. It must not have worked to well- as I don't think they are in use today. Well, here's another item of information we have learned here at the Forum!

(08-10-2013, 12:20 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote: Thanks, but as Joe and I said, I cheated. Normally I refuse to Google trivia questions, that's no fun. But I was so curious this time, (especially since my previous answer was not at all right,) I just wanted to know it. Joe, seems you got up on the wrong side of the bed today....maybe this helps a little:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R-OoIvgtuzs...-OoIvgtuzs

It makes it worse, Eva, but thanks anyway. I lost my last trivia question by throwing out a GWTW hint! I should have known better. I'd bet the She Rebels know every line of that movie by heart.

While Joe is pouting (with a smirk on his face), I want to assure those of you who don't already know it that he and I are very good friends! In fact, this old lady is an only child and never had any brothers to "protect" her. Thanks to our mutual love of the history of this era, I now have four brothers who take up for me - while teasing me unmercifully too: Joe, Roger, Rick, and Bill.

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I forgot to add something about the trivia question. When I went to the link that Joe posted, I found it amazing that the root word of "sockdologizing" might actually be traced back to the "doxology." I was a church organist in the Episcopal faith for nearly thirty years, and I played the Doxology every Sunday as the weekly offering was presented to the priest. Others of you might know it as the hymn, Old One Hundredth, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow..."

I'm going to sound terrible here, but when I saw that, I immediately envisioned someone being socked in the jaw and the attacker enjoying every minute of it and singing "Praise God from whom..."!

Amen!

(08-10-2013, 09:06 AM)LincolnMan Wrote: It must not have worked to well- as I don't think they are in use today.

Today I was at a flea market and there was a man who sold lots of fish hooks. I asked him about the Yankee Doodle.
These hooks are still traditionally used in Scandinavia, Poland and Russia to catch pike and other carnivore fish, here they are called "pike trap".
Bill, they do work well, but they are prohibited by law in Germany and many other countries because the caught fish often die cruelly from severe injuries and bait fish have to be spiked in a very bloody manner. Some people here collect such historic fish hooks.

   

   

Eva: great info! I've fished all my life and have never heard of it.

What person associated with the various assassination attempts on President Lincoln was elected Governor of Kentucky by a landslide in 1879?

Could it be Luke Blackburn, the doctor who was thought to have concocted a plot to start a yellow fever epidemic in the North during the war?

You are quite right, Roger. Many remember him only as the "evil" doctor who wanted to do in Mr. Lincoln. Luke Blackburn did a great deal of humanitarian work prior to the war based on the study of yellow fever. BTW, he was not as successful in the field of politics once he was elected (sound familiar??).

This person was in Ford's Theatre when President Lincoln was shot. Who is he?

William Ferguson ?

Good job, Betty! That's correct. Here's the image that I believe is most often used in books:

Thanks, Roger! I'd seen that older photo of him before. He "starred" in a silent film about the assassination later. I think it was made about 1915, in the film he played himself. The print unfortunately has been lost - would LOVE to see that!