Child murderIrish most foul...
QUESTION
Who was sweet Fanny Adams?
FANNY ADAMS was an eightyear-old girl who lived in the bucolic town of Alton, near Winchester, in England.
On August 24, 1867, after a liquid lunch, 29-year-old Frederick Baker, a solicitor’s clerk, wandered into Flood Meadow near the hop fields by the River Wey. There he came across Fanny, her sister Lizzie, seven, and their friend Minnie Warner, eight, who were playing together.
Baker offered Minnie three halfpennies to take herself and Lizzie somewhere else to play. Fanny was offered a half-penny to go with Baker to The Hollow, which led to the village of Shalden.
Minnie and Lizzie played together until about 5pm when the alarm was raised over missing Fanny and a search party organised. What they found was gruesome: Fanny’s decapitated head mounted on a hop pole, her eyes gouged out and one ear cut off. Her torso was found with the heart removed and arms cut off.
An inquest in The Duke’s Head Inn heard evidence and Fanny’s remains were viewed. All Baker could say was ‘I am innocent’, but his blood-spattered shirt told otherwise.
One of the most shocking pieces of evidence was Baker’s diary entry: ‘Killed a young girl, it was fine and hot.’ Baker was tried, found guilty and hanged at Winchester on Christmas Eve 1867.
To add insult to injury, in 1869 tins of mutton were introduced into the Royal Navy food rations. As sailors struggled to identify the contents, they declared they must be the butchered remains of Sweet Fanny Adams. This term persisted in the Navy, and by World War II had become a common expletive.
Peter Finch, London SE13.
QUESTION
Did the Americans land a Hercules aircraft on a moving aircraft carrier?
ON OCTOBER 30, 1963, the U.S. Navy made history when a Marine KC-130 Hercules landed on board the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. The captain of the aircraft was Lt James H. Flatley III and he was accompanied by Lt Cdr ‘Smokey’ Stovall and machinist’s mate (jet) 1st Class Ed Brennan.
The basic C-130 was a capable, long-range, freight-carrying platform, so the purpose of the trial was to determine whether it was capable of operating as a COD — carrier onboard delivery — aircraft to deliver to ships at sea.
The Navy hadn’t been able to find C-130 pilots willing to carry out the risky test, so they chose two fighter pilots. They had one four-hour familiarisation flight with a Lockheed test pilot before carrying out 100 test landings at Patuxent River, Maryland.
The landings on the Forrestal were conducted 500 nautical miles out in the Atlantic. With a load of 25,000 lb, the aircraft required only 295 ft to land and 745 ft to take off, which was within the parameters of the Forrestal’s flight deck.
The forward motion of the ship produced a head wind that helped to add extra lift on take-off.
On October 30, the crew carried out 29 ‘touch-and-go’ landings and take-offs, which were repeated on November 8, 21 and 22. They also carried out 21 ‘full-stop’ landings without the aid of the normal arrester gear, followed by take-offs from a standing start without a catapult. The U.S. Navy concluded that though the C-130 could deliver 25,000 lb of cargo at a range of 2,500 miles to a carrier, it was far too risky.
The aircraft couldn’t fit onto the ship’s elevators or the hanger deck, which would impede other operations. There was also the risk the aircraft could slide off the deck in bad weather.
The C-130 set the record for the largest aircraft to land on a carrier, which remains unbroken.
Bob Dillon, Edinburgh.
QUESTION
What does short selling a stock or share mean?
SHORT selling can be traced back to antiquity, when traders negotiated contracts for grain and other commodities before they were harvested. Short selling is a bet against a stock or company. When you buy a stock, you expect the price to go up — going long. When you short a stock, you expect the price to go down — going short.
Today, traders borrow a stock from their broker without owning it, expecting its price will fall so they can buy it at a lower cost to make a profit. For example, if an investor believes Stock A is overvalued at €100, he might contact his broker and say he wants to go short on 100 shares. The broker will loan the client 100 shares of Stock A, then sell them on the open market and reserve the money.
A week later, Stock A’s price falls to €70 per share. The investor decides to close the short position. He must then buy 100 shares of Stock A from the open market and return those shares to the broker: this is a known as a buyto-cover order.
In this scenario, the investor makes a profit of €30 per share, a total of €3,000, minus commission and interest.
Short selling is inherently risky. Going long on stock means the investor can only lose their initial investment. If an investor shorts a stock, there is no limit to the amount they can lose.
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