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Saturday, September 17, 2016

TEMPEST IN A TEA POT

I am tempted to call his life a tempest in a tea pot. It was a “Tempest” worthy of William Shakespeare only because Albert Bacon Fall (above) was a scoundrel of operatic proportions, a self made legal sorcerer and a bombastic, selfish, fearless and vulgar cowboy Caliban. His villainous reputation was established by a mysterious double murder in the New Mexico desert. But the climax was staged on 9,480 rolling Wyoming acres along Salt Creek and adjacent to a subterranean anticline dome near an odd looking 75 foot tall sandstone butte (below). Some thought the butte resembled a tea pot, which gave its name to the scandal that finally brought our reprobate down. But the true scandal was Albert Fall's entire career.
You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse.”
Caliban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act I, Scene 2
Near the low crest of Chalk Hill (above) the search party found a patch of blood soaked sand and some papers belonging to 57 year old Republican lawyer Albert.J. Fountain. A hundred yards further on, Mescalero Apache scouts found where a man had knelt in ambush, the casings ejected from his rifle, still in the dust. The buggy tracks led eastward 12 miles into the Jarillas Mountains (above, bg), where the search party found Fountain's carriage “plundered and abandoned.” Still in the buggy was a note reading, “If you drop this we will be your friends. If you go on with it you will never reach home alive.” And stuffed under the seat was a kerchief wrapped around some change, belonging to 8 year old Henry Fountain. Neither the father's nor the son's body was ever found.
The clouds methought would open and show riches, Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.”
Caloban - Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act III, Scene 2
When he was accused of masterminding the 1896 Fountain double homicide, Albert Fall said it was just Republicans trying to “crucify innocent Democrats”. The criminal indictments Fountain had just secured against 23 clients and friends of Albert Fall were likewise dismissed as political. In a courthouse jammed with the alleged killer's allies, threatened and intimidated witnesses simply failed to show up. But Albert Fall still managed to be arrogant and offensive in his one sided victory. The Democrats were all found not guilty. And then, two years later, Albert Fall switched parties and became a Republican. And all his friends found it profitable to go with him.
I'll show thee every fertile inch o' th' island; And I will kiss thy foot: I prithee, be my god.”
Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act II, Scene 2
After having fought statehood for years as a Democrat, in 1912  when statehood came, newly minted Republican Albert Fall became one of New Mexico's first elected U.S. Senators.  In Washington, D.C.,  Albert became famous for two things - his alcohol fueled poker parties with Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding, and his unrelenting animosity toward Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. When Wilson suffered a stroke in 1919, Albert alleged he had been rendered mentally incompetent. At their October examination, Senator Fall hypocritically assured the bedridden Wilson, “I have been praying for you, Sir.” Looking up at his torturer, Wilson inquired, “Which way, Senator?” Albert joined in the laughter, but in November of 1920 it was Senator Fall's drinking buddy, Republican Warren G. Harding who was elected President over Wilson.
Ban, 'Ban, Cacaliban, Has a new master: get a new man. Freedom, hey-day! hey-day, freedom!”
Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act II, Scene 2
Harding wanted Albert Fall to be his Secretary of State, but party leaders insisted on someone more trustworthy. Said Harding, “If Albert Fall isn't an honest man, I'm not fit to be President of the United States.” When the party leaders refused to back down Harding named Albert his Secretary of the Department of the Interior, a branch of government Albert had been denouncing for decades. Almost the first thing after taking the oath in the spring of 1921 (above), Secretary Fall cajoled Harding into giving Interior control over the U.S. Naval Oil Reserves in California and Wyoming. Fall then quickly granted a no-bid lease for the two reserves in California to oilman Edward Doheny, and in December Albert did the same for oilman Harry Ford Sinclair, granting him sole access to the Tea Pot Dome field, also known as Naval Reserve Number Three.
Do that good mischief which may make this island Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban, For aye thy foot-licker.”
Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act IV, Scene 1
In the spring of 1922, the railroad town of Casper, Wyoming, 35 miles south of the dome, was abuzz with rumors of equipment bearing the name Mammoth Oil Company which had suddenly invaded the naval reserve. Competitors like New Yorker James Darden quickly pierced that deception, and certain the lease granted to Sinclair was not legal, Colonel Darden decided to become Sinclair's unofficial partner by drilling his own well sideways, into the same dome. As Fall himself explained, “Sir, if you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and my straw reaches across the room, I’ll end up drinking your milkshake."
I will have none on't: we shall lose our time, And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes With foreheads villanous low.”
Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act IV Scene 1
The problem for Secretary Fall was the “low down son-of-a-bitch” Darden “was an old friend of President Harding. So on a Saturday afternoon, while the Secretary of the Navy was out of the office, Fall told the the Acting Secretary that Harding wanted “squatters” thrown off the dome. Fall added there was ample legal precedent for using U.S. Marines for this duty. There was none, but Fall never showed reluctance in lying to make a profit. Within the week Captain George K. Shuler and four enlisted marines were slapping “No Trespassing” signs and padlocks on Colonel Darden's well. And because this was done in front of reporters, Albert Fall had finally taken one step too far.
I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster. A most scurvy monster! I could find in my heart to beat him
Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act II Scene 2
Long annoyed by Fall's arrogance, the Senate majority Republicans allowed a Democrat from Montana, Senator Thomas Walsh (below), to investigate the oil leases. And when Walsh issued his first subpoena for documents, Fall responded by burying Walsh in a literal truck load of paper. It slowed Walsh, but Darden's complaints finally caused Harding to separate himself from his old drinking buddy. In March of 1923, Albert Fall was forced to resign from the cabinet, first going to work for Harry Sinclair and then returning to his own 750,000 acre southern New Mexico ranch, "Three Rivers".  And then, in August of 1923, President Harding dropped dead of a heart attack. The new President, Calvin Coolidge, decided to treat Albert (below) as the fall guy, sacrificing him to the growing public outcry over fraud in the Harding administration.
How does thy honor? Let me lick thy shoe.”
Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act III Scene 2
The truck load of documents supplied to Senator Walsh provided enough heat to keep the scandal simmering for two years. Called before the committee three times Albert swore under oath - once in writing - that he had done nothing illegal. But late in 1925 questions began to be asked about the number of improvements to Fall's Three Rivers ranch. When put under oath Albert's own son-in-law, M.T. Everhard, was forced to admit he had accepted $198,000 in federal bonds from Harry Sinclair's own hand, and delivered them to Secretary Fall's own hand. There was also a no interest “loan” of $36,000 from Sinclair, and one of $100,000 in cash from Edward Doheny, the little black bag delivered to "Three Rivers Ranch"  by Edward Doheny's son Ned, and his friend and body guard Hugh Plunket. In 1927 the Supreme Court ruled the leases on all three naval oil reserves were invalid, and control went back to the U.S. Navy.
Having first seiz'd his books; or with a log, Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake, Or cut his wezand with thy knife. Remember, First to possess his books; for without them He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not One spirit to command: they all do hate him, As rootedly as I — burn but his books.”
Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act III, Scene 2
When the federal case went to trial in Los Angeles in 1930. humorist Will Rodgers cracked that Doney's defense team took up three full Pullman railroad cars. The first car was “Just for the little lawyers...to carry the brief cases.” In the third car, said Rodgers, were “the big ones that were in real touch with Mr. Doheny.”  Harry Sinclair's defense team in his Cheyenne, Wyoming trial, took up at least four Pullman cars, according to Rodgers.
Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou: I would my valiant monster would destroy thee: I do not lie.
Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act III Scene 2
Edward Doheny paid a high price for his involvement with Albert Fall. In 1929, under pressure by prosecutors for one of them to turn on their fellow conspirators, Ned Doheny and Hugh Plunket died in what appeared to be a murder/suicide. The next year, Edward was not only found not guilty of bribery, but the jury broke into song after rendering their decision. But the old oil man did not have the heart to celebrate. One disgusted U.S. Senator was prompted to observe, “It is impossible to convict a million dollars in the United States“   Edward Doheny served just 3 months for contempt of Congress, but never recovered from the death of his only son. He died in September of 1935, still one of the richest men in Southern California. The mansion built for the young Doheny and where the murder/suicide occurred, still stands empty in Beverly Hills, often used for filming movies. 
I'll not serve him, he is not valiant.”
Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act III Scene 2
In Wyoming, Harry Sinclair (above) received a mistrial after it was discovered his private detectives had been shadowing members of the jury. He was never retried for the bribery, but he was sentenced to six months for contempt, which he served in the District of Columbia city jail. He also died one of the richest men in Southern California, in January of 1949
What a thrice-double ass Was I, to take this drunkard for a god And worship this dull fool!”
Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act V Scene 1
Albert Bacon Fall was the only member of an administration awash in bribes, arrogant enough and clumsy enough to be convicted of accepting a bribe. He remains the only cabinet member in American History sentenced to prison for crimes committed while in office. He served nine months. When he was released in May of 1932 (above), Doheny repossessed Fall's beloved Three Rivers ranch for not repaying the bribe, for which Doheny had been found “not guilty” of paying him. Fall died a broke, sick old man, at the end of November, 1944, arguing to the last that his conviction was just political payback. I doubt that Albert and Henry Fountain, still lying alone somewhere out there in the New Mexico desert, would agree.
Flout 'em and scout 'em, And scout 'em and flout 'em, Thought is free.”
Caloban - Shakespeare's “The Tempest” Act V Scene 1
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Friday, September 16, 2016

YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE


I can't prove who the two fishermen pulled out of the high tide off tiny Pilsey Island (above) on 9 June, 1957.  When they hefted the corpse into the boat, the head fell off and was lost in the mud flats. The hands were already gone, whether by accident or design.  Margaret Player, could not identify what was left as her ex husband Commander Lionel “Buster” Crabb,  and neither could his current girlfriend, Patricia Rose. At the inquest a diving partner, William McLanachan, identified a scar on the left knee as Lionel’s, but later recanted.
DNA technology was still a half century in the future, but still...The diving suit matched the two piece type Lionel had been wearing. The stature of the corpse matched his. The body hair matched. The clothing Lionel had been wearing under the suit, matched the clothes on the corpse. Even the “hammer toes” of the corpse matched photographs of Lionel Crabb’s feet. The coroner ruled that it was Lionel Crabb and that he had been dead for several days.  And the mystery should have ended right there, in the tidal flats of Chichester Harbor, 17 miles to the east of Plymouth. But what if the man claimed to be the inspiration for the fictional hero James Bond, had pulled off yet another misdirection and double cross, all in the name of queen and country?  Lionel Crabb didn’t look like the movie version of James Bond, but his personality was a dead ringer for the Bond from the books. He hated to exercise. He was a chain smoker, and an aficionado of “boilermakers” (whisky with a beer chaser). He distrusted academics and experts (he would have shot Q long ago). And Lionel couldn’t swim three lengths of a swimming pool without collapsing out of breath. Still, a friend described him as having, “…a singular ability to endure discomfort…His lack of fear was unquestioned….(a) curmudgeonly but kindly bantam cock,…a most pleasant and lively individual. (However) His penchant for alcohol remained undiminished.”Lionel Crabb started his adventures as a Merchant seaman. And when World War Two began he was already thirty years old, and thanks to his consumption of alcohol. already past his physical prime. He joined the Royal Navy in 1940 and eventually ended up as a bomb safety officer based on Gibraltar, a job requiring calm dedication to detail and not for a dare devil. But that is where the legend of Commander “Buster” Crabb really begins.
Across the straights from Gibraltar, in Algeria, was a force of Italian divers who were skillfully planting limpet mines on British transports and warships in the anchorage of Gibraltar Harbor (above). Lionel became part of the team assigned to protect those ships.
He learned to dive in the war zone, wearing the bulky “Sladen Suits” (above), often referred to as “Clammy Death.".  On his missions, Lionel was using the ancestor of the aqualung, "re-breathers" invented by the American, Dr. Lambersten. The British team didn’t even have swim fins, until two Italian divers where machine gunned by a sentry one night and Lionel retrieved the fins and used them,  out of curiosity.Working often in the black of night,  Lionel slipped beneath the oily water of Gilbrater's harbor, to inspect a warship's hull for any sign of explosives, and if discovered to carefully remove them, bringing them to the surface and disarming them, which was the only part of the job he had actually been trained for.
For his work Lionel was awarded the St. George Medal in 1944. By that time he was commanding the entire unit. Lionel was a pioneer in the field, even teaching himself to disarm the new German magnetic mines. In August of 1945 he was assigned to disarm mines placed by Zionists terrorists on shipping in the port of Haifa. He received another medal for his role in disarming mines and explosives in Europe left over from World War II.
And in 1949 Lionel managed to produce underwater photographs of a British cruiser’s spinning propellers while the big ship plowed through the sea within feet of him. He explored a British submarine lost in the Thames estuary (above), and helped build the outflow system for a top secret nuclear weapons factory. Lionel had become the “go-to guy” on anything involving underwater espionage, and was famous for it, not because he was a genius at it but because he was the only person doing it. Lionel was retired from active service in 1953,  but remained in the reserves. And in October of 1955, when the new Soviet cruiser Sverdlov paid a “good will” visited to Portsmouth, Lionel and a friend, Sydney Knowles, made nighttime dives, examining and measuring the hull, in an attempt to explain the ship’s powerful maneuvering abilities. So both men seemed obvious picks to repeat that dive in April of 1956 when the Soviet Cruiser Ordzhonikidze (above) paid call to Portsmouth, while carrying, Premier Nikolai Bulganin and Communist Party Leader, Nikita Khrushchev on a state visit.Their dive might never have become public knowledge except,  after the visit of the  Ordzhonikidze  the Soviets filed an official protest, claiming a British diver was seen close to the Soviet cruiser on April 19th. Lionel’s war record had made him the most famous diver in Britain, and the day after the Soviet protest was filed, a reporter spotted Lionel's name in the register of the Sally Port hotel in Old Portsmouth (above). for the date of 18 April  The day after his name was spotted, other reporters returned to find that page had been ripped out of the book,  and was now missing. . The British navy eventually claimed that Lionel had been testing new diving equipment in the Solent,  to the West of Portsmouth, when he had disappeared and was presumed to have drowned. But that story seemed so absurd it just produced even more speculation.
It is speculated that the new British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden (above),  had hopes of reaching a rapprochement with the Soviet leadership, and had forbidden Lionel from making this second dive inside Portsmouth harbor. But press reports claimed  the CIA had encouraged Lionel to make the attempt even without official British endorsement. What we do know as fact, is that after press speculation about Lionel's death,  Anthony Eden issued a public statement on 14 May saying   “It would not be in the public interest to disclose the circumstances in which Commander Crabb is presumed to have met his death. I think it necessary, in the special circumstances of this case, to make it clear that what was done,  was done without the authority or the knowledge of Her Majesty’s Ministers. Appropriate disciplinary steps are being taken.” Shortly thereafter the head of MI6, Britain's intelligence agency, was relieved.
But from this point the stories and myths only multiply. In 2007 Eduard Koltsov claimed he had been a Soviet diver aboard the Cruiser Ordzhonikidze when, while on underwater patrol under the Soviet Ship in Portsmouth harbor, he spotted Lionel fixing a mine,  and had cut the spy's throat. Lionel’s fiance claimed in 1974 that he had defected and was still alive, training Soviet frogmen in the Black Sea. Another version says Lionel suffered a heart attack while inspecting the Ordzhonikidze, had been rescued by Soviet divers,  but had later died from his injuries, perhaps under torture, and that the Soviets had dumped his body overboard after leaving the English port.What we now know for certain is that on 17 April, 1956, as the cold war was still heating up,  Lionel and another unknown man checked into the Sally Port Hotel, in Portsmouth. On the evening of the 18th, Lionel entered the water from The King’s Stairs Jetty (above), about 80 yards from where the Soviet warship was berthed. Lionel returned to the surface just 20 minutes later, having gotten confused in the dark among the pier’s pilings. The decision was made to try again in daylight.
Lionel returned to the jetty just after 7 a.m on April 18th, and re-entered the waters of Portsmouth harbor (above). He came back up just 20 minutes later complaining of a problem with his re-breathing equipment. Repairs were made, and within a few minutes Lionel went down again for yet another try.
But this time he did not resurface, at least not until fourteen months later when his body was supposedly pulled from the shallow tidal inlet some seventeen miles further west down the coast. But was that really the body of Commander Lionel Crabb, or an other unknown man? We still don’t know for certain, and won’t until at least 2057, when the British government has promised to tell all they know.
Of course they had originally promised to do that in 1987, but then they changed their minds. They could do that again, too.  As they say, You Only Live Twice. 
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Thursday, September 15, 2016

THE BOY JONES

I begin this tale by reminding you of the central thesis of all of my columns, including this one, which is that biologically we humans have a limited number of emotional responses to stimuli, so we tend to repeat ourselves. As that repetitive plotter Antonio puts it in The Tempest, “What's past is prologue”, which he says while plotting yet another assignation. Not that he wants to be king - Antonio is no Richard the Third. He just can't stop himself from plotting. To bring the play to a close, Shakespeare is even forced to induce magic to convert Antonio to pacifism, but that is a dramatist's trick. The reality is not that people never change, it is that PEOPLE never change, from Jack the Ripper to Boy George to Mahatma Gandhi to Genghis Khan to Richard Nixon, history is not a trail of regrets, it is a Mobius strip of regrets. To drive home that point, consider that is nothing new in the story about a lad being arrested with Queen Victoria's undies stuffed down his pant. But it is at least entertaining to read about it.
Early on the morning of 20 June, 1837 Alexandria Victoria made a typically teenager's entry into her diary; “I was awoke at 6 o'clock by Mamma....I am Queen.” Except in her case it was real. 
And thus the diminutive monarch was set upon a collision course with an equally abbreviated young lad, who first made his appearance into the world on 14 December, 1838, when his soot blackened face suddenly appeared at the glass door entrance to The Marble Hall in Buckingham Palace...from the inside. No strangers were supposed to be in the palace at that hour. The night porter, Mr, William Cox, was startled by the apparition, and called for assistance. A chase began in the Marble Hall and was concluded outside on the Palace lawn, when the intruder was captured near St. James Street by Constable James Stone. The stubby scoundrel was carrying a sword, linen and a letter written to Queen Victoria, among other items purloined from the Palace. Oh, and he also had several pairs of her majesty's bloomers stuffed down the front of his trousers.
That afternoon the frightful looking young man (everyone agreed he had a very large head and ugly features) was arraigned in the Queen's Square Police Court, where he gave his name as Edward Cotton. He claimed that a year earlier, while living in Hertfordshire, he had met a man who induced him to travel to London and sneak into the Palace.  He claimed that the unnamed man had long since departed, but that he had been living in the palace for the past year, dressed as a chimney sweep to allay suspicions if he were spotted during the day. 
During the evenings he sat upon the Queen's throne, and examined the books and paintings in her library. He slept in closets and empty rooms each night, and found what food he could in the kitchen after hours. He often, he claimed, hid behind the furniture and overheard the Queen and her ministers discussing matters of state.
At his next appearance in court, at his trial, our hero was confronted with the truth. His name was actually Edward Jones - the London press began referring to him as “Boy Jones - and he was just 14 years old. He lived in a one room apartment on York Street in the Westminster section of London, which he shared with his poverty stricken father, a tailor, and his five siblings. The boy had a
 "mischievous and restless disposition”, explained the father, and would often disappear for days with no explanation when he returned. He rarely bathed, and spent his time reading and rereading scrap papers he bought for a penny. In desperation his father had sent Edward to work for a builder. His employer explained that Edward was fascinated with the Queen and often spoke of her, always respectfully. 
Edward had entered the Palace, it developed, by coating himself with bear grease and squeezing through a crack in a marble arch by the Palace's front door. And he had been in the palace not for a year, but just for that night. He had first attempted to escape via a chimney, which is how he came to be covered in soot. With the puncturing of his inventions, and with the help of his lawyer Mr. Pendergast, the jury saw Edward as a pitiable character who had no malicious intent. He was found not guilty of trespass and released without bond.  The officials hoped that since the boy had been chastised and would be kept under a close watch, he would stay away from the Queen and the Palace. But as David Letterman could explain, chastisement is not enough to disparage a determined stalker.
During this same time Queen Victoria was busy as well. On 10 February, 1840 she was married to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and within a few months she was pregnant. On 21 November,  1840 , Victoria gave birth to a daughter. The nation celebrated and cheered, but Victoria thought all infants were ugly and that breast feeding was barbaric. 
Thus the Palace was crowded with more than the usual number of servants eleven days later, when, just after one in the morning on Thursday 2 December 1840,  a night nurse named Mrs. Lilly caring for the new princess Victoria, heard a noise coming from the Queen's dressing room. She called other servants and the room was searched. Under the sofa, upon which Victoria had been sitting just two hours earlier, was discovered the grinning horrible edifice of Edward Jones. What might have been cute in a 14 year old was now just creepy in a 17 year old.  
He was described by the author Charles Dickens who interviewed him as “ of a most repulsive appearance; but he was unconscious of this defect as he affected an air of great consequence”. Boy Jones never actually got to meet the Queen, which was good because the young majesty confided to her diary the next day, “But supposing he had come into the Bedroom, how frightened I should have been.” Quite.
This time it was decided to avoid the courts and the publicity. Edward was tried in secret by the Privy Council. Here he claimed that he had actually entered the Palace on Monday 30 November,  by scaling a wall to reach an opened window. But because of the large number of people about he had left again, unseen. But he had come back the following night, 1 December,  at about 1 A.M., and had hidden in the Palace all the next day until he was caught. The Privy Council noted the new lapse in security, found Edward guilty of being a rogue and a vagabond and sentenced him to three months in the brand new Tothills Fields Bridewall prison, also known as the Westminster House of Correction.
The new Tothill Prison was considered the epitome of modern penitentiary science in 1840, where the most common violation of the rules by inmates was talking. The prisoners were required to be silent for all but a few minutes each day. And for “Boy Jones”, talking seems to have been a primary form of personal entertainment. 
Which makes his response to the magistrate who visited him the day before his release disturbing. The officer encouraged Edward to join the Royal Navy. Edward refused. The magistrate then ask him to promise to never invade Buckingham Palace again. Edward refused again. And the next day,
2 March, 1841, Edward was released from Tothill. Thirteen days later, Edward was back in the Palace. It makes me wonder why they didn't just hire him.
Just after 1 A.M on 15 March, 1841,  as a police officer (part of the beefed up security detail inspired by Boy Jones) was walking across the grand hall of Buckingham Palace, he  saw a man staring at him through a glass door of the throne room. The officer immediately recognized Edward Jones and started after him. Edward, deciding on a brazen approach, charged the officer. The approach did not work. Edward was nabbed, pinched and restrained. Examining the throne room, officials found a handkerchief filled with cold meat and potatoes, filched from the Palace kitchen, sitting on the arm of the throne. Again the Privy Council considered what to do, and again Edward was sentenced to three months at Tothill Prison, but this time at hard labor.
The labor of choice for prisoners in this most modern of English prisons in 1841 was spending six hours a day walking on the treadmill, described by the “Hidden Lives Revealed" web site as “a big iron frame of steps around a revolving cylinder”, or Picking Oakum (above), defined as teasing apart the strands of a hemp rope so that the strands could be twisted into another rope, which would be presented to inmates to be teased apart again. 
After three months of enduring this repetitive repetition in silence, another magistrate offered Edward  another chance to join the Navy. Again he refused. Again he was asked to promise to never visit the palace again. Again he refused. 
This time, before his release, he was also offered £4 a week (about $600 dollars today) to make appearances at a London Music Hall. This too Edward turned down. What was going on in that huge misshapen head of his, we will never know. Because. this time, as he was released from Tothill, Edward was kidnapped and shanghaied aboard a British Man-of-War bound for Brazil. He actually made it to South America and back to England in 1843. Here, Edward managed to jump ship and walked the 60 miles from Portsmouth to London. There he was arrested loitering near Buckingham Palace, and was returned to his ship under arrest. This time the orders were to keep him away from the entire British isles and under watch.
The next year (1844) Edward jumped from ship again, this time into the Mediterranean Sea between Tunis and Algeria. He was rescued and after six years of enforced service was finally set free in the isolated port of Perth (above),  on the lonely west coast of  Australia. There Edward worked for a time as the Town Crier, until he was arrested for burglary. Then he was sent to Freemantle Prison. After his release from here he got a job as a pie seller. But the pull of the Palace was strong, and Edward somehow managed to return to England, where he was arrested for theft in 1856. 
In 1860 one of his brothers, who had a good job in Melbourne, Australia (above), invited Edward to live with him. Back down under, Edward disappeared into anonymity, and there he stayed, until the day after Christmas, celebrated as Boxing Day in England and Australia. 
On that day of celebration, Edward Jones, the Boy Jones, got drunk and fell off a bridge over the Mitchell River in Bairndale, Queensland (above). He landed on that enormous head of his and broke his neck. Says his modern-day biographer, Jan Bondeson, “He didn't have any children and never wanted anything to do with women, apart from his beloved queen."
Though out most of his life, Edward Jones remained infamous for those nights he spent in Buckingham Palace with Victoria's underwear in his pants. He hated the teasing and ribbing about it to the day he died.  But his obituary was published in most of the newspapers in the English speaking world. We don't know what Victoria felt when she heard the news. But I am dying to know what was going in her average sized head, when she did.
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