Mad As A Hatter! Mercury & An 1853 Saint Michael

[Guest Rick Research]

29 August 1853 Dr. Eduard Stolle of Berlin was decorated with the Bavarian Order of Saint Michael-Knight's Cross:

Receiving this and an accompanying "mimeographed" type set of Order Statutes.

[Guest Rick Research]

But who was "Doctor" Stolle, and what had earned him so long distant a Token Of The Royal Esteem from the all too brief interregnum of Maximilian between one abdicated Ludwig's mad passion for a dancer and another's lunatic building obsession?

And why, if "Doctor" Stolle was not himself an escapee from a loony bin, did he name his daughter, and I quote

Antonia Louise Auguste Maria Bettina Cenerentola Aline Stolle? Hmmm?

[Guest Rick Research]

It all started innocently enough, with a fellow on the make

getting himself inducted into the Society for the Encouragement of Industrial Activity in Prussia

at Berlin on 20 November 1849...

[Guest Rick Research]

Of course, FIRST he had had to rid himself of allegiance to Montez-besotted Ludwig I and switch over to Friedrich Wilhelm IV:

Which might not have seemed like the SMARTEST way to get one's FORMER Native Land's decoration 6 years later, but hey!--

Doctor... of Philosphy (oooooooooo) "factory owner" Friedrich Eduard Stolle, born in Schweinfurt am Main, Bavaria, did so duly attest and aver, yay, swearing unto God the All-mighty And All-knowing and his Son, Jesus Christ to be a good little Prussian and citizen of the city of Breslau as of 28 December 1847, and so attested by Lord Mayor Pinder, City Councillor von H?lsen et cetera.

Bavaria, you see, might have raised up a philosopher, but Prussia...

wellllll, didn't you ever hear of the "philosopher's stone?"

In 1847 "Das Kapital" was still in rough draft stage after all, wunnit?

to be continued (this would work better with thunder and lightning special effects )

[Bob Hunter]

Rick, I just got off the phone with George Lucas and some of his interns at the Industrial Light and Magic Company would like to the sound and special effects for the rest of this thread!

[Guest Rick Research]

It WAS a dark and stormy night...

the renegade academic polluter who would bring down the Bavarian monarchy, creating (and with that, destroying) the Second Reich-- and from it the Third, and from there to the atomic bomb, Cold War, space race AND Kyoto Treaty ...

but THAT would be getting ahead of the story.

(a bit of illustrative license in lieu of said Special Effects )

[Guest Rick Research]

What kind of Evil Victorian Super Villain would name his own daughter

"Cinderella" ?????????

[Gerd Becker]

What a fantastic document. You rarely see Documents for the St. Michael, not to speak of this early ones

[Guest Rick Research]

This group has now returned for another visit. Rescanned on new computer:

[Guest Rick Research]

closeup of Cinderella's Papa's reward for lethal industrial pollution:

[webr55]

Google tells us that Dr. Eduard Stolle went to the World Exposition in London 1851, presenting a "H?ckselschneidemaschine" - no idea how to translate that...

[Guest Rick Research]

Well travelled, was our Dr. Stolle

Austrian, Russian, British, French, Savoyard ...

[Guest Rick Research]

Dr. Stolle had invented...

An Apparatus for using quicksilver (that's MERCURY to you, folks) for gilding!

[Guest Rick Research]

Lovely to look at... wonderful to collect...

but LETHAL to work with.

So....

Dr. Stolle invented the gilding that made The Gilded Age possible...

The Gilded Age whose excess p'd off Herrn Marx and Engels ...

The Gilded Age whose excesses and social inequities led to World War One ...

The Gilded Age whose excesses and social inequites led to World War One, whose excesses and inequities led to a revival of the antiquated 1840s ideologies of the annoyed Herrn Marx and Engels...

stretching their dead Gilded Age Hands right into our very present !!!!!

EVERYTHING from workplace dangers to global pollution to atomic bombs...

it's ALL Doctor Stolle's fault !!!