Well-Oiled Machine

In an age of email and text messages, a few things feel that special unless you lived in Coleford in Gloucestershire, England, during the Christmas of nineteen twenty three. While the residents were opening holiday cards from loved ones, there was something else to into their mailboxes. Postcards. But these weren't quickly dashed off scribblings from friends in exotic locations. They had come from one anonymous source, a person living rights under

their noses. On these postcards, the sender had written offensive messages. Some even included obscene images. According to an article in the Daily British Wig printed at the time, these postcards were described as an I quote full of the most horrible vulgar coarseness. They'd been arriving since July of that year and were so grotesque in nature no paper would print what was actually written on any of them. So how was the culprit found if the postcards had been

sent anonymously? Well, the halfpenny stamps that were used to mail them had been marked by a post office official in invisible ink. They were then handed to another employee with the instruction to only sell them to one person, a middle aged, unmarried woman from Coulford named Diana Langham.

Was it her marital status that had tipped off the authority, or perhaps her behavior toward her neighbors, We're not sure, but on December third, Miss Langham purchased twelve of the marked stamps, followed by four more a few days later. The trap was set. Around the tenth of December, a bank cashier named Charles Saunders received a postcard in the mail bearing a halfpenny stamp. The message was laden with vulgarities, and the card was given to the police for analysis.

Low and behold the postage board these secrets invisible mark. It was enough to have a detective, Sergeant Giles from Scotland Yard follow Miss Langham around town. He tailed her throughout Colford, observing her movements, and after some time he finally saw what he'd been looking for. It was poking out of her pocket a postcard. On December thirteenth, Langham traveled to the local market place, presumably to do some

holiday shopping, when the police closed in on her. She was taken into custody in front of many of her friends and neighbors, no doubt sending them into a frenzy of whispers and gossip. One witness heard Langham tell the police I know nothing about the postcards. She may not have, but her victims sure did. Charles Saunders had received thirty two of them, and almost all of them had been

sent directly to the bank where he worked. Two postcards had been addressed to his wife, while another man, Stanley Roberts, got four of seeing postcards as well as one letter. Langham was charged with sending indecent postal communications and was brought to the Coulford Police Court the next day. Predictably, she pled not guilty to the charges. She said as much to the sergeant the day before. It seems that no matter how much evidence they had, Miss Langham refused

to confess to her crimes. The police even conducted a search of her home and found more postcards like the one sent to mister Saunders and his wife. There was also a blotting paper bearing some of the words that had appeared on the other finished products. And with that Miss Langham was remanded into custody and taken off the card of prison, a holding facility for women some distance away. On December twenty first, she stood before a special court

held back in Coleford. If she was found guilty by the magistrates, she would be ordered to pay a fine of ten pounds, but if she was ordered to stand trial, she faced up to a year in prison. What nobody could figure out, though, including Langham's own lawyer, was why why had she sent these vile missives at all? Well, it should come as no shock that her actions were blamed by the men of the court on a strange

mental and nervous condition, the aka menopause. She eventually changed her plea to guilty and apologized for her actions, swearing never to repeat them in the future, and by swearing, I mean promising, not actually swearing. The judge, appreciative of her change of heart and for not putting everyone through the hassle of a trial, only sentenced her to six months incarceration. After her release, Miss Langa moved in with

her sister and brother in law in Somerset. She lived to be eighty two, finally passing away in the mid nineteen fifties, and although she had left behind a will detailing how her assets were to be divided, she never told anyone what they really wanted to know. In total, Diane Langham had sent forty two communications, thirty two of them had gone to mister Saunders, and nobody ever found out. Why. If you ever go shopping looking for a particular item,

you might find yourself facing cheap imitations instead. From designer handbags to consumer electronics, it's easy to fall for a seller scam. What we want is the actual product, the genuine article. One man knew the value of the product that he made, and because of his engineering talent, so did everyone else. Born in eighteen forty four in Ontario, it seemed Elijah was destined to work on the railroad. His parents, George and Mildred had fled Kentucky on the

underground railroad in the mid eighteen thirties. They ended across the border in Canada, where they gave birth to Elijah. Along with ten of his eleven siblings, he grew up during a time when schools and Upper Canada were still segregated. He received his education from black schools in Colchester Township. Then, when he was fifteen, Elijah traveled to Scotland. He attended the University of Edinburgh, where he studied to become a

mechanical engineer. Eventually he returned to his family in eighteen sixty six, but they were no longer in Ontario. George, Mildred and his siblings had left Canada for Michigan several years prior, where they could remain free. By now, the Civil War had ended and slavery was abolished, but Elijah still faced an uphill battle. No one would hire him as an engineer because he was black, so he decided to put his dreams on the back of burner in

favor of gainful employment with the Michigan Central Railroad. They hired him as a fireman, and oiler his job was to keep parts of the train well oiled so that it could function efficiently. When the train was stopped, Elijah would apply oil to the axels and bearings. Then he would shovel coal to keep the fire burning hot for the next leg of the journey. But the job was strenuous and wasteful. After all, he used a lot of

oil and energy to keep the trains lubricated. He believed that a better method was possible, one that would allow the train to be oiled while still in motion, reducing the need for extra stops and starts on each trip, and so Elijah put his engineering mind to work. He developed a device called an automatic lubricator, designed to be used on steam locomotives and ships. The automatic lubricator used gravity to supply oil to the necessary parts from a

central cup or reservoir. It was also called the lubricating cup or lubricating oil cup, and he had it patented in eighteen seventy two. It became a hit with engineers and railroad companies all over. Now they could keep the trains running for longer periods of time. Several years later, in eighteen eighty two, Elijah moved to Detroit, Michigan. He began consulting with various engineering firms, sharing his knowledge and expertise.

He continued to improve the automatic lubricator and file additional patents through his life, but that one device wasn't his only contribution to the world. Elijah also invented a portable ironing board to help his wife when pressing clothes, and he came up with an automatic lawn sprinkler to make watering his lawn easier. He eventually started his own manufacturing company in nineteen twenty, but there was one more thing

Elijah was responsible for, and it happened by accident. After his automatic lubricator hit the market, other cheaper versions soon followed. Railroad engineers had been burned by wasting their money on poorly made knockoffs, and so they started asking for Elijah's product by name, more specifically by his last name McCoy. They wanted, as they called it, the real McCoy system, which is why today when someone says that something is the real McCoy, they're saying it's a genuine item and

not some cheap knockoff. Elijah McCoy had grown up the child of enslaved people, to become one of the most successful and influential businessmen of the nineteenth century. In fact, in twenty eleven, Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenau authored an amendment to the Patent Reform Act of twenty eleven in support of Elijah. The amendment designated the first satellite office of the US Patent and Trademark Office in his name. The Elijah Jay McCoy United States Patent and Trademark Office Facility

opened in July of twenty twelve. There's no other office like it. It is, as you know, the real McCoy. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mank in partnership

with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over the world of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. M