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Clarence Darrow The Scopes Monkey Trial Lawyer won’t be having his advocacy skills unleashed on Florence Nightingale.
With the Boudicca scare over, confirmed when the Thorneycroft statue erected in 1902 outside Parliament in Westminster restored her two daughters to the chariot driven by their mother warrior queen, attention quickly turned to addressing the wounds caused by Florence Nightingale’s deviation from the path history had set for her. From being the Lady with the Lamp to the doyen of 19th century vehicular parking extortion known as the Lady with the Clamp.
Glen Mower took it all in again as ghe names were released of the holograms chosen to engage in the important mission of persuading Florence Nightingale to ditch clamping vehicles and instead revert to the course we currently know her for, that of introducing modern nursing and health reforms.
One of the most persuasive arguments that has necessitated the sending of a hologram or holograms back to early Victorian Britain was the revelation that everyone would live twenty fewer years if Miss Nightingale’s health improvements are allowed never to occur.
It can be revealed that the hologram selected to engage in this vital mission is 1940’s and 50’s British Radio and TV star Peter Brough and his ventriloquist doll Archie Andrews, with Harry Houdini, the famous escapologist who died in 1926 (He didn’t get out of that one!) and the speed king Donald Campbell in reserve.
However, as the news broke there was consternation expressed in the War Rooms regarding three figures from history who were considered for the role and then jettisoned, particularly the ditching of the brilliant US advocate Clarence Darrow, famous for his defence of John T Scopes in the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925.
‘How can such a brilliant lawyer, the guy who saved Scopes from the wrath of the Tennessee legislature by effectively defending the theory of evolution when that state sought to ban it from being taught in their schools, be overlooked in favour of a half baked light entertainer talking through a block of wood attached to his arm!’ Professor William Mordecai of Princeton’s prestigious History Department said via a big screen beamed into the citadel, conveying the impression the occupants were as thick as the walls protecting them. ‘There’s just no contest. This decision is sheer lunacy. The HMC really need to look at their bias towards the English. Fine, Nightingale is English and she was a bit prejudiced towards the English, but she also couldn’t abide dummies and Peter Brough was literally always within arm’s reach of a dummy! Darrow was a super intelligent guy with the advocacy skills required to persuade Nightingale to return to the path in history designated for her.’
The HMC refused to be drawn into the controversy and preferred instead to explain why Henry Ford and Coco Chanel failed to make the cut.
‘Henry Ford was the father of the modern assembly line, something he first brought into practice in 1913. His Model T Ford was the most popular automobile of all time. It was the first mass produced car. He fed the consumerist society by systematically lowering costs therefore making vehicles affordable for the common man. He was a tireless, if you excuse the pun, inventor, credited with 161 patents. And therein lies the nub of why he has been excluded. It was erroneously written in the information submitted to be assessed that he had 161 patients. That, and his automobile production and not wanting to promote vehicles being clamped and rendered immobile, were great selling points in his favour to meet up with Florence Nightingale. Once the mistake was rectified, his stock fell.’
It was insinuated that the decision not to include Coco Chanel in the top three holograms to undertake Mission Nightingale was much closer to the wire.
The French fashion designer is credited with liberating women from their corsets after the Great War by popularizing the sporty, casual chic style that became a standard of the Roaring Twenties. She would’ve gained Nightingale’s approval as a strong determined woman who had made it in a man’s world. She was the first to make trousers for women and Nightingale was a stickler for practicality in attire. Chanel also made tans acceptable whereas hitherto it had been the province of the outdoor labourer and was thus a stain of being working class. Nightingale would’ve approved as sporting a tan meant being exposed to plenty of fresh, healthy, air. So everything seemed to be win win with Coco Chanel.
However, the problem, it seemed, with Chanel wouldn’t be the reception she would get from Nightingale during any meeting.
The flaw in Chanel was her reception of nineteenth century fashion. Her hologram would, it was feared, think the greater mission was to free women from those dreadful corsets and layers of dress and set about the task of irradicating those toxic designs and subordinate the mission of encouraging Nightingale to become the world’s greatest nurse and health care reformer to the back burner.
Jonty Morgan Humourist 