User:Baroness du Putout

^ Hume, David. An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Forgotten Books, 1984; first published 1748, p. 86: "That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior." The notorious Baroness Du Putout of Hamburg, Germany 1877-1959, was a woman of some distinction.Her father, a Commander in the 99th Battalion of Wessels, emigrated to Germany in 1880 as a re-assigned former dragoon. Her mother, Olivia Birthall Bauer, was a nurse in Vessels at the time of the Battle of Forest. The information on the growing years of the Baroness are sketchy. The first recorded instance of her influence on the village of Bethelaw seems to have taken place at a town pub around 1910. She was intoxicated, a practice very much frowned upon of women, who were for the most part banned from German pubs. A drunken soldier insulted her, as the legend goes, and she broke a pub stool over his head. She was immediately arrested, at great dismay to her husband, Baron Wilhelm Du Putout, who hurriedly went to the station and reportedly paid a good deal of money for her not to have a trial. She became the talk of the town, and much shunned by her circle of friends. It was during this time the Baroness developed an avid taste for reading and studying her national history and politics. In 1934, her husband died and she was left with a great estate on the outskirts of Hamburg. It had been reported to her by a servant- name unk., that a German Commander had been invading the homes of wealthy landowners and aristocrats, under the guise of a government inspection of diseased trees. The great Poplar Fungus Inspection ( Popularis Fungoramos) soon became a bitter debate of property rights. It seemed the German government was in need of funds, and began seizing and holding the property while claiming the P.F.I was a legitimate concern for the good of the nation. The Baroness Du Putout was the only one savvy enough to see through this guise, as well as knowing her rights. When the Commander's approach became closer to her beloved village, she sent her servants to her friend's homes to announce a meeting to be held at her estate. On the day the guests were to arrive, she had provided quite a feast,and to her dismay, no-one showed up. She took on an endeavor to go door to door, entreating each of her old friends that their property was in danger of being seized. They would not even receive her at the door, her reputation having been ruined by the pub scandal so many years earlier. One by one, as she had predicted, the Germans seized her old friends homes and property, and when they came to the Baroness's they were surprised to find a barb wire fence, reportedly 21 feet high, surrounding the 1419 acres. She had her servants stationed at interval points, and were told to inform the police and officers that they would need a warrant to enter. A scuffle ensued in which 3 German officers were shot. The rest scattered, but were back n the morning with an entire battalion. As she was rushed to the jail, she was reported to have shouted, "The government is a whore who cares not about her children, only her own incessant needs!" At the time of this writing, it is unclear what became of her once she was a prisoner of the State, but further research is being done. -Barb Streetman