Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 June 15

= June 15 =

London & Paris Hotel, Newhaven. Gambling, espionage, murder.
The London and Paris Hotel at Newhaven, East Sussex, is said to have been frequented by Charles Wells (famously the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo), and was the scene of a convenient death which provided Sidney Reilly with a wealthy young widow to marry. I have found some information and photos online (see Our Newhaven, PubsHistory, Sussex EUS Newhaven, Britain from Above, and Newhaven Town Council history page). I would be grateful for any further information about it - architect, famous visitors, etc. DuncanHill (talk) 01:21, 15 June 2015 (UTC)


 * An account of the Reilly case and a mention of the hotel are at M: MI5's First Spymaster by Andrew Cook (p. 213) and Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly (also) by Andrew Cook (p. 33). Alansplodge (talk) 20:57, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * A mention in a "snippet view" of Walter Sickert: A Life by Matthew Sturgis (p. 268); "On 6 May, Sickert travelled over to Newhaven with Mme Villain. They booked into the London & Paris Hotel and Rothenstein came down from London to watch them entering their room in the evening and reappearing the following morning".
 * Also The Railway Magazine - Volume 107 - 1961 (Page 153) says " The adjacent London & Paris Hotel, which had served as naval headquarters in the second world war...".
 * Which led me to (WHAAOE): HMS Aggressive (shore establishment).
 * The hotel also gets a mention in a thesis called Chopin in Britain but I'll let you find it - good hunting! Alansplodge (talk) 21:18, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Finally, more about Walter Sickert at Mistress, Model, Muse and Mentor: Women In the Lives of Famous Artists by Robert Julian Hafner. Alansplodge (talk) 21:31, 15 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you, all useful and interesting! It was Ace of Spies that started my interest. DuncanHill (talk) 22:10, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Do you have enough for an article? Alansplodge (talk) 11:16, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I probably do, but am unlikely to get started on one for a few days yet. I'll let you know when I do. DuncanHill (talk) 12:00, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Okay. Alansplodge (talk) 15:20, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Polysulphin Company. Soap, Brislington & Keynsham, Somerset.
I am searching for information about the Polysulphin Company, soapmakers, originally of Brislington and later of Keynsham, in Somerset. DuncanHill (talk) 01:31, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Not much, more on people not place. basic company info, Free pic of Keynsham site on Commons, son of founder, founder, note that they were the biggest user of the Keynsham goods yard, ornithopter that the founder created, more on that and note of company move to Keynsham, patents (more available), image of son's inclusion in war memorial. There is an Ad in the Times from 1913 (Wednesday, Apr 09, 1913; pg. 24) also which gives products of Oxyll, Oxyllate W and Oxyll Blue. Notes 'enormous success of Ironing Table and the Manchester and London exhibitions' and offers a 'Vacuum Washing and Drying Machine' that gives 'washing and drying in one process'. Address given is Brislington. Bit sketchy though. Nanonic (talk) 02:12, 15 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks you, that's a good start. DuncanHill (talk) 13:27, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Chofetz Chaim translation
Does anyone know if the Chofetz Chaim is available in English translation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.198.106.171 (talk) 16:31, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * See and, which are both in English, although I'm not completely sure that they're the original book.  It would help if I could find a uniform title for the book, since that would find lots of results that (aside from cataloger error) would all be the correct book.  Nyttend (talk) 00:42, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * may be the right thing. It's one of the most widely held titles associated with Israel Meir Kagan's entry in the Personal Name authority file, and it's definitely in English, but I'm not sure if it's someone else's edition of his work or if it's someone else's book about him and his works.  Since your IP address geolocates to London, you may do well to contact the British Library or the Bodleian to see if they have any copies under any title.  Nyttend (talk) 00:48, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

The work is available in many formats and titles, sometimes called Shmiras Haloshon (or variants by accent), including, for example, one by Artscroll currently selling on Amazon. If you're in London, any decent Jewish bookshop will probably have at least one of these in stock. This link may be helpful. Note the barely visible scroll bar. --Dweller (talk) 09:16, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Palestinian "land" vs Indigenous North American "land"
Prior to European Contact (i.e. post-Columbus), the Indigenous peoples of North America inhabited all of North America (about 9.5 million square miles). As North American colonization continued and specific policies were enacted in Canada and the United States (and Mexico?), these peoples were gradually moved, removed and forced to settle into ever shrinking geographic areas. Does anyone know how much land Native Peoples currently occupy (i.e. Reservations and the like)in square miles? I am curious to compare the amount of land lost by Indigenous North American people to what Palestinian people have lost. 216.223.72.182 (talk) 19:30, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry. Forgot to ask if there happens to be any maps showing these changes for both North America and for the Palestinian areas?216.223.72.182 (talk) 19:31, 15 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Bia-map-indian-reservations-usa.png North America, see Indian Reservation and Indian Territory. This page  has some animated maps, and several maps over time. At right is our map, the article doesn't give a total area, but it looks like all the reservations would easily fit into e.g. Ohio. One thing I'll point out - I think it's a bit unfair to say the natives "inhabited" ~9.5 mi^2 - sure, the land was theirs in a sense (complete with territorial disputes, etc), but my understanding is that there were vast swathes of uninhabited North American lands during the Pre-Columbian_era (which also has some nice maps). SemanticMantis (talk) 21:01, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, population density in pre-Columbian time was a great deal higher than during the white expansion into Indian territories. Estimates vary widely, but it's not implausible that between 1492 and 1650 up to 90% of the indigenous population died from exposure to smallpox, measles, and other Old-World diseases, and from the resulting collapse of societies. Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas is not our best article, but has some useful information. So those uninhabited swathes of land might have been inhabited in pre-columbian times. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:02, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * When in the pre-Columbian era? While illness killed vast numbers of Indians after contact, some peoples had already declined for unrelated reasons.  Consider large sites like Cahokia in Illinois, once larger than most contemporary European cities, or smaller sites like Angel in Indiana; most of the Mississippian culture had collapsed by the time Christopher Columbus was born, leaving only degenerate societies like Caborn-Welborn.  We can't assume that all Indian societies were at their demographic peak in the Late Prehistoric period.  Nyttend (talk) 22:35, 15 June 2015 (UTC)


 * North America includes more than just the US which is what most of the answers are giving. For Canada see Indian reserve (First Nations), Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Nunavut, Nunatsiavut and Nunavik (Inuit). Also depending on how you think of North America and given the figure (9.5 million square miles) you used for total area there is Greenland, Mexico and some countries in Central America and the Caribbean. Greenland is 2,166,086 km2 and Nunavut is 2,038,722 km2. There would also be Eskimo/Inuit lands in Alaska. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 02:09, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I simply don't know much about relevant stuff for Canada, and anyway I wonder if "pre-contact" is muddied in Greenland and eastern Canada: do the Skrælingjar count as post-contact, even though they're centuries before Columbus? Nyttend (talk) 14:40, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * While Mexico is officially "North" America, its "Native Americans" are more like the "Native South Americans". Before "the white man" brought over electric light, air conditioning and international grocery chains, geography weighed much heavier on evolution. I can't cite that, because "the white man" also brought recorded history. I heard it from a guy. You wouldn't know him. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:38, 17 June 2015 (UTC)


 * For Palestine, here is a map of territory over time . Keep in mind something like a map can be highly politically charged when it pertains to Israeli–Palestinian_conflict. Here's another version of the same map, but this page calls it "lies", and has an obviously anti-Israeli bias . I'm not going to get in to that dispute here, but just warn of potential problems in getting solid numbers. Finally, you might like this - which describes a touring exhibit that explores some parallels between Native Americans, Palestinians, and some other groups. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:04, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. As always, I greatly appreciate the efforts of people here. In this case, I am thinking that proportionally the Native North American peoples have lost considerably more land than have the Palestinians. As a somewhat concrete thinker, I am thinking that the Native North Americans have lost, like, 90% or more of their traditional lands while the Palestinians have lost less. Of course there are injustices that have been and will continue to be in both situations. I'm certainly not trying to be political or controversial, but just wanted to get a bit of a context. Thanks again. 216.223.72.182 (talk) 15:14, 16 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I thought comparing federally owned land to tribal land might be of interest. μηδείς (talk) 00:51, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The situations are somewhat comparable. Big differences include the following: 1) The Palestinians consider themselves a single ethnic group, whereas the Native American peoples in the mid-15th century consisted of hundreds of ethnic groups just in what are now Canada and the United States.  2) The Palestinian population has actually grown over the period when the group was losing land and outnumbers the Jewish population of Israel when refugees in Arab countries are included, whereas the Native American population fell dramatically after contact with European diseases, and Native Americans are now overwhelmingly outnumbered by people of other backgrounds in Canada and the United States.  Marco polo (talk) 15:37, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Marco Polo - I certainly agree that there are both similarities and differences between the two populations. While there is some hope the Palestinian peoples may make some gains, I doubt that the Native Peoples of North America (and South America, for that matter) will also do so. Given the ages and sizes of the dominant cultures in Canada and the USA and how deeply rooted the policies and attitudes are ingrained, I doubt that there will be any significant changes on that front. 216.223.72.182 (talk) 18:04, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I suppose we should hand it all back to the descendents of the Folsom tradition... if we can find any. After all, they were here in North America long before those evil, greedy Clovis culture people came over from Siberia and usurped their homeland.

Christian Saints in Germany
The Kirchenkampf article says that the "Salvation Army, Christian Saints and Seventh Day Adventist Church all disappeared from Germany during the Nazi era." Who were the Christian Saints? It's such a generic name that I can't find any information about them: everything I'm finding, quite reasonably, is about people considered to be saints in Christianity. I don't speak German, so I don't know what the endonym would be. Nyttend (talk) 22:41, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * This statement goes back to a BBC page which looks like a study guide for students and doesn't cite its own sources at all.  In context they may mean the Latter Day Saints, a.k.a. Mormons, whose church was restricted by the Nazi government: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Germany.  The LDS church doesn't seem to have disappeared in Germany, though, even during the war.  See Helmuth Hübener for some additional context.  It would be preferable to avoid relying on the study guide site given its lack of detail and sourcing information.  --Amble (talk) 00:31, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * GCSE Bitesize is indeed a study guide for students taking GCSE, usually aged 15 or 16. There is no way that it is a reliable source for a history article. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:48, 17 June 2015 (UTC)