In 1806 , the people of Leeds were sure that the ecstasy was upon them . Chickens had actually started lay egg with revelatory messages on them . That ’s when a mathematical group of brave skeptics unveil that Leeds was in the thrall of chemistry , not the end time .
It ’s not entirely the mistake of the citizens of Leeds that they trust that the final stage of the man was coming in 1806 . It was n’t even their faulting that they believed it because eggs , laid in the area , aver , “ Crist is arrive . ” One does n’t check spelling during the ecstasy . One just prostrates oneself .
Still , they might have been a tad more leery than they were , given that those apocalyptic messages were coming from the hens of Mary Bateman . Their suspicion should have bestride when Mary Bateman , whose business organization selling good luck charm to ward off evil spells had slackened late , cheerfully announced that she was trade blessing before the transport . Perhaps they were just relieved that the blessings , which came in the form of man of newspaper with the initials JC written on them , were spelled the right way .
It took a gentleman’s gentleman from out of town to pull in what was happening . Bateman was taking pre - put down egg and painting them with hard vinegar . acetum is acetic battery-acid , and egg cuticle is made of calcium carbonate . When put together for long periods of metre , the acetum dissolves the calcium carbonate into calcium acetate – which washes away when the vinegar is washed away . Leftover is carbonous acid which breaks down into water and carbon dioxide .
2 CH3COOH + CaCO3 = H2O + CO2 + Ca(CH3COO)2
You see this interpersonal chemistry experiment a gravid hatful in elementary shoal . Leave an egg in acetum for a few days , and the shell will dethaw . The ticklish inner tissue layer stays intact , and maintain the vitellus and egg white together . Bateman reapplied the vinegar message until the message was partly burned into the plate , and jammed the egg back up into the poulet . A skeptic find out her plot by the ingenious method of scram up betimes and hiding near her house . queerly enough , after toying with masses ’s religious devotion for the good part of a calendar month , Bateman was most begrudge for inhuman treatment to crybaby .
They hanged her three twelvemonth later . Not for the fraudulence – there was n’t a statute on the books about faking the raptus . After her business organisation peter out out , Bateman started selling pulverisation to local people to get up curse . Some people think her powders were really aborticide , and point to the fact that the person who sickened and died while taking her powders was a matrimonial woman . That explanation is complicated by the fact that the woman ’s husband was also taking Bateman ’s powder , and continued doing so for some time after his wife died . When he have worse , in much the same style that his married woman did , he called the local police , who discovered that the pulverisation were poison . It ’s not certain why Bateman would poison the human beings , though , as he was a regular customer . Perhaps she was trying to keep him just sick enough to keep needing her practice of medicine .
Bateman was hanged in 1809 , and pull in the name , The Yorkshire Witch . Her chickens pull in the kinder name of “ The Prophet Hens of Leeds . ”
[ ViaMemoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions , Naked Egg Experiment , The Second Coming . ]
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