If you think the guillotine was invented for lopping the tops off enemies during the French Revolution, you’re wrong. Detailed designs for the ‘Halifax Gibbet’ go back to 1577, and Yorkshire criminals were beheaded by such a machine for the crimes of extortion, theft and swindle.
Long before the French Revolution, there was a Halifax tailor named Abraham Halstead, who was father to Jonas Halstead. Jonas emigrated from Yorkshire in 1635 to start a new life in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, which had been swindled from the inhabitants for a fistful of dollars. Jonas found fortune as a land speculator, and when the Brits took over the colony it was renamed New York in honour of England’s finest.
Old Jonas’s descendants included the Maxwells, a Seattle banking family, one of whom was the grandfather of William Henry Gates the Third, born on October 28th 1955. Young Master Gates grew up to become the richest man in the world, and was responsible for inflicting Microsoft on the native inhabitants of the entire planet for a few dollars more.
Halifax parish church, where Bill Gates’ ancestor was baptised, recently sent a polite request to the billionaire asking him to get in touch on a financial matter, but at time of writing it has been ignored.
Mind your head, Bill.
[i]Excerpt from Zygote, Computer Shopper, Dec 08 edition[/i]
