Show notes
“We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
Terror was lying still.”
These are the words of famed master of the pen, Oscar Wilde, in his
Ballad of Reading Gaol, referencing his time spent at Pentonville Prison
for, ironically, mastering working with a different type of pen…
As a brief aside, while many lament the initial thing that set forth a
chain of events that saw Wilde imprisoned today, specifically his affair
with Lord Alfred Douglas, very surprisingly, unlike with the likes of
the great Alan Turing and countless thousands others who were unjustly
punished for their sexuality, it turns out there is a LOT more to the
story of Wilde’s conviction that many a biographer skirts over, though
to be fair this is in part because some elements of the original
transcript from the original trial were only discovered in the year
2000. Reading through those, however, even in modern times and through a
modern lens and sensibilities, Wilde would have almost certainly found
himself behind bars, disgraced, and absolutely vilified pretty well
universally on the interwebs.
But we’re not here to discuss Oscar Wilde, the full story of his
conviction was simply a rabbit hole we were previously woefully ignorant
of, and will share more on later in the Bonus Facts if you’re
interested as well- though fair warning, it’s quite dark and, oof. Never
look too deeply into your heroes, especially when they are from the
past, which was of course, the worst.
But in any event, embedded in Wilde’s aforementioned poem, he references
sweating on the mill. This was a device created by famed engineer Sir
William Cubitt in the early days of Cubitt’s career, with the primary
purpose of the surprisingly feature rich machine being both to punish
prisoners in an excruciating way for upwards of 10 hours per day, while
also isolating them in that task so that they could properly think about
what they’d done wrong.
While Wilde may have abhorred the machine, having been forced to march
on it for a couple years, another famous master wordsmith, Charles
Dickens, would praise it, writing, "It is a satisfaction to me to see
that determined thief, swindler, or vagrant sweating profusely at the
treadmill... [knowing] he is doing nothing all the time but undergoing
punishment."
Here now is the story of when humans first started exercising for
fitness’ sake, as well as the rather torturous invention of the
treadmill, which saw prison death rates ramp up considerably once
implemented, but paradoxically also seemed to be a major health boon to
those that survived their monotonous march.
Author / Host: Daven Hiskey
Producer: Samuel Avila
0:00 Intro
3:13 When Humans Started Purposefully Exercising
6:47 Prison Reform and Inventing the "Treadmill"
22:02 Inventing the Modern Treadmill
29:02 Cooking with Dogs
32:14 Oscar Wilde was the Worst
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