"When I was younger, we didn’t…"
We have all heard that phrase at one point in time. I know I heard it multiple times growing up (and still hear it much to my annoyance). It is a phrase that often comes after we did something that we thought was fun but maybe was dumb, or right before you were about to get a lecture containing the following adjectives: privileged, narcissistic, entitled, apathetic, or unrealistic. But let us be honest here, we have all done stupid stuff, and it does not matter what generation you are from. At the end of the day, kids will be kids, whether they are from 2020 or 1871. The only thing we hoped during our bought of stupidity was that we would never be discovered. Unfortunately for the Ham sisters, their antics made the newspaper.
We can only imagine what Mathias Ham thought Sunday morning on August 27, 1871, as he read The Dubuque Daily Times to find an article titled Ham & Eggs under Local News detailing an incident with his two daughters.
The article described how the Ham sisters were riding around town between nine and ten o’clock at night, something that they did so often, “that the respectable citizens have become well-nigh tired of seeing them around – especially as the question as to where they obtained the money to pay for their heavy livery bills was to all decent citizens a matter of pure conjecture.”
Well this night, after passing Washington square for the fifth or sixth time, some young men annoyed by the antics of the sisters gathered a bushel of old eggs. When the sisters made their way back through the square “the eggs began to fly.” The sisters, now covered in eggs (the horse and buggy also covered), retreated.
After reading the article, Mathias Ham quickly wrote to the defense of his daughters, sending a letter to the Daily Times claiming the article “is a base, contemptible falsehood, and can be proven false.” In response, the editor defended the article claiming, “our reporter obtained his information on the spot where the transaction was alleged to have occurred, and from conversation held, in his presence, among and by those who claimed to have participated in the affair, but a few minutes previously.”
I can only imagine how a parent would feel reading about their children in the newspaper and what his daughters thought when he summoned them for questioning. While yes, the boys should not have thrown the eggs at the girls, it is obvious that members of the public thought they had it coming. After all, when they were younger, they didn’t go on long rides in town to waste time.
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