Marginal elasticity of death Tom Smith

People or at least Australians timed their deaths in response to death tax incentives.  I know I would do my damnest to hang on a few days more or less if it meant less money would go to the government.

It reminds me of a story, perhaps apocryphal, of an English or perhaps Scottish nobleman who was being pressed, that is, slowly crushed with large rocks, to get him to admit to treason.  If he admitted to treason, the story goes, his head would be chopped up and his suffering would be over.  But, in that event his lands would go to the crown.  If he died under torture without a confession, he would be dead, of course, but his heirs would get the land.  Rock after rock was added, but the subject kept his mouth shut.  He died, and the crown did not get the land.  No idea if it’s true, but I really like the story.  A very admirable sort of fortitude, I think.

For some reason this story reminds me of my Uncle Sandy, who died many years ago.  His grandfather was one of the first Scots to bring sheep to Idaho at the end of the 19th century.  If Sandy had been crushed in this manner, only reddish sand, scotch whiskey and tobacco juice would have come out.  There are many stories about him, but the one I heard at my father’s recent funeral was that Sandy had been drinking at a long gone bar in Boise called the “Cub Club” which has since been gentrified out of existence.  It was a dive of the lowest sort.  But one evening Sandy was thrown out of it.  For his language.