The Highwayman-a bunch of lace at his chin

From Restatement (Second) of Torts § 31 (1965), comment d

"Even apart from such cases where the words indicate the intent of an act, there may be other situations in which the words themselves, without any accompanying gesture, are sufficient under the circumstances to arouse a reasonable apprehension of imminent bodily contact. Words are never spoken in a vacuum, and they cannot be utterly divorced from past conduct, or from the accompanying circumstances. An entirely motionless highwayman, standing with a gun in his hand and crying "Stand and deliver!" creates quite as much apprehension as one who draws the gun; and any rule which insists upon such a gesture as essential to liability is obviously quite artificial and unreasonable."

From Alfred Noyes' the Highwayman (1906):

                                    I

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight, over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding-
              Riding-riding-
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

                              II
He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
              His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

        ****

                                X
And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding-
              Riding-riding-
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

                              XI
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard,
And he taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
              Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

Halloween...the Palsgraf curse

Sometimes I don't want to look back in my textbook to find old cases that are referenced again. So I googled Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad. This article is about how generations of Palsgrafs have had unfortunate incidents and "didn't get what they deserved". Grandmother Helen Palsgraf was injured when when a Railroad attendant helped a man on to the train and in the process negligently allowed a slim brown paper package to fall on to the tracks. The package turned out to be fireworks which exploded, the shock of which caused a "scale" (bathroom scale? roof tile?) to fall on Helen. Alternatively, she may have been stampeded. But Cardozo found the Railroad was not liable for helping the man onto the train. And Helen didn't get what she deserved, thus beginning the Palsgraf curse.....ladders falling, broken bones, ping-pong tables running amok, infections, amputations, broken sidewalks jumping up and hurting people....Spooky! read on:

If a curse does exist, at least it seems to include a touch of ironic humor.

For many years, William Jr. [Palsgraf] worked as a truck driver for, among others, Petroleum Heat and Power.

One night in 1968, he took to the road in the middle of an ice storm, carrying a tanker full of oil for P.H.&P.

"I had to go down a hill by the [Long Island Expressway] and the whole hill was ice," he said in an interview. He made a turn and "the minute I made the turn, I spun around like a cyclone, went over the sidewall and through the fence."

His truck hung over the edge of a cliff, tottering precariously. Only one thing kept the truckload of oil tethered to the land, saving the life of Ms. Palsgraf's closest living relative and preserving the family, its name and its curse for at least one more generation: The tanker's wheels were caught on a track for, of all things, the Long Island Railroad.