Advice of the Day: The Wisdom of Crowds

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

the sage

It is a common mistake to assume that intelligence increases in proportion to the number of people involved. The Wise Sage has spent many years observing humanity and can confidently report that the exact opposite often appears to happen. One person making a poor decision is unfortunate. Fifty people making the same poor decision is usually on the evening news.

Whenever you encounter a large crowd running enthusiastically in one direction, resist the temptation to join in immediately. First establish why they’re running. It may be the start of a marathon… but it could just as easily be because someone shouted, “Was that a bee?”

Groups also have an astonishing ability to convince otherwise sensible people that questionable ideas are perfectly reasonable. This explains fashion trends, internet challenges, queueing for shops that haven’t opened yet, and anyone who has ever attempted to assemble flat-pack furniture as a committee exercise.

If everybody around you insists something is an excellent idea, quietly look for the nearest person shaking their head and backing away slowly. They are frequently the wisest person present and probably know something everyone else has overlooked.

Conversely, if you happen to be the only sensible person in the room, don’t announce it. Nobody has ever persuaded an angry crowd by beginning with, “Now listen here…” Instead, smile politely, edge towards the exit, and avoid making eye contact.

Finally, remember that common sense is surprisingly uncommon. If a thousand people are doing something spectacularly foolish, that simply means there are now a thousand witnesses.

As always, The Sage accepts no responsibility for abandoned flash mobs, cancelled committee meetings, or becoming the only person left standing when everyone else has decided jumping into the duck pond “looked like fun.”

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This Day in History – 28th July 1721

Matthew Clarke: Love, Greed and a Murder at Willesden Green

On 28th July 1721, Matthew Clarke was executed at Tyburn for the murder of Sarah Goldington, a young servant at an alehouse on Willesden Green. Just weeks earlier, Clarke had pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to cutting Sarah’s throat during a robbery. His execution account, recorded by the Ordinary of Newgate, reveals a chilling mixture of confession, remorse and self-reflection from a man who claimed he had once loved the woman he murdered.

Clarke was about twenty-four years old and came from St Albans, where he had been brought up in respectable surroundings. Although he had worked honestly as a farm labourer and carter, he admitted that he had gradually abandoned honest employment. He confessed to lurking on Bushey Heath, hoping to rob travellers, and acknowledged carrying out at least one violent highway robbery before the murder. Much of the stolen money, he admitted, was squandered trying to impress young women.

Ironically, Clarke had recently persuaded another young woman to marry him. After bringing her to London to buy a wedding ring, he realised he had nowhere near enough money to pay for the life he had promised. Inventing a story about collecting a £15 inheritance, he instead travelled towards Willesden Green with the intention of raising the money through robbery.

There he encountered the landlord of an alehouse where he had once worked, who even offered him employment. Instead, Clarke noticed that it was haymaking season and that the household was largely empty. Calling at the inn, he renewed an old friendship with Sarah Goldington, the servant who was alone in the house. According to his confession, they talked together pleasantly and he twice embraced her. Hidden beneath his coat was a knife.

Clarke later claimed that he struggled with himself before carrying out the attack. The first time he rose to kiss Sarah, he lost his nerve and sat back down. A little later he embraced her again, drew the knife and slashed her throat. When the blade failed to kill her immediately and she staggered towards the door making desperate sounds for help, Clarke returned and inflicted an even more savage wound, cutting almost to the bone before stealing a small quantity of silver and fleeing.

The robbery itself achieved very little. Clarke admitted that he was so horrified by what he had done that he barely took anything from the house. As he attempted to make his way back towards London, he became overwhelmed with fear while passing Tyburn, unable even to continue past the place where criminals were executed. Trying to avoid suspicion, he began driving a wagon, but pursuers soon noticed blood on his shirt sleeve. His explanation that he had fought with a soldier quickly collapsed, and the weight of his guilt led him to confess.

The Old Bailey proceedings were remarkably brief. Clarke pleaded guilty to murdering Sarah Goldington by inflicting a fatal wound to her throat with a knife approximately five inches long. With no trial required, the court immediately sentenced him to death.

During the weeks before his execution, Clarke spoke at length with the Ordinary of Newgate. He insisted he had never hated Sarah and, in fact, “had some love” for her. He accepted full responsibility for both the murder and the earlier highway robbery, worrying constantly about how he would face Sarah on the Day of Judgement. He described terrifying dreams, overwhelming horror, and confessed that thoughts of being hung in chains after execution haunted him almost as much as death itself.

On 28th July 1721, Matthew Clarke was hanged at Tyburn. Before the cart was drawn away, he urged the crowd to learn from his fate, denied rumours that he had intended to sell his fiancée into servitude overseas, and asked those gathered to pray for his soul. His story remains one of the starkest examples in the Old Bailey records of how a robbery conceived out of greed ended in an entirely unnecessary and deeply remorseful murder.

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This Day in History – 24th July 1685

A Cane, an Insult and a Fatal Moment of Anger

On 24th July 1685, Robert Frances, a barrister of Gray’s Inn and former Oxford student, faced execution for killing one of the most notorious men in Restoration England: Thomas Dangerfield. What makes the case extraordinary is its suddenness. Frances maintained that he had never planned to kill Dangerfield and bore him no longstanding grudge. According to his confession, a moment of anger, a vicious insult and a thrust of a bamboo cane were enough to destroy two lives.

Dangerfield was already a deeply controversial figure. By July 1685 he had been convicted of publishing scandalous material concerning the Duke of York—by then King James II—and sentenced to a spectacular public punishment. He was placed in the pillory at Westminster and then whipped from Aldgate to Newgate and, two days later, from Newgate to Tyburn. It was while returning from the latter punishment that his path crossed fatally with Robert Frances.

Curiosity Turns to Confrontation

Frances had been at a coffee house near St Andrew’s Church in Holborn. He later told the Ordinary of Newgate that he had plans for the day: he was due to dine with a friend and afterwards conduct a client’s case at Guildhall. Then word arrived that Dangerfield’s coach was approaching on its return from Tyburn.

Frances went outside, he claimed, simply from curiosity to see how Dangerfield looked after his whipping.

As the coach passed, Frances approached its side and called to him:

“Have you had your Heat to Day? How is it now with you?”

Dangerfield was hardly in the mood for mockery. According to Frances, the battered prisoner responded by calling him a “Son of a Whore” and demanding to know what business Frances had with him.

Frances lost his temper.

He carried a bamboo cane, its end already frayed and worn. He later insisted that he intended merely to strike or prod Dangerfield in the breast. But the coach was moving. Instead, the cane entered Dangerfield’s left eye.

The injury was catastrophic.

“Oh My Eye! Oh My Head!”

Witnesses at Frances’s Old Bailey trial on 16th July 1685 were unequivocal. Several had seen him approach the coach and thrust the cane into Dangerfield’s eye.

Frances fled into nearby Thavies Inn, but was quickly apprehended and taken to Newgate.

Dangerfield, meanwhile, was in terrible distress. A physician found him desperately ill and vomiting heavily. A surgeon examined the wound and considered it mortal. Dangerfield subsequently died, and medical witnesses believed the injury inflicted by Frances had caused his death.

There was another particularly damaging piece of evidence. On entering Newgate, Frances was reportedly told that Dangerfield was likely to die. His alleged response was chilling:

“If he should die, it would save the HANGMAN a labour.”

That remark sat awkwardly beside Frances’s later insistence that he had never intended to kill him.

No Murderous Intention

Frances’s defence was straightforward. Dangerfield had insulted him; he had reacted impulsively and struck him with the cane. He had no intention of causing death and had acted without premeditation or previous malice.

There was one detail that appeared to support his claim.

Frances had been carrying a short sword.

Speaking later to the Ordinary, he pointed out that if he had genuinely intended to kill Dangerfield, he could have used the sword. Instead, he had used an old bamboo cane which he believed would merely administer a beating.

The argument did not save him.

The jury found Robert Frances guilty.

From Gray’s Inn to Newgate

The Ordinary’s Account provides an unusually detailed portrait of the condemned man.

Frances said he had been born to Protestant parents, received a good education and, approximately twenty years earlier, had studied at Christ Church, Oxford. He subsequently travelled abroad as an attendant to Sir Joseph Williamson, a former ambassador and prominent statesman.

For the previous fourteen years Frances had belonged to Gray’s Inn, where he practised law.

This was therefore no habitual street criminal or impoverished thief facing the gallows. He was an educated professional man whose respectable life had been destroyed by an extraordinary few seconds of uncontrolled anger.

Frances repeatedly insisted that he had held no malice or grudge against Dangerfield, nor had anyone encouraged him to attack him. He attributed what happened entirely to his own sudden passion.

The Ordinary did not allow him to minimise what he had done, describing the thrust against a man already suffering from severe public punishment as an “inhumane act toward a person in his distress.”

Frances appears to have accepted the rebuke. The Ordinary found him serious and composed, reporting that he wept during prayers and appeared deeply penitent as his execution approached.

The Extraordinary End of Thomas Dangerfield

There is a grim irony at the centre of the story.

Dangerfield had just survived a punishment deliberately designed to humiliate and physically torment him. He had endured the pillory and a lengthy public whipping and was being transported back through London when an apparently chance encounter with a curious barrister proved fatal.

Frances, meanwhile, had apparently set out that day expecting nothing more dramatic than dinner with a friend and an afternoon conducting legal business.

Instead, one insult provoked one impulsive act.

Within days Thomas Dangerfield was dead and Robert Frances was condemned to follow him.

On 24th July 1685, Frances paid the ultimate price for that moment of uncontrolled anger.

It is difficult to imagine a more brutal illustration of how quickly life could unravel in seventeenth-century London: a notorious prisoner, an educated lawyer, a passing coach, an insult and an old bamboo cane—and suddenly two men were doomed.

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Advice of the Day: Saving Time at Breakfast

Save time in the morning by combining brushing your teeth with eating your breakfast.

the sage

Mornings are notoriously inefficient. First you eat breakfast, then you brush your teeth—two completely separate activities requiring valuable minutes that could otherwise be spent staring blankly at the kettle. The Wise Sage recommends eliminating this needless duplication by doing both simultaneously.

Begin with a breakfast that complements toothpaste. Cereal is ideal because milk already has the correct consistency for rinsing. Simply add a generous stripe of toothpaste to your cornflakes, insert your toothbrush and stir vigorously. Minty freshness combined with fortified whole grains means you are effectively improving two parts of your body at once.

Toast requires a more advanced technique. Apply toothpaste directly alongside the butter and brush each mouthful thoroughly before swallowing. Marmalade is particularly effective because the combination of orange and mint produces a flavour so alarming that you will immediately become fully awake without requiring coffee.

For maximum efficiency, replace your breakfast spoon entirely with a toothbrush. Porridge, yoghurt and scrambled eggs can all be consumed from the bristles, although retrieval rates vary considerably. Anything remaining on the brush afterwards can be considered lunch.

Coffee presents an obvious difficulty because drinking it immediately after brushing usually tastes dreadful. The Sage regards this as an advantage. You will drink less coffee, saving both time and money while becoming increasingly unpleasant to colleagues.

Advanced practitioners can prepare the entire procedure the night before by leaving a toothbrush standing upright in the cereal bowl. In the morning, simply add milk and begin. Remember: every second spent wondering whether this is a good idea is a second you could have saved.

As always, The Sage accepts no responsibility for mint-flavoured cornflakes, toothbrushes clogged with porridge, or dentists refusing to hear the rest of your explanation.

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Quote of the Day: The Wrong Branch

“The hardest lesson is to recognise that not every earthquake is a disaster; some simply shake us loose from the wrong branch.”
— The Sage

The Sage has noticed that we have an understandable tendency to judge disruption by how uncomfortable it feels. When something familiar suddenly changes — a relationship, a job, a plan, or simply our sense of certainty — our first instinct is often to call it a disaster. After all, when the ground moves beneath us, philosophical reflection rarely tops the immediate agenda.

Yet not everything we cling to deserves such loyalty. A branch may feel secure simply because we have been sitting on it for a long time. Familiarity can masquerade as safety, and sometimes it takes an unexpected earthquake to reveal that what we were desperately holding onto had stopped supporting us long ago.

The Sage therefore suggests judging life’s upheavals partly by what becomes possible afterwards. Being shaken loose can be frightening, but it can also force us to look around, choose differently and discover firmer ground. The earthquake may not have arrived for our benefit — but wisdom lies in recognising when we can make something valuable from where it leaves us.

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Quote of the Day: Mysteries and Manners

“Never trust anyone who warns you not to ask how the sausage was made. Some mysteries are better left wrapped in good manners.”
— The Sage

The Sage has noticed that curiosity is one of humanity’s greatest gifts. It drives discovery, encourages learning and helps us make sense of the world. Yet wisdom is not simply about asking every question that comes to mind—it is also about recognising which answers will genuinely enrich our lives and which may simply satisfy a passing curiosity at the expense of someone else’s dignity or comfort.

There are moments when people insist that certain things are “better left unsaid.” Sometimes that warning hides an uncomfortable truth, but just as often it is an invitation to exercise a little grace. Not every detail deserves an audience, and not every secret improves once it is exposed. Courtesy sometimes asks us to respect the boundaries that allow people to preserve a little mystery.

The Sage smiles at the old saying about sausages because it reminds us that life itself is rather similar. We don’t have to inspect every ingredient behind every success, every kindness or every tradition. A little trust, seasoned with good manners and healthy judgement, often makes for a happier table than endless suspicion ever could.

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Advice of the Day: Feeding the Kids

Only give the kids spaghetti on bath nights.

the sage

Children have an extraordinary ability to wear more of their dinner than they actually consume. The Wise Sage recommends embracing this inevitability by carefully coordinating the weekly menu with your cleaning schedule.

Spaghetti is the ideal bath-night meal because it possesses all the qualities parents usually try to avoid. It stains clothing, decorates walls, defies gravity and somehow ends up in hair, ears and occasionally the family dog. Why fight nature? Simply serve it an hour before bedtime and let the bath do the hard work.

For best results, encourage enthusiastic eating. Long strands should be slurped with maximum commitment, meatballs launched using forks as catapults, and tomato sauce applied liberally to any sibling sitting within arm’s reach. Family meals should resemble a minor crime scene by dessert.

Advanced practitioners may wish to serve garlic bread without plates. This creates a satisfying trail of crumbs leading directly to the bathroom, making it easier to round up sticky children once dinner is over. If the dog reaches the bathroom first, simply consider him pre-washed.

Avoid serving tidy foods such as sandwiches or fish fingers on bath nights. This wastes valuable cleaning potential. Save those for school mornings when everyone is already wearing clean clothes and running late.

Finally, remember that any spaghetti discovered behind a child’s ear the following morning should be considered tomorrow’s breakfast and not a parenting failure.

As always, The Sage accepts no responsibility for stained towels, orange bathwater, or discovering a meatball floating in the bubble bath.

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This Day in History – 23rd July 1753

The Gin-Fuelled Quarrel That Ended on the Gallows

On 23rd July 1753, William Peers was executed at Tyburn for the murder of his wife, Margaret Peers, after what began as an ordinary domestic disagreement descended into irreversible tragedy. Unlike many Old Bailey executions involving highwaymen or professional criminals, this was the story of an ageing working couple whose lives were destroyed in a single drunken evening.

Peers, a 52-year-old journeyman baker from Surrey, had spent most of his life earning an honest living. Contemporary accounts described him as a simple man with limited education and little worldly understanding, but generally considered hardworking and respectable. He and Margaret had been married for several years and, despite the occasional quarrel, neighbours believed they lived together no worse than many working-class couples struggling through difficult circumstances in eighteenth-century London.

On the day of the murder, William had finished work and went to collect Margaret from her place of employment so they could spend the evening together. His intention, according to his later account, was simply to enjoy each other’s company. Instead, after returning home, the pair decided to continue the evening in a nearby public house, where alcohol transformed a domestic disagreement into catastrophe.

The quarrel centred on gin. William believed his wife had already drunk enough and refused to buy her another measure. Margaret, he claimed, became angry and struck him several times. Whether this account was entirely truthful could never be known, but witnesses later agreed that shortly afterwards only the couple remained alone in the public room. By the time anyone entered, Margaret had suffered a fatal knife wound.

William initially insisted the stabbing had been accidental, claiming Margaret had fallen against the knife while striking him. The explanation convinced neither the Coroner’s Jury nor the Old Bailey. As no one else had been present, and the first witness into the room found William still holding the knife, the jury concluded he alone had inflicted the fatal wound and convicted him of murder.

One particularly haunting detail recorded by the Ordinary concerned an incident just weeks before the killing. Margaret had spent an entire Sunday away from home, returning late and heavily intoxicated. After William complained, she reportedly replied:

“Let me die when I will, you will not live long after.”

Following her death, William regarded those words as a grim prophecy fulfilled.

Unlike many condemned prisoners who maintained their innocence until the end, William’s position gradually changed. Although he could never clearly explain exactly how the fatal wound had been inflicted, he eventually accepted that his own hand had caused Margaret’s death. He admitted that uncontrolled passion had overwhelmed his judgement, declaring that his life was a just payment for the blood he had shed.

The Ordinary of Newgate portrayed William as a man whose greatest failing was not innate wickedness but an inability to master his temper. He lamented a lifetime wasted through idleness and poor judgement, telling his spiritual adviser that what troubled him most was not death itself, but the shame and scandal he would leave behind.

On 23rd July 1753, William Peers was taken to Tyburn alongside John Stockdale and Christopher Johnson. After execution, Peers’ body was delivered for anatomical dissection, a further punishment reserved for convicted murderers under the Murder Act, intended to add disgrace even after death and deter others from committing similar crimes.

More than two and a half centuries later, the case remains a sobering reminder that many Old Bailey murder trials were not tales of hardened criminals, but of ordinary people whose inability to control a moment of anger ended two lives instead of one.

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This Day in History – 22nd July 1895

In the early hours of 7 July 1895, what began as a simple walk home along London’s Edgware Road ended in a violent street robbery that demonstrated how organised gangs preyed upon lone pedestrians in Victorian London. By the time the case reached the Old Bailey on 22 July 1895, four young defendants stood accused of carrying out a coordinated attack that left their victim battered, bloodied, and robbed of his watch.

Just after midnight, Arthur Robert Mays was approached by Annie Oakley and another woman. Attempting to avoid any conversation, he stepped into the roadway, only for Alec Pearson to strike him violently from behind, knocking him to the ground. Within seconds John Edwards and Thomas Evans rushed in, repeatedly kicking and punching the helpless victim while others crowded around. During the assault, Mays’ watch was removed from its chain and handed to Pearson before the gang fled.

Although dazed and bleeding, Mays immediately gave chase. Edwards deliberately blocked him, knocking him to the ground once more while shouting, “You shall not take my mate; I will do time for him.” When Police Constable Edwin Potter arrived, Mays pointed out the attackers, but the gang attempted to escape again. As Edwards was being arrested, Annie Oakley struck Mays from behind, knocking him beneath the path of a passing cab. Fortunately, the alert cab driver managed to stop before the wheels could run over him.

Independent witnesses painted a remarkably consistent picture. Painter Edward Henry Spooner saw Pearson knock Mays into the road before Edwards and Evans ran in to kick him while he lay on the ground. Coffee-stall owner Frederick James Real, whose stall stood opposite the attack, confirmed seeing the men stoop over the victim and scramble through his pockets before fleeing. Their evidence strongly supported Mays’ account of what had happened.

When arrested, Edwards showed little remorse. At the police station he openly admitted kicking the victim, declaring, “Yes, I kicked you, and I will kick you again.” While being escorted away he also warned Oakley not to “know nothing about the ticker”—Victorian slang for the stolen watch.

At trial the defendants attempted to portray the incident as nothing more than a drunken street fight. Pearson claimed Mays had started the trouble, Edwards insisted he had actually helped the victim, Evans denied taking part in the robbery, and Oakley denied striking anyone. Their version of events failed to convince either the jury or the witnesses, whose accounts closely matched each other throughout the proceedings.

All four defendants were found guilty. Edwards, Evans and Pearson each received terms of hard labour, but the court imposed an additional punishment that reflected Victorian attitudes towards violent robbery: twenty strokes of the cat-o’-nine-tails. Edwards received fourteen months’ imprisonment, Evans fifteen months, Pearson twelve months, while Annie Oakley was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment with hard labour.

The case offers a vivid glimpse into London’s street crime during the late Victorian era. It also illustrates how quickly a seemingly chance encounter could become a coordinated robbery, and how the testimony of independent eyewitnesses could dismantle even the most determined attempts to deny responsibility.

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Advice of the Day: Trusting Dogs

Trust dogs. They always know who to stay away from.

the sage

Dogs possess instincts far beyond human understanding. They can detect fear, kindness, hidden sausages, and apparently whether your postman deserves happiness. The Wise Sage therefore recommends outsourcing all major life decisions to the nearest canine.

Meeting someone for the first time? Don’t waste hours getting to know them. Simply introduce them to a dog and stand back. If the dog wags its tail, congratulations—you’ve found someone worth talking to. If it growls, barks, or quietly walks into another room, cancel the wedding, decline the business proposal, and return their Christmas present unopened.

The system also works in reverse. Should a dog take an immediate liking to somebody you already dislike, simply assume the dog has been temporarily distracted by the possibility of biscuits. Even the finest judge of character has the occasional off day.

For maximum accuracy, consult several dogs before making any important decision. Labradors are ideal for optimism, Border Collies excel at overthinking, and Chihuahuas should only be used when deciding who to declare war on.

Cats, by comparison, offer little practical guidance. They dislike everyone equally and would happily watch civilisation collapse, provided it didn’t interrupt their nap.

If a dog refuses to enter a particular house, don’t ask questions—just keep walking. Likewise, if every dog in the park suddenly decides to leave at the same time, it is probably wise to join them.

Finally, if your own dog starts barking at your reflection in the patio doors, don’t panic. It’s probably just protecting you from yourself… again.

As always, The Sage accepts no responsibility for cancelled relationships, abandoned dinner parties, or discovering that your dog simply dislikes people wearing hats.

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