Extinctly Turnspit

I stepped out my door, hit the sidewalk and there in the middle of it was a train engine.  Yep parked on the sidewalk and not a person in sight. It was not there the night before nor did I see at any time yesterday. There were no children playing outside. The toddler above me moved out and the children of the man next door have not visited in a few weeks. Very mysterious.

As I was walking down the final stretch of road to my home I passed a dumpster and positioned like a couple of centuries in front of it were 2 upright vacuum cleaners. There were about 6 feet in front of the dumpster and 4 feet apart. Both facing forward. Also very mysterious. Now I admit I have walked a vacuum cleaner, that failed to function up to that dumpster and later I  it being  walked off by a woman. I assume she took it to be repaired. I do not have the patience for that sort of thing. Either work properly or move on! I have a complete function fail when my car has an issue.

I had another mystery presented to me the other day. It was the term dog-spit and involved a kitchen hearth. I had to explore this as I had never heard of it but the hostess of the ghost show and the pub owner both knew what it was. Do you?

Let me describe the spit part. It comes from the word turn-spit which most of you know as a rotisserie.

 It is a style of roasting meat. The meat is skewered with a rod to secure it and is then placed over a fire in a hearth or BBQ pit and turned regularly to ensure even cooking. It is generally used for large cuts or joints of meat. The regular turning allows the meant to baste in its own juice. In medieval days a young boy sat near the fire and turned the spit. He was referred to as a spit-boy or a spit-jack.

                                                   Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki 

Later mechanical turnspits were invented and powered by a dog on a treadmill in a wheel. 

These wheels were mounted on the wall up near the top of the hearth.  Dog-spit. Here is where it got a wee bit interesting.  The dogs, called Turnspit Dog were bred to do this. 

They had short crooked legs, a long body, were charcoal grey with spots, black or chestnut in color with some white occasionally on their faces and bellies and were very sturdy. 

The breed is mentioned in a book titled Of English Dogs that was published in 1576 and were known as "Turnespete". Because of the strenuous nature of their job two dogs were kept and they alternated them to keep them from exhaustion. They are now extinct.

Even Shakespeare knew of them based off this reference form his work The Comedy of Errors when he describes somebody as being a "curtailed dog fit only to run in a wheel." William Penn’s wife wrote back to England requesting a dog wheel for her turnspit. There were advertisements in the Pennsylvania Gazette the paper run by Benjamin Franklin for wheels and turnspit dogs.

Thanks to the mistreatment of the dogs by a hotel in Manhattan the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was born.

It is said that Queen Victoria kept a couple of retired Turnspit dogs as pets. The closest relative to these dogs seems to be the Corgi a favored pet of the Queen.

From over-worked kitchen dogs to the pampered pets of Royalty. Not a bad tale.