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Southwestern Reporter, 1918

The above facts were developed by the testimony of the appellee on his direct examination, and on his cross-examination he stated that he had charge of the coal chute and everything down there, including this plank. He was a foreman and had two men under him. When anything needed to be done he went ahead and did it, except the repair work. Appellee began work there in February, and worked until he was injured in August. During that time the plank was right there across the pit. He would say that he had walked the plank 200 or 300 times. There was plenty of room to lay the plank across the pit and be perfectly safe. It was perfectly secure and solid as long as it laid up there. Appellee was asked if Mr. Gordon had anything to do with employing him, and answered “No;” that Gordon was foreman of the water service crew. When appellee was injured it was the second time that he had been on the plank that morning. The engine had been running about twenty minutes. Appellee did not notice to see whether the plank was over the edge far enough. He was under the impression that the plank was safe. When the water service crew came the plank was removed in order to get down in the pit to repair the machinery. The rest of the pit was covered over. Appellee thought the plank was safe because he had been instructed that it would be fixed. At the time appellee was injured he went and used the plank just like he had been doing for six months. “Mr. Gordon told me the Sunday before I got hurt that he would look after it.” Appellee gave the matter no further thought and relied on what Mr. Gordon told him. Mr. Gordon was right at the pump at the time. Mr. Gordon did not employ appellee, and had no right to discharge him. His business was to look after the pump and keep it in proper condition. Appellee’s business was to oil it, start it, and keep it running.

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Southwestern Reporter, 1915

The facts substantially are that plaintiff, a young lady schoolteacher, whose father was a drayman or operated a transfer at Mulberry of freight from the state to the merchants about the town, was in the habit of collecting the freight bills for the freight delivered by her father. On the day the injury occurred the company was removing its depot building, and it was raised about 2 or 3 feet on jacks and a plank 2 inches thick by 8 inches wide and 10 feet long was put up from the ground into the door for people to enter upon, the steps having been removed. It was necessary for her to enter the door in order to reach the office of the agent and get the freight bills, and the agent was at the door when she came, and assisted her to enter the building as she walked the plank. After she got the freight bills she came back out of the door, and upon her first step on the plank she said it careened or turned, and she feel to the ground on her hands and knees, and was severely injured, the physician testified. She made no complaint at the time and no one saw her fall, although there were several people working about the building, some of the men, eight or ten, being under the house at the jacks. She went on uptown and collected the bills, and returned shortly with the money and with two or three other friends, at which time she laughingly said something about the plank, and that she had fallen off of it when she started uptown. She stated that the plank did not turn over, and seemed to be in the same position after she fell as it was when she stepped on it. Others testified that the plank would naturally spring a little when the weight of a person was put upon it; that it was about 10 feet long, one end resting on the ground and the other on the door sill which was about 2 1/2 feet from the ground. It was not claimed that the plank slipped or fell out of the door. One witness stated that the end of the plank on the ground rested unevenly; the ground not being level. Other witnesses testified that there was no danger at all in using the plank in place of steps to get in the door, one saying that he had been over it as many as 100 times, and noticed no unusual spring or movement of it. There was testimony relative to the earning capacity of the plaintiff and the permanency of the injury. Evidence upon the part of the appellant tended strongly to show that her injury was the result of a fall from a horse by which she was thrown shortly before the alleged fall from the plank in the door of the depot building. Some of the witnesses stated that she was so affected within a few days after the fall from the horse that she could not arise from her chair in the schoolroom, that she screamed with pain, and it took two or three men to assist her to get into her buggy.

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Russell Thorndyke, Doctor Syn: A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh, 1915

Page 8: Now Doctor Syn was very fond of the sea, and he was never far away from it. Even in winter time he would walk upon the sea-wall with a formidable telescope under his arm, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of a long sea-coat, and his old black three-cornered parson’s hat cocked well forward and pulled down over his eyes. And although the simple old fellow would be mentally working out his dry-as-dust sermons, he would be striding along at a most furious speed, presenting to those who did not know him an altogether alarming appearance, for in tune to his brisk step he would be humming the first verse of an old-time sea shanty that he had picked up from one ruffianly sedan of a parishioner; and as he strode along, with his weather eye ever on the lookout for big ships coming up the Channel, the rough words would roll from his gentle lips with the most perfect incongruity:

“Oh, here’s to the feet that have walked the plank,   Yo ho! for the dead ma’s throttle, And here’s to the corpses floating round in the tank,   And the dead man’s teeth in the bottle.”

Page 97: Doctor Syn was gloomy through the meal, and although he kept pressing Jerry to “take more” and to “help himself,” he made no effort at keeping up conversation; in fact, had not the food been good and plenteous, Jerry very much doubted whether he would have enjoyed himself at all, for Doctor Syn’s manner was so different. He seemed strained and excited, and not once or twice, but many times during the repast, he would get up and stride about the room, and once he broke out into singing that old sea song that Jerry had so often heard at the Ship Inn:

“Here’s to the feet wot have walked the plank.   Yo ho! for the dead man’s throttle. And here’s to the corpses floating round in the tank,   And the dead man’s teeth in the bottle.”

Page 123: The Doctor was now kneeling on the floor straight up. He had a black bottle in his hand; the same rum bottle from which he had treated Jerk that very day. He seemed to recognize Imogene, for he smiled as she entered, smiled as he slowly raised the bottle and tilted the contents, neat and raw, down his vibrating throat. And then he saw the schoolmaster. His upper lip twitched, curled, and rose, disclosing his white upper teeth; his underlip stretched down and showed his lower teeth, shining white, that glistened underneath the bottle’s neck. There was a snap and a quick crunching sound. The captain gasped for breath, for Doctor Syn had bitten through the glass neck, and seized the bottle by the broken end. Slowly he dragged one leg from the kneeling position and pushed it out before him; slowly he fixed his other foot like a firm spring behind him. Terrified, Mr. Rash sprang back against the wall, with the blood still trickling from his cut lip, and motionless stood the girl Imogene, with the candle held above her head. Syn was in position to spring, Rash was waiting to be seized, and nothing moved in the room save the slowly oozing blood on the schoolmaster’s lip, vivid against the pale lantern jaw, and the blood and ground glass that glistened in a saliva stream that hung from the cleric’s mouth. Nothing else moved at all, except perhaps the light shed by the flickering candle, which danced shadows of the two weird men upon the whitewashed wall. And then with a hissing sound Syn made a leap, swinging the bottle as he did so, and bringing it down with a sickening crash on the white face before him. Down went Rash, senseless, blinded with blood and the shivered glass. Then Syn laughed, and sang at the tope of his voice:

“Here’s to the feet wot have walked the plank.   Yo ho! for the dead man’s throttle. And here’s to the corpses floating round in the tank,   And the dead man’s teeth in the bottle.”

Page 244: “What the devil’s he burning his arm for?” thought the squire. Doctor Syn then began to whistle under his breath; to whistle that old tune the words of which the squire knew so well: “Here’s to the feet wot have walked the plank.” The squire remembered certain words of the captain: Clegg’s one tattoo — the picture of a man walking the plank, executed badly upon his forearm. “Good God! Was it possible? No! Ridiculous!”

Page 292: From the cabin came that horrible song:

“Here’s to the feet wot have walked the plank.   Yo ho! for the dead man’s throttle.

And then words were uttered in a drunken voice, the voice of a drunkard in terror.

Page 299: Dymchurch is very quiet again, and the wild adventures of the few days recorded in this book were forgotten after Trafalgar, but the Doctor was never forgotten by those who knew him, and it would bring tears to their eyes did anybody chance to sing his quaint old capstan song:

“Here’s to the feet wot have walked the plank.   Yo ho! for the dead man’s throttle. And here’s to the corpses floating round in the tank,   And the dead man’s teeth in the bottle.

“For a pound of gunshot tied to his feat, And a ragged bit of sail for a winding sheet; Then the signal goes with a bang and a flash, And overboard you go with a horrible splash.

“And all that isn’t swallowed by the sharks outside, Stands up again upon its feet upon the running tide; And it keeps a bowin’ gently, and a lookin’ with surprise At each little crab a scrambling’ from the sockets of its eyes.”

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Don C. Seitz, The Buccaneers: Rough Verse, 1912

Walking the plank is a short parade,   A ready road out of life. The step to the end is easily made,   So take it and raise no strife!

Life’s but a toss for a bit of gold—   You’ve lost your throw, we’ve won! The water is green as grass on a grave;   Make the leap and begone!

The die was cast with loaded dice,   You knew your fate before. No use to plead, death is decreed—   A splash, and ’twill all be o’er!

It’s cool and quiet beneath the wave   Down in the sparkling sea; A ripple or two and bubbles a few,   And your troubles will cease to be!

They tell no tales who walk the plank,   The pirate no tale-bearer owns; Tilt the board on end, and quickly send   The tattler to Davy Jones!

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The American Pressman: Reports of Officers, 1911

Page 79: President Berry asked the advisability of striking the town when that insulting, rotten, open shop contract was submitted. The committee representing the union were a little bit skeptical as to the number of men who would walk the plank in case of a call. The condition and been so rotten and had been getting so much worse that even the skeptical walked the plank and answered the call to a man, with the exception of a few foremen who had seen in that glorious document that they would not have to belong to the organization under future contracts with that notorious gang of brigands known as the Publishers’ Association. There were a few men who were looking for soft jobs who did not answer the call. Few of them had attended union meetings in the past year. The Hearst papers were offering rich propositions to scab and break their obligations as trades unionists. That is why a few of them stayed in. I am told that one of the members who went back had a mortgage lifted from an apartment house he had been budding, and that he got a contract for five years at $5,000 a year. One of the scabs in the American pressroom, Mr. Sheridan, made $190 the first week he scabbed on Web Pressmen’s Union No. 7.

Page 80: When the men were forced out of the Hearst pressrooms under the escort of the police force of the mayor of the city of Chicago and a bunch of plain clothes men, the stereotypers walked the plank in sympathy, owing to a clause they had that gave them the right to demand that papers that had a dispute with a sister union of the allied trades arbitrate the difference. We were willing to arbitrate those differences and the Stereotypers’ organization was in a position to demand that we arbitrate. The Publishers’ Association said to the committee of the stereotypers: “We licked you a few years ago and made you like it, and it is your duty to stand by now and see us lick Web Pressmen’s Union No. 7.” And believe me, if it had not been for the loyal support of the other trades they would have licked us in thirty-six hours! But there are too many trades unions in Chicago to fall for any gaff like that.

The Stereotypers’ men went back to their union with that report and decided to pull the town; and they pulled the town. Then came the mail and delivery wagon drivers, who walked the plank unanimously, without hesitancy, without contracts with us and with contracts with the Publishers’ Association. They took the stand that a publisher who would willingly violate his contract with a labor organization ceased to be a decent party; that any contract with a crook, if you please, was not binding with them, and they broke the contract and came out. Then the newsboys took the matter up and refused to handle the scab papers.

Next came the Circulators’ Union. That union is a pretty foxy bunch of boys. After the publication of our statements public sentiment became so strong that even if they wanted to they could not deliver papers — that is, some of them. They all got together with us and formed a union, and even though I protested against their coming on strike, they decided unanimously to strike and refused to handle a scab paper issued by the trust press that was bent on destroying trades unionism in the city of Chicago. I took this stand because I believe they should increase their field of action, their scope, as it were, and they could do just as much for us by remaining in a while and then coming out, possibly in a week or two, to see how the game was going. But they would not handle the papers, and they walked the plank with the rest of the unions.

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Southwestern Reporter, 1910

Other witnesses offered by defendant testified to the effect that they saw her on the afternoon after the accident climb up on a stump about three feet high, and get onto a plank walk that led from the top of the stump near her house to the railroad, and saw her walk the plank walk to the railroad. She did not limp when she was walking this plank walk, and showed no sign of being crippled when she climbed upon the stump and got on the walk, saw her that afternoon get up from the table and walk about the room. On the day of the accident, December 28th, witnesses saw her outside her house. She did not walk lame; could not detect any difference in her walk then and before she was injured; saw no evidence of limping. The plank walk referred to was about 3 1/2 feet from the ground. It rested upon some posts with cleats nailed across, and was used for a walk. The planks were about 12 inches wide. The walk was one plank wide in one place and two planks in another. It was over a borrow pit. To get on the walk she would have to climb up a little ash stump, and she was on the plank walk when witnesses saw her. She had to walk this plank about 30 or 40 feet over a water hole.

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The Independent, 1907

The importance of the proposition seems to have been overlooked by the public generally, and the difficulties encountered in carrying it can be appreciated only by those who endeavored to secure for some favorite idea the unanimous approval of representatives from all countries, speaking all languages and standing in a position of such responsibility that the vital interests of their nation and people may depend upon their action. We, the unofficial public, are like one walking on a plank lying on the ground. This is done without difficulty. Indeed, it takes an effort to step off rather than on the plank. Elevate the plank ten feet from the ground and it takes a well governed mind to walk on it at all. Elevate it 1,000 feet and who can walk on it with a steady tread? Only those whose eye remains open and clear in the face of a danger. Membership in a Conference such as this at The Hague is like walking the plank at the 1,000 foot elevation. Men unburdened with the responsibility of membership in the Conference can arrive easily at a decision on every question proposed. The same men placed in the Conference instantly become conscious of responsibility and correspondingly cautious in their decisions. The controlling individuals in such assemblies are those who decide and proceed with the ease and carelessness, at such heights of responsibility, as characterize the man walking safety on the level ground of private opinion.

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Southwestern Reporter, 1908

Q: How did you get back to Bakersport? A. I walked. Q. Did you have any other way to go? A. No, sir. Q. Did you have any money? A. No, sir. Q. The conductor did not offer to pass you back? A. No, sir. Q. Tell the jury what you had to do to get back? A. There was mud through the bottom where there is a trestle. I do not know how long the trestle is, but I know it is a long one. Q. You did not attempt to walk the trestle? A. No, sir. Q. What did you do? A. Walked on the ground in the mud. Q. Who was with you? A. My little niece and my baby girl. Q. How did you get across the bridge? A. We finally got across the bridge, but had right smart time of it. Q. You say it was muddy? A. Yes, sir; and, where we could not wade, we walked the plank fence, and held the baby, and she cried all the way, and fell down and made her sick. Q. I did not understand what you said about the plank fence. A. I said we walked a plank fence across the water.

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Canada, House of Commons Debates: Official Report, 1906

But the portion I wished particularly to read is this: ‘The Ottawa opposition appear to suspect that investigation would show how certain public servants contrived to perform the get-rich-quick act. It is regarded as significant that some of the suspected walked the plank, as if voluntarily last year.’

Now, Mr. Speaker, who are these men Mr. Thomson refers to, who were in the government and are not in it now, and who have voluntarily walked the plank? There is the ex-Minister of the Interior, he is one of those who, Mr. Thomson tells us, has walked the plank as if voluntarily. The next one would be Mr. Smart, the deputy minister; he also has resigned from the government, and has become agent of the North Atlantic Trading Company with whom he had made a contract when an officer of the government; he also has walked the plank as if voluntarily. Then last, and by no means least, there is the Dominion Lands Commissioner, who stepped down and out from his salary of $4,000 per annum to take $1,500, running the risk of being private member of this House. So it is easy to see to whom Mr. Thomson refers when he says that certain gentlemen in connection with the department have to walk the plank as if voluntarily. then his letter goes on: ‘This would seem to have been judicious in view of the certainty that Sir Wilfrid, once he ceases to be deceived through his honorable confidence in subordinates or colleagues, will, of course, root out any remaining rascals.’

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The Irish Playgoer and Amusement Record, 1899

A Word or Two about Planks. We don’t get much fun out of a plank in everyday life, do we? A plank bed, and its indispensable accessories, would be the acme of misery to most of us; planking down our money is not the pleasantest occupation at any time, and even the old piratical pastime of walking the plank was not a form of amusement any of us would care to see revived. In fact, if anyone had told me on Saturday that I’d laugh at a plank I’d have laughed at him. We often joke over the lodging house board, which, as everybody knows, is first cousin to the plank, and we occasionally knock a light out of public boards, but a plank is a plank over which, down along the quays, we may now and again break our shins, but which to the uninitiated appears to be of no other use whatever.

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Northwestern Reporter, 1890

Collins v. Toledo …. (Supreme Court of Michigan, May 2, 1890.) Carriers — Dangerous Depot Platform.

1. Plaintiff, in ascending the platform at defendant’s depot, had her foot injured by the falling of a plank on which she was walking. The plank was unfastened, one end resting on the platform and the other on the ground. It had not been placed there by defendant, but it had been adopted by the public as well as by the station agent, because defendant had provided no step. There was as well-beaten path leading to it. The platform was from 20 to 30 inches high except at one corner, which was little used, and there it was about 16 inches high. Held, that defendant was liable for the injury. 2. In such case evidence as to how long and how much the plank had been used by the public was competent.

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Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure island, 1884

Page 5: His stories were what frightened people worst of all. Dreadful stories they were; about hanging, and walking the plank, and storms at sea, and the Dry Tortugas, and wild deeds and places on the Spanish Main. By his own account he must have lived his life among some of the wickedest men that God ever allowed upon the sea; and the languages in which he told these stories shocked our plain country people almost as much as the crimes that he described. My father was always saying the inn would be ruined, for people would soon cease coming there to be tyrannized over and put down, and sent shivering to their beds; but I really believe his presence did us good. People were frightened at the time, but on looking back they rather liked it; it was a fine excitement in a quiet country life; and there was even a party of the younger men who pretended to admire him, calling him a “true sea-dog,” and a “real old salt,” and such like names, and saying there was the sort of man that made England terrible at sea.

Page 283: And thereupon we all entered the cave. It was a large, airy place, with a little spring and a pool of clear water, overhung with turns. The floor was sand. Before a big fire lay Captain Smollett; and in a far corner, only duskily flickered over by the blaze, I beheld great heaps of coin and quadrilaterals built of bars of gold. That was Flint’s treasure that we had come so far to seek, and that had cost already the lives of seventeen men from the ‘Hispaniola.’ How many it had cost in the amassing, what blood and sorrow, what good ships scuttled on the deep, what brave men walking the plank blindfold, what shot of cannon, what shame and lies and cruelty, perhaps no man alive could tell. Yet there were still three upon that island — Silver, and old Morgan, and Ben Gunn — who had each taken his share in these crimes, as each had hoped in vain to share in the reward.

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Mathematical Questions with Their Solutions, 1877

Page 107: 5246. (By Professor Crofton, F.R.S.)—A man stands at the center of a long plank which is floating on water; find how far he may walk towards either end without upsetting the plan (the thickness being supposed very small).

I. Solution by Colonel A.R. Clarke, C.B., F.R.S. Let a, b, c be the length, breadth, and thickness of the plank; W, o its weight and specific gravity, we the weight of the man, the unit of weight being the unit cube of water. If he be the depth to which the plank is submerged when the man stands at its center, then if h + k = c, we have ahh = abco + w, abk = abc (1-o) w. As k must be positive, we have the necessary condition…..

Page 109: The problem may be more generally enunciated as follows: �� “A rectangular parallelepiped, floating, has a heavy particle attached to a point on one of its faces; determine its position of equilibrium.” [Of the second way of walking the plank, Col. Clark gives the following solution:—] 2. Let the length AB of plank = a; its thickness AA’ = c; and W, w the eights of the plank of of the man. Let M be the center of gravity of the man at a given height above axis, OH, of the plank. Supposing the man to retain a position perpendicular to the plank (which simplifies the solution) the locus of the center of gravity of the man and plank will be a line CC’ parallel to AB and at a height CO = g. Let OH, HG be the coordinates of the center of gravity G of the submerged portion of the plank measured from the center of the axis. When the man stands at the center of the plank, let h be the depth to which the plank is submerged, and let h + k = c. Let o = specific gravity of the plank, then we have…..

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The Gentleman’s Journal, 1870

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The Gentleman’s Journal, 1870

Page 346: A long plank was procured and placed slantways from about the center of the deck over a low portion of the vessel’s bulwarks. This plank extended out towards the sea some six or eight feet. At the other extremity towards the ship a loose rope was fastened, the other end of which was tied to a ratlin in the main shrouds. The effect of this arrangement was very simple, and according to a well-known law of mechanics. If anyone could be induced to walk along this plank it would be firm and secure until they got past the center of gravity on which it rested. Then the weight of the hapless person would tip up the plank, and a plunge in the sea would be the natural consequence. The plank then being secured by a loose rope could be hauled in again, and replaced for another victim. This was “walking the plank.” A mode of disposing of their prisoners, well known among the pirates of the South Pacific and the Spanish main.

……..

“My name is Mark Single. I was supercargo of the ‘Albatross.’”

“The ‘Albatross?’ Single?”

“Yes, sir,” added Mark. “You may well feel confused and require explanation, since the captain of this vessel, the ’St. Joseph,’ named it the ‘Albatross,’ and himself Single. But at present there is no time for full explanations, as we must take immediate measures to resist an attack which doubtless will be made against us as soon as the pirates recover from their panic.”

“True,” said the lieutenant, “we shall have a fight for it; and if any of us fall then, it will be very different from walking the plank.”

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The Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle, 1861

Captain Mends, on rising, was greeted with enthusiastic applause. He said, — I cannot take the compliment as paid wholly to myself, for I stand before you as the representative of a service which I have served for many years, and which I still love with all my heart. I have not been, as you are well aware, a silver spoon man, and in the beginning I had not perhaps the benefit which the Conway is now conferring upon many. But I persevered, I was taught the path of duty at any rate, and to look to honor and an honorable position always. I feel that that, and keeping truth before me, has brought me to what I am — a position of great respect, for great it is. Some thirty-five years ago I entered the naval service, and for thirty-two out of that I have walked the plank. Up to this moment, I have been only three years and about a month unemployed — that is on shore. On my return from foreign service three or four years ago, having sought a home appointment, and applied for one of the district ships then being prepared, I directly asked for Liverpool. I had always heard there was a little feeling in Liverpool against the service, and when I applied for the place several of my brother officers said, “You will have great difficulty in Liverpool; it is a difficult place.” But I felt that if I did my duty the service might be as well carried on in Liverpool as anywhere else.

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The Startling Thrilling & Interesting Narrative of the Life, Sufferings, Singular and Surprising Adventures of Fanny Templeton Danforth, 1849

….”Surely,” I said, “you would not murder me in cold blood?” “Murder? come, that is a harsh term; but as to blood — it matters little to us whether it be cold or hot. All, I say, are gone but you, and you I suppose will soon understand walking the plank. By the way, speaking of that — what death would you prefer?

This was said in a careless tone, that seemed to freeze my very blood in my veins, and nerve me with the calmness of utter desperation; for I fancied all hope was over — with no way of escaping my doom.

“Come, you hesitate — what death say you? I will be generous for once, and give you your choice; and as you are young, and rather innocent looking, will give you ten minutes to say your prayers.” “Nay,” answered I, “lead on! If I must die, let it be now, and any death you fancy. — It makes little difference to me. But pray tell me, where are all the females I saw on board?” “O, they walked the plank like heroes — glad I believe to escape our warm embraces. Do you not think they were kind to do this, after serving our purposes?” “Monster!” I cried; “now I know you for the damnable fiend you are. Lead on to death! I am ready.”