La vache qui tache La vache qui tache La vache qui tache (English: "the cow who stains") is a party game that originated in France. The only prop required is a cork with one end of which has been blackened by a candle flame. Assign each player a number. Player one calls out ""Je suis la vache qui tache sans taches numéro 1 et j'appelle la vache sans taches numéro X"" ("I am the spotted cow with zero spots number 1, and I call the cow with zero spots number X"), where X is the number of any other player. When the game first
Animal magnetism Among many lectures warning society against government oppression, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote: William Pitt, the great political Animal Magnetist, ... has most foully worked on the diseased fancy of Englishmen ... thrown the nation into a feverish slumber, and is now bringing it to a crisis which may convulse mortality! In his article "Under the Influence: Mesmerism in England", Roy Porter notes that James Tilly Matthews suggested that the French were infiltrating England via animal magnetism. Matthews believed that "magnetic spies" would invade England and bring it under subjection by transmitting waves of animal magnetism to subdue the government and