Wills, Wombs, and Wagers: The Great Stork Derby

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When Charles Vance Miller died on Halloween 1926, few could have predicted the bizarre legacy this childless Toronto lawyer would leave behind. Born to humble farming parents, Miller had built an empire through shrewd investments in breweries, silver mines, and racehorses, becoming one of Canada's wealthiest bachelors. But without heirs or close relationships, his true lasting impact would come through what he called his "necessarily uncommon and capricious" will.

Miller's will became notorious for its mischievous provisions. He left brewery shares to temperance-preaching ministers, jockey club ownership to anti-gambling clergymen, and forced three men who likely despised each other to co-own his vacation home until the last one died. Yet his most extraordinary stipulation—which would become known as "The Great Stork Derby"—offered roughly $500,000 (about $12 million today) to the Toronto woman who gave birth to the most children in the decade following his death.

What began as an obscure provision in a will evolved into a public spectacle that laid bare the tensions of 1930s Toronto society. Newspapers published "racing cards" tracking mothers' progress, while courtroom battles determined which children "counted," revealing deep prejudices about legitimacy, immigration, and women's autonomy. When a woman who had left an abusive husband found herself disqualified despite bearing ten children, and another lost standing because her child was stillborn, the darker implications of Miller's game became apparent.

The final ruling in 1936 declared four women joint winners, each receiving approximately $2 million in today's currency. Surprisingly, these mothers used their windfalls responsibly—purchasing homes and providing education for their large families. But the ethical questions linger: Was Miller's contest a cruel manipulation of vulnerable women or a unique form of philanthropy? And what does our continued fascination with this story reveal about our own attitudes toward wealth, family, and posthumous power?

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Episode Transcript

Don (00:29):
But when you realize the pigeons were part of the
experiment, the whole thingmakes a lot more sense.

Ron (00:33):
It still seems wildly unethical.
I don't know.

Doug (00:37):
It was a different time.
Depends on how you.
You guys think pigeons are real.
You guys still think that?
Huh.

Ron (00:47):
You ever seen a pigeon and a dove in the same place?

Don (00:51):
Hey everybody, Welcome to the Uncannery.
I'm Don.

Doug (00:54):
I'm Ron and I, very much as Doug, believe in pigeons.
I just want to make that clear,wow.

Don (01:00):
Hey, doug, you're here, two in a row.

Doug (01:01):
It's really good to be here twice in a row, to say the
least, I lost money on that.
How much?

Ron (01:10):
$10 at the pickle court.

Doug (01:13):
At the pickle court we went from.
Is that the natural court, Aregular court?

Don (01:20):
Regular court is a pickle court.

Doug (01:21):
Very good Regular court is a pickle court Very good.

Don (01:25):
So, hey guys, From what I understand about having listened
to you two talk to each otherit seems like you guys like to
play games.

Ron (01:34):
Oh, do you like to play?

Doug (01:36):
We're always playing games , game play.

Don (01:37):
Game to game we're gamers Play us.

Doug (01:42):
Yeah, that's us.

Don (01:46):
So well, what?
What are some crazy like the?

Doug (01:50):
what's the weirdest game you've ever played, great
question I was part of a when Iwas a young lad.
At the local mall they had agame show.
They filmed a live televisionaudience game show for um, an
animal network for kids, inwhich they would bring out

(02:11):
different animals for games theywere.
If you won the games, you wouldwin gift cards.
Were you competing?
Against the animals no becauseI would watch that.
Yes, if they really.
It would still be on the air ifthat was happening.

Don (02:25):
Put the kid in the cage with the tiger as you enter one
leaf, that's a solid plan rightthere, rome did that it didn't
go super well, best empire inthe history of the world.

Ron (02:38):
Where were you, yeah?

Doug (02:42):
No, the game that I had to play.
So it started with the host ofthe show saying whoever screams
the loudest in the in thisaudience can come back, and I
remember screaming to the pointthat I was in pain, um, like I
was really hurting my throat,and I saw like the host looking
at the crowd and then his eyeslike went to me as I'm just like
full mouth, like just screamingat the top of my lungs, and he

(03:04):
goes you, um, flutter of nerves,I get on the stage and the game
that we had to play.
It was a variation of what iscalled chubby bunny, which is
putting things in this casemarshmallows into your mouth and
you had to say words off of acard and the person across from
you, who was my mom, had toguess, guess what I was saying.

(03:25):
And I lost because the girlthat I was competing against, in
my opinion, was clearlycheating, because she still had
her fingers in her mouth, likeshe'd put a marshmallow in, pull
her cheeks back and would stillvery clearly say the word.
And yeah, I didn't do too well,I was definitely the chubbier
bunny.

Ron (03:40):
I still am.

Doug (03:42):
But yeah, I didn't win that one.
What was the prize?
Was it?
It was an elephant five hundreddollars to sam goody oh I would
have bought so many albums.
But yeah, my music career wouldhave started way earlier yeah,
if that that's a whole differentlife path, that what could have
happened you know what couldhave been what could have been.

(04:04):
Indeed, that's a big one.

Ron (04:06):
Um, yeah, that's a pretty zany game, yeah, um, I've never
been on a on a game show, um,but I I do remember you reminded
me that uh, we went to an angel, uh, angels baseball game, yeah
, in gorgeous anaheim once, um,when I was pretty young maybe 10
or 11 or something and they dolike, uh, radio stations will be

(04:29):
out front right and they'll belike trying to do little
competitions or whatever, andthey just sort of picked me out
of the crowd.
I was like walking by with mydad and they're like you come do
this.
And I was like a kid and I waslike I do what I'm told.
So I walked over to this likebooth scared it was like a radio
guy.
I think he was for like K-Rockor something, and he was like
take this football and throw itthrough one of these three holes

(04:52):
.
And I'm terrible at this kindof stuff.
I just don't really like doingany ball throwing.
I'm not good at it and I justsort of without.
I just like wanted this to endas quickly as possible.
So I just sort of took the ballin my hand, I just threw it as
fast as possible and it wentstraight through like the
bullseye hole, like the bigwinner hole, and this guy's,
like whoa dude's, got a cannonon his arm or whatever.

(05:13):
And then basically I got like aK-Rock t-shirt that was like
two sizes too big and that wasit Very cool and then so, but I
don't know if that's a game, Iguess it's kind of a game it is.
I won that game.

Don (05:25):
That's a carnival game, it was a carnival game.
Yeah, yeah, yeah For sure.

Doug (05:29):
I mean.

Ron (05:29):
Warhammer itself is also a very silly game.

Doug (05:32):
Yeah.

Ron (05:32):
The game of pushing little figurines across the table.
People take it very seriously.
I remember being a teenager andplaying with some of my friends
.
We would like playingsleepovers around playing like a
big game of Warhammer.
And I had two friends who werebrothers and they absolutely
hated each other at the end of agame of Warhammer, like like
actual tears crying and likeshoving each other and it was

(05:54):
bad.
And we kept doing it because itwas kind of fun to watch they
were the Warhammers.

Doug (06:00):
They were Warhammering, getting Warhammered.
Yeah, with your buddies.

Ron (06:07):
What is the game of warhammer?
The game of warhammer is reallyactually a sport of kings.
It's a deeply tactical andstrategic uh so it's like bad
tabletop

Doug (06:13):
game.

Ron (06:14):
Yeah, yeah, very much like badminton, yeah, very similar,
lots of crossover in that uhplayer base.
Uh, it's a tabletop game butyou move miniatures to fight a
simulated war game againstsomeone else's team.
And in warhammer it's sciencefiction and you got ridiculous
teams.
They'll be the bug team versusthe marines team versus the elf

(06:36):
team yeah, yeah, get them outthere.

Doug (06:39):
Yeah, do your bid.
Notice that you didn't mentioncustodians.
Really hurts, that's right.
I'd rather not Do your bid.
Notice that you didn't mentioncustodians.

Ron (06:43):
It really hurts.
I'd rather not.
They're the lamest team.

Doug (06:48):
You'll see them soon.
You'll see them soon.

Ron (06:51):
And, of course, the part of the big thing about Warhammer
is you got to buy these littlefigures and then assemble them
and paint them and it's reallymore of a, it's more of an
achievement to have even broughtan army to the table.
Yeah brought an army to thetable.
To even have been, to even havethe opportunity to play is
already a victory in and ofitself.
And then you have to play likea three hour long game on top of
that, which is of questionable.
Like fun, yeah, but stillpretty cool.

Doug (07:14):
Yeah, if you're not role playing it, I think there's
something wrong with you.
It should be that level of fun.

Ron (07:19):
Yeah, what's your zaniest game, dylan?

Don (07:22):
So I try and think so zaniest.
So I tried out for a game showonce which was Card Sharks oh, I
love that one.
Yeah, and I left completelydisillusioned, wow.

Ron (07:39):
With television, with the sports.

Don (07:40):
Yeah, because I was good at it right.

Doug (07:42):
Yeah.

Don (07:43):
Like I know cards, I know trivia.
Like that's all you need, right?
But like you had to put on thisover-the-top personality in
order to continue to be selectedthrough the various phases of
processing.
Like they didn't ask us toscream our heads off.
Like your experience, but itwas so I just didn didn't like

(08:04):
it wasn't was the host of thatone, bob eubanks at some point.
Yeah, the the he didn't do theum the kid version though it was
somebody else, but anyways Iknow it's higher than a two bob,
I just know it.
you had to be that kid, yeah, no, yeah, I'm glad you didn't
compromise, I didn't make it,but one time I did participate

(08:27):
Actually I think I may have beenmy idea, but I'm not sure At a
church youth group when I was ayoung person gosh, maybe early
20s we used to have middleschool nights where we would
just run games for two hoursafter, as you do, yeah middle
school nights where we wouldjust run games for two hours
after, yeah, just to tireeverybody else.
They go home.

Doug (08:47):
We decided to do it one night in jello.

Don (08:51):
no, so we like, we, we hung plastic around the entire hall
of the church and like everylike your admission ticket was
you had to bring a bowl of jelloand then like the whole room
was just jello everything and wehad like really races in it and
fights and it was yeah, it wasfun.

Doug (09:07):
I distinctly have a memory of a church group that ended
with pig troughs filled with icecream and you just went in with
your hands at the end of it.
So there is something you needto church groups of like just
just trying to make it messy,yeah.

Don (09:23):
Anarchy yeah.
Being really well like justjust trying to make it messy.
Yeah, anarchy, yeah, beingreally well, I, I bring a crazy
contest because I have got agood one for you tonight, um,
that I want to talk about, butit's gonna, it's gonna be kind
of a meandering path to getthere.
So you guys have a few minuteswe can, can, can indulge in in
some history yeah, I'mcontractually obligated and are

(09:43):
we playing the game?

Ron (09:44):
are we playing the game?
Are we playing the?

Doug (09:45):
game Because I need to stretch.

Don (09:46):
if that is the case, you know, if you would like to play
the game, I'm totally open tothat idea.
You may want to run it by yourwife, oh.

Doug (09:57):
But we'll see.
Sounds more complicated thanstretching.

Don (10:02):
So we'll go back to 1854 in Toronto, canada, and that's the
birthday of a young man namedCharles Vance Miller.

Doug (10:13):
Hey Charlie.

Don (10:14):
Welcome to the world, hey, hey.

Ron (10:17):
You and I will just provide Foley for this history lesson.
Sounds good.

Doug (10:22):
Charlie, you're a beautiful young boy.
History Sounds good, charlie,you're a beautiful young boy.

Don (10:25):
So he's born on on a farm to farming parents, um and uh,
and decides he doesn't want tobe a farmer.
So he, uh, he goes touniversity, probably not right
away, like when he's older, umand he graduates with a 98%.

Ron (10:39):
Wow, Charlie, not bad for a farmer boy.

Don (10:42):
He's not bad at all.
He passed the bar examinationin 1884.
Law bound, and becomes a lawyerand is very successful at it.
And then he decides todiversify a little bit.
He starts investing some of hismoney.
He becomes president and partowner of a brewery in Toronto

(11:03):
named O'Keefe's Brewery.
He becomes president and partowner of a brewery in Toronto
named O'Keefe's brewery.
Um, he purchases an expresscompany and actually is
responsible for delivering mailin British Columbia.
Um, he invests in a silver mine, uh, and he does it just like a
couple of months before theyfind a 14 inch wide uh streak of
silver.
So he's he's set for life.

(11:24):
At that point Did you Is thegame.

Doug (11:27):
how bad can you feel about your accomplishments in life,
because I'm not doing well atthis point?
Well, you know he had time, hehad time he owned winning
racehorses, so he was a horseracer.

Don (11:43):
He invested in a racetrack so he was part owner racer.
He invested in a racetrack, sohe was part owner of the
Kenilworth Park racetrack.
And then they were building atunnel between Detroit and
Windsor and he, he bought, heput a $2 investment into the
tunnel.

Doug (11:58):
You said he's from Toronto .
Yeah, he's the Wolf of Toronto.

Don (12:02):
Oh that $2 investment turned into $100,000.
How fast he's dead by the timeit does but it's still.
That's a pretty good return onyour investment.

Ron (12:13):
He can't stop, yeah, he's just winning Is he tired of
winning.

Don (12:17):
yet Right, I didn't think that he would be yeah exactly,
but a strange thing and we mightneed to circle back to this
later is that he doesn't haveany romantic relationships in
his life.

Ron (12:31):
That's what you got to do to succeed.
You got to have that grind set24-7.

Don (12:35):
He maybe had one when he was younger, and the word jilted
is appearing in a lot of theliterature here.
So one and done, I think.
Did he jilt or was he jilted?
He was the jilted one, yeah.

Ron (12:50):
That can wound a man.

Don (12:52):
But he, uh, he did.
He was an observer of people heliked that.
That was definitely one of his,one of his pastimes.
He was known for a kind of aprank like personality he, since
he was so well off, he wouldsometimes as a pastime go and
sit in the lobby of a hotel andplace a dollar on the ground
somewhere where he could see itand watch people walk by the

(13:16):
dollar and consider pickering itup, because a dollar in the
1920s, like our value to be,like finding a $20 bill, like
people will walk by a quarter ora penny or whatever but, like
if you, this is a $20 bill onthe floor.
Yeah, but uh, apparently becauseit was inside the hotel there
was some, some kind of uh ofpublic, I don't know pressure

(13:37):
about.
You know it'd be a faux pas.

Ron (13:39):
Yeah.

Don (13:40):
Well, and to be seen caring about that amount of money,
right.
Because, like, why would youbother to pick that up?
If you're in a fancy hotel, youmust be rich anyways, right?
But so he liked to watch peoplelike struggle with that and
then like think nobody waslooking and then go back and
pick it up and he thought thatwas fun, that was his pastime.

Ron (13:57):
Only $20 for an hour of riveting entertainment.
Absolutely.

Don (14:01):
Yeah For sure.
Well, well, hey, absolutely,yeah for sure.
Um well, well, uh, uh, hey,charlie was born 1854.
Like I told you, charlie, uh,grows old and uh, and charlie.

Ron (14:13):
Charlie dies.

Don (14:13):
What a life, though hardly knew you, charlie, thank you
right it's good to have him,though, yeah thank you for your
money and your prank, yeah he uh, but, like I said, he didn't
have anybody to leave his moneyto when he died.
So, as a lawyer, though, heknew the importance of a will,
so he wrote a will, and his willincludes some important pieces

(14:42):
of.

Doug (14:43):
I don't know caveats have you written your will yet?

Ron (14:46):
I'm considering my will.
I'm trying to think like who doI leave my war hammer to?
Because it will be substantialyeah, it really will, and I
can't leave it to someone whodoesn't know how to play the
game, like you.
So I probably need to start,like raising a ward.
Actually, your son is a good,it's a strong candidate right

(15:07):
now.

Doug (15:07):
Don't do this to him.

Ron (15:09):
I'm trying to keep him out of the family business.

Doug (15:11):
Okay, charlie left farming .
My son will leave Warhammer,that's all I know.

Don (15:16):
You heard it here first, and now it's recorded forever.
I've got that soundbite to playback to you 10 years from now.

Doug (15:24):
10 years from now.
Yeah, when we're in the podcast, I go guys.
Turns out he's a tiered player.

Don (15:31):
So this is the opening of Mr Miller's will.
He says this will isnecessarily uncommon and
capricious because I have nodependence or near relations and
no duty rests upon me to leaveany property at my death.
And what I do leave is proof ofmy folly in gathering and
retaining more than I requiredin my lifetime.

Ron (15:51):
Little self-important, I think he's like he's about to
send it up to like all the richpeople of the gilded age.
Right, like what were we doing,fellas?
Is that what he's going to say?

Don (16:01):
Well, I don't know, so let me let me share with you some of
the.
There are nine differentclauses in his will.
Let me share just some of themwith you.
I'm not going to go through allof them, but there's this one
too.
Tp Galt, jd Montgomery andJames Haversom I give for life
my house on Jamaica Island,known as Ivy Green, on the
halfway tree road, and upon thedeath of the last survivor of

(16:25):
them, I direct my executors andtrustees to sell the same and
give the proceeds to the councilof the city of kingston,
jamaica, for the distributionamong the poor of the city.
What it's, a nice guy he gaveaway.
He's giving it to the city afterthese other old guys die right
but he's giving his vacationhome to these three guys, but
they have to co-own it.

Ron (16:43):
Oh, until the last one of them dies.
Were they all like enemies?
They all hated each other.

Doug (16:51):
It's pretty cool, I like that.
I like that.
That's good.

Don (16:55):
Another one.
Again, it shows his generousnature.
He was a Roman Catholic and hedecides to.
To each Protestant ministerexercising his clerical
functions and to each OrangeLodge in Toronto, I give one
share of the O'Keeffe BreweryCompany of Toronto Limited a
brewing company, today Brewerymonks.

(17:17):
Let me go far yeah, protestantministers in Toronto, canada
though Toronto was still underprohibition at this time and
Protestant ministers in Toronto,canada Toronto was still under
prohibition at this time andProtestant ministers, for the
most part, were preachingtemperance.

Ron (17:32):
So it was a little send up.

Don (17:34):
Yeah, so this Brewery to temperance ministers.

Doug (17:38):
So clearly he's just testing their faith.

Don (17:40):
That's what it is.

Doug (17:41):
It really is just a final gift to the Lord, he is a
temptation.

Ron (17:45):
he the the tempter of toronto that called him ah there
we go he um.

Don (17:52):
He also gave a share of a jockey club to two ministers who
were known to be anti-gambling,as well as a third person who
owned four other racetracks.
So it was that, though, therules of the will said they had
to own the share for three years.
So it was a big question aboutwhether these ministers who were

(18:15):
so anti-gambling would acceptthe gift, because it was worth
about $1,500, which would belike $25,000 today.
It was not an insignificantamount of money, but they had to
own it for three years in orderto access that.
So how seriously are you aboutyour anti-gambling?

Ron (18:34):
compulsion yeah, they could take it.
They could shut it down.

Don (18:38):
So what wound up happening?
And I'm not sure how thishappened, because the
information that I have on thisis that this happened in August.
So Charlie died in October of1926, october 31st, actually
Halloween and the followingAugust the two ministers
apparently became members in thejockey club for exactly five
minutes, because that was theminimum amount of time the

(19:00):
bylaws would allow them to bebefore they sold their shares to
somebody else.
So they got around the willsomehow but Lord forgive me for
these five minutes.

Doug (19:09):
That's right.
So that's it.
Charlie's a real chestnut.

Ron (19:13):
Most chestnut I've ever seen?

Doug (19:15):
Yeah, yeah.

Don (19:17):
So, uh.
So here's the the.
The thing that he's most famousfor, though, is for uh, it's
provision number 10 in the will,which leaves the residue of his
estate to the woman who has themost children in the 10-year
period beginning on the date ofhis death.

Doug (19:40):
Although a contest, he really was interested in
populating the world.

Ron (19:44):
Yeah, maybe he was one of those.
Like, the birth rate in Canadahas really hit the toilet, we
need to pull this up, otherwisewe're in Japan territory right
now and based on what we know ofthis guy already, clearly that
was his motivation.

Don (20:01):
Yeah, for sure.
So the amount of the estatethat we have is about $500,000.

Doug (20:07):
Canadian, but $500,000 in 1926.

Don (20:12):
Huge, that's a huge amount of money.

Ron (20:14):
How huge are we talking, cause I have zero idea.
One it's too far away.
Two, it's Canadian.
It's about $12 million.
All right, it's a pretty goodamount of money.

Doug (20:25):
That's enough that people do bad things to get it.

Don (20:27):
I'll tell you that.

Ron (20:30):
Yeah, so, uh, what could be bad about having children?
Childbirth is a miracle.

Don (20:35):
Children are the, the, the glory of of creation.

Ron (20:40):
Every child is good.
No child has never been notprovided for or left behind.

Don (20:44):
Or left behind, or left behind.

Ron (20:46):
And that's resulted in bad things for them and their
neighbors.

Doug (20:50):
Never, yeah.
As a new father, I candefinitely agree with that.

Ron (20:54):
Yeah, You're already planning, like what?
Ten more?

Doug (21:00):
Just you saying it, I had to guard myself a bit.

Don (21:04):
Hey, Doug, you wanted to play the game.
You were.

Ron (21:06):
You were gearing up a little while ago I see now why I
needed I know better than tosay I'll play your game dawn
yeah, it's not really thosethree episodes you were gone for
.

Doug (21:16):
I learned a lot about dawn I don't know if you listened to
those.
Yeah, I did.
We need, yeah, nicky honey 12mil, yeah, 12 mil, and we're all
.
We're gonna spend it on thekids obviously so.

Ron (21:29):
How many kids do you think you would need to have to to
have birthed the most kids intoronto in 1924?

Don (21:37):
yeah, well, don't.
26.
26 to 36.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
It sounds like a what you'reover under on those sounds like
primary, like big family years.

Ron (21:49):
That sounds like I'm going to say the smallest family is
like four kids.

Doug (21:55):
You know and they're having kids, then it's more of a
economic at least three of themare going to die, so we're
going to make sure these manytake care of us.

Ron (22:02):
We need one to run the potato field one to run the corn
field?

Doug (22:08):
run one, but he got out of farming, so that's the thing
you know.
So one to run the law practice.

Don (22:13):
Yeah, yeah so what do you think the winning number is?
Oh so so how many babies couldyou physically have in 10 years?
Mean none, but so you're notgoing to win?

Ron (22:25):
Yeah Well, a little more than 10.

Doug (22:28):
What?
12?
Very wise.
13?
Yeah, I'm going.
Biggest family I know is 16.
And you know a 16 person fromlove.
I've met one sibling from afamily of 16.
So I'm going to say 16.

Ron (22:51):
I'll stick with the same number.
I cannot conceive of a highernumber.

Doug (22:56):
I can't and it wasn't a great story.

Don (22:57):
You think they can have 16 children in 10 years.

Doug (23:01):
Oh no, you can't.

Don (23:03):
Well, I mean twins.
What's the new?

Ron (23:04):
demand, twins count.
Oh yeah, you can get somefreaky stuff happening.

Doug (23:08):
Yeah, literally, but you have to be a factory.

Ron (23:11):
You can't let up for those 10 years, yeah, like if you're,
can you imagine?

Don (23:15):
being?

Doug (23:16):
I can't imagine at all.

Don (23:17):
But like having met a pregnant person, I can't imagine
asking someone to be pregnantfor 10 years.

Ron (23:22):
Yeah, yeah honey, come on, it's time.
This must have been a verymale-led.
Like you know, the phrasing inthe will makes it seem like the
women are the actors here andthat they will get to choose to
participate in this game.
But I feel like there's a lotof men behind the scenes being
like come on, what's another onehoney?

Doug (23:43):
It's, but then I also know people and money, so this is
happening.
I'll stick by 16.
Ron, what do you say?

Don (23:54):
I'm gonna this is Price is right rules, I'll go 17 that's
it, okay, all right, I'll tellyou, 17 is the largest family
that I know of that participatedin the game.
Wow, but those children don'tcount because some of them were
born prior to 1926.
So the rules of the game onlycount the children born after

(24:17):
the death of of Miller untilexactly 10 years after, which
would be October 31st 1936.

Ron (24:23):
Before we go any further um what are the rules of wills?
Someone actually has to do this.
Like, like, like, who's, who'sthe guy executing the will.

Doug (24:32):
Yeah, and he actually has to.

Ron (24:34):
oh my god, he's reading this like I gotta set up a whole
game so what a town or a stateso town.

Don (24:41):
So toronto has to be in toronto.
Um, the children have to beregistered in the log of vital
statistics of the city.
So there's, it can't just be,there has to be official proof
that the baby existed.
And two things yes, there wasan executor who was a fellow
lawyer, and two, charles was alawyer himself.

(25:01):
So he wrote this prettybuttoned up.
It was challenged by distantrelatives, like second cousins,
who wanted to say you can't dothis, and they wanted his money.
It went all the way to theCanadian Supreme Court, whoa,
and they said no, it looks likeit's a legal will.
So the questions were whethertwo things.

(25:24):
So the first question that wasraised by his distant family was
that this promotes immoralbehavior.
It certainly does.
Having children, oh yeah, itcertainly does Having children.

Ron (25:35):
Oh yeah, it's the most moral of all behaviors.
I see some of those kids, thoselittle rats that run around the
streets of Toronto you know,hitting your knee and begging
you for 10 pence.

Doug (25:48):
Toronto 10 pence.
I like that they're in thepence system.

Don (25:52):
That's good it would be a toonie or a Looney.
Yeah so, but no like is this?
Promoting immoral behavior Islike what would be the argument
for immorality?

Ron (26:05):
here, I'm actually on their side.
I would love to hear I willcede the floor to my opposition
the procreator, Doug.

Doug (26:14):
Meaning.
So, Ron, you're taking thestance that this-.

Ron (26:16):
I think it is immoral.

Doug (26:18):
Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with you if the-.
No, no, no, you have todisagree.
Okay, sorry, I definitelydisagree with you because, no,
this is tough.

Ron (26:31):
I'm just thinking of everyone who has kids that
doesn't really want kids, and itmakes me sad that's kind of
what I'm thinking right, likelike you're gonna get the very
worse, kind of like probably thepeople who probably shouldn't
already be having a lot of kids.
You're gonna get those peoplesaying, wow, that's a lot of
money.

Don (26:48):
Shucks, yeah, sorry, that's a lot of money like it's money,
eh.
Proverbial.

Ron (26:55):
Canadian joke just slipped its way in.
We just lost all of ourCanadian audience.

Don (27:01):
What do you mean?
We're speaking their language.

Doug (27:05):
Is that the way to the heart?
It's like the generationalslang.

Ron (27:09):
They like this.
Right You're going to encouragepeople to be very irresponsible
with their family planningright, Like whether or not those
families can provide for allthose children or, you know,
give them the attention.

Doug (27:20):
The only thing I could see as a positive is just that end
of life moment where you lookback at your legacy of how many
people are in your family.

Ron (27:27):
There seems to be a certain amount of warmth that a person
has, maybe in their older age,saying this room is so crowded
everybody's looking at me youthink that's your last thought
before you go if it is, what aterrible way to go basically how

(27:48):
titanic ends not for themusicians it was an honor
playing um, yeah, that's all Igot.
So the morality question youguys are debating is the
response the financialresponsibility of rearing
children, I would say theemotional responsibility, the
the parenting responsibility,like, yeah, financial for sure,

(28:09):
but uh, so the fact that inorder to get that far in this,
this equation, you have to havedone the sex over and over again
, that doesn't raise any moralquestions for you.
No, because I mean that wouldhappen regardless.

Don (28:19):
I'd hope.

Ron (28:24):
But his family was worried about the sex.
I think so, yeah, I mean, thatmakes sense I'm sure back in
1926 Toronto they didn't care somuch about like generational
trauma.

Doug (28:35):
I thought part of the roaring twenties was the sex,
but okay.

Don (28:39):
That was the roar part.

Ron (28:40):
Yeah, but that was the problem.
That's why everyone was so mad.

Don (28:43):
And the reason that I think that is because the second
objection that they raised wasthat it was against the public
good.

Ron (28:49):
Oh yeah, to have all those Toronto ones.

Don (28:51):
Right To be promoting the families that were already
impoverished and to be havingmore children than they could
afford to raise.

Ron (28:59):
Yeah, that part I agree with, but the sex is cool.

Doug (29:04):
Thanks man.

Don (29:05):
Somebody had to say it.
Yeah, only between marriedpersons, though.

Ron (29:10):
That's why I didn't find it to be quite as immoral, right,
I mean, I don't, I mean, butit's probably.
I mean what we've got.
He's a roman catholic and we'vealso got teetotaler protestants
right next door.
Yeah, probably.
This is a very sexist forprocreation, regardless culture
right yeah, because.

Doug (29:29):
Is this bundled in with the pairing off of the house
amongst men that hate each otherand giving the temperate
members of the clergy thebrewery Like?
Is this all packaged into oneBecause those are easier to
point a finger at.

Ron (29:46):
Right.
He seems to have a twistedright, like he's like the wish
master.
You remember that series offilms shout out wish master, you
know yeah, a corrupted jinn whowho gives you your wish in the
worst imaginal way thenon-intended way.
Yeah, a monkey paw thing rightso he's giving you a house, but

(30:09):
with two men you hate, and so itseems like there must be that
he must have conceived of thatelement when he wrote this down.
Also, right, I'm not justrewarding someone who makes a
big family.
I'm driving you to essentiallycurse yourself with way too many
children to see if the value ofthe money was worth it in the
end.

Don (30:30):
I think that's one of the things I wanted to talk to you
guys about is why is he doingthis?

Ron (30:34):
Yeah.

Don (30:34):
Right, Like so we have.
We all have had experienceeither tangentially or directly
with, with, with provocateurs,online or right, I'd like to
think we are provocateurs.

Ron (30:48):
Oh, there you go.

Don (30:51):
And, and you know why do people troll online, why do
people post, you know oh, sowe're calling him a troll.

Ron (30:57):
You think well?

Don (30:58):
I'm wondering that's my question is he because?
Because they do that on purposeto get a reaction out of people
you're raising?
The reaction in this case isyes, there's a like if you win
the money, great, you get 12million dollars, but if you lose
the money, like second place,sucks right, it really does no
money and uh, and a whole bunchof mounts to feed, but uh, but

(31:21):
he's dead.

Doug (31:22):
Right, you know, does anybody else thinking this?
I'm thinking of the horror filmfranchise saw I was really
hoping you were going to go backto wish list but yeah, let's
rope in as many, let's rope inas many horror film franchises
as we can.
Well, if you're not familiar um,the idea is is there are very
sick games, so these are verylike horror film.

(31:45):
You know um sick games thatthis um, this killer named
jigsaw, sets up, in which peopleare put in situations because
of selfish or destructivedecisions that they've made in
life, in which he's kind offorcing them into some kind of
ultimate test, like a personwho's incredibly greedy, maybe
has a test that they're put intoa death trap.

(32:07):
But if they remove a pound offlesh from their body, like
using blunt instruments, and putit on a scale, they can escape
and they leave their liferealizing their body, like using
blunt instruments, uh, and putit on a scale, they can escape
and they leave their liferealizing.
You know, like um, you know Ihad to give up this part of my
body, but then, at the same time, I I did this and I'm it's
corrective in some waycorrective, in some way Right.
And they reach an epiphany.

(32:28):
Yes, uh, that's usually what itis.
Yeah, like there were somepeople that are victims of
jigsaw that say like he helpedme, which is like one of the
most horrific you know, thingsin the movie is like no, like
you've been corrupted by this.
And obviously he's not doingthis to hurt people, but well,
maybe he is.
Yeah, I was just going to say insome ways I suppose he kind of

(32:50):
is because these things arebeing bound up in a legal
document that maybe changed thecourse of behavior of somebody,
that they might not have madethe same choices, uh, that
compromise them in some way.
So instead of it beingcorrective, it's, it's uh to
test their I don't know will,because ultimately right, If
you're telling somebody like, doyou want money?
This bad, that you're willingto potentially have too many

(33:12):
kids, that you can't take careof them, then yeah, we're back
well, yeah, change the entiretrajectory of your life, right?

Ron (33:17):
like it is a he he's exercising a form of uh ghostly
power.
He's like the most powerfulghost in toronto that's right
right influencing all theselives yeah for the for the idea
or promise the whiff of thismoney.
Yeah, um, you use the wordtroll I did um.
How are we defining troll?
Because I think this is, Ithink we probably, I'm sure most

(33:38):
of the listeners also are awareof like how the word troll is
used in modern, modern parlanceron, I feel like you're the
expert at this, considering youhave the most knowledge about
lord of the rings.

Doug (33:48):
But go ahead, there's no troll in lord of the rings.
Oh yeah, there is definitely atroll in lord of the rings Go
ahead.

Don (33:54):
There's no troll in Lord of the Rings.

Ron (33:57):
Oh yeah, there is definitely a troll in Lord of
the Rings.
Multiple trolls Okay, we knowthe mythical troll monsters, but
online trolls are verydifferent kinds of people, right
?
These are how are we defining?

Don (34:07):
I would define them as someone who deliberately posts
provocative, offensive contentin order to get an emotional
reaction or to to disrupt somesome type of conversation.
That's happening, okay, yeah,so I think two important things.

Ron (34:24):
Yeah, they disrupt conversations and they are just
fishing for a reaction, anemotional reaction, from their
interlocutor.

Don (34:34):
Right.

Ron (34:34):
Okay and, like you said, he's dead right, so he can't
like.
He doesn't seem like.
He is like disrupting somethingor provoking reactions.

Don (34:46):
Well, he's disrupting behavior, right?
I mean we would assume thatsome of these families wouldn't
have.
Some of them are trying to havelarge families.
So the behavior didn't seem tochange.
They seemed to accidentally bein the race Right and some of
them did overtly change behaviorto try to win.

Ron (35:04):
Was there a provision that the race had to be announced
Like couldn't you do this in twoways?
One is just hey, at the end of10 years, I want you to go
through the county register andwhichever family has the most
happen to have had the most kids, give them this money.
They will need it.
That would be the the, that thescrooge effect on christmas

(35:26):
morning approach, right, but thescrooge prior to christmas eve
sounds like the one he did,where he announced it and
everyone were people aware thatthis was a game.
He did not announce it.

Don (35:38):
It just was a provision in his will because he didn't know
what the moment of his deathwould be.

Doug (35:41):
Right.

Don (35:41):
His will just said, from the moment of his death, 10
years exactly.
And so it wasn't.
It was for several days laterthat, after obituaries were
published and people actuallybecame aware of the will's
existence, that the, the rules,even became known, but at that
point, like you didn't have toannounce that you were

(36:03):
participating, like it just was,the clock had started when he
died.
Whoever happens to have themost babies by the time?
So so the executor planned todo exactly what you said, which
is to, at, at 10 years time,look at the roles and see which,
which mother has the mostchildren, and and announce the
winner.
But what happens is that, uh,at the beginning, nobody cares.

(36:26):
It's 10 years from now.
Like you know, you can't.
It's not like running a race.
You don't have to start runningright then.
Then, like you know, throw offtheir clothes and go have sex
right then.
You know we got to start.
I read I screw, but but it didstart to pick up at a

(36:47):
competition and actually the,the Toronto daily star, picked
up on it as a story.

Doug (36:52):
And that's where it took a turn.
Okay, so this was going to bemy question, because another
thing defining within troll islike I think of a YouTube
comment section, you know, like,like, what's, that it's nothing
good.
I can start there where maybeit's affecting I don't know,
like a hundred people that readit, you know, and then, I think

(37:13):
of something like this and I wasgoing to ask what is his
audience?
Because, yeah, how many people?
But if we're being picked up by, you know, statewide news,
that's a whole different.

Don (37:23):
So it took five years.
So 1830 is the first newspaperarticle in the Toronto daily
star about about this contesthappening.
Um and uh.
They actually assigned areporter to identify pregnant
women in Toronto and go uh,secure the rights to their

(37:45):
stories.

Doug (37:46):
Wow Excuse me.
Are you pregnant?

Don (37:49):
Thank you, thank you.

Ron (37:51):
That's exactly how it went.

Don (37:57):
And they're the ones that named this event that actually
still carries this name today.
So they called it the GreatStork Derby.

Doug (38:05):
Oh yeah, I just pictured Charlie on his deathbed.
What's the difference betweenthe horses I was racing and
these women?

Ron (38:11):
having babies, nothing that's life.
His deathbed these women havingbabies, nothing that's like his
dad, but he's like that's lame.

Don (38:15):
I totally want it to be different so they actually
started to print a like, a like,a horse card of the women.
Oh my god, in the newspapershowing the number of people
placing bets of I I believe,probably yes, but I don't know
for sure.

Ron (38:33):
Yeah.

Don (38:33):
Yeah, um, the uh, uh, so, uh.
So in that list right, somenames started to uh to become
more popular.
So Mrs Kenny was a name Uh, mrsKenny was known, uh uh, for
being very protective of herimage.
Uh, so, uh, she only wouldallow the newspaper to take

(38:54):
photographs of her if they paidher for the photograph smart no,
and so the story goes thatapparently a photographer
snapped a picture of her withoutpermission at one point and she
decked him sick, so good forher.

Ron (39:08):
She became no lives.
You got it one punch kenny washer name from wow.
Wow, I'm pulling for one punch,kenny.

Don (39:16):
It's hard not to right, um, let's see who else do we have
in the running?
We have um, oh, mrs bagnatookay yeah, uh, mrs bagnato, star
wars character she did?

Doug (39:31):
she had the big pastries on the side of her head.
It's a trap.

Don (39:36):
Yeah, yeah, big time yeah, so she gave birth to twins.
Uh, in there in in early 1930s,and apparently at the birth of
the twins the doctor commentedto her oh, are you trying to
catch up with mrs kinney?
Yeah, and mrs bagnato didn'tknow there was a contest oh,
what a terrible life moment.

Doug (39:57):
Like like, what a terrible .
Like you have this beautifulyou know.
Like, wow, I've had twins.
Like look at what's in storefor me and your life's about to
take a different turn.

Don (40:06):
If you're greedy, even in the slightest so uh bagnato
moved to the top of the card onthe Toronto Daily News racing
card.

Doug (40:18):
Bagnato's, got it in the bag, baby.

Don (40:20):
Because with these twins she had 10.
Wow.

Doug (40:24):
Jesus For sure.

Don (40:27):
Mrs Brown, who had nine.
Her husband had this to sayabout Mrs Bagnato taking the
lead If a few more Canadianswould be themselves and produce
a decent sized family, thecountry would not be overrun by
foreigners.
Mrs Bagnato was the daughter ofItalian immigrants, so she was

(40:54):
Canadian born, but her parentswere immigrants from Italy and
her husband, whom she hadmarried when she was 14, had
come from Italy in an arrangedmarriage to marry her.
So she herself was not animmigrant, but her family was
considered such.
Mrs Brown added that I can'tlet any Italian get away with

(41:17):
that leadership stuff.
I'm Canadian and so is myhusband.
We're honest to gosh died inthe wool.
Native-born Canadians of thefifth generation and think six
babies in five years ought to belead those Browns.

Ron (41:30):
Browns have always been rotten to the core Really are.

Doug (41:33):
It's tough, it's tough.

Ron (41:36):
I'm just glad Canada's as racist as America.

Don (41:40):
Thank you for being glad about that Utopia, my butt.

Doug (41:43):
Absolutely, man yeah.
Well, it's ugly.

Don (41:47):
Well, it's getting ugly, yeah, yeah.

Ron (41:50):
Why, charlie?
Why'd you have to do this?
Um, why Charlie?

Don (41:55):
why'd you have to?

Doug (41:55):
do this, cause he could?

Don (41:57):
he's laughing?
Yeah, for sure.
Um so, so here's what happens.
Is it comes to 1936, right, weget to October 1936 and somebody
has to decide who the winner is.

Ron (42:07):
Yeah, yeah, not the executor.

Don (42:09):
So well, the executor has some problems.
Okay.
Um so, yes, the executor has todecide, but he's being sued
left and right, okay, and theywind up in a courtroom.
A regular courtroom, a regularcourt of law courtroom and it's
hosted by Maury.

Doug (42:30):
Yeah, instead of.
You are not the father, youfathered everyone, that's right,
absolutely, you fatheredeveryone it's not the apprentice
.

Don (42:45):
All right, unless I understand the joke the funnier
so, uh, so the the judge whopresided over the proceedings
was named Justice William EdwardMiddleton, and on the first day
of the proceedings into JudgeMiddleton's courtroom walked 32

(43:05):
attorneys.

Ron (43:07):
Whoa Were they all the children?
Yes.

Don (43:11):
Well representing various different women who thought they
had won.
One of the attorneys was uh wasrepresenting the attorney
general of of toronto oh well ofontario and uh.
And so when he announcedhimself as representing the
attorney general, justice saidreally, how many children does
he have?
This is good this is.

Ron (43:34):
This is a script for like a 1944 Jimmy Stewart film or
something.

Doug (43:42):
Well, all of you seem to be having a lot of kids.

Ron (43:46):
Honey Wow.

Doug (43:50):
They did make a made-for-TV movie in the early
2000s.

Don (43:52):
Of course they did.
They did make a made for TVmovie in the early 2000s.

Doug (43:56):
Oh, of course they did.

Don (43:59):
So he first thing he does is weed through 32 and get it
down to six.
Okay, Quick.
Anybody representing anyonewith less than eight children
was immediately eliminated,scratched out.
Okay.

Doug (44:08):
So yeah, yeah.

Don (44:09):
But we still have some confusing situations we have to
deal with.
So we've got some womenclaiming 12 children, but of
those 12 children, half of themmaybe are stillborn or miscarry.
So question is does that count?

Doug (44:27):
Yeah.

Don (44:27):
Will says, children born.

Ron (44:31):
They're going to say no, aren't they?

Doug (44:33):
Of course, if they're not the party that, yeah, yeah,
that's gonna get thrown around,yeah yeah, so you think you
would say no, don't count, don'tcount children who die.

Ron (44:45):
You want to oh, I think I would count them, but I I'm
feeling like they are going tonot because they're going to say
this was not successfully quoteunquote born yeah, right.
And then also, I imagine, itbecomes a record.
It could be a record problem,right, like were they ever filed
, doesn't, didn't you say they?

Don (45:04):
had to be on record.
Yeah, they had to be on recordinto the uh uh, the vital, the
log of vital statistics.
So what Judge Vilderton rulesis that a stillborn infant is
not a child, but that whichwould have been a child is how
he phrased it Whoa.

Doug (45:22):
Yeah, I knew it was going to get ugly.

Ron (45:24):
But man is that bad?
Thanks Judge, making my lifebetter.

Doug (45:29):
If Jimmy Stewart says it, it's not as bad.

Ron (45:32):
Yeah, I think they skipped that part of the script that's
my guess too.

Doug (45:36):
Made for tv?

Don (45:37):
no way.
So this was bad news for onepunch kenny, your favorite.
So far because one punch kennyhad lost a child to uh stillborn
and was now reduced to eightchildren so she's punching
everybody, so at this point yeahpunch up kenny punch up.

Ron (45:55):
Yeah, so uh, thank you.

Don (45:58):
So now we have one other issue with uh, a figure known as
mrs x oh sick, so it's a comicbook now.

Doug (46:04):
Yeah, yeah, superman shows up mrs x enters the court.

Don (46:11):
Mrs X was tracked down by the newspapers because she had
10 children born within thewindow.
Wow.

Ron (46:19):
Yeah.

Don (46:21):
The closest other.
So the group that is currentlyin the race is nines, so we've
got a few other women with nines.
Mrs Kenny just had her numberreduced to eight because of the
ruling on stillborn, but Mrs Xhas 10 children.

Doug (46:39):
And her names are A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

Ron (46:43):
One hundo, two hundo, three hundo.

Doug (46:46):
You named them after the amount of money she's going to
get from them, mrs X used thepseudonym for a reason, and I
will first tell you a fact abouther.

Don (46:57):
that is not the reason for the pseudonym.

Ron (47:01):
The first fact is that she's 24 years old.

Doug (47:03):
We started early.

Don (47:05):
Can you do that math?
How old was she?

Doug (47:08):
Don't wanna 10 years, right, yeah, 14.

Don (47:12):
Yeah, 10 years, right, yeah , 14, yeah, so she was 14 years
old when she started havingchildren um and had 10 of them
by the time she was 24 freshmanin high school.

Doug (47:21):
That's terrible.
Yeah, now we're back to themoralism here yes, it's not
great.

Ron (47:25):
It's not the fun script.
I thought it was legallymarried though okay sure,
whatever it's 10, let's callthat a win for Mrs X.

Doug (47:36):
Thanks.

Don (47:37):
Mrs X.
So no morality issue, right.

Ron (47:41):
That's a morality issue, I'm feeling it.

Don (47:43):
So I mean, I guess like but you're applying 2025 morals
there to a situation that's 1926.

Ron (47:48):
Yeah, I mean I imagine Mrs X as a 14 year old in 20, 20,
what 19, 26 is still probablydoesn't want to have kids.

Doug (48:02):
I don't know, was it more common?
Was it an accident?
I mean?

Ron (48:08):
I don't know.
Was it more common for peopleto have children at 14, 15?

Don (48:11):
big families, big Catholic community in the area um and uh
um we're busy apparentlymarrying young, because they 14
15 seem to be the major the ageof marriage for most of these
women.
Here's the issue with mrs x.

Ron (48:27):
Her name is actually pauline, may clark so she was
married to Tommy May Clark, MrClark.

Don (48:35):
Mr Clark apparently was a little bit physically abusive.
So five years into her marriageshe left him.
Okay, at that point she hadfive children.
She lives with a boyfriend andhas five more children, jeff X.
So does she win?
She had ten children.

Ron (48:56):
Yes.

Don (48:58):
She had ten children.

Ron (49:00):
The game said the woman who has the most children, not the
woman who has the most childrenin a single marriage.
That's correct, but the court'sgoing to say no.

Don (49:11):
Why do you think that?
Because they suck.

Doug (49:15):
Because Jimmy Stewart's running it, but the court's
gonna say no.
Why do you think that?

Ron (49:17):
because they suck because jimmy stewart's yeah, yeah, this
is traditional.

Don (49:18):
This rotten negative land, jimmy stewart is like what would
be the rationale.
You're correct, they dodisqualify the children that are
not born of her husband why?

Ron (49:31):
oh so the second man she does not marry, she does not, so
it's out of wedlock orsomething right.

Don (49:36):
So here's the and here's her explanation was that she
left her husband because he wasabusive and she expected that he
would divorce her, but he justnever did so.

Ron (49:46):
They're illegitimate children yeah, yeah, they don't
exist in the eyes of the lawstarted out as a made-for-tv
movie.
Now it's just a tragedy theywould have been children if
she's been married man slowmotion scene at the end, all of
them fighting and screaming theystart disappearing like uh.

Doug (50:08):
Back to the future photographs it's just the judge
reflecting on his life going.
What have I become?

Ron (50:15):
Yeah, His wife tries to cheer him up in the morning with
like a hot bowl of oatmeal andhe, he just can't bring himself
to enjoy it.

Doug (50:24):
Throws it against the wall , cause there's no sentiment in
it.
Yeah, it's unfortunate.

Ron (50:30):
We're visual storytellers.
A hundred percent.

Don (50:34):
So here's the thing, though Were the children born out of
wedlock.

Ron (50:41):
Oh, if she was technically married, she was technically our
children.

Don (50:44):
They are children, just not by that man, that's true.

Doug (50:47):
I mean are these a bastard rules Cause that's how.
That's where things get tough.
Right, if we're getting reallymedieval and not part of the
royal lineage.

Don (50:55):
It's 1926.

Ron (50:57):
It's not medieval, it's pretty close the way that we're
treating them now 100%.

Doug (51:04):
This is tough.
I mean, if I'm the judge, nodisqualification yeah exactly.

Ron (51:12):
But, we are pulling for these women, yeah.

Don (51:15):
So here's the thing the Ontario law says that children
born in wedlock cannot becounted as illegitimate.
So her attorney argues theseare legitimate children.
That's true, because she wasmarried, right?
The judge says no, not buyingit.
Yeah, the judge says childrenwhen used in a testamentary

(51:37):
document, meaning mr villerswill, must mean legitimate
children.
So, um, the judge rules against, uh, against mrs clark, and uh,
she now drops out of the racedown to five.

Ron (51:52):
Wait, what was with the ex?
Was that, like a, she wantedher?

Don (51:55):
name Because she was living with a man who was not her
husband and having children.
So she didn't want thepublicity, gotcha yeah, but they
tracked her down anyways, andthey Filthy yellow journalist.

Doug (52:07):
She may not have wanted the publicity Maple journalist.
It's just getting so dark.
For all the Canadians wholisten, I swear.

Don (52:15):
So we're left with four women.
Annie Smith had nine childrenin the 10 year period.
She's the one that we know theleast about, so she's probably
the most boring of the women.
Kathleen Nagel also had ninechildren.
Lucy Timlick had 10 children,but one died in infancy before

(52:37):
she uh um had it registered.
So there was only nine countedUm, but she wins.
And then Isabel McLean.

Ron (52:46):
All right, four winners, four winners All get $125,000.
Did um Pauline, paulina I'llget 125,000 dollars Did um
Pauline.
Paulina, pauline, this is X.
Uh huh.
Did Pauline do something Tomake this judge mad Like?
Just, she's very close Totaking it all and he was like,

(53:06):
nah, I'll just split it Fourways with these other and you
get none.
Yeah, yeah Dang.

Don (53:11):
She sued on the side Both she and Um um, lily and kenny
the one punch kenny both of themsued on the side um because
they thought that they were owedsomething.
And, uh, they were awarded, inan out-of-court settlement by
the executor, twelve thousandfive hundred dollars each.
Okay, which doesn't sound likea great deal, but if you do the

(53:36):
CPI math, that's about $200,000.

Ron (53:39):
Something, so something, yeah, okay.

Don (53:41):
The $125,000 prizes for the other women works out to about
$2 million each Dang.

Ron (53:46):
Wow, so did we follow their lives afterwards Did this drive
them into happiness.

Don (53:54):
They are surprisingly responsible with their money.

Ron (53:57):
All right sick.

Don (53:58):
They buy houses, they educate their huge families.
Yeah, the most eccentric thingthat I found was one of them I
think it was Mrs Timlock took atrip to New York with her
husband.
That was it.
Otherwise, they use the moneyto New York with her husband.
That was it.
Otherwise, they used the moneyto raise their families.

Ron (54:17):
That's pretty cool.
Good for them.

Don (54:20):
So victory for morality.
What do you think?

Ron (54:25):
I don't know.
It all shook out a lot uglierthan I kind of thought it would.
Everybody leaves in pain.
Yeah, I kind of thought itwould.
Everybody leaves in pain.
Yeah, it's not fun when youbring the law in and have to
start questioning the personhoodof children born legitimately
or otherwise I want to know.

Doug (54:43):
I want to go back to Charlie sitting with the dollar
in a hotel.
Yeah, and it's like was hedoing it?
And every time somebody reacheddown from the dollar was he
saying in his head there'sanother son of a gun, reach for
the dollar.
Aren't they all Like?
It seems a lot darker.
That's exactly what it is.

Ron (55:02):
It is a I think trolls troll because they want to feel
a sense of superiority.

Doug (55:09):
Yeah.

Ron (55:10):
And you can rationally be like there is no superiority in
having made someone contemplatepicking up a $20 bill or
whatever.
But I think they would argue itshows I have power.
I influenced or manipulatedsomeone in some way to do a
thing.
I controlled their emotions.
That gives me a sense of power,and it's ultimately a very

(55:33):
fickle and kind of useless senseof power because, like, this is
something we do every day.
Right, we influence people'semotions every day, usually in
positive ways.
Right, we try to have a positiveinfluence on the people in our
life and make them happier, makethem more content, whatever,
and so, then, to be like, well,I can do the opposite, probably

(55:53):
means you're struggling to dothe first right.
You probably struggle atimproving people's lives in
positive ways.
It's very easy, and there thereis no skill check to uh, that
requires you to like do theopposite of improve someone's
day, right.

Doug (56:12):
And now I'm starting to, of course, fill in blanks that I
don't really have any right to.
But is it a coincidence that hedoesn't have anybody close to
him?
You know, like maybe it's notthat shocking all of a sudden,
but like of course you don'thave people you don't want to
leave this to.
And again, I know I'm fillingin who this person was without
really knowing him.

(56:32):
But yeah, I wonder if we were alittle bit rough around the
edges with even with all of thatsuccess Cause.
But I think my personal viewgoes in of knowing, like the
people who in quotes, haveeverything but they have nothing
.
You know, cause he's a verysuccessful guy.
But yeah, it does change thenarrative a bit when you think

(56:54):
of everybody walking out of thatcourtroom.

Don (56:57):
Should we do it again?

Doug (56:59):
Well, first I have to ask Nikki, and then we'll see what
we can do.
If Doug's in, I'm in.

Ron (57:07):
Can't let him get away with winning.
No Thank you?
No, I don't know, it doesndoesn't sound fun, maybe at the
time it's.

Don (57:20):
I don't like people, so yeah yeah, let's watch fewer
people the better.

Ron (57:22):
Yeah, yeah I don't know.
Maybe, like like you saidearlier, maybe I'm approaching
it with 2025 eyes right, and atthe time it was a fun, you know,
like family was important andpeople were having, on average,
larger families, so maybe itdidn't bend the needle for that
many people Right.
Maybe they didn't really behavein a way that was that extreme

(57:43):
from what they were alreadygoing to have done.

Don (57:45):
Speaking of fun, I forgot to tell you that what happened
to one of Mrs Kenny's childrenwas that it was bitten by a rat
and died.
That is fun don, yeah, well, Imean ron was bringing up how
much fun it was for people to beparticipating in the game.

Ron (58:02):
Just wanted to I don't mean it was fun for the participants
, but I mean like maybe therewas fun for the dead guy thought
it was fun, right, or maybe?
Maybe him dying thought itwould be fun.
This would be a fun thing forToronto.
It'll put Toronto on the map.

Doug (58:15):
I don't know, like maybe that is literally his Maybe
capital of the world.

Ron (58:18):
And maybe that's just a 1926 man's worldview.
Like it wasn't informed by anyreal, like you said,
understanding of what that woulddo to these women or those
families, or to be a child whowas born under such a
circumstance, or blah blah blahso.
I don't know.
So no, I don't think we shoulddo it today.

Doug (58:39):
Again, I'll let you know what my wife says, but in the
meantime, no, I don't think thatgood things came out of that.
I think about, you know these,I'm thinking about everything
that he put into his will andyou think about, like, the
larger consequences there,whether it's the person because
there's a certain amount ofadmiration that I have of

(59:00):
putting your literally like,where your money, where your
mouth is like in terms of like,do you actually believe these
things?
That I don't necessarily thinkis a bad thing to test.
It's just too bad that peoplecouldn't figure it out.
You know, like, when humanitydoesn't serve itself right,
because it's like they do gettoo greedy, you go, ah, damn.

(59:20):
I thought we might get one goodstory out of it, you know,
necessarily.
So there's another part of methat's like no people should be
able to do what they want, youknow, and even if it does have
the consequences that it doesbecause human beings should be
better it's just too bad whenthey're not yeah, and also, if
we are calling the, theparticipants in the game, greedy
, or if we're, or somethingright, it doesn't mean all

(59:42):
humans are greedy, right?

Ron (59:43):
I think we sometimes make the mistake of being like oh,
some bad apples prove thathumans are rotten, rotten
species, but it's like you know,for every one person to join
the competition.

Don (59:53):
There was, however, many who said hell, no, like yeah,
I'm not joking, and I have to, Ihave to say, because I already
hinted but all of the familiesthat participated seem to be
strong, caring families like itdidn't seem like anybody is just
recklessly trying to win therace.
They, they wanted largefamilies.
They, they profess the race,they wanted large families.

(01:00:14):
They professed they wantedlarge families.
They had large families beforethe race even started.
So the mayor of Toronto whenthe Derby began, a guy named
Thomas Foster he was the mayorfrom 1925 to 1927.
So he was not the mayor when therace ended, but gosh, he said
this was such a fun thing.

(01:00:34):
Uh, he died in uh in 1945 anduh, he decided that uh, toronto
should have another historicderby, oh god.
And matter of fact, he in hiswill, set up a contest that
began on a rotating schedule sosame same rules, 10 years to
have the most babies possible.
First place is a $1,250 prize,second place had $800, uh 450

(01:00:59):
for third place.
And there was a contest thatbegan in 1945, 1948, 1951 and
1954.

Doug (01:01:06):
What's the overall record?

Don (01:01:08):
So I don't know.
I couldn't find results on thatone.
It seems like like that onewasn.
It seems like that one didn'tcapture the imagination of the
public.

Ron (01:01:15):
It's not $12 million.
Yeah, and being the second guyto do it, you lose some charm.

Doug (01:01:22):
Sure do.
It's like oh, you're justcopycat dweeb.
Mayor and to completely ruinthe Saw franchise.
Guess what happens?
Jigsaw dies.
What?
Somebody takes over the mantleand says he was doing good work.
Yep, Yep.
So now we know this is theorigins of the Saw franchise.
That's what I got out of thistoday.

Ron (01:01:43):
I think you paired those.
You demonstrated some strongparallels, wow.

Doug (01:01:48):
You really jump into some conclusions there, but I
appreciate your optimism, Ron.
Now please give me yourWarhammer Army.

Don (01:01:58):
So one of the winners, mrs Tim Lick, just a few years ago
in 2015, a newspaper trackeddown a descendant of the Tim
Licks and found a guy stillliving in Toronto who pointed
out so she had a family of 17children, so only nine counted
in the in the race, but she hadhad children from before and

(01:02:20):
after, and the guy they trackeddown in 2015 said he has more
than 100 first cousins.

Ron (01:02:28):
Yeah, yeah, this would be like.
This would really shape like acouple of generations, right.

Doug (01:02:33):
Yeah, thanksgiving is going to be wild.

Ron (01:02:36):
Maybe that was Charlie's real gift.

Don (01:02:38):
That's the thing.
Charlie had no children, yeah,and so a dead lawyer gives birth
to literally hundreds ofchildren.

Doug (01:02:46):
Yeah.
Way to leave the legs.
He should be revered.

Ron (01:02:49):
Does he have some sort of edifice in Toronto somewhere?

Don (01:02:52):
He does not, but Thomas Foster does.

Ron (01:02:54):
Okay, so Thomas.

Don (01:02:55):
Foster, the second Stork Derby guy, actually has like a
little mausoleum that kind oflooks like the Taj Mahal.

Doug (01:03:03):
And if you ever watched Charlie Brown, that was about
his life.

Ron (01:03:08):
Charlie Brown also never had children.

Don (01:03:11):
Not yet he's just a kid.

Doug (01:03:12):
Sorry, charles Schultz, that was completely wrong.

Don (01:03:16):
Well, thanks guys for for a good conversation.

Ron (01:03:19):
Thank you for bringing that .
I had no idea, don.
Any of this exists.
Anything can be a game.
Anything can be a game.
You're right.

Doug (01:03:25):
You asked us what our strangest games were and I'm
realizing we need to push it up.
Like they were, they did nothold a hold a flame, and I
didn't realize that recentlybecoming a father is a game, but
I guess it is yeah, it's a gameand you need to win.

Ron (01:03:39):
If you don't, your whole family loses.

Doug (01:03:43):
Thanks for the encouragement bud.

Don (01:03:47):
Thanks guys.

Ron (01:03:48):
Bye, thank you.