Is it "73" or "73's"?
So this bedwetter has a hissy fit over the whole thing.
HPM had a dry Yankee sense of humor, and that use of the plural was meant to be satire. How do we know (or suspect ) this?
Hiram Percy Maxim came by his dry Yankee sense of humor honestly enough ...
"In addition to his engineering endeavours, Maxim, a lifelong atheist[25][26] "compiled and edited" a book he called Li Hung Chang's Scrapbook.[27] https://archive.org/details/cu31924022954436/page/n8 This book was addressed to Li Hung Chang (also spelled Li Hongzhang and Li Hung-chang) and endeavoured to address a belief that "The Chinese were generally puzzled as to how it was possible for people who are able to build locomotives and steamships to have a religion based on a belief in devils, ghosts, impossible miracles, and all the other absurdities and impossibilities peculiar to the religion taught by the missionaries."[28]
Maxim held European missionaries in China in low esteem, for reasons described in the scrapbook. He stated "...it was my aim, in compiling for His Excellency a scrap-book with explanatory notes, to put the Chinaman right in this respect. I wished to show that we were not all fools."[28] His scrapbook comprised some 400 pages with 42 illustrations, presenting his views on The Nature of Christianity; Christianity in China; and his conclusions on subjects including Miracles, Spirituality, Faith; and the influence of the Bible on the civilisation of Europe and America. He concluded his scrapbook with an appeal to the Missionaries and his thoughts on the reason for the failure of what he described as "Missionary Propaganda" in China."
The above attributed to his father, Hiram Stevens Maxim. There is much more anecdotal and corroborated evidence to support the belief that when HSM's tongue was not engaged other tactile pursuits or extemporary eloquence, it was planted firmly in cheek .
...Hiram Percy Maxim came by his dry Yankee sense of humor by way of his father.
