Life. As the webbed vigilante who some suspect to be mild-mannered teenager Peter Parker would say, everybody gets one, and when it comes time to strike your name from the great scroll in the sky, your legacy is out of your hands. You can’t libel a dead person. You also can’t take it with you, to use another crap axiom. So what happens if you shuffle off this mortal coil without a great stonking pension to blot away your loved ones’ tears? Well, as these poor souls have found, good or bad, famous or infamous, death is no release from debt, and the boys at the bank can leave one cruel final verdict on your name.
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‘…an American schoolteacher who, on her 63rd birthday, October 24, 1901, became the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Her motives were financial but she never made much money from her adventure. She died penniless and her funeral was paid for by public donations.’ — from the page of Annie Edson Taylor (stuntperson; 1838–1921)
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‘It is often reported that Swearengen died penniless while trying to hop a freight train, but research suggests he was murdered.’ — from the page of Al Swearengen (innkeeper and pimp; 1845–1904)
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‘He became a mining agent on Alston Moor, an area in the Pennines noted for its extensive lead mines, but died penniless in 1835.’ — from the page of Westgarth Forster (geologist; 1772–1835)
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