Bart - History of Farting

First published in Great Britain in 1995 by

Michael OMara Books Limited

9 Lion Yard

Tremadoc Road

London SW4 7NQ

This electronic edition first published in 2013

Copyright 1993 by Herron Publications Pty. Limited

Published by arrangement with Herron Publications Pty. Limited, Australia

All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78243-141-1 in ePub format

ISBN: 978-1-78243-142-8 in Mobipocket format

ISBN: 978-1-85479-754-4 in paperback print format

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THIS BOOK began as a collection of rhymes discovered in an inner drawer of a cedar chest left to me by my Grandmother, Emily, widow of the late and hardly lamented Sir Gustave Bart, Surgeon-General in the Prince of Wales Light Horse at the time of Beersheba whose most frequently given medical advice to soldier and settler alike was: Treat yourself to a good fart! Why my Grandmother, a gentle person who used lavender water and large quantities of potpourri to mask her own flatal indiscretions, kept these peculiar writings can only be guessed at, and perhaps, it has occurred to me, she carted the cedar chest around with her in complete ignorance of its unsettling contents.

When it came into my possession many years ago, however, I decided my Grandfathers passion should not be allowed to fade into nothingness, as it were, and since then I have added from time to time to the collection, bringing it, I trust, a more modern bouquet. All of this was for my private entertainment and enjoyment, however, until one day a chance conversation with a highly decorated (and decorous) adviser to the Australian Literature Board persuaded me that the Bart Collection, as I had begun to refer to it, was part of the cultural heritage of this great country and deserved and even demanded a broader and more appreciative audience.

To that end, we have committed the Bart Collection to print, in the hope and understanding that it will lead some of you, at least, to more richly fruitful and satisfying lives. As I recall my Grandfather saying to me one day as he dangled me on his knee in the garden overlooking the bean plantation he established in later life in a distant, misty valley of the Blue Mountains: Benjamin, my boy, never be afraid to drop a good fart. To his memory, then, is this great work dedicated.

Benjamin Bart

Kirribilli, 1993.

The Macquarie Dictionary
FART (Colloq.) n. 1. an emission of wind from the anus, esp. an audible one. 2. a foolish or ineffectual person.v.i. 3. to emit wind from the anus. 4. to behave stupidly or waste time (fol.by around or about). [ME ferten, OE feortan, c. OHG ferzen]

EVERYONE farts, admit it or not. Kings fart, queens fart. Edward Lear, the 19th century English landscape painter, wrote affectionately of a favourite farting Duchess who gave enormous dinner parties attended by the cream of society. One night she let out a ripper and quick as a flash she turned her gaze to her stoic butler, standing, as always, behind her.

Hawkins! she cried.

Hawkins, stop that!

Certainly, your Grace,
he replied with unhurried dignity.
Which way did it go?

St Augustine claims to have seen someone in such control of his backside that he could break wind at will and follow the tone of verses spoken to him. Michel Eyquem de Montaigne warned: God alone knows how many times our bellies, by the refusal of one single fart, have brought us to the door of an agonising death. May the Emperor who gave us the freedom to fart where we like, also give us the power to do so.

The contemporary danger of holding back, as they say, is commemorated on a gravestone in a tiny cemetery in the town of Stanley on the north-west coast of Tasmania, birthplace of former Prime Minister Joe Lyons. In carved stone it thus records:

Where-ever you may be
O let your wind go free
Cos holding it caused the death of me

Obviously we should just let it RIP.

Heavens, Fred, youve blown up the cow!

Why do we fart? We look later at food and digestion and gastro-intestinal tracts, but the bottom line is: we fart because we want to. Yet this is the function of our bodies least spoken of, particularly by women. Women fart as much as men, lets face it, but do they admit it? No, and thats a story in itself.

In 1986, the well-known American fartologist, Dr H. K. Poltweed, carried out a survey which had some surprising results. To begin with, it showed that 97.7 per cent of men admit to farting, but only 1 per cent of women do. But 100 per cent of women, when asked if they had just farted, LIED .

Here is a table of Dr Poltweeds findings:

Of course women fart, although some better than others, and many of their flatulent deeds have been recorded in the famous limericks of Olde Englande:

At a contest for farting in Bute
One ladys exertion was cute.
It won the diploma
For foetid aroma,
And three judges were felled by the brute.

I sat by the Duchess at tea,
And she asked, Do you fart when you pee?
I said with some wit,
Do you belch when you shit?
And I felt it was one up to me.

In the early 19th century, the English Jest Book recorded the following tale:

A country woman who farted a great deal wants to confess this, since she enjoys it so much she feels it must be a sin. She asks the lady of the manor what is a polite word for this, and the lady, having a joke at her expense, tells her it is committing adultery.

She tells the priest she wants to confess this. At your age? exclaims the shocked priest. How often do you do it? About thirty or forty times a day. What does your husband say to that? He says: More power to your big, fat arse!

The fat lady who thought cycling might be good for her flatulence.

The venue of many a farting joke is the gentlemens club:

Member: