He didn't get free meals or theater tickets all the time, only when some manager thought it would be good publicity.

Bummer and Lazarus were not his dogs, and he rather resented being associated with the two stray mutts.

He didn't issue his own currency. For the first several years of his reign, he survived by touching wealthy friends from the Gold Rush days for small "loans"; when all those men had died off, moved away, or gone broke, he printed up "Imperial bonds" for sale to tourists.

Incidentally, Joshua Norton was a South African Jew. Really – his parents moved to Cape Colony from England in 1820, when he was about two. His father helped found Tikvath Israel, the first Jewish congregation in South Africa. He lived there till news of the Gold Rush hit, then sailed for California.

See Norton I: Emperor of the United States by San Francisco newspaperman William Drury.

If you read your own forum, you'd know that on October 12, the 150th anniversary of Emperor Norton's decree abolishing the Congress of the United States of America, we're hosting Blawgreview, the Carnival of Law Bloggers. Many blawgreviews follow a theme, and ours will be no exception.

Its theme will be the life and works of Joshua Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. We chose that date because we consider Emperor Norton's decree to be one of the greatest political statements, in favor of personal liberty and against government tyranny and corruption, in the western canon. Even if it's a bad blawgreview, it will be a great post about Emperor Norton, one of that rarest of creatures, an actual benevolent despot. We aim to make it the best on the web.

It's weird the coincidences life throws our way, isn't it? Almost spooky.