Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1879 — ODD CHARACTER SKETCHES. [ARTICLE]

ODD CHARACTER SKETCHES.

Wanted to Die.—A rejected suitor made a last and ineffectual appeal to the girl of his choice, as they were riding together near Newark, Ohio. She told him that she certainly would never change her mind. “ Then I want to die,” he said. He got out of the wagon, took the check-rein from the horse, walked a short distance into the woods and hanged himself. The girl, after waiting awhile, went to look for him and found him dead. “ The American Tourist.”—A small, four-wheeled wagon, drawn by two goats, and containing a helpless, shriveled-up remnant of a man, dressed in a loose garment of coarse cloth and wearing a large straw hat, attracted attention in Hagerstown, Md., recently. The man gave his name as David Grieve, from Zanesville, Ohio. He says he was formerly a stout, active man, about five feet five inches high, but that he has been brought to his present condition by paralysis. He has traveled in the present manner for many years, and calls himself “the American tourist.” He is entirely helpless, and his shriveled limbs and parched countenance are pitiful. He has a wife and four children, who accompany him and attend to his wants. He is a temperance advocate, bitter in his denunciation of spirituous liquors, and derives a small revenue from the sale of a temperance song and other small articles. A Newsboy Benefactor. John King, cripple, is a Cincinnati newsboy, but now somewhat more noted than others of his calling. For ten years he has lived in a cramped and comfortless room in the old Museum building, at Third and Sycamore streets. He has all this time been alone—cooking, washing and mending for himself. A hard life, it may be said. But John from the first took a different view of the matter. He was an optimist. Nature had kicked him at the start? Very true. The world cuffed him on the way? Correct. Nevertheless, John began to collect books, working all day for bread and the means to satisfy his bibliomania. At night he would read. Last Tuesday the Commercial devoted a column to John’s presentation of 2,500 volumes to the Public Library of Cincinnati. All the books are good; many of them choice —old volumes with London imprint, the classics, histories, and so on.

John's Love.—There died in Austin, Minn., one day last week, an old man called John, the woodman. He shuffled the coil through poison self-admin-istered. John lived in a bit of woods near Austin, his place of abode being a cabin. Though surrounded by game, feathered and finny, he never sought it, but lived from lightwood and charcoal sold to the townspeople. He was a good old man. He was not ambitious. Year after year he visited the house of a widow lady in Austin, she being one of his constant customers. The widow was fond of simple John, with his giiz-zly-gray beard and coal-begrimed face, and frequently talked to him. One day she said, half in jest: “ John, I’m going to be married soon.” The words affected the old fellow so that he did not bid the children good-by. He went to the woods and searched for roots, many of which he pulled up, taking them to his cabin. Selecting what he thought the poisonous ones, he ate them and died. This is avouched by the Transcript, of Austin. Mac of Tulare.—Among the weeds and tiles of Tulare lake, in California, may be found a man who has cut himself off from all but wild life. He if known as the Boat Hermit of Tulare. His name is James Mac. Whether when he made one of the throng the Mac was followed by Adams, Duffy, Cullough or any one of the other hundred names that usually go with the prefix he cannot be led to say. He calls himself James Mac. He spends night and day in his boat, an ordinary lake craft, without sail or rudder. In fishing or trapping he. is so expert that those who know him understand the by-phrase “as lucky as Mac.” This character served in the navy during the Mexican war, and in ’49 joined the exodus for the gold fields of the Pacific coast. He helped to survey San Francisco when it contained less than a score of shanties. He joined several bands of pioneersand marched through the mountains and forests for years, returning to San Francisco to find that it had become a large city. Tulare lake, in the distance, was the only natural feature of the country, a part of which had been claimed and staked off by him, so he built a boat and vowed to pass his life among the bullrushes.

Eccentric Calvin Hill.—Capt. Calvin Hill, who recently died in Somers, Mass., at the age of 94, was one of the most eccentric farmers in Western Massachusetts. He would never begin a piece of work on Friday, would cut his finger-nails at stated times, would never kill a hog for his own use unless the moon was growing larger, so that the meat would swell while cooking, would “ talk ” to burns to cure the pain, and had as many superstitious notions as a heathen. To look up and see an odd number of crows was to him an omen of bad luck, and to see the new moon over his right shoulder indicated that good fortune lay in his pathway. He became a Spiritualist when the table-tippings attracted attention thirty years ago. He sold his farm, distributed his property among his heirs, keeping only what he supposed he might need, and that he put into the hands of trustees, and soon became a first-class medium. He built a church in his town for the worshipers of the new faith, and for many years, until incapacitated by age, he was a leader of the sect, claiming the power to heal the sick and perform miracles. The Czar has approved the scheme of reducing military service in Russia from six years to three, and, if the military authorities approve it, it will shortly be carried out.