Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1879 — CURRENT CURIOSITIES. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT CURIOSITIES.

At Lowell, Mass., the other day, a large Newfoundland dog was acting in an unaccountable manner on the margin of a small pond. He seemed to wish to approach the water but at the same time held back by a dread of it. He apparently suffered, also, from spasms, during which he would leap high in the aif and then writhe in agony. While a policeman went in search of a weapon to kill the animal and end his Utisery the dog jumped into the pond, in spite of his evident aversion to the water, walked twenty or thirty feet from the bank toward the middle, and there deliberately drowned himself. A CRAZY WOMAN CURED BY A LIGHTNING STROKE. (From the Waterbury (Ct.) American.] Last week tiie house of James Buckingham, in Mitford, was struck by lightning and was somewhat damaged. The most remarkable circumstance in connection with it is that Mrs. Buckingham, who has been deranged for several years, had her reason completely restored by the shock, thus showing the benefits of electricity as a remedial agent in such eases. Mr. Buckingham says he would not have cared had his house been burned, so long as his wife’s health was restored. A MONSTER SAI,MON-TROUT. (From the Troy (H. Y.) Times.j Trojan sportsmen claim the honor of having captured the largest representative of the finny tribe ever taken from any of the Northern lakes, and that tho honor is accorded them in a recentlypublished work on the Adirondacks. The fish was a salmon-trout, was taken from Round pend, on the north branch of the Saranac, by the late Garret Qnackenbush and party, and weighed fifty-two pounds and a fraction. The head of th£ fish alone weighed over eight pounds. The monster was seen after its capture by many reputable residents of the Adirondacks, who fully substantiate this statement. The fish was caught while trolling. The above capture was made in 1863 or 1861. a button Carried in the ear for YEARS. [From tho Bridgeport (Ct.) Standard.] A young lady living in a town a few miles from Bridgeport got a shirt but ton into her ear while a child, and, all efforts to extract it proving unavailing at the time, it was allowed to remain. Since then she has been subject to terrible attacks of headache, which caused her severe suffering. She has od several occasions felt a large lump in her ear, but, as she could not get it out, she thought no more about it, till one day it fell upon the floor. An examination showed that it was the shirt button which had been va her ear since childhood, and it was incased in wax. Since the button was removed her attacks of headache have disappeared. AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF DROPSY. rFrom Oiij l.iHlp Rock (Ark ) Gazette.) Mr. John R. Walker, of tne rung urm of Cook & Walker, is dead, having rendered unto the earth the body that is the earth’s, and unto God the soul that is God’s, late night before last. Mr. Walker’s sufferings were almost unparalleled. About four years ago he was seized with that terrible disease, dropsy. It soon became necessary to tap him, after which he partially regained his health. But the hand of the disease that had grappled him still remained, and, after a time, he was again stricken down, when it again became necessary to tap him. Since then he has been tapped sixty-three times. One hundred gallons of water, aggregating from these tappings, were drawn from his body. But even this temporary relief failed to be produced by tapping, and a week ago last Friday, while behind the counter at his store, he sank to the floor, never to rise again.

HOW A SNAKE CURED ANOTHER SNAKE. [Norfolk (Va ) Cor. Philadelphia Times ] The presiding cider of the Murfreesboro district of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, which includes about a dozen counties in the northeastern section of North Carolina, tells the following remarkable snake story, upon the authority of one of the pious itinerants under his ecclesiastical direction. There can be no donbt of its entire truth, strange as the narrative is, and it suggests the existence of many a mystery in the economy of the lower orders of creation that has thus far eluded the most minute and searohing scientific investigation. When the minister was ,a boy he went out one day with his bow and arrows and loitered leisurely along the roadside, testing liis marksmanship upon various objects. Coming to where a shallow brook, called in the South a branch, crossed the highway, he observed a snake of the deadly species known as the moccasin, basking in the sunlight. He shot all his arrows at the formidable reptile, wounding him in several places, and repeated the pastime till the snake war, to all appearance, dead. Seeing a party of colored persons approaching at a distance, the boy took the wounded snake in his hands and laid him in a.coil in the middle of the path, and then hid himself in the bushes to see what the negroes would do when they came to tho spot. In a few moments another snake of the same kind glided out from the thicket and went up to his wounded fellow and examined him. Then, darting back into the covert, he returned with some leaves in his month, pieces of which be placed carefully upon the wounds, making them adhere like plasters. The ap-parently-dead snake immediately began to revive, and soon recovered his power of locomotion and crawled away into the woods. Have snakes doctors ?