Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1891 — SOMEWHAT STRANGE. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF EVERI-DAY LIFE. (jneer Episodes and Thrilling Adrentares Which Show that Truth Is Stranger than Fiction. A man with three tongues, four chins, three cheeks and an elephant’s ear startled the Bellevue Hospital physicians in New York City the ether day. Such a man was taken to the hospital by a lady i® the interest of science, that the doctors might examine him and give their ©pinion as to the probable cause of such a freak of nature. The man can speak plainly and fluently in three languages. He has four well-formed chins, the longest of which is ten inches from the lower lip. The right side of his face is normal, while on the left side there are two separate cheeks. What is considered the most wonderful ■of all in this wonderful monstrosity is fbe ear on the left side of the head.. It hangs down like the ear of an elephant, and measures twenty-one iuches from the crown of the head to the bottom of the lobe. The mammoth ear is pen-feet iu formation and use, excepting that the ■opening is about ton inches below the side of the head. This unexhibited freak is Juan Jose Antonia. He is twenty-five years old, and was born a slave in Jerusalem of Arabian slave parents. When be was twenty-two years old he was stolen by a band of Arabs and taken to Egypt. They kept him at Alexandria for some months and then took him to Mexico. There they made him beg money for them, and found him to be a source of large income in this way. His benefactress, to whom he owes’his liberty, he says, his life is Mrs. Emma Gonzales, the widow of a wealthy Brazilian.

A French journal describes the case <©f a woman twenty-one years of age, but whose physiogomy is that of a woman fully seventy years old. The appearance of the young woman is so deceiving that her father, who is only fifty years old, has frequently been asked if she were not his mother. The surface of the skin is the only part affected. The doctors describe it as a decrepitude of thocutaneous system. Beyond this the young lady has nothing old-appearing about her. Her hair is blonde and of ordinary length, and her memory, judgment and intelligence very good. Drs. Charcot and Souques, under whose observation the case was studied, state that the wrinkling of the girl’s skin began when she was about eleveu years old. Up to that time she had been a vivacious and happy child, ranking well in her studies at school. The wrinkling was so rapid that friends were unable to lecognize her after a period of two weeks unless they had seen her in the interval. Dr. Charcot states that the skin, during the early stages of the change,resembled the scales of a fish. Every possible meats have been tried to improve the young lady’s condition, but they have all proved unavailing

The Delsartian doctrine of rest by voluntary muscular relaxation is somewhat confirmed, according to the New York Sun, by the experience of those who have acted upon this theory in overcoming insomnia. Nothing so quickly brings sleep as the voluntary disposal of the body aud limbs in such fashion as to promote muscular relaxation. The legs and arms should be so placed as to bring them in contact with the mattress at as many poiuts as possible. This affords support and relieves the muscles. The body should be disposed in like fashion, and if all has been done properly the wooer of sleep will presently have the consciousness o f resting with his whole weight directly upou the mattress. When once this feeling comes sleep usually follows. The plan is far better than the old one of repeating the numerals or going over some meaningless series of words, for it has the double advantage of putting the physical man into an attitude of repose and of distracting the mind from whatever thoughts are at emnity with sleep.

One hundred years ago a Mr. Marr of Cape Elizabeth, Me., set out a willow slip, which grew to be a good sized tree. Mr. Marr was an obliging sort of person, and he kept his grindstone—one ot the few in that vicinity—under the willow by the roadside for the convenience of his neighbors. Some of the neighbors were ungrateful, for often, when they had done grinding their axes, they would try the blades upon the sheltering tree, so that its beauty was spoiled and its life endangered. Then Farmer Marr drove a lot of spikes into the trunk, covering the heads artfully with bark and when the neighboring vandals had spoiled a few axes they quit trying edges on the willow. Marr and his neighbors are all dead and forgotten these fifty years, but the willow still flourishes, and the axe marks are obliterated, while the protecting spikes are grown deep in the heart of the great trun t.

Tiie owner of the biggest head in the world is not a politician and does not live in a very big city. He is Loftus Jones Parker, of Louisiana avenue, Washington, D. C., is forty-eight years of age, and is a highly respected man and citizen. Mr. Parker’s crananium is thirty-two inches or nearly a yard m circumlerence, while the ordinary man's is but twenty or twenty-one inches in girth. The story is told in the national capital that when Mr. Parker was but twentyeight years old, three prominent physicians, believing him to be destined to an eatly end, offered to maintain him handsomely as long as he lived for the privilege of making an autopsy thereafter. Mr. Parker has lived twenty years in excellent health to the great discomfiture of the medical men. They are said to believe that he has a twin brain, but his mental processes seem not different from those of his fellows.

It is reported that a party of five English officers and five Americans, brothers, from Philadelphia, started recently to climb to the summit of Fuji Yami,the sacred mountain of Japan. They took some fireworks along, which they intended to explode on the summit. Having secured guides, they set on their journey. After two days the guides asked them to turn back. They refused, and the guides then announced their determination to commit suicide, and coolly proceeded to disembowel themselves before the horrified foreigners. Frenzied by the sight, one of the Americans drew a revolver and bhw out his own brains. The others buried the corpse in a glazier and abandoned their project. The mountain has never been climbed and the Japanese hold that no man can reach its summit and live.

Saji Pwjh was quite seriously hurt near Stillwater, Oklahoma, a few evenings ag». With a party of young men he was out coon hunting. They chased an animal several miles, thinking they were trailing a coon, and when the animal was treed Pugh climbed the tree to knock it down. In the darkness he could not see bat what it was a coon ami he climbed up close to it and struck it. To his surprise he found the animal was a large and ferocious wildcat, which flew at him, biting and scratching him in a horrible manner, and causing him to lose his 'hold and fall to the ground. In his fall he struck a limb fracturing three ribs ana inflicting other severe bruises. He will be confined to his room for some weeks with his injuries. Ou. L. Webster Fox is of opinion that savage races, possess the perception of color to a greater degree than do civilized races. la a lecture lately delivered before the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, he stated that he had just concluded an examination of 25(1 Indian chilaren, of whom 100 were boys. Had he selected 100 white boys from various parts of the United States, he would have found at least five of them colorblind; among the Indian boys he did not discover a single case of color-blindness. Some years ago he examined 250 Indian boys, and found two color-blind, a very low percentage when compared with the whites. Among the Indian girls he did not find any. Men have lost their lives in quicksands, but seldom, if ever, has any man come nearer sinking down to death in quick sawdust than did Merchant Tailor L- W. Batzle, of Williamsport, Penn. Walking along eight or ten yards from the river bank, upon what he did not know was made ground almost entirely composed of sawdust, he began to sink before he realized any danger. After he had gone down to his waist,and could not regain the shore, he removed his upper garments and threw himself as fast as possible out into the river, where he struck wading ground,and made his way in the water around the treacherous sawdust tract.

A hotel-keeper ia New York set a trap for a certain black and white rat in the door of his storeroom, and turned a famous rat-killing cat loose in the room. Shortly afterwards there were sundry yells, howls and bangs, and down the stairs came the yellow cat with the trap on the end of her tail. The big black and white rat was said to have looked through the balusters with great interest. Jacob Looco, a laborer, was attacked by a wildcat in the mountains of Cumberland County,Penn.,the other day. Being a man of great muscular strength, he managed to get his hands around the throat of the cat and choked it to death. Looco'« face and arms were terribly lacerated.

A German journalist has brought electricity into use lor taming wild beasts and preparing them for the circus. The invention consists of a wire whip and a metal foot plate which extends neatly over the floor of the cage, both being connected with a powerful battery. It is possible by this contrivance to give the animal with every stroke a sharp electric shock. A few shocks are said to be enough to tame any beast. The electricity can be thrown off at any time, so that the whip becomes nothing more than ordinary. Jacob Long, of Edenton, Madison County, Ga., is the possessor of a peculiar freak of nature iu the form of a two-year-oid colt. The colt is a bright bay in color, but his entire body on the right side from throat latch on back and around to the hip on his left side is coal black, except the intervention of a narrow strip of his natural color (bay), about the breadth of a saddle girth, and separating the black side in two just at the colt’s girth. Louise de Beaulieu, a famous French “vivaudiere,”- who in company with her regiment was under fire in eight battles, has been reduced to the expedient of selling matches in Paris for a living. She has a long record of heroic deeds, one of her feats of bravery being that of saving the life of a child from the sixth story of a house that was burning iu the Rue St. Honore. At Champigny she lost an arm while carrying a wounded soldier to an ambulance.

A Missouri man left his wife and went to Australia forty-one years ago, where it was reported he died. A few days ago he unexpectedly returned home with a large fortune. There was a joyous meeting between husband and wife so long separated, but once more happily reunited. Strange to say, his wife had lived single all these -years with the dim hope of once more seeing her husband. They are both more than seventy. A unique; street railroad baron is Mr. Euguene Winchet of Dayton, Ohio. The road be owns runs through the suburbs of Dayton, and by the rules of the company, drawn up by Mr. Winchet himself, all working girls using the cars ride at half price,and workwomen carrying their baskets travel free. Eleven women whose ages aggregate 861 years were present at a reuuiou ot ot the Selleck family in Norwalk, Conn., a few days ago. The youngest of the eleven was sixty-seven and the eldest ninety-two, while a serene seventy-eight was the avi ra ;e. Miss Ann Jennings was the only spinster of the eleven.