Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1892 — AN ELECTRIFIED FENCE. [ARTICLE]

AN ELECTRIFIED FENCE.

I L'he Very D!«trcs»liur Predicament of Some Youthful Marauder*. A gentleman who lives almost under the shadow of old Harvard's walls, at Cambridge, has for several years employed his leisure in “dabbling in electricity,” as he expresses it. In his home all the doors, drawers, and windows open and shut by this mysterious force. Mrs. C——-, the gentleman’s wife, declares that she hesitates to touch anything—even to lift a hair-brush —in his private room, for fear it may be somehow connected with a hidden wire. One of his inventions is unique, and has been the means of affording him and- his I friends no little amusement. In hie back yard are several flue old pear-trees, which have sometimes led certain boys in the neighborhood to overlook the distinction between ffeum et tuum. Running along the rear of the fruit garden is a board fence, a hundred feet long, perhaps, over which the roguish lads were wont to climb when they wanted pears, and which, likewise, too frequently formed the stage for concertjiving cats. On the top of this fence Mr C tacked strips of zinc, which were connected with the electric wires leading to the house. By pressing a button a more or less strong charge of electricity could be sent through the zinc, odd sections of which were united to the earth by means of wires. Unsuspecting cats world run along the fence, and the moment their forefeet touched the noa-insulated zinc an astonished feline rose from one to three feet into the air. sometimes to turn a complete somersalt, and then to descend with all four feet outstretched as if tolly. If the unlucky cat in falling chanced to hit the zinc again the performance was apt to be repeated with variations. The instant puss touched solid earth she would utter one shrill meow of terror and dart away. One afternoon during the past fall Mr. C was sitting in his room when, chancing to look from the window, he spied a boy in the act of climbing the fence, his hands resting on the zinc. Mr. C—— immediately recognized him as one of the purloiners of his pears. He put his finger on the electric button, and the next moment a startled boy jumped' backwards and tried to let go his hold on the fence.

But electricity had set itsgripupon his hands, and he was as powerless to get away as he would be to throw down Bunker Hill Monument with a puff of his breath. He kicked, he pulled backwards, he struggled this way and that, and finally, in despair, he shouted lustily fbr help.

Mr. C watched the lad for a time, and then, thinking he had punished him sufficiently, removed his finger from the button and released him from electrical durance. The boy, meantime, had caught a glimpse of Mr. C *s smiling face at the window, and connected him with his own peculiar sensations. He gave vent to his feelings, therefore, in an angry threat that he and the boys would “tear the old fence down,” and ran off. A few minutes later half a dozen ragged-looking urchins, led by the electrified boy of a few minutes before, were seen approaching the fence, as if with a determination to tear it down. Mr. C ’s finger sought the electric button. One of the ragamuffins put his hands on the fence, and that instant uttered a shriek of pain and terror. Electricity had caught him! His comrades stopped- just Ung enough to see that the boy was held fast, and took to their heels and deserted in a body. Mr. C gave the frightened lad a few words of advice and'then suffered him to depart. Not a pear was disturbed after that, nor has he since known of a boy’s attempting to climb that electrical fence.