Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1892 — SOMEWHAT STRANGE. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF EYERY-DAY LIFE. »■ ■ Queer Episodes and Thrilling Adventures Which Show That Truth is Stranger Than Fiction. Mus. W. A. Adams, living on, West Fourth street, had an experience, says the Sedalla Mo., Democrat, that she is quite likely to remember whenever she bakes bread again. In her baking she uses one of the large double bread pans that is hinged on one side and shuts down like a lid. The pan has a double bottom, the lower one of which is usually filled with water for steaming purposes. Like all good housewives, she carefully made her bread and placed it in the oven. The stove had been well heated and was roasting hot. Everything went along all right until the hired girl began to wonder at the strange odor that filled the kitchen. An investigation was begun, and it was determined that something was burning. The oven was opened and Mrs. Adams started to see if her bread was scorching. The pan was partly pulled out when the colored girl, who had been looking on, fell back with a scream that indicated a near attack of hysterics. A snake about two feet was lying coiled on top of the pan and was burned to a crisp. Its mouth was wide open, ns if it liad been repeatedly striking itself with its fangs in the death agony. Even though roasted snake is an' unusual delicacy, yet the tiling that causes the housewife to wonder is how the snake got into that stove. The reptile was too badly charred to identify the species. A special search for snakes will bo made whenever bread is buked in that house again.

At the Gloversville, N. Y., Hair Company’s works the other morning the centrifugal machine, a heavy revolving iron concern used for elenuing hair, was packed full of that material and running under great pressure at the rate of a thousand revolutions a minute, when it suddenly exploded, filling that portion of the mill with flying hair and pieces of iron and doing a great amount of damage: A man named Helwig laid a narrow escape of his life. He was sitting in an armchair some distanco away, and a piece of iron weighing about 200 pounds flew so closely as to chip off a piece of his chair, and, passing through the building, buried itself in the ground. In tiie upper reservoir at Mountain View Cemetery Oakland, Cal., are planted a large number of German carp —the fishes now raging in size from four to seven inches in length. The reservoiijjifrders Blair Park on the west, and theWenagcrie nt the park consists of a big “tom" cat. “Tom” is an expert fisher cat. He creeps along the margin of the reservoir, and when a carp pokes up its nose into the grass at the edge of tiie lake to feed, “Tom” deftly pulls his carpship out and cats him. This is a true cat and fish story, and no diagram is considered necessary to prove it.

The two-masted schooner James A. Fisljer, which struck on the Jersey coast, near Cape May, (N. J.) inlet, forty-nino years ago, and sunk in the quicksands, wiil soon be afloat again, a perfect, vessel as of yore. She wus buried so deeply in the sand that not even her masts or rigging have been visible, but the recent storm unearthed her bleached bones from her seeming tomb. The vessel is in remarkably perfect condition, not cveu a bulwark being crushed in. The cargo of corn was dug out of her hold a few days ago, black, but in perfect shape. Watches, shoes, and the clothing of the crew were brought to light. The watch showed the exact hour at which it had stopped ticking forty-nine years ago, the pipes and tobacco were just as left by the ill-fated crew. The cargo consisted of a full load of corn shipped at Duck river, Delaware bay, for New York. She sunk so soon in the sand that the crew’s clothing and paraphernalia, as well as the entire cargo, went down. Captain Andrews and sev-. eral of the crew were frozen to death, and the steward drowned in attempting to reach the mainland.

Farmer Corseglia of South Jersey has sent to the Philadelphia Record a rather neat thing in the way of freak eggs, the production of one of his Cochin liens. What the hen tried to do was to lay two eggs at once, hut she only partially succeeded. Having produced one complete egg, correct in size and shape, she managed, in trying to instantly duplicate it, to inclose it in a flexible sac of semi-opaque skin, which also contained the complete yolk and white of another egg. The effect was, therefore, that of of a hard egg and an egg that has been dropped out of its shell, both inclosed in a seamless bag about four inches long and two inches wide. After accomplishing this very unusual feat Farmer Corseglia’s Cochin hen raised such a disturbance in order to call attention to her achievment that ehe was set upon by half the feathered inhabitants of the barnyard and forced to roost on the henhouse roof to escape their jealous wrath. The row having attracted a farm liand's notice he investigated the cause and the Cochin’s prize production was oiycfully placed in a cigar box Allied with bran and taken to Farmer Corseglia. Twenty odd years ago Captain E. A. Marwick of Portland, late master Of the bark Rose Junes, found a stowaway on board his vessel just after leaving a German port for the United States. Calling the ragged and halfstarved boy aft, Cuptain Marwick, who never was noted for amiability, asked what he meant by coming on board his vessel, and told him to prepare for the soundest thrashing he ever got. The boy replied tliat a thrashing was just what he expected. This excited Captain Marwick’s curiosity and he questioned the boy who said that he had been accustomed to daily thrashings ati home and thought that lie could not possibly fare worst*. as a stowaway on an American merchantman. At this’Captain Marwick’s anger changed to admiration for the plucky lad, whom he soon afterward adopted. The old Captain has now retired from the sea, and the poor stowaway commands the Rose Junes, and has a wife and children in a pleasant home at Farmington, where the man who gave him a start in the world instead of a thrashing often vists. One of the keepers of the Philadelphia Zoo, -whose experience with the larger animals has been quite varied, in speaking of the elephant, said: “While it has no fear of the powerful Bengal tiger or the Numidian lion, at the first sight of the most diminutive creature it will shrink from it and tremble all over from the most abject fear. I remember well, years ago, one of the largest and most brutal elephants we had in the Zoological Garden, while feeding one day in its quarters, discovered a mouse which was lunching in a corner on some of the provender, and the scare it gave to the elephant and the way it shook and carried on for a few minutes was a sight to look at. The mouse seemed entirely composed in the presence of such a mas-

todon, and satisfied its appetite fully before retiring. The elephant gave its lilliputian visitor a wide berth during its stay.” William R. Vatoiin of llwaco, Washington was supposed to be afflicted with catarrh of the stomach, and after vainly trying many remedies began the use of a stomach tube to wash out the diseased organ. One day recently while using the tubo, there was ejected from the stomach a leech or snail about an inch and a half long, and the body back of the head about the thickness of a lead pencil. Two horns protruded from the head. It was placed in a bottle of alcohol and sent to Dr. Carter of Fort Cabby, Mr. Vaughn’s physician. The only manner to account for the presence of the tiling may bo the fact that about three years ago Mr. Vaughn was engaged logging on the lake near town, and often drank water from the brooks running into the lake.

It is a curious fact that not one miner out of every huudred who has had any experience will do anything but put the sticks of giant powder into his bootlegs. He knows just about how much giant powder he will need during the shift, and these he receives before he enters the shafthouse to go down. Then he carefully places it in the leg of his boot, and in this manner conveys it into the mine. The miners have stopped “crimping” the fulminating caps with their teeth of late years. This is due, probably, to the suicide at Chicago of Lmgg, one of the Anarchists who was sentenced to bo hanged with Spies aud the rest. Liugg exploded one of the caps by biting it and blew most of his head oil. Now the majority of the miners crimp the oap on the heel of their boot with a knife. Mary Carnes was drowned the other bay at Adairsville, Ga. She fell into the crook while fishing. She had told her parents some days before that she would not live long, and that the world was all going wrong. Since then a peculiar accident happened. Bird Yarlborough, an artist, was requested to make a picture of the child. He made a negative, and after preparing it for printing placed it in the bam and poured the solution on, when with a suddenness the glass broke in many pieces. The work was the same as ho had done many times, and never before did a negative shatter.

There is a cat in Portland, Ind., which associates entirely with hens, eating everything they eat, even to shelled corn; and every night it perches itself on the roost alongside of the old rooster. The hens have learned to accept the situation and now look upon the cat as one of themselves. Recently at P. It. Garnett’s ranch near Willows, Cal., a mare belonging to Tom Kiukude had a three-legged colt. The colt is of normal size aud all the legs, except the left fore-leg are normally developed. The left fore-leg is missing nt the shoulder-ioint, where ike leg separates from the body. A lobster measuring thirty-four inches in length and weighing 101 pounds has been taken from a trap in St. Andrew’s Bay, near Itobbinston, Me. The specimen will be prepared by a taxidermist for exhibition at the World’s Fair. Lisbon Falls,Me., boasts of a 17-year-old girl who weighs 275 pounds and is growing. When she was 18 years old she tipped the beam at 250 pounds.