Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1893 — SOMEWHAT STRANGE. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF EVERY DAY DIKE. rjueer Facts and Thrilling Adventures Which, Show That Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction. Tice, superintendent of an orphanage at Secuudra, India, writes to a St. Louis paper an account of a boy-wolf who is now under his care. Some time ago the boy was discovered by some hunters in the country near that place, who saw him sunning himself upon a rock. He appeared to be a child about five years old, naked, hairy and dirty. When they approached him, he scampered off on all fours in company with a wolf, which they had not seen, and took refuge iu a cave. The hunters built a fire before the cave to smoke its -occupants out, and presently the wolf ran out, and after it the boy, whom they captured, but only after a severe struggle, iu which one of the men was badly bitten by the ferocious child. For a long while nothing could he done with him. He resented his captivity, would wear no clothes, ate nothing but raw meat, which he gnawed on the ground like a wolf, lay sleeping all day, and moved about restlessly in the night. Uuder the care of the orphanage he has become more tractable in the lapse of time. He will now endure clothing, and eats cooked food, but will not undertake to talk, though he appears founderstand what is said to him, and manifests considerable intelligence. It is supposed that he was stolen away from his parents while a baby by a wolf, which perhaps had lost her young aud adopted the child.

The Baltimore American says that the indignation of the passengers on a Western Maryland traiu was aroused the other day by the unusual spectacle of a richly clad boy of five or six years, whose legs and feet were perfectly bare, although the day was a cold one. The child was accompanied by his mother and sister, who were evidently people of wealth and refinement. On inquiry it was learned that the boy was the sou of a prominent physician, who had lost several children with throat diseases, until he hit on the idea of turning his children out barefooted. The experiment proved to l>e a perfect success. The barefooted boy was the picture of health. At the Union station in Baltimore he ran around on the cold bricks totally unaware of any discomfort. People are constantly shocked aud amazed at seeing the children of this gentleman going about barefooted, winter aud summer, but inasmuch as it saves their lives, in his opinion, he is indifferent to criticism.

The Chinese Cabinet at Whitehall Yard, London, is replete with objects of interest, while among the naval curios is the tin box found in the body of a shark, the story of which has been graphically narrated by the late Mr. John limbs in his “Curiosities of Loudon.” A ship bound for the West Indies fell in with and chased a suspicious-looking craft having the appearance of a slaver. During the pursuit something was thrown overboard from the chased vessel, which being captured was taken into Port Hoyal to be adjudicated upon as a slaver. The ship’s papers were not forthcoming, and the vessel was in a fair way to escape condemnation, when a ship came into port which had caught a shark, in the stomach of which voracious monster was a tin box containing the missing papers, and these clearly showed that the captured craft was engaged in the slave trade.

Frank Harvey, a fireman, committed suicide at Indianapolis, Ind., from a peculiar cause. Three years ago he asked a day off duty and Ulysses Glazier was put on duty iu his place.. That afternoon the Bowen-Merrell fire occurred and Glazier was one of the twelve men who met death in the collapse of the building. Since that time Hasty has been subject to fits of melancholy and often referred to the fire and to the fact that lie regarded himself as responsible for the death of his friend. Some weeks ago another fireman died and this preyed upon Harvey’s mind, as his death was indirectly caused by injuries received in the fire, lie refused sustenance of any kind and was finally taken to a sanitarium, where he hanged himself to the bedpost in the absence of the attendant. Trap-shooting of English sparrows is all the rage among the Albany, (N. Y.) marksmen, who hold open matches and keep scores after the fashion in pigeon ‘tournaments.” As the sparrows are regarded as undesirable settlers, there are no compunctions about killing them wholesale. They are caught in great numbers in the West Albany railroad yard, where they swarm around the grain-cars. After capture they are turned into a large cage in a well-lighted outbuilding, and fed until the collection is large enough for the demands of the tr.ip-shooters. The sport calls for as much skill and greater quickness than the slaughter of the slow-starting housepigeon. A cues aUK against profanity in the public streets is being carried on with vigor in a number of English towns. A laborer at Wisbech was convicted a week or so ago of publicly using four profane oaths, and fined a shilling for each oatli and thirteen shillings costs. The conviction was obtained under an act of George 11., which imposes a penalty of one shilling per oath when uttered by a laborer, two shillings when the offender is above the social degree of laborer and under the degree of gentleman, and five shillings for each oath when uttered by a gentleman. Under the provisions of this act the penalty is the same whether the oath is uttered un a man’s own premises or on the public streets.

A neat pickpocket dodge practised upon rural-looking persons in New York is based upon the known good nature and courtesy of the average American citizen. The pickpocket, clad in fine raiment and carrying a stick, stands upon the rear platform of a street car, facing the dashboard. He struggles with a pair of tight gloves, and having vainly essayed to button one after putting on the other, appeals to the kindness of the man facing Kim on the platform. In nine times out of ten he picks the right man, and while the benefactor buttons the glove the pickpocket with his disengaged hand takes the other’s watch. The confederate inside is at hand to baffle the pursuers in case the theft is detected.

The story of a singular tragedy comes from Buchanan County, Virginia. Charles Carroll, a moonshiner, who was being pursued by deputy marshals, concealed himself in an abandoned cabin, barred the door, and stood peeping out through a knot hole. The posse came along the road, stopped and began talking on the edge of the clearing.' A bet was made and taken that one of the party could not shoot through a knot hole in the uoor. A Winchester >y* s levelled and fired, and something was heard to fall inside the cabin. The

officers rushed to the spot and found writhing in death the man for whom they were hunting. A lady at Ashford, England, has just received a bequest of $750,000 from an old gentleman, an entire stranger, for e small act of kindness rendered to him five years ago. He was in the crowd outside Buckingham Palace watching the arrivals at one of the Queen’s drawing rooms when he became faint and staggered helplessly. The crowd jeered him, shouting that he was druuk, and commenced to jostle him rudely. The lady saw he was ill, and h/lped him through the crowd to a seat in a park close by. He soon recovered, asked her name, and they parted, and she did not hear of him again until two weeks ago, when his solicitors informed her of his death and that he had bequeathed her the sum named.

The famous smuggling schooner Halcyon, which has led the United States revenue boats and officials so many interesting chases along and off the Pacific coast, aud has landed her contraband goods every trip, has been refitted and rechristened, and as the Vera she will sail from Victoria soon as a seal pirate She will be flitted up in the best style, with six crack shots and the most experienced hunters, and her owners expect her to come back the “high liner,” that is, with more skins than any other vessel in the sealing fleet, an odious distinction in the infamous business of slaughtering of seal mothers and their young. Nervousness shows itself in queer ways. There is a young New York newspaper mau who exhibits a commendable self-possession on most occasions, and would not be supposed to have such a thing as a nerve about his person, but there is one spectacle that he cannot endure, and that is to see a man’s lust blow off. If this calamity occurs in his presence he catches his breath, shudders, aud reaches about for something to hold to until the sensation of losing himself has passed. This is constitutional and is the only exhibition of uer zous weakness that he ever makes.

Nink years ago last summer Farmer Jesse Gibbs of Fleetville, Penn., lowered a crock of butter into a well on his place to let it get cool. The string broke, the crock sank to the bottom, and Mr. Gibbs made no effort to reclaim the butter, as the well was very deep. A few days ago the well went dry for the first time, and Fanner Gibbs got some men to clean it out. The crock was lifted to the surface, and when the farmer opened it he found, much to his surprise, that the nine-vear-old butter was as sweet aud palatable as it was when it had been packed in the crock. A traveler in the Maine baekvsods this season was wvnewhat surprised on coming upon a lumberman’s camp, full thirty miles from any settlement, to hear the music of an organ and the strains of an operatic air. He was met on entering the camp by the organist, a bright, neat Maine girl, who he found was also the cook, who had taken along her parlor organ out to camp to entertain her father and his crew in the long evenings during their stay in the wilderness. To prevent the escape of his spirit, at death, George Francis Dobson, of Muskegon, Mich., hr fit upon a Strange idea. He has made arrangements for his friends, just before the spirit leaves his body, to seal him in a huge glass cylinder, so that his spirit may be kept from departing, and at the same time be enabled, by a series of systematic disturbances of the air, withiu the cylinder, to communicate with his friends through a telegraphic instrument placed in the cylinder. Professor Morse of Salem, Mass., has solved the problem of house heating in a curious fashion. He has built a house with all its rooms fronting southward, and only a passage on the north. Almost the whole southern front of the house is made of glass, and by means of reflectors Professor Morse is enabled on sunny days to heat his whole house with sunshine alone. At night ami on cloudy days he has hearth fires going. He believes that by this contrivance he has the most wholesome heat that is attainable. The body of Julia Reeder, a young lady of Booneville, Ind., was prepared for burial. The sign of apparent death had succeeded a severe attack of typhoid fever. Her friends were gatherer around, and just before the final leavetaking, her lover took her hand to kirn it. The lover was astounded to feel his fingers pressed by the hand of the supposed corpse. The joyous discovery was thus made that the young woman was alive. A tame dove belonging to Andrew Fairchilds of Fallassburg, Mich., flew from the dovecote into his house and alighted upon a cradle which contained an infant. No one was in the room except Mrs. Fairchilds. She, attracted by the baby’s cry, ran to the cradle, and found the dove picking at the child’s eyes, one of which was punctured aud ruined forever. Several men who have outlived their greatness are now glad to earn their living as coachmen in Berlin. Amoug them are sixteen nobles, seven retired army officers, and three pulpitless pastors. Three British notabilities now gleefully crack the whip as London cabmen; they are an ex-member of Parliament, a baron, and a marquis. Surprise and terror caused some zinc miners to desert a shaft they were sinking at Webb City, Wis. As the opening became deeper, they noticed that the atmosphere became warmer. At the deptli of 103 feet the heat was so intense that work was stopped, and soon they saw flames burst into the shaft.