Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1893 — SOMEWHAT STRANGE. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF EVERYDAY MFE. Queer Facts and Thrilling Adventures Which Show That Truth la Stranger Than Fiction. “It is not often that an engineer stays on his seat in the face of a collision if he has a chance to jump,” said an old railroad man. “When he doesn’t jump it’s because he hasn’t time. I remember once when an engineer was metaphorically frozen to his seat. I was on the engine at the time. See these gray hairs,” ana he pushed back his hat. “I got them all in about two minutes. It happened on the Indianapolis division of the Pennsylvania line. I was in charge of the fast mail train No. 7, and Charley Mann, as good an engineer as ever took hold of a throttle, was hauling us. No. 7is a fast train, anyhow, but that night we were late out of Columbus, and I tell you we were splitting the wind. Having nothing else to do I climbed over to the engineer and asked Charley to let me run her awhile, and he pushed over to give me room. Everything went as lovely as a May-day dance until we started down the hill. Suddenly a red light showed up ahead of us on the track. The awfulness of that minute I can never describe. ‘We are gone, Charley 1’ I yelled to the engineer behind me. ‘There’s a flat car ahead of us. See that red light.’ “Charley saw it and started to get down. I yelled to him not to do it; that we might escape death, but if we jumped from that engine, running at least eighty miles an hour, we would be killed sure. I shut ofl the steam, and, throwing on the air-brake, began ‘plugging* her. The wheels reversed, but she rode over the sand as if there was none on the track. Charley clung to m$ with wide-staring eyes, and I honestly believe he was praying. Nearer, nearer we rushed to that fatal light—and dashed post it. Soon we had stopped, and I called the fireman to go back, with me and ascertain what it was. He could not move, and when I pulled him from his sejjt he was as stiff as a poker, and It was sevffal seconds before he could utter a sound. The poor fellow was paralysed with fear, and it was a long time before ho recovered. What was the red light doing there? A fool agent had come up the track to flag a train following us and had left his red light near the rails. When I meet him I never felt so much like murdering a man in my life.”

A peculiar accident in which a cow and a fast-flying locomotive figured prominently happened on the Metropolitan Branch Baltimore and Ohio railroad, near Terra Cotta, a few days ago. The locomotive, the Chicago limited engine 840, piloted by Peter Yaeger, the famous “fast runner” engineer, noted for, his thirty-eight minute trip from Baltimore to this city with fire engines at the time of the Patent Office fire, was on one of his fast runs. When nearing this place two cows were on the track. As the second one got off it was caught in a cramped position at the end of a standing box oar and was struck by the locomotive in such a way that its tail was cut off as cleverly as could be within three inches of its body and thrown a hundred feet away, leaving the cow otherwise unhurt. The tail is in the possession of Alexandra Johnson, the Baltimore and Ohio yardmaster. He has been railroading for twenty-five years, but says this was something phenomenal and vows he will send it with its history to the world’s fair if he can find a place for it. The owner of the cow has already claimed damages, but •whether for the value of the tail or compensation for his trouble in keeping flies off the unfortunate animal during the coming summer is not yet known to the officials of the railroad.

Sib William Dalby, the noted English specialist in aural surgery, makes public a remarkable series of facts regarding the influence of emotions upon the senses. He mentioned a lady who, standing before the toilet table and looking through the door into the dressingroom, saw in a mirror the reflection of her husband in the act of cutting his throat. From that moment she was absolutely deaf. Similarly a sudden loss hearing happened to a young married lady who was suddenly brought face to face with her dead husband at a time when she believed him to be quite well and when she was going to meet him after a long absence. On various occasions Sir William Dalby has noted the remarkable effects produced upon, the hearing by emotional influences, not Ofily by great mental shocks, but by ipmtal strata. He has known not only rudden grief, but also overwhelming joy, instantly to make a person quite deaf, has known the sense of smell to be lost by strong emotional influence and with this the s&nsc of taste. French lovers sometimes resort to bold expedients to circumvent the law yyhicji forbids marriage without eqnserff; of the parents of Doth the Bride and groom, even though the couple be each fifty jears old. A case before the courts is that of tEe sun of a distinguished General and the daughter of a wealthy Martinique couple, who had separated. The father of the bride gave his conseht, but the ippthqr refused* A clause of the law provides that if a parent has disappeared and four persons swear to the fact consent may bo waived. The groom produced four persons who swore that his prospective mother-in-law was nowhere to be found. The marriage then took place privately. A friend who met the mother the other day, informed her that she had a charming son-in-law. - Indignant at the trick played on her, she asks the courts to declare the marriage void and punish all concerned. When the Government relief boat paid its semi-monthly visit to the lighthouse at Roches Douvres. on the Breton coast, some weeks ago, the officers found one of the two lightkeepers in a halfstarved and almost wholly insane condition, and in one of the two rooms in the lighthouse the dead and decomposed body of the othor keeper. It was learned that almost a fortnight before the assistant keeper had fallen down the stairs and was instantly killed. The survivor made signals of distress, but not a vessel came near the lighthouse, and for the two weeks subsequently he had to keep by him the body of his dead companion, for he feared that if he threw it into the sea he might be accused of murder. He scarce ate or slept while waiting for the relief boat and vainly making signals for help He kept the light burning at nignt, but his terrible experience almost killed him. C. M. Sawyeb, cashier of the Dexter, (Me.) National Bank, possesses a very peculiar faculty for telling the weight of things off-hand. *He cannot explain what the power is, but that he can exercise it correctly there can be no doubt. Numerous instances of its use are told. One is that a merchant was one day preparing to weigh a boxful of old copper •craps, all shapes and stass thrown In at

hap-hazard. Just then Mr. Sawyer stepped into his store. Seeing the box and the scales be remarked: “You needn’t weight that, for I can tall you to an ounce just what it weighs. The thought came to me just as I came in the door that that box an dcontents weighed just 378 pounds.” The dealer was not prepared to adopt this mode of weighing without verifying it, so he put the box on the scales, and it tipped the beam at exactly the weight named. A remarkable family record is that of Thomas and Catherine Smith, who moved to Coles county, 111., in 1830 and settled near Janesville. Both of them died in February, 1865. They left fifteen children, fourteen of whom are still living. Twelve of them have grandchildren and three have great-grand-children. Counting the whole generation from the parents down there are now 236 persons living, as given in the following recapitulation: Fourteen children, 71 grandchildren, 112 great-grand-children, and 9 great-great-grand-chil-dren. Some curious figures bearing on longevity are published by the vicar of Sandhurst, England, iu a periodical called Gloucestershire Notes and Queries. He says that during the last half-century he finds in his parish registers 68 persons who died between the ages of 80 and 90, and 16 between 90 and 100 years of age. Of these, 8 were 95 years and upwards, and 32 were 85 and upwards. Of the former, one was 99 and another, 100. The centenarian was one Hannah Hancock, who died in 1859. Out of the 16 persons over 90, 12 were females. Antone. Nelson, a Colorado cowboy, lassooed an eagle a few days ago. Nelson, was riding over the praire on his little cow-pony with his lasso tied to his saddle, when he saw the eagle flying ahead of him quite close to the ground. He started his pony on a run towards the bird, and when a short distance away threw his rope, which settled over the eagle’s neck and under one wing, and he succeeded in getting the bird to the ranch-house alive. The eagle measured eight feet from tip to tip of its wings. A RESIDENT of a New Jersey village had his watch in soak for three weeks winter in a peculiar way. He dropped it into the millpond, in about six feet of water, and during the night the pond froze over. Three weeks later, when the ice had gone and it was possible to drain the pond and search the bottom, the watch was found. It had a waterproof case, and, having been dropped in the water at half past nine, it had stopped at half past four after running seven hours under water. It is running as usual now. Thousands of dead crows lie upon the ground under the trees on the mountain east of Frush Valley, beyond McKnight’s Gap, Penn. This place has been a roosting place for crows for many years. The unusually severe winter and the deep snow have killed the birds. There are said to be tons upon tons of dead crows on the mountain at this famous roosting place. The coldness has blinded many of them so they cannot find any food. Mrs. Mary Slack, of Cleveland, attended a funeral in Woodland Cemetery, and took a seat in the corner of the vault, where she fell asleep. The mourners departed, the vault was locked, and awoke at three o’clock in the morning. Her cries alarmed the guard, and it was thought that one of the bodies entombed the previous day had come to life. She was released and sent home in an undertaker’s wagon, and became quite ill. Lieutenant Smoiloff of the Russian Army has trained the falcon to carry messages in lien of the pigeon. The falcon has several advantages over tho ordinary carrier. A pigeon easily flies ICO leagues at a speed of eight to ten leagues an hour, but a falcon can as easily cover fifteen leagues an hour for fifteen hours, whereas the pigeon rarely accomplishes such a feat. A blind beggar, in the streets of Paris, bore on his breast a picture representing indistinctly an earthquake or an explosion of fire-damp. A gentleman stopped and kindly questioned the poor beggar. “Tell me, my good man, in what country that catastrope occurred of which you have been the victim. “I can’t tell. I bought the painting at an auction sale.”