Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1893 — SOMEWHAT STRANGE. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OP EVERYDAY DIKE. Queer Facts and Thrilling Adventures Which Show That Truth Is Stranger Thau Fiction. According to the Chicago Horseman, the question of color of a horse is a very important one with a Russian, and gentlemen of means would never permit other than a white, gray, or black horse to occupy a position in their stable. Their particular fad is to drive a crossmatch span composed of a black and a white horse. The majority of Russian horses, however, are grays. Of course there are some mixed colors, but these are used only by the poorer classes of peasants for rough work in the interior districts. So high a value does the Russian place upon color that the Government will have none but white or gray stallions on their breeding farms. In Russia horsemen believe that the gray horse possesses far more courage, is capable of standing the rigors of their Winters better, has greater powers of endurance, and better blood than that of any other color. Their 125 years of Government control of breeding has so nearly reduced the question of transmitting colors to a science that the Government will have only white or gray stallions in service, claiming that color goes with the sire almost universally. Seventy-five per cent, of the Russian race horses are white or gray.

It appears from British consular reports just published that there is a place on the face of the globe where intoxication, instead of being regarded as a vice, is looked upon as a virtue, and where drunken laborers are actually at a premium. This peculiar condition of affairs prevails in the Portuguese possessions of South Africa. It seems that the natives there, when employed for any definite object, have to be carefully and laboriously instructed how to perform their work. If a man be temperate in his habits he will in one or two months earn sufficient to maintain himself in idleness for nearly a year, and the consequence is that he returns to his home, and the instructions which have been given to him are ontirely lost. With an intemperate native the opposite state of affairs exists. Month after month, on the receipt of his wages, he spends his entire earnings in liquor, and never having sufficient funds to take him home, remains with his employer for years, becoming more and more valuable as time passes by reason of the fact that the repetition of instructions becomes gradually less necessary. The town of Warrenton, Ga., was treated to some excellent music a few days since and the producer was a onearmed colored lad who hails from Florida. The wonderful feature about this talented musician is that he performs splendidly on three instruments at the same time, guitar, harp and a call bell. Having only one arm it seems impossible for him to perform this great feat. His arm his off near the elbow, so to this ho fastens a stick about the size of your little finger and eight inches in length, which he uses to beat on the guitar strings instead of picking them. On his shoulder he has a rack to hold the harp in place and he works the bell with his foot. It is indeed wonderful how he can handle these instruments with such accuracy. He is also a splendid dancer.

Says a medical practitioner of long experience: “I believe that a good many Eeople who are supposed to die of ydrophobia scare themselves to death. They are bitten by a dog—perfectly harmless dog, usually—and they brood over it and worry about it until they develop all the symptoms of hydrophobia. I should test every case of alleged poisoning by rabies by putting the patient tinder chloroform and watching him during the stupor when he was coming out of it. If the convulsions continued then the case would be genuine, but if, in that interval, the patient had forgotten what ailed him, I should laugh him out of it. Dog bites are the commonest of injuries. Even a rabid dog may bite a man without producing any ill effects.” In other countries than England there are peculiar and unaccountable pronunciations of proper names. The island of Terra Nuova, off the coast of Honduras, is called “Turneff.” The Boca d’Agua, iu Jamaica, h called “Bogwalk,” and the Agua Alta, in the same country, is known as the “Wag water.” In Scotland there is a county called “Kirkoobree,” of which the correct spelling is Kirkcudbright. Then there is the Toliver family in this country, whose name is properly spelled Taliaferro.

Four miles southwest of Mount Vernon, Texas, is a great phenomenon on the farm of Marvel Holbert. Last July he dug a well. Going to the depth of fifty feet and getting no water, work was suspended and the well oovered up. One day recently Mr. Holbert, passing by, uncovered the well, and to his surprise hot steam gushed out in his face, and on examination it was found that a vein of hot water about six inches iu diameter had burst in through the bottom and stands at a depth of eighteen feet, boiling like a teakettle over a slow fire. Queen Victoria’s fondness for domestic pets is indicated by the fact that in the grounds of the royal dairy there are two monuments erected by her Majesty’* order to the memory of two dogs which she once held dear. One of these canine favorites was a dachshund named Boy, which departed life in 1802; the other a Scottish terrier, Boz, once the property of the Duchess of Kent and afterwards the Queen’s favorite. Her Majesty is nowadays especially interested in collies.

The office chair occupied by ex-Post-raaster-General Wanamaker, although of the ordinary size, has been found to be so inconveniently small for the Hon. AVilson S. Bissell that he has secured a requisition for a new chair, which will be made of heavy quartered oak, thirty inches across the seat, supported on straight legs, three by four inches, weighing about as much as the heavy mahogany desk before him. It is contrary to law in Mexioo for a woman to take the veil. The Government is so strict in enforcing this law that a young woman of the City of Mexico who started the other day to enter a convent in this country was arrested by the authorities and taken back to the city. The plea was that her relatives were opposed to her taking the veil.

An earnest hand-clasp caused the death of Dennis O’Leary, of Bristol, Pa. He was walking in a Boston park, where he met a robust friend. The latter squeezed his hand so forcibly that the nails entered O'Leary’s palm, causing a slight wound, from which a few drops of blood issued. Blood-poisoning resulted, and in a few days O’Leary was a corpse.

An Ohio man has a queer hen. Neat the barnyard there is a large “cooler” hanging on a crane; and the hen in question insists on regarding this' cooler as her nest. She does not get into it, however, but sits perched on its rim, in consequence of which her eggs are all broken by the fall. A medical gentleman in Kansas has succeeded in an agricultural experiment which will interest all classes. He has crossed the tomato with the potato, and produced a vegetable which possesses some of the qualities of both articles. He calls it the “potomato.” Wee Hun Pens, who was cook in a mining camp only three years ago, is no longer wee in the financial sense. He owns the whole of one and the half of another important mine in Arizona, and is reputed to be worth at least $3,000,000.