Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1893 — SOMEWHAT STRANGE. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF EVERYDAY LIKE. Queer Facta and Thrilling Adventures Which Show That Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction. A wrecking gang on the Delaware division of the Erie Railway were clearing up a wreck at Nobody’s Block, not far from Cochecton, N. Y., when their attention was called to a curious, shrill, cooing sound which came at short and regular intervals from a cornfield directly across the Delaware River, in Wayne County, Pa. They made an investigation, and found that the sound emanated from the childrcn of a German farmer, who had been stationed around his cornfield to scare away the crows from pulling up the young and tender shoots of corn. The farmer had been unusually well blessed with progeny, his wife having borne him no less than twelve children, including four pairs of twins. He had been yearly bothered with crows in corn-planting time. He had adopted all the scarecrow devices in common usage among farmers, such as placing stuffed straw men in the fields, stringing twine over poles with bits of white rags flattering in the wind, etc.,but the crows had become used to these things, and, crow-like, would post their sentinels on lofty tree-tops to give warning of daDger while their companions were at work uncovering the hills. A beppy thought struck the farmer by which he could protect his com and utilize his several offspring. Arming two of them with old tinpans each day, he placed them in the field at four o’clock in the morning and told them to call out “Coo! coo 1” and pound their pans whenever they saw any crows flying near. When the children became tired the father replaced them with two others, and thus by successive relays the crows were kept away. This process was repeated each day until the corn was of a size sufficient to proteot itself. It was this strange noise, kept up all day long, from early morn till eve, that made the Erie wreckers marvel. It is said that this is the second year in which the Wayne county farmer has protected his cornfields with living scarecrows. I witnessed a strange duel in Argentine, writes a correspondent Two ranchers were enamored of the same dark-eyed senorita. Now, when your South American is hit by the blind archer, he is hit hard. He is not satisfied to visit his charmer one evening in the week and give up the rest of the time to his rivals. If he catches another admirer hanging about the house of his inamorata, there is apt to be trouble. The two sighing swains in question had agreed to settle by a duel with the lasso which should wed the damsel. A hundred piratical-looking cow punchers assembled to witness the fray. The rivals appeared on two nettlesome mustangs, each with a long powerful lariat of tough bull-hide. They were both experts with the lasso, and their horsemanship was a marvel. They approached to within forty or fifty yards of each other, then began to manoeuvre for a deciding cast. After several feints the lariat of the younger of the rivals went whizzing through the air so swiftly that the eye could scarcely follow it. The his spurs into his mustang. The animal shot forward just in time to save his master from the deadly noose, and as he did so, the second lasso rose into the air and settled round the shoulders of the man who missed, pinning his arms to his side as in a vise. He was jerked headlong out of his saddle. His successful rival drew him along, hand over hand, half-lifted him from the ground by the tenacious thong, and put a bullet squarely between his eyes. He then turned and rode directly to the hacienda, where lived the cause of this barbaric scene. She mounted behind him, and he came galloping back, swinging his sombrero. Lightning played a queer trick the other day out in Montana. A bolt fell on ■ a farmer working in a field on his ranch near Augusta and besides killing him played havoc with the metal that he carried in Ms clothes. The current struck his silver watch, burned a hole through the edge near the case spring, ana passed on entirely through the watch between the outer and inner cases, and made its exit near the stem. A match could be inserted in the hole. When the body was found the watch had stopped, but when it was taken from the pocket it started .ticking again, and has been keeping excellent time since. The blades of the dead man’s knife were welded together, and the brass ends were melted. Among the strange things that strike the eye in Vancouver city is a boat-col-ony. It occupies a strip of beach back of the town on the salt-water u arm’’ or fjord, and consists of twenty or thirty little floats, few of them over forty feet long, that are built over and supplied with beds and cooking utensils. Some of them are occupied by laborers, but the best-appearing ones, that are put together with a good deal of art and are really handsome pieces of wood-working, are the homes of Japanese artisans. The scows float at high tide, but are moored to the shore. The strangeness of the scene is heightened by the tents of dirty Indians on a bluff just above the water. One of the strangest superstitions of Chinamen is the awe with which they regard the cockroach. John holds the ugly black pest as sbmething sacred, claiming that it is specially favored by the gods and a particular favorite of the great Joss. The most unfortunate mishap that can befall a Chinaman is to step on a cockroach. Instantly visions of terrible disasters and calamities arise before him. In some instances the superstition has been known to so prey on the minds of the Celestials as to drive them insane. As a result of this state of affairs, a Chinamau would as soon think of killing himself as of killing one of the insects. Nebo, I. T., wails because Boyd’s oil spring ceased to flow five weeks ago and still remains dry. The spring was about sixty miles northeast of Gainesville, Tex. It has been a resort for invalids since the first settlement of the country. The stream of water feeding the spring was not very trong, and at intervals of but a few minutes, a drop of oil would rise and float on the surface. During a period of twenty-four hours the surface of the water would become covered with oil. It was taken internally and applied externally for “all the ills that flesh is heir to." A most remarkable discovery was made by some laborers employed on the farm of County Surveyor W. S. Gholson near Paducah, Ky. A poplar tree five feet in diameter was sawed down, and in the -hollow of it, the remains of a human skeleton were found, in a perfect State of preservation. The tree, to all appearances, was perfectly sound, except about seven feet above the ground was a notch, as if the tree had once been chopped into, but the cavity had

grown over. The placing of the skeleton in the tree is supposed to hare been the work of Indians. A curious operation has been reported to the French Societe d'Ophthalmolgie. A boy of thirteen, after an injury to his eyelid, had it so severely contracted that he could no longer close his eye. Accordingly an incision was made in the eyelid by M. Gillet de Grandmont, and tiny fragments of frogskin were inserted in a kind of checker work. It adhered perfectly, and the wound was completely Healed over. After about five months the eyelid recovered its power of movement. A tiny transverse line across the lid is the only sign visible of the fragments borrowed from the frog. “Rattlesnake Pete,” of Oil City, Penn., as his name would indicate, is a man of somewhat grewsomc tastes. He is now proudly wearing a double-breasted sack coat and a pair of trousers made of rattlesnake skins so arranged that the yellow and black stripes form a pleasing effect; that is, Pete thinks they do. It took him four years to gather the skins for this suit, and he had to kill 125 snakes to do it. The buttons of his coat are rattlesnake heads mounted with gold. The phenomenon of double consciousness, so skillfully used in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” is by no means uncommon. Many mysterious disappearances are by it accounted for in a manner wholly consistent with the innocence of the missing one, and even with his apparent sanity. A very singular recent case was that of a Western judge who went away from home while deranged from overwork and beoame a day laborer under another name. A remarkable character of Bernardston, Mass., is Arnold Scott, a blind letter carrier, sixty-seven years old, whose eyesight was lost forty-six years ago. He has a long route, which he traverses twice a day, and rarely makes a mistake in the delivery of letters. He walks confidently in summer, but the snow troubles him somewhat in winter. Mr. Scott's knowledge of the neighborhood is said to be perfect, and he has never been known to get lost. • Tom Roe, a truck farmer, of Waco, Tex.,is not a prize fighter,but if he should run afoul of some of the supposed fighters they would not get off very easy. Several days ago his horse, that had been grazing in the field, became crazy and made a rush for Tom with open mouth, and would probably have seriously injured him had he not leaped aside and struck the horse on the neck with his fist, killing him instantly.

It is said that an unmarried woman’s chanoes of matrimony at from 15 to 20 years of age is. 141 per cent.; from 20 to 25, 52 per cent.; from 25 to 30, 18 per cent.; from 30 to 35, 15i per cent.; from 35 to 40, 3f per cent.; frem 40 to 45, per cent.; from 45 to 50, | per cent., and from 50 to 55, i per cent. A widow’s chances at any age are far better than those of a spinster. Mbs. Mercy Jordan of Greene. R. 1., has celebrated her ninety-third birthday by a family re-union, at which there were present her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and great, great graudchildren to the number of more than one hundred. She is the mother of thirteen children, of whom six survive, the oldest being seventy-three years old. Live rattlesnakes are sold for $1 a snake by peddlers in the streets of southern California towns. Buyers are found among persons who want to tan the hides for various uses, and each buyer can kill his snake 3 in the manner that he regards most conducive to tho preservation of the skins' colors. A certain Mile. Zelie, in the course of a tour around the world, gave a concert in the Society Islands. When she came to reckon up her share of the proceeds, this is what she found: Three pigs, twenty-three turkeys, forty-four chickens, 5,000 cocoanuts, besides considerable quantities of bananas, lemons and oranges. Patrick Brennan of Crawfordsville, Ind., received a fifty-cent shin plaster in payment of a debt of ten cents. He neglected to return the change. Recently he hunted up his old creditor and gave him forty cents, saying that the matter had so preyed upon his mind that he could stand it no longer.