Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1893 — SOMEWHAT STRANGE. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF EVERYDAY LIFE. - —— (Jueer Facts and Thrillins ||dventurea Which Show That Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction. John Wethered, a farmer of Manchester, Ind., soaked some seeds in alcohol and put them on his barn floor. Sparrows stole them, and ware soon ns drunk a» lords. Cats killed 100 of the feathered sot*, ail( | ate all they could hold, and then the cats were drunk, too. Business must he dull on the Santa Fe Railroad. The other day the brakeman <>f an accommodating accommodation train stopped the train to chase a raccoon into a well. Next day they brought along a ladder and one of them went into the well and caught Old Zip. Towns County, Ga., boasts of a novel specimen of the "white” negro. '1 his one has been “turning” for several years, until the left side of his face is perfectly white, while the right side remains almost jet black. Negroes whose skin changes from black to a ligh’ brown or reddish white are not uncommon in the South, but the change mostly shows iu blotches, giving them a mottled appearance.

That there is “gold in wool” has been found literally ns well as figuratively true. According to an Australian contemporary, some gold dust was discovered in a London wool-sorting room, and was traced to a parcel of Californian fleeces. When the pasturage was exploied, a valuable “placer” was found on tho estate.

Mbs. James Rose of Otterville, Mo., had a bird in a cage hanging iu the yard. A blacksnake, according to the local editor, who cannot lie, thrust his head through the bars and swallowed the bird as far us the wire would let him. There he stuck, and was killed. And the bird still sings in the cage. A queer lawsuit was that brought recently in a Loudon police court by a gentleman who had claimed that he had been swindled in buying a dog. It was a fox terrier wan anted to howl whenever some over-musical neighbors commenced their performances. But the dog wouldn’t, and the purchaser wanted to recover what he cost. Out in Wayne County, Kan., is a considerable grove of pine trees seven miles square, all of whose lower branches have been broken off. This puzzles newcomers, but old settlers remember that the mischief was done several years ago, when an enormous swarm of pigeons came and roosted on all the trees and broke them down.

Uncle Joe Ardle, an old Georgia colored man living on the Savannah River, thinks it about time to take to the woods. After the earthquake of 188 G he was afraid to live on the ground, so he built a hut in the branches of u huge oak tree, where ho lived contentedly until the storm of a few weeks blew him and his hut clear out of the tree and almost into the river.

In 1791 a family of Crooks, who had come from Bolton, England, to Mansfield, Mass., began a correspondence with relatives at home. The correspondence has been -kept up since without a break by some member of the families, but the correspondents had not seen each other until this year, when Mr. Thomas Crook of Bolton, coming to the Fair, found and visited three generations of Crooks in Mansfield.

The oldest industry in England, which dates back to prehistoric times, is still being carried on at Brandon in Suffolk. Many people of that village earn their living by making flints with which to strike fire and for gunlocks. Tinderboxes with flint and steel are largely used in Spain and -Italy, and by travelers in sparsely settled and uncivilized lands, and gun-flints go to Africa, where flintlock muskets are still in use. A novel way of smuggling has just been brought to light by the French authorities on the Franco-Swiss frontier. It has been discovered that about twentytwo thousand watches, valued at two millions francs, have entered France in the space of six months without having paid the duty. A great portion of these were discovered packed in tins of a condensed milk company, from which, of course, the milk had been taken out and then carefully closed up again.

An old farmer named Irwin is buried at the top of one of the barren mountains that tower over the Clearfield and Mahoning Railroad, between Blooms Run and Bridgeport, Penn. Many years ago the old man was working on his land, and he found a grave in the rock which was filled with leaves and other stuff. He made a request that his remains be buried in that lonely spot in the stone grave made by unknown hands. It is said that the grave was such a snug fit that a shovel could hardly be run down between the coffin and stony walls of the grave. A stag hunt was in progress the other day at Exmoor in England, and the terrified animal finally became very hard pressed. He tore over hill, dale and common, and finally, in a very headlong fashion, took refuge in the dining room of one Dr. Budd. Two young feminine Budds were being served with dinner nt the moment the stag plunged in. Their unexpected visitor backed up against the sideboard and faced the pack of hounds, who had promptly fellowed him in. The hunters came up in a moment, called off their dogs, secured the deer by a rope, and dragged him out to receive his coup de grace outside. The Misses Budd, instead of fainting or having hysterics, professed themselves delighted with the adventure and insisted on the hunters staying to dinner, which they did.

One of the rarest books extant is the first edition of “Don Quixote,” ..published in Madrid in 1605. Recently a collector in the city of Mexico while examining a pile of books for sale in one of the remoter wards of the city came across an ancient edition of “Quixote,” but mistaking the date concluded it was not a first edition. Next day he discovered by reference to his library that the book was a genuine first edition. He went back to find the treasure but it had been sold for waste paper in the interim, and although search has been made in every small shop in the ward the precious volume cannot be found. A few years ago a Californian book collector bought in an old bookstall in the Mexican capitol a first folio edition of Shakespeare, paying sls for a bcok worth $6,000.

A strange story comes from Doughtrey eouaty, Georgia. It is that of a negro being “traed" by snakes, SOSMthing hitherto unheard of—at least, * Geor-

gia. It seems that the negro waa walking in the woods, when he heard a hissing sound near.him. Thinking that he was about to be bitten by a rattlesnake, and not knowing which way to turn, he climbed an oak tree. When he had reached a pl-ce of safety on one of the loftiest limbs be looked down a id, to his horror, beheld ten or a dozen large rattlesnakes at the base of the tree, springing their rattles and preparing for deadly combat. Horrified, he witnessed the battle, which raged long and furiously, until at length four snakes lay dead, while the rest crawled away. The negro then slid down from the tree and took to his heels, leaving the dead snakes where they were.

Ix Siam, when there is a question at law between two parties, and a scaicity of witnesses to establish the truth in the case, it is customary to resort to the water teat. Both parties are required to dive simultaneously into deep water, and the one that stays the longest under is adjudged the truth teller, uud gets the verdict. It is said that there is a merchant in Bingkok who is fond of litigation, but i- rather too old to undergo the water test succ- ssfully, to say nothing of the fact that he can not swim a stroke, lie was so frequently worsted in the courts that he took his son and placed him under the tuition of the most expert swimmer and diver in the Kingdom. In due course the young man became exceedingly adept, and was then made a member of the firm. Now whenever there is a case to be tried this young fellow is the representative of the house. The firm often leaves the court dripping with water, but al ways “without a stain on his character.”

Tub skill <-f the Esquimau dog drivers with the whips, by which they control their unruly teams, is sai l to be someteiug marvellous. The whip consists of a rawhide lash about forty feet long, fastened to a handle not over six inches in length. A conttst was arrange.! among them in the presence of an explorer. A nickel was the prize. It was buried in the ground with just enough of the edge showing to allow it to be seen. The contestants stood in a line the length of their whips away from it and abouteight feetapart. The most expert whip was a little man not more than four feet high, wi h slanting eyes and a spiky little beard that made him look very Japanese. AJmoveinent’of his wrist sent the forty feet of lash curving buck in a straight line like a long snake. Another movement and it ca ne forward, noiselessly. shooting tl rough the air just above the surface of the ground, until, with a loud report, the tip end of the lash struck the exact spot where the coin lay buried, dug it from the ground and brought it spinning back to the Esquimau artist. Such precision and such force are certainly unknown to any other whips in the world. One of these fellows could cut a man to pieces with his whip, if he had occasion to.

Among the attractions of the little village of Quiambaug, in Connecticut, are five rocking stones. Quiambaug is a part of the township of Stonington. Mr. David A. Wells has published a paper on the “erratic boulders” in that part of New London County, and he attributes their origin to a great glacier that had its terminal moraine first in Long Island Sound and later at the mouth of the Thames. lie thinks that the glacier deposited a great quantity of rocks in the Sound and on the Connecticut shore. Fisher’s Island is buttressed with these boulders, and they have been found submerged in the waters of the Sound along the coa'-t. The New London Day says of the rooking or balancing atones in Quiambaug: “There is no doubt that they are as excellent examples of the glacial period as can be found anywhere. They vary in size from a stone weighing about three Tons on the lands of Miss Nancy J. Moredock, to one weighing forty tons on the farm occupied by Janies Lord. Another stone is found on the lands of Elias Davis and two on the farm of Ambrose Miner. Perhaps the best specimen of the whole lot is the rocking stone on the land of Miss Moredock. It is about four feet long, two feet wide, and three feet high, and it oscillates about five inches, and can be rocked by the pressure of two fingers. It sits on a sloping ledge, and it looks as if it could be easily rolled off and down the hill, but the combined strength of half-a-dozen men could not move it out of its place.”