Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1893 — SOMEWHAT STRANGE. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OP EVERYDAY LIFE. Queer Facts and Thrilling Adventures 'which Show That Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction. It is alleged of a gauger, not long ago dismissed from the revenue service, that he lost his place because of a tin breastplate. This chest protector followed in shape the contour of his form, fitted on beneath his vest. It was hollow and held about a fluid gallon. Its frequent filling at the expense of wholesale liquor dealers led to his downfall. Wesley Everett ofMullan, Idaho, while hunting cinnamon bear, wounded a fullfrown animal, which closed in on him. he bear knocked the gun from his hand, crushed the right leg above the knee, lacerated the right arm in a frightful manner, but expired just at the moment when his teeth had closed on Everett’s throat. The latter will recover. The latest development of the insurance business is interesting. You can buy suspenders which entitle your next of kin to SSOO if you are killed while weariftg them, and there are also hats whioh entitle your heirs to a similar amount if you are found dead with one on your head. If the hat is found by ▼our side both it and the insurance are “off."

The oldest twins in Connecticut are Mrs. Eunice Pierce of New Haven and Mrs. Louviey Williams of Meriden. They are eighty-seven, and as bright, smart, spry, healthy, industrious, and cheerful bodies as any in the State. Mrs. Pierce has just been paying her annual visit to her sister in Meriden, and the twins had a happy time of it for a week or so. They are members of a family of nine children, all of whom are dead except themselves and a brother in Kansas.

George Jamison, of Crolty’s is one of the most expert and experienced hunters in Northern Pennsylvania. A few days ago he consented to take his friend Michael Nelson along with him gunning, but under protest, as Nelson knew nothing about handling firearms. Jamison kept a watchful eye on him as they went through the woods. “It is as much as a man’s life is worth,” he said to Nelson, “to go into the woods witf/a greenhorn who has a gun, so you must look out, Mike, and be very careful or yoii may shoot me.” The words were hardly out of Jamison’s mouth when he stubbed his toe and fell. His gun was discharged. The full charge entered Nelson’s breast, killing him instantly.

High upon a snow-clad slope of the Rockies a hunter from the East came upon a curious and tragic record. Far as the eye could reach there stretched the trail of a jack rabbit. The creature had evidently been stretched to the utmost in mad flight, for his footprints were much further apart than they would have been had his gait been of ordinary speed. A few yards before the trail ended each print of the rabbit’s feet was accompanied by the clear outline upon the snow of an eagle’s outstretched wings. This was repeated again and again. Then came evidences of a struggle. The snow was stained with blood, and there were tufts of fur lying about. Then the trail. ended. The most curious of all objeots in New Zealand is that which the Maoris cal} “aweto.” One is uncertain whether to call it an animal or a plant. In the first stages of its existence it is simply a caterpillar about three or four inches in length, and always found in connection with the rata tree, a kind of flowering myrtle. It appears that when it reaches full growth it buries itself two or three inches under ground, where, instead of undergoing the ordinary chrysalis process, it becomes gradually transformed into a plant, which exactly fills the body and shoots up at the neck to a height of eight or ten inches. This plant resembles in appearance a diminutive bullrush, and the two, animal and plant, are always found inseparable.

Several hundred acres in Humbolt county that last summer raised the biggest hay crop in lowa, are burning. The soil itself is being consumed by fire and in places eaten away to a depth of fifteen feet. Two years ago the land was seveiffl feet under water and was known as Owl Lake. It was purchased by George R. Pearsons and drained by a big ditch. It dried up, leaving a very rich soil. The earth was peatty In character, and a few days ago, when a prairie fire swept over it, the soil itself took fire, burning like turf. All efforts to quench it are unavailing, and unless rain oomes the whole bed of the lake will be burned away. The fire eats down to a hard clay, that will be of no use for farming purposes. Any number of fossil remains are exposed to view where the fire has burned out. Several acres have already been burned over. A veil of smoke hides the ravages of the fire.

T. S. Hill of Knoxville, lowa, is the proud owner of a porcine oddity that, to use a strictly original phrase, lays all the elephant pigs and other monstrosities of the swine family “completely in the shade.” To say that it is “strangely and wondrously made,” would be putting it too mild by several degrees. It is of average size, plump and fat, notwithstanding the fact that it never * ‘breathed the breath of life.” . The shoulders and neck arc well proportioned and resemble those of any other baby hog, but, aside from that and an enormous ear, there is nothing to distinguish the shoulders from the hams except the “set” of the feet. The beast hasn’t the least sign of eyes, snout, mouth or jaws. At about the center of the end which should have carried the head, probably directly over the place where the nostrils would be in the regulation pig, there are three excrescences, each provided with a small opening.—[Repu blic.

Probably there is not another man in New England who has had such surprises this week as Mr. William J. Brown, of Belfast, Me. Years ago he had two brothers, Jonathan M. and Levi, the home of the family being in Searsmont. Jonathan entered the nary and for thirty years had not been heard from, his family naturally supposing that he was dead. Levi, at the age of fifteen, sailed away in a Searsport ship commanded by a Capt Charles Nickels, bound for South America. For eighteen years he had been considered dead, as no tidiugs of him had ever reached home. Some weeks ago William was surprised b?>. getting a letter from South Africa from his brother Jonathan, saying that he was about to leave on a steamer to visit his old home in Waldo County. He also stated that he was a rancher and editor of a paper. Before the family bad got through talking over this news William, a fortnight later, received another letter, dated in Australia from his other supposed dead brother Levi.

This also stated that Levi was about to start for his native clime. “ One of the most remarkable cases in my experience,” said a well-known piano man the other day to a Minneapolis Journal reporter, in speaking dt wave sympathy and its effect in sometimes causing discords in the harmonious sounds of a piano through wave vibration with articles of furniture, loose doors, chandeliers and stoves in the room with the piano, “ occurred a short time ago when I was called upon to tone the piano of a prominent lady and a wellknown musician of this oity. After running the scale I found the discordant key, and immediately proceeded to act upon the wave theory in trying to find the loose articles of furniture from which the unsympathetic tone was produced. I had the lady in the meantime sounding this particular key, but after searching and listening all around the room 1 was unable to locate the cause of the discordant note. Finally, getting upon a chair, I sounded the ceiling, In one place the sound appeared to be more distinct than in any other spot. On sounding the wall I found that the paper had been stretched over a stovepipe hole and that there were some small pieces of loose plaster lying on the paper. I removed these pieces and immediately the discordant note became perfectly harmonious."

Gaft. Hurlburt of the British bark Bowman B. Law considers himself fortunate in coming out of a terrible typhoon in the China seas, not without a scratch, but without the loss of any of his crew, or even of a spar or sail. This is his experience as he related it: “We left Sourabaya, Java, the 20th of July, bound for the Columbia River. All went well for the first week. The men put in their time well about the ship, and one particular job that was attended to was painting the mizzen-topmast. This was wood, the other masts and topmasts being iron. I noticed that the paint on the spar blistered more or less under the tropical sun. One fine afternoon, under a clear sky, the storm came on us. There was hardly any warning. The typhoon shot out of the Gulf of Siam as though it came from a cannon. What in the distance was a ripple on the surface of the sea, as it approached us became a feathery foam-dashed mass of waves, and the next minute the Hurricane struck us. All sail was stowed away, and we tore ahead under bare poles at locomotive speed. When the fury of the typhoon abated, we found everything intaot. The mizzantopmast, however, was bare of paint. The wind had blown the blisters off and nothing remained but the uncoveredwood.—[From the Oregonian. A young business man of this place bought a furnace and had it set up Saturday, says a Moline (Ill.) correspondent of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Sunday he worked all day showing his wife how to work it, so she would not burn the house down, and that evening he took a sleeper for St. Louis. Near Fulton he had a vivid dream. He thought his house was afire and his family was locked up inside. With yells of desperation which fairly froze the blood of the other passengers in the sleeper he kicked in the door and found the floor burned away, his wife and everything in the house cremated, and he nimself landed in the cellar with a heavy thud. The blow awoke him, and picking himself up he found himself by the side of the railroad track. Glancing about him, expecting to see the train a wreck and the other passengers killed, he saw in the starlight bis train vanishing in the distanoe. He had actually kicked out the double window of his berth with his bare feet and thrown himself feet first through the window to the ground while the train was running twenty-five miles an hour, and was unhurt save three cuts on his left leg, caused by the broken glass. The passengers notified the conductor, and when the train was baoked they found the man walking to meet it. He was clad only in his night clothes. It was almost impossible to believe his story, but his condition and the deserted berth containing his clothes and the broken window confirmed it.

It may not be generally known by people in this vicinity, says the Lumpkin (Ga.) Independent, that there is a rocky region in Meriweather County, near the piue and oak mountain ridges, that seems to be a favorite haunt of snakes in that section, and the following terrible incident ocourred in that locality: It was about the middle of May, and Mrs. Richard Smith, the wife of a farmer, had gone to the field with her husband, who was replanting corn that had failed to come up regularly. While they were at work Mrs. Smith wandered off to one side of tho field where there wore a thicket of dewberry vines. While picking the berries she stood upon a pile of rocks that had been pickea up from the field and thrown in a heap and the vines had covered them. When she finally started to step down some of the stones were dislodged and rolled noisily down. Instantly the pile swarmed with furious serpents that hissed and writhed about the frightened woman like so many demons. The sight was so terrible that Mrs. Smith stood horrorstricken while the venomous creatures twisted and twined about her limbs and glided over her person, striking and biting her furiously. At last fear gave way and she screamed for help. The men soon came to her rescue and were nearly overcome by the sight. The wretched woman was now fighting with all her strength for life. She grappled the writhing things and attempted to tear them away. Acting on the directions of her friends she stumbled to the open field, where they could assist her, and in a few minutes seventeen copperheads and four rattlesnakes had been killed. Several of them had followed her from the stone pile, hissing and writhing in anger. As .soon as possible Mrs. Smith was taken to her home and assistance summoned, but there was not the slightest chance of saving her life. Her body became quickly swollen to an enormous extent, and the skin assumed hideous colors. She had been bitten a dozen times in the face, and her features became one mass of bloated green and black. Sight fled and speech left her. The pain soon drove her into delirium, and in the most horrible agony life passed away.