Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1894 — SOMEWHAT STRANGE. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

ACCIDENTSAND INCIDENTS OF EVERYDAY LIFE. Queer Facts and Thrilling Adventure* which Show that Truth la Stranger Than Fiction. What has been known for half a century as the old Freeland residence, six miles from Jackson, Miss., was recently torn down after having been a ruin for many years, says a correspondent of the Philadelphia Times. Beneath it was discovered what had been an old curbed well, andon clearing this out there was brought up a small steel casket containing several articles of old-fashioned jewelry. These numbered aipongtlwm a watch of the style worn duriffg the last part of the last century and a comb such as was affected by ladies of continental times. These were set with large pearls, which must have been valuable, but which are ruined by the action of the water. A tiara of small diamonds bore the device of “D” in small German characters, but beyond this there is no clew as to the owner of the jewels. The family to whom the house belonged has long been extinct and the place for some years until recently has been -inhabited by negroes. Some of the older citizens remember that this mansion replaced another far handsomer, which was destroyed by fire and which was one of the oldest places in the State. At the time of the war the house was rented to a poor family named Lucey, who would hardly have possessed such jewels, so their presence in the well can scarcely be accounted for on the theory that they were hidden there then for safety. The present value of the articles is not more than SIOO, but when new they must have been worth something over SI,OOO, according to the valuation of a jeweler. They are now in the possession of the gentleman who owns the land on which the old place stood. The watch is curious for its antique workmanship, though most of the works have been eaten away by rust,

In many places in the tules lands in the vicinity of Suisan, Cal., wild liogs, ferocious and as tenacious of life as the boar of the Gferman forests, may be encountered by the sportsman who likes a spice of danger in his hunting. One of these beasts, shot recently, measured from the tip of the tail more than six feet, and had tusks fourteen Inches in length. Its weight, although it had no superflous flesh, was 820 pounds. The skin at the shoulders was three inches thick and as tough as leather. It was reported that hogs had been running wild in the marshes for a long time, and that they were savage enough to furnish better sport than other animals that are supposed to be dangerous. A party was formed to kill a particular boar that had been roaming the tules land for several years, in spite of the efforts of local hunters to bring him to bay. The tracks of the boar were found and he was traced to a patch of dense reed grass. The hunters invaded it from different points, and one of them suddenly came upon the animal. His companions heard the report of his gun, and the next instant saw the man’s body thrown into the air fully ten feet. Going to his rescue, a second hunter was charged by the boar. One shot brought him to his knees, b/it even then he rose and rushed on his assailant again. A second ball penetrated the brain and he rolled over dead. The man who was thrown into the air was not seriously injured, but received bruises which laid him up for a considerable time. The recent report that a citizen of the United States has discovered among the mountains of the Mexican State of Sinola a long forgotten city tallies with a curious local tradition of that region. Adjoining the State of Sinola on the south is the State of Jallisco, and of this State Guadalajara is the capital. Living in the mountains of Jallisco, part of the same great Sierra Madre or “Mother Range” that exteds through Sinola and thence northward, are the unconquered Yaquis, a brown-haired people with light eyes and almost fair complexions. Guadalajara is the only civilized town that these Yaquis visit, and it has long been believed there that the Yaqui fastnesses of the Sierra Madre range conceal not only rich mines of silver, but as well the lost city of the Aztec race. No one has hitherto pierced the mountain wilderness, because the naked Yaquis have ■ an effective system of passive resistance that has hitherto successfully closed the sole line of approach. only human beings other than the. Yaquis themselves admitted to the mountains of Jallisco are a few renegade Apaches, murderous wretches, vastly more dangerous to would-be explorers than the peaceful but persistent Yaquis.

The immense herd of cattle branded “J. B. S.” ranging in Lyman County, South Dakota, has been levied on by the Treasurer of that county for taxes. The owner of the herd was John B. Smith, who is reported to have died suddenly in Minneapolis while on a business trip to that city some weeks ago. The Lyman county authorities, however, have no proof of his death, and there is no record in the Probate Court of that county showing that his estate has ever been probated. Parties claiming to have held a mortgage on the stock, but who are known to be rustlers have been running the cattle out of the country without any process of foreclosure, and the County Treasurer finally came to the conclusion that it was time for him to act, and accordingly levied on the balance of the cattle for the taxes due. Nearly 10,000 cattle were run out of the country. Smith left from SB,OOO to SIO,OOO in life insurance, beside the large herd of cattle in question. It is regarded as very peculiar that his heirs have never attempted to settle the accounts of the deceased cattleman. A specimen of huge vegetable growth resembling a mammpth rutabaga was on exhibition in Tacoma, Wash. The curiosity is of undoubtedly vegetable nature and is shaped like a turnip, r<x ‘i and all. It was found on the b; n near the water on McNeil’s Isby Robert Longmire, one of the T> entiaryguwd*. An express wagon

had to be secured to bring it to town from the wharf. The curious find is two feet ten inches long from the top to the end of the roots, which appear to be broken off close to the body of the object. The circumference around the *' turnip ” is four feet three inches, while the major circumference is six feet six inches. The diameter is eighteen inches and the weight is fully 100 pounds. The flesh of the “turnip” cuts easily with a knife and resembles exactly a rutabaga. The taste is slightly bitter, probly caused by salt water. Wynn Molesforth has invented and constructed a very ingenious “celestial clock,” which was exhibited at the first Winter meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, says J/mdpn Truth; The entire face of the clock rotates under a wire bar representing the equatorial horizon and is regulated to perform one revolution iiF2B hours 56 minutes 4 seconds, this being the time in which the earth turns once upon its axis. The apparent annual motion of sun, moon and planets in the opposite direction is effected by movable pins, while the north and south polar stars, that do not rise or set for us, revolve simultaneously with the rest by a separate movement. Thus may be seen the entire heavens, with sun, moon, planets and constellations in their actual places, ever rising and setting as they rise and set in the heavens.

William A. Ashley, of Long Plain, near New Bedford, Mass., had a thrilling experience with an eagle recently. He had just returned from meeting when he started out to look at some of his trees. He had scarcely gone twenty yards when his dog, which was with him, started in pursuit of something on the other side of a wire fence inclosing a pear orchard. Mr. Ashley jumped over the fence and to his surprise saw a large eagle. The dog barked fiercely and as Mr. Ashley approached the eagle spread its wings and attempted to fly. But Mr. Ashley was too quick for the bird and caught it by the neck and wings. He used no weapon, for he had none, and received no injury save a slight scratch. The eagle is a large one, the wings measuring eight feet seven and a half inches from tip to tip. The London Telegraph tells a marvelous story from Vienna about a lady forty-two years old and suffering from a peculiar form of asthma, which ten months’ treatment has been powerless to cure. Her story is that she constantly hears music from her heart, and is so maddened by the ceaseless tones that she has to keep her ears filled with wadding, like Ulysses during the siren’s song. The medical experts who have had the case under consideration confirm the statement of the lady—a continuous noise composed of musical tones in a high pitch was to be heard during the medical diagnosis, which runs: “Diastolic musical heart.” The lady, has as strong a dislike to internal music as to asthma, and unless speedily cured, she avers, it will drive her mad. Sable 1 Island, whence a carrier pigeon recently brought news of the wreck of the schooner Robert J. Edward, is famous throughout the Canadian maritime provinces for its race of wild ponies. The little creatures were originally placed upon the island in order that they might furnish food for shipwrecked mariners frequently cast away there. The coarse salt grass of the island is cured and stacked in summer time, and upon this the ponies feed all winter. It is said that they eat their way dfeep into the stacks and thus find their only shelter from storms. There is a tradition current that they even eat fish cast upon the shore. Considerable droves of the ponies are taken to the mainland in early autumn, and they are sold in the Halifax market. Thirty-seven years ago Clarence Morton sold out his farm in Berlin, Vt., and went to California to dig for gold. Failing there he went to Arizona, and for thirty years nothing was heard from him by his wife, who had remained behind in the Vermont town until he should save enough to send for her. Twelve years ago, believing him dead, she remarried. A month ago her second husband died. Three days later she was astonished beyond measure by receiving a letter from the long lost Clarence. He wrote that he had “struck luck” within the last few years, and that he had at the time of writing $40,000 in gold secreted in his Arizona hut. He enclosed two money orders for her fare and other expenses. The most unusual profession for a gentle-woman has been taken up because of necessity by Mrs. Coleman, an English woman, as a means of supporting her invalid husband. The name of the profession is pavement artist, which is one of the commonest street sights of London, though but little known here. There are 800 or more persons in the English metropolis earning a living at this trade of drawing pictures on the pavement and collecting pennies from the crowds that gather. Colored chalks are used and realistic scenes are sketched of the exciting events Of the day. On fair days Mrs. Coleman earns on an average $1.25 a day, and when it rains she stays at home and prepares her chalks.

The mania of giving a large number of Christian names to one and the same person is particularly prevalent in Italy. An Italian gentleman named Campagna, who has just been naturalized a Frenchman, has given some little trouble to the French Foreign Office clerks in registering his full designation. Here it is: Vincendo Salvatore Maria Gennaro Fran-cesco-Sales Francesco d’Assisi Francesco de Paolo Rocca Michele Crocifisso Emiddio Pasquale Giovan Giuseppe Geltrude Cario Gaetana Alfonso Giro Andrea Luigi Gioran Geraldo Antonio-di-Para AntonioAbatte Campagna. Oklahoma continues to comport herself as if she had been open to Settlement a hundred years instead of only four. Her latest statistics show nearly 2,400,000 acres of farm land in use, with a cash value of more than $18,000,000. Her farm implements are worth $840,000, and dy has growing 688,000 apple trees, 648,000 peach trees, 69,000 cherry trees,

51,000 pear trees, and a great variety of other fruit trees and of vines. The ■ whole Territory is adapted to fruit * raising, and Oklahoma fruit will ; doubtless soon appear in the New i York market. Somebody is poorer and the State of North Carolina is richer $2,100 a year by the accidental loss of $86,000 of an old 6 per cent, bond issue. The State Treasurer has never been able to hear from the missing bonds and it is supposed that they were destroyed during the civil war. They are pretty safe bonds, too, as the whole issue is guaranteed by a pledge of the State stock in the North Carolina Railroad Company. The dividends from this stock are nearly $17,000 in excess of the interest on the bonds. An old man who for many years has been a beggar on the streets of Auxerre, France, existing on scraps of food which he begged from door to door, died a few days ago of cold and hunger. In an old trunk in his miserable lodgings were found bonds to the value of more than a million francs, and in the cellar, covered by heaps of rubbish, more than 400 bottles of wine of the vintage of 1790. The old miser had inherited the wine from his family, and lived to the age of 85 years without opening a single bottle.

The Stamford university at Palo Alto, Cal., has been presented with a colt whose left front foot and right hind foot are cloven like the foot of a calf. The colt was born at the stock farm of Mr. Boots at Santa Glara, and was cloroformed a few days after its birth. The specimen is being prepared for the zoological laboratory, and the hide, after being stuffed, together with the skeleton, will be placed in the museum. The deformed feet will be separately mounted for exhibition. Among the many vessels which have been driven ashore and wrecked on the English coast since the winter’s storms began was the schooner Draper, which was lost with all on board. The Draper was more than 114 years old, having been built in 1779, and was one of the oldest vessels regularly engaged as a freight carrier. Colonel Enoch Noyes of Cecil County, Maryland, has just felled on his farm near Port Deposit, a walnut tree eighteen feet in circumference, eighty-six feet high, and believed to be 800 years old. He expects to get S4OO for the lumber, not an unreasonable expectation, as walnut wood is scarce and again in considerable demand.