Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1894 — SOMEWHAT STRANGE. [ARTICLE]

SOMEWHAT STRANGE.

SEASONABLE HINTS ANO MATTERS OF MOMENT. Queer Facts and Thrilling Adventures Which Show that Truth is Stranger Than Fiction. Dr. Gutherie, of Edinburgh, after carrying on ragged schools in that city for a number of years, sent invitations to a dinner to boys who had found a blessing in the schools. Two hundred and fifty responded, one gentleman traveling 500 miles to be present. A tame crow with luminous legs is owned by Zebedee Smith, of Elks Run, Md; At least, Zebedee claims that peculiarity for the bird, when it is placed in a dark room and somebody whistles “Sweet Marie.” This, he asserts, will cause its legs to twinkle in a most beautiful manner. A human* face clock is on view in the window of a St. Petersburg, Russia, watchmaker. The hands are pivoted on the nose, and any messages spoken into its ear are repeated by a phonograph through its mouth. It is said to be the only clock of the kind at present in existence. James Leedom, a Rockville, 111., farmer, has a Brahma rooster which amuses itself by hanging head downward from the rung of a ladder. It was hatched while a company of strolling acrobats were performing in Leedom’s barn. Whether this has anything to do with this unchick-en-like act, is the merest conjecture. Charles Hinton*, a farmer, near Covington, Ga., found the other day that one of his sheep had got a large maypop lodged in its throat. He took his pocketknife out and cut the creature's throat, removed the maypop and sewed up the wound. The sheep will recover. Hinton had had no veterinary experience but is naturally clever. Dental surgeons in Stony Stratford, England, are puzzled over the case of a weaver, who has shed four sets of teeth in twenty years. His wife rubs his gums with a rubber ring and doses him with soothing syrup when he is cutting a new set. The neighbors make remarks intended to be facetious, but which wound his feelings considerably. Up to a few weeks ago John Baisch, of Mascoutah, 111., delighted in giving his family pleasant surprises. Just before he died he told his son to dig in a certain spot, after the funeral. The son obeyed him and found a kettle containing $1,160 in gold. A few days later the family was further surprised by the discovery that the father had his life insured for SB,OOO. Probably the oldest clergyman in the world was a Greek priest who lately died in Thessaly, Greece, after completing his 120th year. He never left the place in which he was born and where he died. He was accustomed to begin his priestly offices before sunrise, and to retire promptly at 9. His sight and hearing were in excellent condition to the day of his death, and he never made use of glasses. He was in the active ministry for ninety-nine years. A marriage resulting in an extraordinary state of complicated family relations recently took place in Birmingham, England. The woman had been married three times before, and each time had taken for her husband a widower with children. Her fourth husband was a widower, and, as he had children by his first wife, who was herself a widow* w*ith children when he married her, the newly married couple started their matrimonial companionship with a family composed of no less than eight previous marriages. It is a unique position which a young Englishwoman, a Miss Hamilton, of London, will fill in the palace of the Ameer of Cabul. She is simply to pose as a lady for the inmates of his harem. With an unusual liberality of spirit for an Asiatic potentate, he perceives the advantage to be received from his wives’ intercourse with a refined and intelligent woman, and he is giving it to them. Miss Hamilton is highly accomplished, and a physician as well, but she goes to the ameer’s court in the sole capacity of lady, and is well paid for it.

Mas. Elmer Hathaway, of Gering Neb., has a little more presence of mind and a trifle more of muscular activity than most women. The other day she left her two babies in a wagon while she stepped into the post-office. In a moment she heard a shout, ahd looking down the street, she saw her team running away, with the babies behind riding to almost certain death. Instead of screaming, she ran into the road, and, as the flying horses dashed past her, she seized the end gate of the wagon, pulled herself up into the box, secured possession of the reins and brought the frightened animals to a stop. And all the babies did was to smile. “Did you ever see people bathe in blood and drink it by the cupful?” asked Ell wood Johnson, of Boston. “I saw that very thing recently in Rome during a tour of Europe. It was at a place called the Zootheiwiie Institute, and it is quite a fad thire. I have heard of people drinking blood, fresh from slaughtered animals, for the cure of consumption, all my life, but at this institution people drink the blood, or bathe in it, for the cure of gout, rheumatism and the malaria, which is such a curse in the marshes around Rome. The Roman doctors have great faith in the curative powers of blood, and the patients claim to be benefited by the treatment. For my part, however efficacious it is, I think I would rather fall a victim to disease than be cured by such, to me, revolting methods.” Oxe use of the whalebone to which the Esquimaux put it, and one case of which came under my personal observation, I must not allow to pass unnoticed, writes Eugene Mellville, of the United States Navy. Whenever wolves have .been unusually predatory, have destroyed a favorite dog or so, or dug up a cache of reindeer meat just when it was needed, or in any way have aroused the ire of the Innuit hunter, he takes a strip of

I whalebone about the size of those used in corsets, wraps it up into a compact helical mass like a watch spring, having previously sharpened both ends, then ties it together with reindeer sinew, and plasters it with a compound of blood and grease, which is allowed to freeze and forms a bind- ; ing cement sufficiently strong to hold j the sinew string at every second or | third turn. This, with a "lot of simij lar looking baits of meat and blubber, j is scattered over the snow or ground, i and the hungry wolf devours it along | with the others, and when it is | thawed out by the warmth of his j stomach, it elongates and has the j well known effect of whalebone on j the system, but having the material 1 advantage of interior lines its effects | are more rapid, killing the poor wolf, I with the most horrible agonies, in a couple of days. “A few years ago,” said Charles J. Patterson, of Philadelphia, “I learned the secret of the life of a man who had passed more than a quarter of a century with scarcely a smile. He had been a physician and surgeon, and on one occasion had to remove an injured eye in Order to save the other eye and prevent total blindness. The night before the operation he had been drinking heavily with some friends, and although the following morning he was sober, his hand was unsteady and his nerves unstrung. After administering chloroform he made a fatal and horrible blunder, removing the well eye by mistake and thus consigning his patient to perpetual blindness. The moment he discovered his error he turned the man over to a competent surgeon, deeded everything he possessed to him, and hurried from the neighborhood like a convicted thief. The remainder of his life was one constant round of remorse, and he rapidly developed into a confirmed misanthrope. The secret of his life w*as know*n to a number of people, but when it was finally revealed to me it explained a mystery and made me to respect the man, for however grave was his original blunder, which in some respects was, of course, worse than a crime, his repentance was of the most genuine character.” A man who has died three times has been describing his experiences. He is a lineman connected with an electric company. According to his story he was first knocked out by an accumulation of gases in a manhole; the next time was by an. electric shock, and the third by sunstroke. “I don’t see,” said he, “why they make such a fuss about suffering and all that from an electric shock. I don’t think it was half bad.” He was up on a pole when the shock came and.was sitting with his legs interlocked around the pole. “When the shock came,” he said, “it just knocked me backwards the same as if you had hit me in the head with a hammer, and down I went, head first, but not very far, because my locked heels caught on the lowest cross-beam, and there I hung. My senses were numbed right off, and I hadn’t the least sensation, except waiting rather unconcerned a couple of seconds; then I lost my senses.” He says that by all odds the worst was the sunstroke. For two hours he suffered such torture as Dante describes. All the time he was conscious and the bad things he had done in his life kept parading themselves before him. He could hear the people say that he was dead, and could understand their discussions over ways and means to determine whether there was a spark of life left—all this was going on for several hours until he did really lose all consciousness. After that he was for three weeks in a hospital. A unique operation has been successfully performed by Dr. James Haley, a veterinary surgeon of New London, Conn. A handsome little cocker spaniel was brought to him a short time ago suffering with curvature of the spine, as the result of a kick administered by some brute. The little fellow’s back was twisted out of shape and he was practically helpless. His back legs were helpless, and he could not move. He was always a sufferer, and kept moaning and whining. Dr. Haley thought when he first saw the dog the most humane thing to do was to kill him, but he was such a handsome little fellow the doctor thought he would try to save him. After submitting an anesthetic the spine was straightened and the dog was encased in a plaster paris jacket, swung in straps and given proper medicine and food. Finally the plaster was removed and the dog stood on his feet for a moment in a surprised sort of a way, then wagged his tail, gave a spring into the air, and, with a loud bark started off on a dead run in a circle, barking like mad. He kept it up for about ten minutes, and seemed anxious to show every one he was all right. He is just as good a dog now as he ever was, climbs stairs without trouble, and gets about with just as much ease as any of his playfellows. The doctor is quite proud of his job, and the owner of the dog is, of course, greatly pleased, to say nothing of the dog himself.—[New York Dispatch.