Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 197, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1912 — Runaway Horses at Lafayette Scattered Charity Workers. [ARTICLE]

Runaway Horses at Lafayette Scattered Charity Workers.

The ladies’- aid society of the German Evangelical church at Lafayette believes in scattering deeds of sun-, shine but they do not take much stock* in the method employed Thursday when they started out for a picnic at the John Opp farm, south of that city. The women West Lafayette on a street car and were there met by a farmet 1 with a set of hayladders and a team of young horses. The women mounted the hayladders amid a babble of talking and laughing and raised their umbrellas to protect them from the sun’s rays. The young horses had never been in so much feminine society and they did not realize that woman’s talk is worse than their bite. They became frightened and started down the street as fast as they could run. There were more dramatic incidents occurred in the next few moments than could be crowded into a Btirring melodrama of a half a dozen acts. Women were strewn all along the street, while their shrieks of fright attracted a large crowd of people. No one succeeded in stopping the horses, however, until the driver brought them to a halt after they had run several blocks. He was then alone on the wagon. The women had paid little heed to the method, of their detraining and a number had alighted on their heads, while others had struck on their sides and others on their backs. Hur r ry up calls were dispatched for all the doctors on the west side and a number from the city and the women were gathered up and taken to nearby residences. Every woman on the wagon was more or less injured. Cut heads and faces, sprained joints, strained tendons and bruised muscles but no broken bones resulted. The impromptu acrobatic performance brought a termination to the coffee social. The women will continue their good work but they hope for a less demonstrative means of scattering deeds of sunshine in the future.