Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1915 — BOY WALKS ON HANDS AND FEET TEN YEARS [ARTICLE]

BOY WALKS ON HANDS AND FEET TEN YEARS

Never Learned to Stand Erect, But Can Move About as Fast a® Other® Hl® Age Birmingham, Ala. —A number of doctors in this cityhave Interested themselves in the unusual case of Thomas Armstrong, a 12-year-old boy who walks on his hands and feet and has never known any other way of getting about • The youth is physically strong, can run as fast as the average boy, and can walk as long and as far as any one. His arms are slightly longer than normal, presumably from walking on all fours. It has always seemed natural for him to walk that way. The boy’s mental development has been slow, but he is gradually improving and the doctora are now trying to teach him to walk erect When he was a mere baby his father and mother died and the child had to shift for himself most of the time. He first started to crawling around to wait on himself, and for ten years, or since he was strong enough to drag himself around, has adopted the ape-like mode of locomotion. The boy was brought here from Bangor, Ala., and is a charge of the juvenile court.

Milk Bottles Lost, Strayed and Stolen Washington, D. C. —According to figures furnished by forty dealers to the U. S. Departmetn of Agriculture, a milk bottle will last for from 6 to 50 trips, the average being 22% days. If he delivers 10,000 bottles a year and they cost him 3% cents each, his dally expense for bottles would be $15.55, or $5,575.75 a year. These bottles are not all lost or broken; many of them are merely strayed. Some of the bottles get into the hands of other dealers, and some are dumped into the ash barrel by persons ignorant of their value. One miL Uon five hundred thousand bottles were rescued from the city dumps during three years by a milk bottle clearing house in one city. Milk bottle clearing houses, established in many cities, have done a good deal to reduce the losses in bottles. The clearing house helps the dealer to recover his own bottles. Ashmen and others are paid from % to % cent for each bottle returned. The usual charge for bottles returned to the owner is from 1 to 1% cents each. Employes of the exchange visit the establishments of different dealers regularly and return bottles npt belonging to the dealers to the exchanged headquarters, where they are washed, sterilized and sorted.