Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 August 1883 — POINTS FOR THE CURIOUS. [ARTICLE]

POINTS FOR THE CURIOUS.

An Ohio man, aroused out of his slumber* by a burglar, pursued the fellow with a shotgun, but did not succeed in shooting him. Soon the burglar came to a rivpr and plunged in, but, not being a swimmer, he sank and was drowned. And now the Grand Jury has indicted the household for murder in the first degree for not going to the assistance of the drowning man. This is strange, in view of the fact that had he previously shot the burglar nothing would have been done to him. Bessie Colby, 8 years old, a lineal de.scendant of Isabel, sister of Gen. John Stark, of the Revolution, living in Fryeburg, Ma, encountered near the house a poisonou* adder four feet long. Seizing the snake in her hands she carried it alive to the 'house,* where her step-mother killed it, though so frightened that she nearly fainted, ana wa* ill for two days afterward. Several person* in that vicinity are said to have died from the bite of this species of serpent, and why this mammoth specimen did not bite th* child is a mystery. Bessie says, “When h* tried to bite * tuck a tick in his mouf." ,7-