Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1891 — QUEER PENSION CLAIMS. [ARTICLE]

QUEER PENSION CLAIMS.

Various Reasons for Asking for a Share of the Great Fund. - Washington Post. The oddity of human nature has found an apt illustration in some of the many claims for pension that have been received under the new law. Many men have stretched their imaginations as well as their consciences in their efforts to be placed on Uncle Sam's great and rapidly growing pension roll. They allege every disease and ailment known to the science of medic' ne, and then urge the claims with energetic persistency. Some of the causes alleged are as odd as they are interesting. An ex-soldier in Ohio, wrote: -I don’t exactly know what disease lam suffering from, but I do know that I deserve pension, as I am suffering the pains of death all over my” body.” Another veteran in West Virginia thinks he should receive a pension be- | cause, as he states it, during the war he fell off of a thirty-foot bridge, which resulted in “a general breaking up of his system.” A veteran of the Fourth Wisconsin was salivated by reason of an excessive use of salt pork during I his army career and now he applies 1 for a pension because he “got salvation in the army.” as be puts it. Under the provisions of the recently passed dependent pension lawiVia only necessary for a claimant to show that he is incapacitated from manual labor, whether the causes are due to army service or not, in order to have his name placed on the rolls. To show his inability to perform manual labor, the affidavits of neighbors are necessary reciting that fact. A veteran in Howard county, Md., sent the testimony of a neighbor, who no doubt meant well enough, but did not know how to express himself. The latter aware to the statement that he had known the claimant for ten years and that “he w6u[d* not work unless he was compelled to.” The witness of codrse meant to say that claimant, while really unable to work by reason of bls physical infirmities, was fre--1 quently compelled to attempt labor in , order to sustain himself. ! The widow of a.man who shouldered a musket in the Pennsylvania Reserves wanted a pension, and was asked if her husband was ever wounded. ••Oh, yes,” she replied, “he received an axe wound of the right foot.” Being asked to explain the circumstances surrounding the wounding of her better half, she said he cut his foot while splitting wood. It was not during the war that this occurred, but n 1K79, at their home in Pennsylvana. The pension attorn' y wanted o know what oearing such an occurrence could have upon the pension law, and the widow answered curtly: - air, the-axe he ctat-hisfont with is the same he brought home with him from the war. It was an army axe.” A rather remarkable declaration was made by a Michigan veteran. He stated under oath that he picked up a shell on the battlefield of the Wilderness and took it into his tent While holding the missile between his knees examining it. the shell exploded, “bauly shattering his nervous system,” but miraculously causing.no other injury. An ex-cannonier of one of the regular batteries claims that he stopped a cannon ball with his abdomen,and has since been greatly troubled with stomach disorders, The ball, he says, was aspect one, and came bounding along, striking him squarely on the exterior of the inner man and nearly knocking him into the middle of the following week. One Gioranna, a member of the well known Garabaldi Guard, recites in bis application for a pension that he was “probed” by a rebel bayonet at the Bull Run tight, and a Jersey cavalryman says he was -‘severed” by a rebel gibe - at Spottsylvania Court House. These are only a few of the queer causes for pension that are daily received at the department. There are of others equally quwr. 1