Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1878 — INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS. [ARTICLE]

INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS.

—A man named Henry Miller, of Astoria, Ore., was joking with some friends in an undertaker s shop, and pointing to a coffin, said, “ I want that one,” and wrote his name upon it. A few days later he was buried in the same coffin. —John Dubert was found dead in his red at Constable Hook, N. J., recently, his death being caused by congestion of the brain, superinduced by excessive drinking. An intimate friend testified that in the twenty-seven years of their acquaintance he had never seen Dubert sober. —The selection of a May Queen in Waco, Tex., was attended with considerable strife and excitement. Miss Jones received 8,194 votes, and Miss Pace, the next highestcandidate, 4,812. The ballots cost ten cents each, and everybody could cast as many as desired by paying proportionately. The gain to a public charity by this plan was $1,200. There were several incidental fights, growing out of heated advocacy of the rival aspirants. —A convicted thief in New Mexico aroused the inmates of the jail by loud cries. He was found lying on the floor of his cell, professedly unable to move. He said that he had fallen from the bed and injured his spine. During the ensuing month he pretended to be in constant and terrible pain; and on his being carried to Court for sentence, the sympathetic Judge imposed the lightest possible penalty. Afterward it was discovered that the thief had not been hurt at all.

—A parrot created a sensation in a baggage-car on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad the other day. The cage was inclosed in paper and set on a coffin and was soon forgotten. As the conductor and other trainmen were passing through the car they heard a sepulchral voice issuing apparentlv from the coffin, crying, “ Lemme out! 1 ’ They were startled and frightened, and thought they had a sure case of a ghost, till polly was discovered whining tor liberty. —There is now on trial in our courts a man possessed of a good trade, and capable of earning a decent living in any city of town in the country. Under the influence of liquor, a few weeks since, he attempted to knife a man to him unknown, and he will now pay for a few glasses of vile whisky by spending more or less time in the Penitentiary. Thursday’s evening train brought to Denver another less fortunate victim. He, too, had been imbibing vile whisky, and, while under its influence, drove’the lock of a gun through the prain of an antagonist, from the effects of which he died! Here are two men—a would-be murderer and a murderer —whose proper pleasin court would be “Drunk, Your Honor.” — Rocky Mountain News. —Bryant Foley, a young Watertown man, who was suffering from a broken leg, in some way got the impression that he had taken poison in the form of carbolic acid, used as a wash for his limb, and died of fright. He was apparently well at four p. m. Sunday, and at seven p. m. he was dead. He ate an orange on Saturday, and thought it tasted of the acid, which caused him to faint, but he was quieted in a little while. The physicians say in their report to the Coroner: “We find, from a thorough examination and careful investigation, that his death was caused by syncope or fainting; that we carefully examined the stomach and found no traces of poison of any kind; the coats of the stomach and intestines free from inflammation; from the appearance of the heart, it was evident from the absence of blood in its walls and their collapsed condition, that he died of syncope or faintness; the condition of his limb warranted the belief that his leg would be returned to usefulness, as all of the parts surrounding the fracture-were in a healthy condition, and reparation of the bone,already commenced and favorably prospering,*’ The jury reported that it could not ascertain the cause of death. — Utica Herald.