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The other day, an engineer on the Providence, Hartford & Fishkill road discovered a stoppage in the water pipe of his locomotive, and put in his finger, when he immediately got a bite.
With the aid of a hook he finally fished out an eel measuring fourteen and a half inches, which had passed from the water pipes into the tender.
Key West Citizen (Fla.) Feb. 18, 1926 Pg7
Electra, Tex., Feb. 17--- J.J. Martin, section foreman, kicked a can which he found in a patch of woods along the railroad tracks near here.
The can contained nitroglycerine and Martin and two Mexican section hands were blown to bits. Two others were injured. The nitroglycerine is thought to have been a quantity stolen here recently.
The Dawson News (Ga.) March 13, 1889 Pg2
The stingiest man we have heard of lately is a gentleman from Montana. He has been trying for twelve years to cross his honey bees with lightning bugs so they could work at night as well as day.
An Egyptian mummy on exhibition at the Iowa State Fair has been seized by a landlord in payment of the owner's board bill.
The Saint Paul Globe (Minn.) May 11, 1896 Pg1
SUICIDE CLUB ORGANIZED
Little Rock, Ark., May 10--- A suicide club is being organized in Little Rock. It is learned that this club is to be a branch of the big club at Chicago.
The rules of the Chicago club will govern this local club, and each of the members will assemble in his club room and draw straws to see who shall take his life. The unlucky member must kill himself within one year, commencing the night of the drawing.
A drawing for suicidal honors is not the only pleasure enjoyed by the club. There is the banquet, which is held at different times during the year, and the club rooms are to be fitted up elegantly.
Arizona Daily Citizen June 21, 1901 Pg1
KILLED BY A CAT, THE ANIMAL BIT
Hermann, Mo., June 21--- David Wittman, aged 82 years, a farmer living one half mile south of this place was bitten on the hand by a cat about 3 weeks ago.
The animal had to be killed before it relinquished its hold on the hand. Two days ago Mr. Wittman was taken with convulsions and he died in terrible agony yesterday. The attending physician pronounced it a case of hydrophobia.
There is nothing new in the diving bell. Long before man thought he invented it, the water spider knew all about it.
The water spider shins down a reed, dragging his diving bell with him, and anchors it underwater on a level keel, so that the air it contains keeps the water out. When this air becomes foul the spider swims to the top, captures a bubble with a flirt of its tail and carries it down to the bell for future reference. There the spider lives in snug comfort and no storm disturbs his lowly home.
Los Angeles, Mar. 4--- The police are still searching, without success, for a clue that may solve the mystery surrounding the finding of a woman's leg on Saturday in a pile of debris in the rear of a yard on Broadway.
The theory that the relic was placed there by medical students has been abandoned, and the detectives are now inclined to believe that murder is behind the strange and ghastly discovery.
New York.--- A search lasting the greater part of 10 years, and extending from one end of the country to the other, ended a few days ago when Professor Mark W. Harrington, once chief of the United States Weather Bureau and one of the best known scientific men in America, was found a hopeless lunatic in the New Jersey Asylum for the insane at Morris Plains.
Until last Monday Harrington was registered as " John Doe, No. 8," having been picked up in a park at Trenton 18 months ago.
Saturday Press (Hawaii) Sept. 25, 1880 Pg1
An old Scotchman attributes the disappearance of ghosts from the Scottish moors to the custom of tea-drinking at social meetings. It requires Scotch whisky on the top of old ale to enable a man to see a ghost really worth talking about.
Rock Island Daily Argus (Ill.) Oct. 5, 1886 Pg2
A panther is reported to be roaming around in the woods near DuBois, Pa.
Yukon Valley News (Alaska) Oct. 22, 1910 Pg1
HUBBY AND WIFE DUEL
Lake Charles, La., Oct. 19-- Dr. D.T. Smith and his wife fought a duel over a dispute as to who should make the fire. The wife killed the doctor.
A mud turtle, said to be 180 years old, has been in an Albany (N.Y.) family 65 years. Wrinkled skin, broken shell and twisted claws indicate its old age.
It is very friendly with the house cat, and at night finds them under the stove with the turtle's head on the cat's paws.
Capital Journal (Oregon) Oct. 24, 1919 Pg4
As an experiment, one automobile manufacturer has turned out several cars with their bodies covered with imitation leather instead of paint. It is hoped to demonstrate that this is more enduring.
Washington Standard (Olympia) Nov. 30, 1860
At Chatham, England, at noon each day a gun is fired from the Greenwich Observatory by electricity.
One of the wonders of the worm world is the nematoxis eocena, a creature that eats ice with as much avidity as the silk worm does mulberry, osage or orange leaves.
Professor Pintori of the Smithsonian Institute believes that these ice eating wonders will finally, on account of their rapid increase in the Arctic regions, gnaw away the ice barrier surrounding the open polar sea.
St. Louis, Apr. 14--- Henry G. Parchhall, a wealthy bachelor, died from heart disease Thursday night as the result of excitement while watching the 13-inning baseball game Thursday afternoon between the National League clubs of St. Louis and Pittsburg. He was an enthusiastic " fan."
In excavating a mound near Eddyville, fragments of glazed pottery, with zigzag ornamentation showing considerable skill in ceramic art, were discovered.
One was nearly perfect, and contained ashes and a ring of peculiar workmanship cut from some transparent stone.
Chariton Courier (Mo.) Oct. 12, 1878 Pg1
A Vermont man who used benzine to light the kitchen stove has not benzine alive since.
A young lady at Sioux City, Iowa, whose father was accidentally shot, supposing it was premeditated, dipped her fingers in her father's blood, swearing not to wash it off till she had avenged his death.
Workmen on the Shepany railroad were blasting rock in Washington and when they cracked open a big slab of rock with a sledgehammer, a frog hopped out.
He was the same color as the rock. He gave a few gasps and then died. The engineer placed the frog in a bottle of alcohol intending to send it to Yale College for examination, but one of the workers found the bottle, drank the alcohol, and threw the bottle away.
A full grown ordinary water lizard, over 4 inches in length, was vomited alive early Wednesday morning by a 6-year-old son of Mr. P. McEvoy, near Downeyville.
The Belding Banner (Mich.) June 20, 1895 Pg2
The 2-year-old child of William Rumsey, at Owosso, was attacked by a game rooster, which fastened its spurs in his temple, knocked him down, tore his face and would probably have killed him had not help arrived.
Manila.--- 36 Filipinos, mostly women and children, were drowned in the wreck of a schooner blown ashore near here during a fierce storm.
The captain is charged with having ordering the women, many with babes in their arms, to jump overboard, only to be beaten to death against the rocks. The captain is among those saved. An investigation has been ordered.
The Glenwood Post (Colo.) Jan. 2, 1904 Pg2
On December 21 the city of Berlin was in twilight at mid-day and the whole business of the capital was carried on by artificial light.
The meteorological office has not noted such a phenomenon in a generation, and attributes it to the light, motionless atmosphere in which the city's smoke and vapors did not ascend, thus blanketing and darkening many square miles.
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