Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, February 5, 1898
Thousands Perish from Cold and Starvation in Wyoming.
Cheyenne, Wyo., Feb. 9,-Thousands of sheep are reported to have perished from cold and starvation in western Wyoming. The cold has been intense for 60 days and old-timers say that it is the hardest winter they have seen for the past ten years. Carbon county has 500.000 sheep and flock masters there and fear the loss will amount to 25 per cent. Losses among cattle will not be so heavy, as owners had been preparing for several years to feed their stock during the severe weather.
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, July 3, 1880
Cyprus is afflicted with a plague of dogs, which, it is stated, are even more numerous and useless than they are in Constantinople. They infest the various towns and their outskirts, and are at the present time a source not only of annoyance but of danger, for the cattle disease which, although diminishing, still prevails in the island, is said to be propagated from village to village by them. They scratch up and feast upon the buried carcasses of the animals that have died of the disease or have been slaughtered on account of it, and afterward drink at the troughs where the cattle are watered.
Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, January 28, 1899
55 Animals Killed Outright Many More Wounded.
Last night dogs created havoc among a large flock of sheep on the Clay farm just north of town.
Fifty-five fine specimens were killed outright and a large number more were injured so badly that many will without doubt die. The loss is estimated at about $400 which the town will probably be compiled to pay.
This is the second flock of sheep that has been entered by dogs inside of the past month and as it is proving rather expensive for the town, steps should be taken to prevent another repetition.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, August 3, 1912
Mr. and Mrs. Damerel of Ashland Travel in Unique Fashion.
Driving from coast to coast, with four timber wolves hitched to a spring wagon pulling them, Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Damerel of Ashland, Wis., arrived in Waukegan today.
The queer equipage is now bound for New York, from which place it will double on its tracks and head for San Francisco, the trip being timed so that Mr. and Mrs. Damerel will arrive on the coast in 1915, when the world’s exposition begins.
Mr. and Mrs. Damerel have already traveled 1,500 miles with the wolves going back and forth across Wisconsin so as to visit every principal city. After remaining in Waukegan a short time they will start for Chicago.
The wolves were captured when they were young and brought up as pets. The oldest one of them is four years. They are comparatively tame, offering no objection to bystanders petting them.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, December 11, 1875
It would be too long to relate all the uses to which elephants are applied in Burma. Let us watch them at work among the woodyards where the logs of the tickwood tree, which come floating down the river, are plied. Every working elephant is mounted by a driver called a “cornac,” whose principal business is rather to excite the animal than to direct it.
In the season when the roads are cut, the logs come down the bar much faster than they can be disposed of in the sawmills, and they accumulate in vast quantities all along the banks. It is necessary, therefore, to drag the trees out of the water and arrange them in piles until such time as they can be cut up. There are only three sorts of piles, varying with the size of the trees. First an elephant in the water clears the logs from the mass and ranges them one by one upon the river bank. He carefully examines the chaos of logs and proceeds with tusks and trunk to disengage the tree he has selected and which he intends to carry to land. As soon as the tree is placed on the bank another elephant is harnessed to it and drags it to the woodyard, where he leaves it. Two other elephants now come up, and one of them takes one end of the log upon his trunk and drags it to the pile upon which, in view of its size, it ought to be placed, while his companion assists him by pushing the log with all his might. As soon as they reach the proper pile the first elephant lifts the top of the log upon the pile, then he forms a kind of ring around the log with his trunk, while the other with a vigorous blow of his head shoots the log into its place. The intelligence displayed by these animals is almost incredible, and we should scarcely have believed it if we had not seen their movements as described above.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Monday, February 19, 1900
London, Feb. 19.-An exciting scene took place at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, Sunday afternoon. Two large elephants belonging to the circus ran amuck, killed their keeper and gored another man. There was a terrible panic in the audience attending the concert in the palace.
One animal was captured after great damage to property. The other escaped through the grounds, but was captured late in the evening in the suburbs of Beekenham.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Published in the Waukegan Daily Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, September 26, 1857
This celebrated lion-tamer is now living upon a beautiful farm within a mile of Potosi, Wis. He was recently in Dubuqe, Iowa, and went with a companion to a menagerie there, and the latter describes the visit in the following, interesting style;
On entering the canvass, which was before the audience began to collect, Herr desired us to stand before the cage of the Bengal tiger, and he remained at the door while. This tiger, from some old sore, had just as old a grudge against him, and in days of yore managed to give a marked demonstration of the fact. This cage was selected for the first test of recognition. While we were stationed immediately in front, Herr came sauntering along carelessly, habited in a farmers costume, as he neared the cage the tigers eyes began to glisten with great brilliancy as they bore directly upon him, and at the same time a low guttural growl began to raise in his throat which burst out into a ferocious howl as he leaped at the bars to get at him when he passed by. This experience was tried several times with like result, when Herr spoke to him his rage knew no bounds, leaping at the bars, he dashed his paw out to tear him, and only ceased when his old master walked out of sight.
“The next place we were desired to remove to was the large lion, two leopards and a lioness. We mention them thus, as it is the order they stand in their cage, it being divided into apartments. As Herr approached this cage the lioness caught sight of him, and her eyes beamed with pleasure, while tail wagged a glad recognition. On his coming up to her she appeared frantic with joy, and when he spoke to her and presented his face to the cage, she kissed him and placed her paw in his hand with all the air of an intense affection.
Indeed while he was in her presence, she did not know how to control herself, but would lick his hand while he attempted to pat her, roll over, reach out her paws to him and press her nose between the bars as through she would like to have a closer presence. While Herr was talking to the lioness, the old lion in the other end of the cage began to get jealous and grumble, for he too recognized his old friend. Herr said to him, “Billy getting jealous?” and then walked up to him, when the creature crowded against the bars to get closer to him if it were possible, and kissed his face and licked his hands with as great demonstrations of joy as the other. The leopards, too, in the same cage knew their old master, and watched him as they lay with noses close to the bars with evident pleasure, and seemed highly pleased when he spoke to them. In all our days we do not recollect any exhibition that gave us so much satisfaction as did this meeting of old friends and while we watched them in their congratulations, we could not make up our mind which one was the most delighted.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Monday, October 5, 1908
“Are rats destructive? Well,” said a captain of a merchantman. “I once knew them to get through $5,000 worth of stuff in five days.
“Japan does an immense trade with China in cocoons, and the first time I carried such a cargo they were packed in sacks. When we got to Hong Kong we found that the rats had discovered that part of a cocoon was good to eat, and the bill for their board came to $5,000. The ship owners were sued for that amount; but, the packing being considered faulty, the claim was disallowed. It was the first and last cocoon feast the rats had, for ever since Japan has packed cocoons in zinc lined cases.
“Every time a ship gets back to Liverpool a rat catcher is set to clearing out the rats, but by the time we have loaded up again the rodents are every bit as numerous. In some ports we use rat guards on the ropes, and the ship is always fumigated before taking a cargo of fruit or tea. But there is no getting rid of them entirely.” London Graphic.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, June 10, 1876
An Awful and Almost Incredible Story.
The number of rats inhabiting the rocky crevices and cavernous passages at the summit of Pike’s pike-says a correspondent of yesterday’s Pueblo Chieftain-have recently become formidable and dangerous. These animals are known to feed on saccharine gum that percolates through the pores of the rocks apparently upheaved by some volcanic action. Since the establishment of the Government signal station on the summit of the Peak, at an altitude of nearly 15,000 feet, these animals have acquired a voracious appetite for raw and uncooked meat, the scent of which seems to impart in them a ferocity rivaling the fierceness of the starved Siberian wolf. The most singular trait in the character of these animals is that they are never seen in the day time. When the moon pours down her queenly light upon the summit they may be seen in countless numbers trooping around the barren waste, and during the warm summer months they may be seen swimming and sporting in the waters of the lake, a short distance below the peak, and of a dark cloudy night, their trail in the water is marked by a sparkling light, giving to the water of the lake a bright and silvery appearance.
A few days since Mr. John T. M. O’Keefe, one of the Government operators at the signal station upon the peak, returned to his post, taking with him up on a pack animal, a quarter of beef. It being late in the afternoon, his colleague, Mr. Hobbs, immediately left with the pack animal for the springs. Soon after dark, while Mrs. O’Keefe was engaged in the office forwarding night dispatches to Denver and Washington, he was startled by a loud scream from Mrs. O’Keefe, who had just retired for the night to an adjoining bed-room, and who came rushing into the office screaming. “The rats! the rats!” Mr. O’Keefe, with great presence of mind, immediately drew around his wife a scroll zinc plating, which prevented the animals from climbing upon her person, and although his own person was literally covered with them, he succeeded in encasing both of his legs each in a joint of stove-pipe, when he commenced a fierce and desperate struggle for the preservation of life, being armed with a heavy cane. Hundreds were destroyed on each side, while they still seemed to pour in with increasing numbers from the bedroom, the door of which had been left open. The entire quarter of beef was eaten in less than five minutes, which seemed to only sharpen their appetites for an attack on Mr. O’Keefe, whose hands, face and neck were terribly lacerated. In the midst of the warfare, Mrs. O’Keefe managed to reach the office, from which she threw a coil of electric wire over her husband that sprang outward and spread itself over the room, then, grasping the valve of the battery, she poured all its terrible power upon the wire. In an instant the room was all ablaze with electric light, and hundreds were killed by the shock, when the sudden appearance of daylight by the coruscation of the heavily charged wire, caused them to take refuge among the crevices and caverns of the mountain, by way of the bedroom window, through which they forced their way.
But the saddest part of the night adventure upon the Peak was the destroying of their infant child, which Mrs. O’Keefe thought she had made securely by a heavy covering of bed-clothing. But the rats had found their way to the infant only two months old, and left nothing of it but the peeled and naked skull. Doctors Horn and Anderson have just returned to Colorado Springs from the Peak. It was thought at first that the left arm of Sergeant O’Keefe would have to be amputated, but they believe it can be saved.-Denver News.
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Published in the Sangamo Journal, Springfield, Illinois on Saturday, October 11, 1834
About eleven O’clock in the afternoon we cast anchor in the Burchura Nuddle, with an extensive forest on both sides; when at about a hundred yards from us, an alligator came out of the river, to enjoy his noontime sleep in the rays of the sun. After remaining there about an hour, apparently in a sound sleep, we observed an immense tiger emerging from the jungle, and bending his steps towards the place where the alligator lay. In size the tiger exceeded the largest we had seen, and his broad round face, when towards us, striped in white, his fierce eyes, with the amazing beauty and strength of his limbs, made the stoutest heart on board tremble at the thought of encountering such a dreadful foe. With the most cautions pace imaginable the tiger approached the alligator, his raised foot remained up for some seconds before he replaced it on the ground; and so he proceeded till he came within the power of his leap, when exerting all his strength, and bounding from the earth he descended immediately upon the alligator’s back and seized it by the throat. The monster of the deep roused from his slumber opened its tremendous jaws and lashed its terrific tail; and while the conflict lasted each seemed to exert its utmost strength. The tiger however had the advantage, for he had grasped the alligator in a part of the neck, which entirely prevented him from turning his head sufficiently round to seize his antagonist, and though many severe blows were inflicted on the body of the tiger, by its saw-like tail, the noblest beast of the forest when the battle was concluded shook his brawny tail, and seemed unconscious of any pain.
Having overcome the alligator, he dragged it a little further on the shore and sat over it exactly in the attitude of a cat over a captured mouse; he then took the creature in his mouth and gently walked off with it into the jungles. About ten minutes after we saw the tiger, emerge from the forest and after gazing at us for a few minutes, and perhaps imagining that we were too far from the shore to allow him to add us to the number of his trophies of victory and blood, he slowly pursued his course in a different direction to where he had left his prey, and we saw him no more. In less than an hour afterwards, the alligator, which had been stunned but not killed, crept out of the jungle, and though evidently injured, yet with some difficulty reached the river. He however was too much lacerated to remain long in the water, and came to land, with the precaution of exposing but a part of his body, and keeping his face towards the shore; he continued but a very short time, and launched into the deep, repeating his visits to the beach almost every quarter of a hour while we remained. The sight was dreadful and magnificent and one we believe, which is very seldom witnessed.