Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, October 21, 1882
A pet bear broke its chain and killed a little son of A. Welsh, of St. Clair county, Mich., last Tuesday.
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, September 30, 1882
One night last week, at a late hour, a gentleman of this city, who, as a matter of habit, rarely retires before midnight, had occasion at that “witching hour” to attend to the furnace fire before retiring. The wind was blowing almost a gale, and the rain was pouring down in torrents, and the night was one to induce a feeling of “uncertainty” in the heart of the bravest. The gentleman in question never indulges in intoxicating liquors, and there is no reason to suppose that his nerves were unusually disturbed. He is very fond of clams, however, and on the morning of the day when the incident ocured had ordered a peck of clams, which were to be cooked the next day. As he descended the stair on his midnight errand, with a lamp in his hand, and shading the lamp with his hand to shield it from the draft, he observed that the bucket of clams had been left at the foot of the stairs.
Groping his way slowly down the stairs, and looking cautiously for the cellar floor, he suddenly saw what appeared to be a small, white clam move gradually from the bucket, where he had hitherto been reposing peacefully with his mates, and work his way steadily and quickly across the cellar floor and mount the wall at the further side of the cellar, to a distance of three feet from the floor. Never having seen a clam walk before, and being especially interested in the apparent fact of the ability of a clam to climb a cellar wall, the gentleman courageously determined to investigate the matter in the interests of science and curiosity. He placed the lamp at a convenient position, took up a piece of barrel-hoop, and boldly advanced, resolving to become a martyr to science if need be. The white object proved to be indeed a clam, but the clam had used other means of locomotion than its own in navigating across the cellar floor. An indiscreet mouse had walked over the bucket of clams, and an ambitious clam had fastened his nippers on the mouse’s tail. The mouse becoming frightened at the advent of the gentleman above mentioned, started for his hole in the wall, when he was compelled to stop on account of the shell-fish attachment to his tail.
The gentleman who narrates the incident is very respectable, and is a regular attendant at church. Providence Journal.
Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Monday, June 15, 1908
Because the students of the Kansas University, at Lawrence, are stealing all the cats they find loose in the town for dissection in the zoology classes the people of the city have applied to the state authorities for assistance. They demand that the state furnish the cats to the university and that cats be sent to the school that are not family pets and are not considered valuable.
The city of Lawrence has been made almost destitute of cats and kittens during the last few weeks. Six hundred cats are used for dissection in the zoology class during the spring terms. Heretofore it has never been possible to get enough cats for the class work. This year the university authorities offered as a prize that each cat that was brought to the laboratories the student should be allowed one “cut” from his classes.
One student has already brought in sixty cats, and he has enough “cuts” allowed him to give him two holidays each week until the end of the term, and he has a few to sell to other students by simply giving them the cats which he captures.
Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Monday, July 27, 1908
Fisherman Anthony Dexter is knocked Out of Boat by Monster. Lucky Blow on the Head Kills it When Man is Almost Exhausted by Battle.
Anthony Dexter, a member of the crew of the fishing schooner Eva and Mildred, and a 300 pound swordfish engaged in a battle for life in a twelve foot dory, and Dexter was the victor, although the swordfish gave a good account of itself.
The Eva and Mildred arrived at Boston recently with sixty-eight swordfish to show for three weeks cruise. The big fish were easy victims, with the exception of the monster that fell to the lot of Dexter.
The Eva and Mildred fell in with the big fellow three days ago, and he was neatly harpooned from the pulpit. Dexter then leaped into a dory and followed the fish until it lay quiet upon the surface. Then he rowed up alongside and putting the hooks into the fish, swung it into the dory. The swordfish occupied nearly the entire bottom of the dory, and as soon as he was out of the water he began to thrash about. Dexter prepared to give the fish the finishing stroke and failed to notice that the creature’s tail was under his seat. The fish suddenly struck the seat a tremendous blow with its tail, and the seat and its occupant went sailing through the air and dropped into the water.
“It was the most awful whack I ever got,” said Dexter,” and I didn’t know anything until I hit the cold water. That revived me, and I saw the dory, with one gunwale under water and the fish half out, trying to squirm back into the sea. I dived under the dory and coming up on the other side, brought it back upon an even keel. The fish was now in my dory, and I was in the water. He seemed to know he had the upper hand, and every time I made a move to get in that awful tail would wave, and I would drop back again.
“Honestly, I don’t know how I finally got back into the dory, but the next thing I knew I was lying in the bottom of the boat on top of that jumping, thrashing fish, and in all kinds of danger of getting crushed under it or getting killed by a blow from its tail. Every time I tried to climb up the fish would knock me down again. The boat was nearly full of water, and the fish was good and strong.
“I think he would have done for me if I hadn’t happened by good luck to hit him a welt on the head. That quieted him until I could get upon my feet and finish him. It was a lucky thing for me that the water was smooth or the fish would have gone out of the boat and taken me with him.
Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Monday, July 27, 1908
His Driver intended Them For His Dinner it Seems.
Yesterday a local wagon driver put some eggs he intended for his dinner in the horse’s feed bag and forgetting about it put the bag to the horse’s nose at dinner time. The horse, he claims, ate the eggs greedily and when the driver took the nose bag off he discovered what he had done.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Published in the Lake County Independent, Libertyville, Illinois on Friday, August 14, 1903
Over Score Of People Killed And Fifty Hurt.
Circus Trains Collide at Durand, Mich., and Men and Animals Perish-Wallace Brothers Show in Terrible Accident-Air Breaks Fail.
Twenty-two persons were killed and about fifty injured in a wreck on the Grand Trunk road a mile from Durand, Mich., Friday. One section of Wallace Brothers circus train crashed into the other. The dead were men connected with the show and employes of the Grand Trunk Railroad, on which the terrible wreck occurred. Failure of the air brakes on the rear train to work caused the collision.
The scene in the Grand Trunk yards after the collision was appalling. The wreckage of the engine and four cars was strewn about and piled high, while the shrieks of the injured victims and the bellowing of the frightened animals could be heard above the hiss of escaping steam and the excited shouts of the rescuers. It was some hours before all the injured were rescued from the wrecked cars. Some of them were in terrible agony. Some of the bodies were crushed and mangled so that identification was difficult.
It is customary to send a number of special men with circuses and that accounts for the presence of the road officers who were killed.
Air Brakes Cause Crash.
One elephant, two camels and a $1,000 bloodhound were killed in their cages and many of the other animals were injured.
The cause of the collision was the air brake on the second train getting out of order and failing to work when the engineer saw the red light of the first train which had come to a standstill.
The Wallace circus travels on two trains. In each train there are about thirty-five cars. The circus Thursday exhibited at Charlotte. Friday it was to have given an exhibition at Lapeer. The route the circus was traveling was the Grand Trunk line.
The two trains left Charlotte about midnight, or perhaps a little later. According to the rules of the railroad the second train kept an hour behind the first train. When the first train reached the Durand yards, half a mile from the depot, it stopped. As the rules require a red lantern was promptly hung on the rear end of the last car.
When the second train came along, in half an hour, the first train was still on the main track in the yard. The red danger signal of the last car was burning clearly. The engineer on the second section admits that he saw the red light in time to have stopped his before it reached the first train if the air brakes had worked all right. But the air brakes refused to respond.
The engineer could do nothing to check his train and it crashed without any check into the first train, and seven cars -rear cars of the first train and forward cars of the second train, in which many people were sleeping-were totally wrecked.
The scene after the first crash was terrible. Nearly every one in the train was asleep and the cries of the wounded and dying as they awoke from their sleep were horrifying. In the cars just ahead were the animals and their keepers. Some of the cars were partially demolished, setting loose the animals.
People killed in the passenger coach consisted mainly of the show drivers and a few performers. They were all men.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Monday, February 3, 1908
Evidently Had a College Education and Knew Electricity. Ran Sleigh of Steel Into Hall Signal Switch and Train is Flagged.
1. First the Lake Forest horse ran away.
2. It made a bad break by getting onto the Northwestern tracks near the depot.
3. It corrected the “bull” by drawing the sleigh attached to it into the Hall signal switch, causing the circuit to be completed and the train to be flagged, saving its own life and the sleigh.
Can you beat it?
Breaking the hitching strap in some manner yesterday at Lake Forest, a horse to which a sleigh was attached ran away and getting off the road sped along the Northwestern right of way.
It finally came to a stop when the sleigh runners, of steel became lodged in a Hall signal switch. In this way the electric circuit was completed and the signal responded, flagging a train that came along a few moments later.
The brakeman of the train proceeded forward when the engine came to a stop to see what was the matter and there stood the Lake Forest horse, which had evidently received a college education, waiting for the sleigh to be released from the clutches of the switch.
The noble animal had saved its own life.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Tuesday, March 16, 1909
You see it was this way. The dog saw the cat and chased it. The cat naturally ran. It sought refuge between a blacksmith shop and a private dwelling on Washington street and there it stuck. The dog pursued and it stuck between the walls also. A crowd gathered, clothes poles and broom sticks were brought. But the cat and dog could not be budged.
The whole truth of the matter is that this morning a dog belonging to a bakery wagon driver chased an errant cat which ran between two buildings and there the two animals stuck, wedged tightly between the two walls and unable to budge, for most of the morning.
Both the cat and dog are bald on both sides from their efforts to pry the building apart.
Finally the cat got loose and later the dog, a big yellow animal had to be shot to end its misery.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Monday, September 28, 1908
Chicago, Sept. 28.-Mrs. Elizabeth Bowles, 243 West Twelfth street, was attacked by a Newfoundland dog which bit her a least fifty times when she went to the aid of her three-year-old daughter, who had fallen down a flight of stairs. The dog thought it was defending its little companion. Mrs. Bowles’ condition is serious. The dog was shot.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, February 2, 1878
Dr. Berthier, county physician, has at the county hospital, situated about a mile and a half east of that city, a dog of the St. Bernard breed. This dog is not yet fully grown, but it would seem, has the instincts of his breed strong within him. Last Saturday night about eight o’clock he rushed about through the hospital, acting in a strange and excited manner. It soon became evident that he wanted some one to follow him. Dr. Berthier ordered old “Uncle Jimmy,” who used to make his headquarters at the station house, but who is now “man Friday” at the hospital, to go with the dog and see what the trouble might be. Finding that he had made himself understood, and that Uncle Jimmy was prepared to follow, the dog led the way across the country and went in the direction of the city. At the distance of over a quarter of a mile from the hospital, the dog, which rejoices in the name of “Major,” descended into a ravine. Plunging through the deep snow filling the bottom of the ravine, the dog went to a big drift and began tugging and hauling upon some object buried therein, lifting his head occasionally, and uttering a bark to encourage Uncle Jimmy, who was wading toward the spot as fast as his short legs would carry him. Marveling greatly, Jimmy ploughed his way down the ravine, and reaching the spot where Major was at work, saw before him a human being-a woman. He at first tried to beat the dog away, thinking-as he is rather cross at nights about the hospital-that he was hurting the woman. He soon saw however, that the dog was careful to lay hold on nothing but the woman’s clothing, and that he was doing his best to drag her out of the drift. Jimmy managed to lift the woman-who he had found still alive-out of the hole, but was unable to move her from the spot, she being so near chilled to death as to be unable to stand. Assistance was called from the hospital, and the doctor turned out with all his nurses and all the convalescents about the place. It required the united exertions of six of the strongest men that could be mustered to carry the woman to the hospital, and after she was housed the doctor and nurses worked over her for some hours before she could be placed in a bed. The husband of the woman is in the hospital, and it appears she left the city late in the evening to visit him. Dr. Berthier says that had she remained in the snow twenty minutes longer she would have perished. The next day, when she came to her senses, she was so ashamed of the affair that she would not see her husband, and has since left the hospital without going to his room, begging that he might be told nothing of her perilous adventure. She owes her life to “Major,” the noble and sagacious St. Bernard.-Virginia City Enterprise.