Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Friday, December 2, 1898
At Perry, Okla., a baby was attacked by a monkey and almost killed. The monkey belonged to a show which is wintering in town and it got out of its cage, ran into the house of A. M. Patterson and attacked his two-year-old girl. The child’s face was lacerated and one arm and hand badly chewed up.
Published in the The Evanston Index, Evanston, Illinois on Saturday, January 28, 1899
Major Laurie, who fought with Kitchener in the Soudan, says he owes his life to a spider. The spider made a nest in the top of his helmet just before the battle at Athbara. He recognised at once that the spider had chosen to constitute itself his mascot. Accordingly he left the insect undisturbed, and went through the battle without a wound. Grateful for the protection thus clearly given him by the spider, he allowed it to remain in his helmet, and consequently was able to pass through the battle of Omduran without injury. He then shipped helmet and spider home and followed in person to tell the story to his fiance. His prospective mother-in-law was so impressed by it that she made his bride a wedding present of a diamond spider.
Published in the Illinois Daily Journal, Springfield, Illinois on Thursday, March 10, 1853
On the 27th ult., (Sunday) a thunder storm passed over Sugar Grove, in Manard county. A discharge of lightning fell upon a flock of geese and killed eighteen of them. Does this prove that feathers are a non-conductor?
Published in the The Evanston Index, Evanston, Illinois on Saturday, January 7, 1899
A Baboon in Omaha went on a spree one day last week and smashed three mirrors, threw beer mugs at everybody in sight, and raised Cain generally. This new evidence of a tendency to act like a man may be considered another valuable clue for the Darwinians.
Saturday, January 20, 2018
Published in the Chicago Press and Tribune, Chicago, Illinois on Saturday, April 28, 1860
A poor Irish woman named Mary Conner, about thirty years of age, being about to become a mother, on Sunday last applied for admission to Bellevue Hospital. She was at once taken in, and placed in what is known as the “waiting room,” where there were already several patients. During the evening she was attended by the physician, who did all that was necessary for her, and having made her comfortable, left her for the night, not anticipating that a child would be born before morning. He promised to see the woman again early in the morning, and accordingly he visited her at an early hour on Monday. In reply to his question regarding her condition, the suffering woman told him that she had been seized with the pains of labor during the night, and had been delivered of a child. On turning down the bed clothes, the physician did indeed find a child, but in what a horrible condition! The infant was dead, and its nose, the upper lip, the toes, and half the left foot, had been devoured by rats. The poor woman was aware that her child was dead, but had no idea of its mutilated condition.
When questioned regarding the affair, she stated that shortly after the child was born she felt something which she supposed to be rats running about the bed, but she was two sick and feeble to drive them away. In her semiconscious state, she says that she was aware that a number of rats were in and about the bed for the remainder of the night, but she had no suspicion of the horrible work in which they were engaged, or she would have tried to raise an alarm. The body of the child was taken from the room and a post mortem examination made. The lungs having been submitted to the hydrostatic test, it was ascertained beyond a doubt that the child was born alive. As there was neither physician nor nurse in attendance at the birth, and the mother was helpless, it is supposed that the child may have died for want of proper attention before the rats attacked it. The other patients heard no disturbance on the part of the mother during the night, and did not know that she was in labor until yesterday morning.-N.Y. Tribune, 25th.
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, November 4, 1905
Washburn Springs the Scene of Most Repulsive Incident.
Woman Said To Have Killed Sick Porkers, and Then Served Them to Her Boarders Who Summarily Took Flight.
There have been many startling tales given to the public as originating in the foreign settlement-Washburn Springs- but the one which is perhaps the most repulsive and really unbelievable comes from that section today.
It is stated by a woman who lives near the scene of the occurrence that this week she saw one of the most astonishing actions that has ever come to her notice-or that of the average person.
She states that a neighbor recently had two hogs which were taken sick. For days they were to be seen walking about the yard hardly able to stand and the owner feared they were going to die.
Kills and Eats Them.
The neighbor further states that she sat in her house and saw the woman, who runs a boarding house, go into the pig pen and kill the hogs as they lay on the ground too weak and sick to be up and about as well behaved hogs would be.
As the knife was driven into the throats of the swine they were too weak to offer any resistance or even to go through the usual antics that hogs have been stabbed would follow if they were in good health.
The carcasses were then carried into the house. It is declared that the boarding mistress started serving the unhealthy food to her family and the boarders.
It is declared that the boarders, evidently knew that the meat they were being served with was contaminated for they packed up their belongings and a van pulled up a few days after the killing and carted off all of their goods. It is said they left the place because of the serving of the pork.
Neighbors of the locality declared that it is the worst thing of the kind the district has ever seen and they are generally indignant over it.
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Published in the Lake County Independent, Libertyville, Illinois on Friday, March 27, 1903
The rat is, as no one will doubt, a very fair climber. He can scamper about anywhere in the roof of a barn or can ascend the Ivy that grow on the house wall, and make the lives of the pigeons in their cotes anything but happy ones. The rabbit, on the other hand, is not usually accounted a climbing animal. A writer in Field describes the astonishment of his sister at seeing a rabbit jump from the bough of a tree, and, picking itself up, “scamper off rather dazed to its warren.” Whenever a rabbit is found in a tree, except when he is carried there by a receding snowdrift. It will be found that, a sloping trunk or other easy method of approach has been made use of. He is, however, very expert at climbing stone walls that bound his fields, and even the wire netting that the farmer vainly imagines will keep him from the choicest crops. We have seen rabbits run up the face of a quarry to their holes toward the top, a feat which we have not found it easy to imitate.
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Published in the Lake County Independent, Libertyville, Illinois on Friday, March 27, 1903
Brandywine Manor had a large colony of grey squirrels, but no shooting is permitted near the village, the squirrels being the pets of all the residents of the place.
A number of years ago the late William Rettew, who resided in the village, discovered a number of squirrels in the garret of his house and cared for them. Then he became imbued with the idea of protecting all the squirrels in the vicinity. In the garret he arranged nests for them and fed all that came. The number multiplied rapidly, and they gradually established homes in the trees in the woodland near his home.
The worst enemy of the grey squirrel is the red squirrel, and Mr. Rettew began a war of extermination against the latter, which he kept up until his death. Then his son continued the work, and today there are hundreds of grey squirrels in the woods for a mile around the village, but few red ones. Every resident considers it his duty to kill a red squirrel wherever found.
During the summer the animals may be seen playing about the trees in every direction, and they are often found in the homes of residents.
Saturday, December 23, 2017
Published in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Illinois on Tuesday, July 25, 1871
A Young Man Lost for Fifteen Days in the Woods of Oregon.
The Portland Oregonian of July 4 contains the following story of the sufferings of a young man, whose personal appearance, it says, indicates its truth. His acquaintances also say that he is trustworthy: During the last week of May a young man who had been for a long time employed in the Oregon Iron Works, went to the Dalles to work. After arriving there, having a few days’ time on hand before beginning work, he concluded to take a look at the country back of the Dalles. He started on the 30th of May, on foot. Toward night, when he thought to return or find a house for shelter, he discovered that he was quite uncertain as to the points of the compass; in short, he was lost in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. He slept of the ground, without any shelter, and next day renewed his efforts to find some human habitation. This day’s work was like the proceeding one, fruitless, and the young man, being without food, began to find exhaustion coming on. One day followed another in the vain effort to find a way out, until finally on the tenth day he arrived upon the summit of a high mountain, from which he got sight of Mt. Hood, and away in another direction a long, bright line of light which he took to be water. He started to go to it, and after five days of hard labor, hunger, thirst, and exhaustion, he reached the stream, and found himself on the bank of the Columbia River, about three miles below the Dalles. He had now been out fifteen days, without food, except such berries as he chanced to find, and he thinks he did not eat more than a pint of berries. He was reduced almost to a skeleton, and was evidently upon the verge of insanity, which follows upon protracted hunger and hardship. He says that when he laid down to rest, which he had often to do on account of exhaustion, the coyotes came around him, seeming to understand his feeble condition, and to be impatient for the moment when, reduced to entire helplessness, he should fall prey to their ravenous appetites. When he would get up again the wolves would fall back, but continue to lurk around and follow him. Toward the last he had frequent spells of being entirely blind, which lasted sometime for an hour and a half hour. Upon arriving at the river, he shortly found a house, and got something to eat of the woman, the man of the house being absent. She, however, refused to let him sleep in the house, and he went and slept in a little barn. Next day he started for Dalles, but he was so weak that he was the whole day in making the distance of only three miles. he arrived back at this city about a week ago.
Saturday, December 23, 2017
Published in the Illinois Daily Journal, Springfield, Illinois on Wednesday, February 8, 1854
The Dubuque Herald states that twelve tons of Prairie Chickens were purchased at Cascade and vicinity a few days since by certain fowl speculators. It took twelve wagons to haul the birds to the railroad depot at Warren. The birds were packed in boxes without being plucked. As many as could be procured alive were purchased at high prices. The next General Assembly of this State should interpose a game law to prevent the extermination of the feathery inhabitants of the Prairie.