Saturday, August 18, 2012
Published in the Lake County Independent, Libertyville, Illinois on Friday, September 12, 1902
Steamer Norseman is carrying 1,170 cattle and 1,398 sheep from Portland, Me., to Liverpool, the largest shipment ever taken across the Atlantic.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, February 26, 1876
Residents of Boston and vicinity have been excited by the operations of a man who has been killing fish at Quincy Point, Mass., by the explosion of nitro-glycerine. Large numbers of sea-bass have of late appeared off the Glades, and in the waters around Quincy Point, and it was upon these that the man made his wonderful experiments. His first attempt was with a small bottle of nitro-glycerine, the explosion of which, under the water, brought to the surface only three or four dead bass. A second trial, with an extra charge of the explosive compound in a can, proved a little more destructive, all the fish within a circle of about forty yards being shocked by the terrible concussion, and immediately rising to the surface in great numbers. About one hundred were found to have been killed, and were captured and sold. Many of the bass were quite large, one weighing forty pounds, while one was but slightly shocked-being beyond the area affected by the explosion-made his escape, and was judged to weigh seventy pounds. It was estimated that the death of nearly two hundred bass resulted from this experiment, as many which were not instantly killed or captured with gaffs were so seriously affected by the shock as to perish. A careful inspection of the fish killed showed, in every instance, that the sound or air bladder was filled with blood. The fisherman has been warned against a repetition of this experiment, which is punishable by fines.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, February 26, 1876
Mr. F. Vercelli owns a dog that has been badly demoralized by his associations with men.
The animal is a black and tan, and looks like a cross between a terrier and a spaniel. From an early age the animal showed a marvelous inclination to copy what was vicious in man. It does not seem that he ever smoked; perhaps it was because the formation of his mouth forbade the luxury. Chewing tobacco has ever been his especial vanity. He will go any length to procure his favorite stimulant; even cigar stumps and second hand quids off the sidewalk do not come amiss. In fact, they are his chief resource. He kept up the practice so long that if he fails to find tobacco to satisfy his cravings, he falls into fits.
His dissipation is not confined to tobacco, but he exhibits a remarkable fondness for alcoholic stimulants. He will lap up a bowlful of wine at a sitting. Even brandy is not too fiery, and he will drink it, provided it is sufficiently diluted, until he is drunk. Coffee, with cognac, is another of his weaknesses, and he will fold his paws lovingly around a cup of it until the last drop is drained. His master having recently complied with the common council’s ordinance and muzzled him, the poor animal rejected all kinds of food, even bones, and tried to starve himself because he could not get his accustomed tobacco.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan,Illinois on Saturday, March 18, 1876
A writer who was among the horses in our late war time, says the army horses, generally speaking, were a knowing set, although many of them were perverse and vicious. The boys had a theory that all the kicking, biting and balky horses were sent to the army. But a majority of these soon yielded to discipline, and the trooper and his horse soon froze to each other.
The horse followed his master, came at a call, obeyed signs as well as words, and at times warned his master of danger. Horses learned the bugle-call readily, as well as their places, and to start the horse it was only necessary to sound “feed or water call.” In action, many horses would about face, turn right or left, halt, move forward, etc., at the bugle sound without a word or sign from the riders.
Coming off Chancellorsville battle-field, the captain of a battery dismounted to look after a disabled gun, the remainder of the battery passing on. His horse broke loose, joined the column, took his place at the head, and would allow no one to approach him until two or three miles had been traveled. The concussions of artillery discharges affected the hearing of horses as it did the men. Often the ears would fall down, instead of standing erect, making so much change in the appearance of a horse that his rider would hardly recognize him. Tired men moved much better under the influence of music, and the horses worked better under the bugle.-Selected.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, March 18, 1876
Dr. Charles C. Abbott cites the following occurrence to show that birds possess some mode of conveying ideas to one another: In the spring of 1872, a pair of cat-birds were noticed carrying material for a nest to a patch of blackberry-briars near by. To test their ingenuity, Dr. Abbott took a long, narrow strip of muslin, too long for one bird conveniently to carry, and placed it on the ground in such a position as to be seen by the birds when searching for material. In a few moments one of the cat-birds spied the strip and endeavored to carry it off; but its length and weight, however he took hold of it-and he tried many times-impeded his flight, and after worrying a long time over it the bird flew off for assistance. In a few moments he returned with his mate, and then, standing near the strip,they appeared to hold a consultation. The chirping twittering, murmuring, and occasional ejaculations were all unmistakable. In a few moments these all ceased, and the work commenced. Each took hold of the muslin strip at about the same distance in each case from the ends, and, taking flight simultaneously, bore it away. Soon there was much jabbering at the nest, the birds could not agree how to use the strip, and it was finally abandoned; but so, too, was the nest, and the birds left the neighborhood.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, January 13, 1877
‘It was early in the morning-not, however before the snakes, which were in a series of wire-covered boxes, were awake and lively- that we were shown” said a correspondent, “into a stone floored room some twenty feet long and twelve broad. In the boxes were the strongest and deadliest snakes in India: pythons, ophiophagi, cobras, korites, Russell snakes, and many others. The Hindoos who had charge of them were two slim, wiry, little men, nude to the waist, as most of their countrymen are. They wore neither gloves nor had any other protection, and had no instrument of any kind in the place. After showing the varied collection under their care, they proceeded to open the python cage, and one of them, putting his hand in, seized a monster serpent and threw him upon the floor close to our feet. The python objected to such treatment,and began to hiss, making at the same time a vigorous effort to rise. But the snake-keeper was waiting for this, and no sooner did that huge, shining back begin to curve than the keeper put out his hand, seizing the creature’s tail. pulled it back with a jerk. Instantly the python was powerless-hissing but unable to move: the more he struggled, the more tenaciously did the keeper hold his tail, explaining meanwhile that so long as the reptile was controlled in that fashion there was no danger of its doing mischief; then, just as its rage was becoming ungovernable, the man lifted it quickly, and with a jerk deposited it in the box. Its companion was taken out in a similar manner, and slapped and buffeted till, throughout its entire length, some twelve feet, quivered with passion, but all to no purpose; it too, was replaced in the cage, and shut up to hiss at its leisure. The fact that an ophiophagus is in the Regent’s Park Zoological Gardens. London, rendered the next exhibition more interesting, although it may be doubted whether the sudden throwing into so small a room of a snake seven feet long was agreeable to the visitors. However, there was really no danger, for the venomous creature was so completely in its keeper’s power that we had no occasion to fear. One bite from the reptile, and any one of us would have been dead in five minutes, for it was exceptionally strong and lively; but it was no more able to bite us than the little mongoose caged outside the door. Up rose its head, out came its slithering tongue, its eyes dilated, its huge throat swelled, and all seemed ready for a desperate attack, when the keeper struck the reptile’s mouth with the back of his hand, and, before it could strike him, had seized it just under the head. Then it struggled, but only to get away-it had met that native before, and did not at all approve of his treatment. Its tongue might move in and out as often as it pleased, but all to no purpose, and when the cage was opened, it slunk in.-Scientific American.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, January 13, 1877
The Central City [Col] Register relates this story: W. W. Ramage, Corbett Bacon, his brother Judge Bacon, and Dr. Paul reside in the mining and voting precinct established long years ago by the Georgian explorer, Green Russell and in honor of that indomitable pioneer christened ‘Russell Gulch.’ Rumage was the owner of a very remarkable cat. Last June he concluded to remove away East, and carrying out the decision, left the house vacant. The cat loafed around until it seemed pretty well settled that the master of the ranch wasn’t coming back for some time, when she picked up her things and went down to Corbett Bacon’s for a lunch. Finding it a decent sort of place, she quietly and unobtrusively located. In process of time four little kittens were born to her. In the following October, when the autumn leaves began to fall, and the premonitory symptoms of winter made their unwelcome appearance. Ramage returned. But there was no cat to greet his returning footsteps, nothing but the bleak desolation of a deserted homestead. One day he happened in at the Bacon mansion. While there he discovered his cat and the four kittens. Ignoring the mother, he carefully selected two of the four youngsters and said, “I must have these by and by, when their eyes open and they get large enough to crawl around and play.”
Nothing more was said or thought about the matter. A month later Ramage found, on going to his coal-house, the two kittens he had selected, carefully stowed away in one corner. There was neither label nor sign to indicate where they came from or who brought them. Bacon lived a mile and a half distant. He took the isolated darlings into his house and cared for them. Some days later he inquired of Corbett whether he had brought up the kittens, and received an answer in the negative. Then it came to pass that this remarkable cat [the mother] had made a generous distribution of her progeny among her special friends. Two she had delivered to Ramage, as desired, one to Dr. Paul who resided near, and the fourth to Judge Bacon, Corbett’s brother. Then she returned to the house of her second love, quite contented and happy in the consciousness of having done a good thing.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, January 20, 1877
There are several large horse residences in New York. They each have beds for hundreds of horses, and the dining tables are a hundred times larger than those of the ‘fifth Avenue” and “Windsor” put together. The Horse Hotel, the largest one of all, is on Third Avenue, between Sixty-fifth and Sixty-ninth streets. It is one vast iron building, six hundred feet long and two hundred feet wide, and covered an entire block. It is three stories high, with a basement, and two thousand horses belonging to the third Avenue Railroad Company reside there in a style of splendor and luxury unknown to horses who have never traveled from their native farms. There are waiting and reception rooms, nice quarters for horses who happen to have a cold or a headache; there is a fine hospital for those who are very sick; there is a house surgeon and shoemaker, to say nothing of a cobbler to put on new heels or otherwise repair their shoes; and there is a housekeeper and a whole army of waiters and chamber-maids; also, a chief cook, with a dozen assistants. Altogether, the hotel is unsurpassed for horse-luxury and elegance; and if the horse could tell what they think about it, doubtless there would be a mass meeting of the guests, with a vote of thanks to the manages, of at least a committee of three to wait on the housekeeper and the chief cook, with an appropriate set of resolutions expressive of appreciation of their kindness and attention,” and full of words like “elegant apartment’s “choice viands,” “politeness,” “urbanity,” etc, etc.-Charles Barnard in St. Nicholas.
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, January 13, 1877
A farmer of York recently set a trap to catch a cunning fox which had been annoying him considerably by its midnight visits among the poultry. At fourteen successive visits to it he found the trap sprung, a stick of wood between its jaws, and the bait eaten up. The circumstance, so often repeated, surprised him. There was no other tracks to be seen but his own and those of the fox, and who sprung the trap was a question that puzzled him sorely. By continuing to rebait his trap he hoped to catch the author of the mischief. On the fifteenth night he found a fine old fox hung to it by the nose, and in his mouth was a stick of wood.-York, [Pa.] Daily.
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, January 27, 1877
Gilbert White tells a most dramatic story of a neighbor who had lost most of his chickens by a sparrow-hawk that came gliding down between a faggot pile and the end of his house, to the place where his coop stood. The owner, vexed to see his flock diminishing hung a net between the pile and the house, into which the bird dashed and was entangled. The gentleman’s resentment suggested a fit retaliation; he therefore clipped the hawk’s wings, cut off his talons, and fixing a cork on his bill, threw him down among the brood-hens. “Imagination,” says Mr. White, “can not paint the scene that ensued; the expressions that fear, rage and revenge inspired were new, or at least such as had been unnoticed before; the exasperated matrons upbraided, they execrated, they insulted, they trampled. In a word, they never desisted from buffeting their adversary till they had torn him in a hundred pieces.”-Scribner for February.