Skip to content

Poisonous Snake by Mail.

Thursday, February 16, 2012
Published in the Lake County Independent, Libertyville, Illinois on Friday, May 5, 1899

     An attempt to kill George E. Sterry, Jr., secretary of the firm of Weaver & Sterry, New York, was made when an asp was sent him through the mail. The address writen in faded ink on the box that held the snake was in a women’s hand. When opened the snake fell on Sterry’s hands, but by his quickness the merchant escaped injury. Mr. Sterry has put the case in the hands of detectives.

Filed in Snakes | Tagged | Comments (0)

The Mule And The Alligator.

Thursday, February 16, 2012
Published in the Chicago Daily Tribune, Chicago, Illinois on Sunday, January 26, 1890

An Experiment That Proved Entirely Too Successful.

   Florida Letter; When Capt. Royce, late of Ohio, made his home in Florida he found a fine alligator perserve in one corner of his plantation, and realized almost as much from the sale of hides as from his oranges. In crossing a small bayou one day he saw a huge alligator snugly ensconced under a hanging bank, with little else than his nose on exhibtion. A colored man was sent to the house for a log chain and piece of pork, and the offered bait was taken safely in at one gulp. But when the attempt was made to land the prey the two men discovered that their muscle was nothing against the steady brace of the reptile’s two powerful forelegs.

     “Bring the little dun mule,” said the Captain, but when that animal came within scenting distance of the alligator it showed a desire to drift rapidly in the direction of home.

     But diplomacy finally attached him to the shore end of the chain, and when he was given the word “go” he made one jump that was accompanied by unforeseen cousequences. The alligator had let go for a new hold just as the dun mule made his initial bound. With a wild circular sweep and an echoing “swish” he left the muddy bed of the stream and went sailing through the air. He struck close to the off side of the mule and lay for a moment awaiting further developments. They came when the mule caught sight of his mortal foe that had so suddenly joined him company. With as wild a snort as ever echoed through the evergreen glades of Florida he made one wild plunge, broke looses from the colored man, and went off through the woods as fast as his short legs would carry him.

     The chain held and the alligator went along, over logs and stumps, against trees, across pools and mire-holes- a genuine stampede, gotten up by as badly scared a mule as ever set foot in Florida. Capt. Royce and his men followed the procession, and after running a half-mile found the mule in a tangle of bush, half dead from fright, and the alligator dead behind him.

Filed in Alligators, Mules | Tagged | Comments (0)

Terrible Experience With A Buck.

Thursday, February 16, 2012
Published in the Chicago Daily Tribune, Chicago, Illinois on Monday, January 20, 1890

A Massachusetts Sportsman Nearly Killed While Hunting in Maine.

     Boston, Mass., Jan.-19.-Alanson Haslam, a prominent Waltham sportsman, has just had a terrible experience with a buck which he attempted to kill in Northern Maine. The buck was a handsome specimen, about 3 years old. Haslam attempted to cut the animal’s throat after he had wounded it. The buck made a dash for him, and the hunter was only able to save his life by grabbing the buck’s horns. Back and forth they swayed, the eyes of the buck shooting fire in his madness, and for fully five minutes they held their position neither gaining an advantage. All the time the prongs of the deer’s horns were having a great effect upon Mr. Haslam’s clothing, tearing it into shreds and bruising his chest and stomach each time they struck him. Had he not seen the dear weakening from loss of blood his courage would have failed. Finally a plunge of his knife higher than the previous thrusts struck a vital spot and the crazy buck dropped to the ground dying. The hunter with his clothes hanging in rags from him dropped near the deer and lay motionless until he was rescued.

Filed in Deer | Tagged | Comments (0)

The Furs We Wear.

Thursday, February 16, 2012
Published in the Chicago Daily Tribune, Chicago, Illinois on Sunday, December 23, 1877

Correspondence New York Post.

     The Hudson’s Bay Company, during the season just past, have made their shrewd and abundant preparations for a successful winter’s trade, and the coming spring, no doubt, will show a corresponding result in a more than average catch.

     The first in point of value is the pine marten, or Hudson’s Bay sable, of which about 120,000 skins, on average, are exported every year.

     The fisher is much like the pine martin, but larger. About 12,000 are annually exported from the territory.

     About 250,000 mink skins are exported every year, most to Europe.

     About 520,000 raccoon skins exported each year.

     Demand for Beaver pelts is low and only 60,000 were exported this year.

     Many hundreds of thousands of muskrat furs are exported each year.

     About 15,000 wolf skins are sold annually.

     About 17,000 Land otter pelts are exported every year.

      There is little demand for skunks but 1,000 are sold per year.

     The skin of the bear-black, brown, and grizzly-is always in demand, and is used for innumerable purposes. The number of bears killed annually is not easily determined, but at a safe average, it may be estimatd at 9,000.

     Buffalo Skins.

     An immense annual export, which cannot properly come under the head of fur, is made by the Company in the shape of buffalo robes. In the Autumn of 1870 the line of forts along the Saskatchewan River, in the plain country, had traded 30,000 robes before the 1st of January; and for every one traded fully as much more in the shape of skins of parchment had been purchased, or consumed in the thousand wants of savage life. The number of buffaloes annually killed in this territory seems incredible; 12,000 are said to fall by the blackfeet alone. The forts of the Company are yearly filled with many thousand bags of pemmican, and to each bag two animals may be counted.

Filed in Bears, Buffalo, Muskrats, Skunks, Wolves | Tagged | Comments (0)

Two Children Devoured by Wolves.

Thursday, February 16, 2012
Published in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Illinois on Monday, December 16, 1867

     A Montreal special says that two children were eaten by wolves in the woods, in St. Malachi, on Thursday. The mother had a narrow escape.

Filed in Wolves | Tagged | Comments (0)

An Indiana Dog And a Wolf.

Thursday, February 16, 2012
Published in the Chicago Daily Tribune, Chicag, Illinois on Friday, May 23, 1879

     Lafayette [Ind.] Journal.

     McDowall Cox, who lives about four miles from Lafayette, in Wabash Township, about two weeks ago lost a dog which he highly prized. The last that was seen of the animal was one day about that length of time ago, when he scared up some unknown creature and darted out of sight after it. A day or two ago Mr. Cox accidentally discovered his dead body in the woods, and about thirty feet distant the dead body of a large wolf. The ground around the wolf was covered with hair torn from his wooly coat. Evidently the dog, after a long struggle, had killed the wolf, and then walking off a distance of thirty feet or so, laid down to die. The wolf stood about twenty-two inches in hight when on his feet, and was more than twice as large as the dog.

Filed in Dogs, Wolves | Tagged | Comments (0)

Curing An Elephant’s Cold.

Thursday, February 16, 2012
Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Friday, May 10, 1918

     A circus man, caught in the act of curing an elephant of a cold, was dared to take his own medicine. He declined, but invited the interviewer to return the next day and see the elephant cured. And the next day the elephant was rid of the cold. The keeper placed a bucket of boiling hot vinegar in a bag and then tied the latter about the animal’s trunk so that he was compelled to inhale the beneficial fumes whether he wished to or not.

Filed in Elephants | Tagged | Comments (0)

Rhinoceros a Bad Foe.

Thursday, February 16, 2012
Published in the Waukegan Daily Sun, Waukegan, Illinois on Thursday, July 29, 1909

     While easily stalked, the rhinoceros is a dangerous customer, as most men will agree who have hunted him. If the rhinoceros gets one scent he almost invariably charges, often probably from sheer curiosity, but that does not make him any the easier to dispose of. Moreover, he runs and turns at a speed inconceivable in a beast of his vast bulk. Against his massive, sloping head the heaviest bullet is a mere flea bite, leaving no possibility of a stopping shot except with a hard nose ball sent fairly into the heart through the chest. An alternative is to stand absolutely motionless, when with his bad eyesight there is a possibility he may mistake you for a tree and veer past. Indeed, the best ruse in the crisis of any charge is to stand fast and still, for even the unwounded lion sometimes swerves in his charge and retires before a man who has the nerve to wait his coming.-Edgar Beecher Bronson in Century.

Filed in Rhinoceroses | Tagged | Comments (0)

Flies.

Monday, January 30, 2012
Published in the Waukegan Gazette, Waukegan, Illinois on Saturday, August 19, 1871

     Chafauqua Lake, N. Y., has lately been infested with a great plague of flies. For some days they have gathered around the shores at Mayville in such quanities as to darken the landscape. They are very short lived, and on one morning two and a half baskets of dead flies were swept from the front varandah of the chief hotel in that village. On the opposite side of the street, where a fresh coating of green paint had been applied, the pests lay to the depth of six inches.

Filed in Insects | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Miners Slay 1,000 Sheep.

Saturday, January 21, 2012
Published in the Lake County Independent, Libertyville, Illinois on Friday, July 28, 1905

     One thousand head of sheep, the property of Lux & Miller of San Francisco, were shot in the Granite mining district of eastern Grant county, Oegon. Sheep owners had been warned to keep off certain mining property because of damage to the water supply and to forage the miners wanted for their horses. The herders persisted and the miners destroyed a large part of the band.

Filed in Sheep | Tagged | Comments (0)