Connecticut Quarantines

1895

Whenever a case of smallpox occurs in a country town in Connecticut, all roads leading to the house of the patient are barricaded, and a high fence is erected 150 feet away from the dwelling on all sides. Food is furnished the quarantined by a factotum, but no one else except the doctor is allowed to go near the house. The peculiar quarantine laws have been handed down from the colonial period. — Philadelphia Press.


Marble

The Carrara marble quarries are practically inexhaustible. The entire mass of Mount Sagro, which dominates Carrara, is solid marble. About 160,000 tons of marble are annually exported.


Crocodiles

The eggs of the crocodile are scarcely larger than those of the goose.

"Thank You" Is All She Gets

1916

And Just Think, She Found and Restored $2,500 Cash.

NEW YORK. — Joseph Rorner of East Norwalk, Connecticut, recovered $2,500 he left in an elevated train in Brooklyn.

Just as Rorner was reporting his loss to the police a young woman purchased a ticket at the City Hall station of the Third avenue elevated line and pushed a bundle thru the ticket window.

"Here is a bundle which I picked up in a Brooklyn elevated train," she explained.

The package was found to contain a big roll of gold and silver certificates. It was sent to the lost and found department of the Interborough.

The following morning the general storekeeper of the Interborough read of Rorner's loss and wired him to call, which Rorner did at once. After identifying himself he received his bank roll. As he left he said, "I thank you."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 5.

Smashes His Fist In Dream

1916

Dentist Thinks He's in a Fight and Punches Wall.

TORRINGTON, Connecticut. — No teeth are being drilled, filled, drawn or quartered in the office of Dr. Arthur E. Guildford today because his right hand is all out of shape.

Dr. Guildford dreamed that he was horsewhipping another man, but his blows were so violent that he soon wore out the whip. His victim realized the predicament and sprang at the dentist. Doubling his right fist, Dr. Guildford lunged such a terrific blow at the horsewhipped man that he almost knocked a hole thru the wall next to the bed.

The blow awakened every one else in the house and a physician had to be called to apply arnica and bandages to Dr. Guildford's battered tooth-pulling hand. Every one in Torrington would like to know who Dr. Guildford dreamed he was horsewhipping and why.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 7.

Point To This Needle's Joke

1916

Woman From Timber Country Finds It, Too.

WINSTED, Connecticut — Entering a Winsted store on which appeared the word "Needles," a woman from the city who is passing her first summer here. asked for a package of needles.

"We don't keep any small wares," said the man behind the counter.

"Then why do you say 'needles' on the window?" retorted the stranger.

"That's my name," ejaculated Solomon Needles, proprietor of the store.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 7.

Hens Ate Deadly Dynamite

1910

Owner Won't Go Near Them, Afraid of Their Eggs

Winsted, Connecticut — A man who has a small farm a few miles from this town does not dare to trample on a small portion of it, and is afraid to eat his own hens' eggs. Heavy fowls he had been fattening for Thanksgiving are immune from death for the present, so far as his killing them is concerned.

Dynamite is the cause of his trouble. He opened two one-pound sticks of the explosive, into which a little frost had found its way, and after breaking the cylinders into pieces spread them on a flat stone in the sun to dry. He meant to use the dynamite in a lot he is clearing.

When he went to get the explosive after he had drilled holes in a big boulder, he saw a flock of his hens scratching in the dynamite, and eating it as they would eat small gravel. That's why the farmer does not dare to eat his own hens' eggs, for he fears particles of dynamite may lurk in the shells.

"Who knows where that dynamite they ate is now?" he said, sadly. "Suppose it's got into the shells? Think I'd run the risk of cracking one of those egg-shells? Yet how are you going to eat eggs without breaking the shells?"

And that's the story in an egg shell. The puzzled farmer cannot tell by the looks of his hens which ate the dynamite, therefore he doesn't dare eat any of them at Thanksgiving. As for swinging heavily on their heads with an axe he shudders at the thought.


Not Responsible

Nurse — What's that dirty mark on your leg, Master Frank?
Frank — Harold kicked me.
Nurse — Well, go at once and wash it off.
Frank — Why? It wasn't me that did it! — Punch.

This Fish Chews Gum

Connecticut, 1914

Winsted, Ct., Jan. 2. — Pete, a tame trout in Highland lake, has acquired a taste for sweets and also chews gum.

The fish, following a New Year's dinner of bits of roasted turkey and liver, was given molasses candy, which he chewed until it melted in his mouth. When the gum was dropped into the deep walled spring where Pete lives the year round he quickly took it and began chewing.

Half an hour later he still was chewing the gum while leisurely swimming about in a circle. The trout weighs a pound and a half and will respond to its name and eat from its owner's fingers.

"Saving Our Bacon" - The Expression's Origin

1919--

SAVING OUR BACON

Origin of an Ancient Colloquialism in Connecticut

Expression Used When Debtor Gets Best of Creditors by Questionable Methods in Business Deals

Distribution and sale of the government supply of bacon brought to the minds of many who are acquainted with old sayings the ancient colloquialism, "Saving one's bacon." The thrifty housewife, laying in a store of the smoked meat, assures her near neighbors that she is "saving her bacon." The housewife, of course, is telling the truth, but as she repeats the ancient colloquialism she fails to use it in its proper sense.

The housewife who is so gay over "saving her bacon" would be horrified and justly provoked if her neighbors would reply: "What! You cheating your creditors?" And that is just what she means if she employs the term properly. The story of the origin of the colloquialism is credited to Connecticut, according to the Hartford Times.

In the days when the Charter Oak was green and Sir Edmund Andrews was more green, new London boasted of a citizen of the name of Fitz John Winthrop. He was a sailor, and moreover of literary tastes. These tastes were more distinctly commercial. That is, while he was quite a bibliophile on his own account, and had a goodly store of books, he was in the business of collecting books for others. Probably because he was something of a connoisseur, the colonist who coveted foreign published books engaged him to obtain them when he was in port on the other side; or, knowing their fads, he would, of his own account, make the purchases, and bring them over, disposing of them at a fair profit.

Among the customers was a lawyer who was also interested in shipping, politics and several other things which in our later day might go by the name of speculations. At the time when he was flush with money he would invest in books, and depute Capt. Fitz John to obtain them abroad. Among other works for which he had something of a penchant were those of Lord Bacon. He managed to have quite a sizable importation at different times. On one occasion,when the captain came into port and brought him a bale of books, he found the lawyer in financial difficulties of a shady character. On the following day the property was to be "distrained."

Under the colonial law among other things exempt from the claws of the creditor was meat of various descriptions and quantities. Bewailing the fact that his books must go under the hammer, he was disconsolate when the captain came with the additional volumes. He had a decent supply of wits and he and the lawyer, working industriously by night, managed to stow away a good deal of the library in meat barrels in the cellar. On top of each was a layer of bacon in coarse salt. The following day, when the sheriff's clerk came with his red chalk, he scrawled his "X" on each of the barrels, and the contents were exempted.

It must have been some time later when Capt. Fitz John related the story, and managed to add, "Leave it to any one if them bar'ls didn't hold Bacon!" And so when a debtor got the best of his creditors by questionable methods, the proceedings got to be known as "saving one's bacon."

--The Hamilton Daily News, Hamilton, Ohio, October 6, 1919, page 10.