Not to be Caught Twice

New York, 1895

Twenty years ago Jarvis M. Jarvis was struck by a train on the Merrick crossing of the Long Island railroad and lost a leg. Thursday while driving over the same crossing he was run down by a locomotive, but jumped in time to save the other leg. His wagon was demolished.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, May 10, 1895, p. 1.

Mary Wiley Given to Her Father

New York, 1895

Little Mary Wiley, whose feet were cut off by a Long Island railroad train at Jamaica in 1891, and who got a verdict for $12,000 damages against the company in the Circuit Court the other day, was given into the custody of her father, John J. Wiley, of Jamaica, by Justice Cullen on Saturday. Mary's mother, Sarah Wiley, who was seriously injured at the same time, consented that her daughter should be given to Wiley. Since the child was discharged from the Emergency hospital she has been cared for at the Mineola home, first at the cost of the King's Daughters, who raised the money to buy her artificial feet, and then at the expense of the county.


Setauket's Rubber Industry

The rubber trust, which absorbed the Long Island rubber company at Setauket, has sold out to the North American rubber company, composed of local and New York capitalists. The stipulation is that the new company will not manufacture rubber boots and shoes, but confine its output to bicycle tires, waterproof blankets, coats and horse goods. The company will employ about two hundred Polish Jews.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, April 12, 1895, p. 8.

A Nervy Museum Manager

1901

Sarah Bernhardt said that one night during a visit to America when she was playing "Jeanne d'Arc," she hurt her knee with a rusty nail. "The wound gave me considerable pain and trouble," she said, "and it was thought that a slight operation might possibly be required. This fact appeared in the daily papers, and a day or two afterward I received a telegram from the manager of a museum in Chicago saying that if it was necessary to amputate my leg might he please have it. He added he would drape it if desired."

A Use for Grasshoppers

Editorial observations, 1910

A Colorado farmer has gathered 125 bushels of grasshoppers, which he intends to dry, so that they may be used for chicken feed next winter. Since a use has been found for grasshoppers we may expect future crops of them to be failures.

A new comet has been discovered. There ought to be a stop put to this. If the former one brought about all the trouble which has been going on the earth since, we can spare any more of these heavenly mischief makers for some time to come. And those who are looking for trouble and read their answer in the stars should be legally enjoined, at least until the world has had time to catch its breath.

Look over your small change carefully; there are several counterfeit five-dollar bills in circulation.

Owing to the fact that their wives are away for the summer a good many men are almost forgetting how to button waists up the back.

Cincinnati surgeons are to amputate a citizen's six-inch nose. To use a Pittsburgh word, the gentleman really is "nobby."

No picnic can claim to have been destroyed by rainy weather this season.

Armless Judge Going to Europe to Aid Crippled

1915
Click Photo for Bigger

There He Will Arrange Plans to Help Allies' Maimed

Photo Caption: With only his mechanical arm — designed by himself — Judge Quentin D. Corley dresses and shaves himself, handles his own food, writes his own opinions and handles his own records in the County Court of Dallas County, Texas. He drives an auto, bowls, plays billiards, carries bundles and even helps his wife with the housework.

Over in Europe there are many armless men who feel they are hopelessly helpless. So the Dallas judge is going abroad to do what he can to aid war victims "for humanity's sake," as told in another column on this page.

The top picture shows Judge Corley completing his dressing operations. A contrivance, attached to a suit case, permits him to put on his collar and tie. With an almost similar machine he shaves himself. Below is a photograph of the judge bowling.

DALLAS, Texas, Dec. 16. — Quentin D. Corley, the "armless judge" of this city, will soon take up the burden of the maimed in the European conflict. On Dec. 22 he will leave for Washington, D. C., to confer with an official whose name is not known and who had told the Belgium ambassador to America that Judge Corley, the armless, does the work of a man in everyday life.

It is expected that the judge will sign a contract with the Allies to teach armless soldiers to be happy and to be useful.

The judge says any work he may do will be for the sake of humanity and not for money. "I shall only accept the same salary. I am getting now, and expenses," he says. "If they see fit to honor me if I do their men a service, I shall be glad of that, too."

Story of the Judge's Career

Judge Corley's story is a strange one. He was of a roving disposition when young, and took no qualms at satisfying it as a guest of the railroads. He was riding thru New York State on a freight train when a burly brakeman's head showed over the far end of the car. He slipped and fell as he tried to flee. The trainmen picked him up a poor, mangled youth. One arm was gone at the shoulder and the other just above the elbow.

As he lay in the hospital fighting for life, he began figuring how he would use that life once he was out again.

"I strove to invent and picture in my mind a mechanical hand, but of course I could not get anything but the open and shut movement; no one has," he says. "Then I thought that if I made an arm with an elbow joint in it, and so rigid that it would have both lateral and perpendicular movement, I had the problem solved."

A youth of 23, seemingly handicapped for all time and yet doomed by a healthy body to live a long life, Corley came home to his parents in Dallas with only his idea of a mechanical arm — and a deathless ambition to conquer the terrible odds against him.

How His Plans Worked Out

For four years he studied law with all the mental force of his brilliant mind, and at night he spent hours upon the plan for his mechanical arm. When completed, it was a steel hook made of two steel flanges, which opened and shut on cogs, a little handle which turned them being worked by his teeth. In this way he gripped things tightly, and with the hook he could handle almost anything he could lift.

From then on it was easy. He soon learned to write and then passed the bar examination. He began to practice law and to practice the use of his arm, and study means by which he could use it. His progress was wonderful. He invented other machines, to be used in dressing and sport, until today he can do almost anything a normal being desires to do.

He has a desire bordering on passion to aid the soldiers who have lost both arms in battle. There were more than ten thousand of them in the Allies' armies alone at last count.

Wants to Make Them Useful

"I know I can teach them to use my inventions within a short time, and I want to do it," he says. "I want them to get away from the terrible feeling that they are burdens upon the state and upon their families. If they'll put these men in my hands I can teach a thousand in three months to use this arm and take their places in life and seek happiness."

His friends say he can do it, too. He has pupils all over Texas who are learning from him the secrets. They invariably make good when he turns them loose.

Judge Corley has the inventions he uses patented, but does not sell them. "I have them for humanity," he says.

The plan on which the Belgian ambassador is said to want Judge Corley to work will be a school under his supervision, at which armless men will be equipped and trained by him. It will take him to Europe about four years, if the war continues a year or so longer.

—Saturday Blade, Chicago, Dec. 18, 1915, p. 5.

Pickpocket's Hand in a Mole Trap

1905

Louis Hugon, a young pickpocket of seventeen, had a most unfortunate experience this afternoon while exercising his profession.

A crowd had assembled around a fallen horse in the Place d'Italie, and Hugon saw a lady whose bulging pockets offered all kinds of tempting possibilities. Without further ado he deftly introduced his hand, but instead of grasping the expected purse, found his finger securely caught in a new mole trap which the lady had just purchased.

With Spartan-like heroism, he uttered no cry, but tried to withdraw his hand. The lady, however, became conscious that something was wrong, and Hugon was seized by the bystanders and handed over to the police. The latter took him to the Hospital de la Pitie, where the amputation of his finger was adjudged necessary. — Paris correspondence, London Chronicle.


Descended Mountain on Skis

Norman Libby of Bridgton, Me., recently made the ascent of Mt. Washington and made the descent to the base on skis, without mishap, being the first man who ever successfully made the attempt.

Fish Bites Girl's Finger

1915

She Lands Prize Pickerel but Loses the Digit

MONTICELLO, N. Y., Dec. 16. — Miss Kittie Evans of Jersey caught one of the largest pickerels of the season here, but she is now minus one of her fingers as the result of her prize catch.

Miss Evans with her arm bared to the shoulder, reached down under the log to dislodge the hook, which had caught on the log. An instant later she fell back screaming into the boat, and when she drew her arm from the water a large pickerel came flopping into the boat. When Miss Evans attempted to loosen the hook, the large pickerel, which apparently must have been under the log, "struck" at the live minnow and also seized Miss Evans' finger.

The young lady was taken in an automobile to a physician's office at Centerville. The fish's teeth had so badly mangled her finger that the doctor found it necessary to amputate the injured member. The pickerel's weight was four pounds and three ounces.

Peg-Legged Hen a Fighter

1905

Side-Wallops Fowl That Make Light of Her Infirmity

Laying five eggs a week in the season when prices are highest is a minor accomplishment of a Ware (Mass.) hen that has a wooden leg. The hen is of Rhode Island red stock, and is owned by Charles F. Wilcox.

The leg was broken last spring, when it was a pullet, by a stone from the hand of a wanton youth. The fractured support was bandaged in splints and the bone apparently knit. But cold weather had a bad effect and a sore developing, Mr. Wilcox decided to end the suffering of the hen.

His little daughters pleaded so strongly for the hen that Mr. Wilcox spared her life and amputated the leg. In tribute to its fortitude the hen was christened Martyr.

"Why can't Martyr have a wooden leg like other people?" inquired one of Mr. Wilcox's daughters. Mr. Wilcox facetiously referred the suggestion to Gilbert Girard, who declared the idea practicable, and after taking measurements of Martyr's right leg, fashioned a leg from hard maple and attached it.

The leg, which was fitted several weeks ago, has never been removed, and the daughters of Mr. Wilcox refuse to be convinced that scales, feathers and toes will not eventually appear on the artificial leg.

When Martyr made her first appearance with the barnyard fowl after acquiring the wooden leg, her former associates united in attacking her. Martyr, however, had learned the value of the leg as a weapon, and with hard side swipes bowled her antagonists over. Her assailants adopted a conciliatory policy thereafter.

A favorite recreation with Martyr is to insert the wooden leg in the snow, and, curling the right leg beneath its feathers, stand for half an hour or more at a time, enjoying the discomfiture of imitators. Once the wooden leg became frozen in the ice, and Martyr had to be rescued.

Now Amputation By Shock

1910

Eminent French Surgeon Suggests That Operation May Be Performed Without Cutting

Paris. — Though it is not pleasant, of course, to have an arm or a leg amputated, no matter how painlessly this operation may be performed, there are cases where it is absolutely necessary, and then the question of how to do it is important.

A French surgeon, Prof. D'Arsonval, suggests a method which is quite novel, and not only painless during the operation, but without the slightest trouble afterward. Neither knife, saw, nor any other cutting instrument is to be used. The limb is simply to fall off as if by magic, with the wound completely healed and cicatrized. The amputation suggested is by means of electric currents of high frequency.

Prof. D'Arsonval explains that he has been able to send currents of high frequency through animals, and to raise the temperature of their bodies to a very high degree, without any apparent effect on their sensibility or the contractability of their muscles. The animals seemed to feel nothing whatever. In some cases, he says, the calorific effect was such that certain members were literally cooked, and, strange to say, the animal did not betray the least feeling of pain. When the members fell away after some days, as it were, by their own action, the stumps were perfectly cicatrized.

"Goodbye" to Doctor Costs Polly a Leg

1920

Door Nips It Off and Now Bird Must Wear a Peg

JEFFERSONVILLE, N.Y. — Dr. Cyril Mydole of this village has a parrot. The doctor bought the bird when she was a year old and gave her the real parrot name, Polly. Polly displayed much intelligence from the day he purchased her and in a few months developed startling vocabulary "cuss" words. Today the parrot is using her profanity freely and the doctor says she is justified.

Polly has been allowed the freedom of the physician's office. She would follow the doctor to his office door and bid him goodbye. On a recent afternoon the doctor started to leave his office. Just as he closed the door he heard a scream. He looked around and found Polly's leg had been caught in the door. Upon examination he found that the leg was so badly mangled that he amputated it at the second joint.

Polly is now forced to stand on her right leg. She says it is "damn hard luck," and hurls invectives at the doctor. As soon as Polly's injured leg heals the doctor will provide her with a peg leg.


Washboard Salary Halts Honeymoon

ST. LOUIS, Missouri — "On his salary she would have to use the washboard for a piano," said George W. Windmuller, in discussing the suit filed in the Circuit Court by his daughter, Mrs. Georgia Chembra, 16 years old, to annul her marriage to Albert L. Chembra.

She was married to Chembra by a justice of the peace in Clayton Jan. 28 last. He is 20 years old. After the ceremony she returned to her father's home, and he to that of his mother. When the girl's father learned of the marriage through the newspapers he refused to allow Chembra to see his bride.

Mrs. Chembra in her suit says her husband misrepresented his financial condition and his earning capacity.

Here and There — Miss Fairy Straley's School Closed

Pennsylvania, 1921

Miss Fairy Straley's school, Midway, closed on Tuesday. A summer school will be opened in Midway schoolhouse on Monday by Miss Ioma Yake to be conducted for the next eight weeks.

A .22 cartridge in a pipeful of tobacco exploded as Chas. Kappes was smoking in the Eagle's home, Gettysburg, on Tuesday night, shattering the pipe. The bullet just missed the head of Wm. Tipton, Jr., who was seated nearby.

When A. E. Walker, aged 42, of East Berlin R. D., was arrested by Patrolman Stayman for disregarding the traffic signal Saturday afternoon, he explained, not as an excuse at all, that altho he is the father of nine children and is a truck farmer, he clean forgot all about the traffic regulations. Chief Craver discharged him with a reprimand, declaring that a man with nine children, and who has nerve enough to buy an automobile, too, ought to have some consideration.

A service for the benefit of the starving Chinese will be held in Maple Grove chapel, near Abbottstown on Saturday evening. The Rev. Paul Glatfelter and William H. Menges, of Menges Mills, will be the speakers. A silver offering will be lifted.

George W. Rudisill, about 65 years old, a well-known farmer of near Glenville, was injured in a horrible manner Friday morning, and later in the day had his right arm removed at the West Side sanatorium, York. His arm was caught and shredded in a grain separator, which he was operating at the time of the accident.

—New Oxford Item, New Oxford, Pennsylvania, April 7, 1921.

Hornets Got Him in Tree — and Other Painful Stories

1909

CHESTER, Pennsylvania — His head swathed in bandages, his sight temporarily gone, a leg and arm broken, and a rib splintered, Albert Thachrah, aged 15 years, of Aston Mills, is suffering from the effects of a fierce battle with a nest of hornets.

He was high up in the branches of an apple tree, when, in attempting to save himself from falling, he grabbed a branch to which a huge nest of hornets was attached. Immediately the angered insects began to sting him, and the boy tumbled to the ground, breaking his arm and leg and splintering his rib. Being unable to run, Thachrah was easy prey for the hornets until his cries brought relief and he was carried to a place of safety.


Mad Dog's Scratch Fatal

WAVERLY, New York — A scratch from the paw of a rabid dog was responsible for the death today of George Murray, the 4-year-old child of a local merchant. The boy was playing near his home one afternoon, three weeks ago, with two older boys, when they were suddenly attacked by a strange dog. The other two were bitten and were sent to the Pasteur Institute for treatment as soon as it became known that the dog was made. The Murray child's injury was so superficial, however, that no alarm was felt. yesterday he developed unmistakable symptoms of rabies and died today in great agony.



Tiger Chews Boy's Arm

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico — During the arrival of Campbell Bros. show, Ernest Hammond, aged 13, leaned against a tiger's cage and the animal seized his arm, breaking it at the wrist, and lacerating it so that amputation may be necessary. The boy was held by the tiger for ten minutes before the keepers could pry its jaws open with iron bars.

A Woman's Finger Torn Off

1878

One of the most singular accidents which it has fallen to our lot to record occurred to Mrs. George Sweeley, who resides at the corner of Perry street and Central avenue, Albany, N. Y.

Mrs. Sweeley, it appears, went out to her hen-house to collect the eggs, and in order to reach one nest on a sort of loft, she was obliged to use a step ladder. She mounted the ladder, which was set against the side of the house, and while in the act of reaching out, slipped and fell. As she slipped, she endeavored to catch hold of a beam just above the ladder, but her hand slipped off that, and her heavy plain gold wedding ring on the third finger of her left hand caught on projecting nail. By the fall her whole weight was thrown on that one finger, and the nail being firm, the flesh of the finger was stripped from the bone by the ring up to the first joint, when that joint, with the stripped flesh, was cut off as clean as though amputated by a surgeon, and fell to the ground.

Strange to say, not a drop of blood flowed from the severed member. Mrs. Sweeley hastened into the house in a fainting condition, and Drs. Wm. H. Murray and T. H. Starkweather being sent for, amputated what was left of the finger close to the hand. The ring was subsequently found still hanging on the nail with the severed finger beneath it.

Being a Good Fellow, Providing for Your Family

Being a Good Fellow

The man who has an income of $10,000 a year and spends every cent of it on his wife and family and friends is a good fellow and is blessed by everybody even after he has died and left not a cent to keep his children in school, to save his wife from going to work for their bread and butter or to pay his bills scattered around the town. He dies a royal good fellow, with the reputation of living only for his family.

The man who takes $1,000 a year off his wife's back in clothes and $1,000 a year off his own back and off his drinks and cigars and puts it into insurance for them against the time when he is dead and another $1,000 a year out of other things that make a man generous and lovable and puts that into a bond every twelvemonth for them and then dies and leaves them where his children can stay in school and his wife go on living in comfort — well, he is a curmudgeon with a mind not above sordid things, every time! — New York Press.


Economy.
Monahan-Poor Clancy!
Donegan—Why, man alive, 'tis great luck he's in!
"P'hwat; D'ye call it luck to have wan o' yer legs cut off?"
"Av coorse. It'll only cost him half as much now for shoes and pants." — Philadelphia Record.

—The Marion Daily Star, Marion, Ohio, February 27, 1902, page 7.

Railroad Worker, Brakeman Loses Legs in Accident

Mankato, Minnesota, 1913--

HOKAH BRAKEMAN LOSES HIS LEGS

Silas Green, age 25, a brakeman on the Northwestern railroad, may recover from an accident which happened Monday at Eagle Lake, near Mankato, Minn., when both of his legs were amputated by a freight train. Green is a resident of Hokah.

Green was braking on a freight train. As the train neared Eagle Lake it pulled into a side track to allow another freight, bound in the opposite direction to pass. According to the crew of the passing freight train, Green swung off the rear end of the train into the path of the onrushing freight. One of the legs was cut off at the knee and the other near the hip.

His crew took Green to a hospital as quickly as possible where physicians said that there was a fair chance of saving his life. Green is known here among railroad men.

--The La Crosse Tribune, La Crosse, Wisconsin, October 8, 1913, page 4.

Thrown Off By Brakeman and Had Hand Cut Off

NORFOLK, Neb., June 30.
—Special to The News.—
While stealing a ride on a freight train near West Point today, Anton Niedemeier, of Wisner, was ordered off by the brakeman, and he stubbed his toe and fell. His hand was run over and was amputated.

--Lincoln Evening News, Lincoln, Nebraska, June 30, 1905, page 1.


A Dog's Queer Taste.

"Old Peter Jenkins of our town has the only tobacco-chewing dog ever heard of," says a Bristol, Pa., man in the Philadelphia Record. "The dog is now over 10 years old, and, so far as anybody knows, he has been a slave to the habit ever since he was a puppy. Peter himself says he doesn't remember how the pup acquired the taste; maybe he was born with it. At any rate Peter never takes a chew without offering one to the dog if he is around, and the dog never refuses. If Peter should happen to forget he would soon be forcibly reminded of his oversight. It is a curious thing to see the dog lying with head in his paws, working his jaws over a juicy quid. He swallows it, too, and it never seems to make him sick."

--The Sioux County Bee, Rock Valley, Iowa, July 24, 1903, page 4.


A Mean Fellow.

Clara -- Of all mean, selfish, worldly, despicable creatures, I think Mr. Huggem is the worst.
Dora -- Why, what has he done?
Clara -- When I refused him he did not commit suicide, or go to a mountain cave, or anything. He's engaged to a girl I hate. -- New York Weekly.


A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market. -- Charles Lamb.


Happy, Nevertheless

Oh, he was a trusted employe,
With a life in obscurity spent,
He found 'twas his lot
To be wholly forgot,
'Cause he never embezzled a cent.
--Washington Star.


Beethoven's mother was a stout, brisk, hard-working housewife, who seemed to have not a thought about her daily duties.

--The Sioux County Bee, Rock Valley, Iowa, July 24, 1903, page 4.