Two Husbands Killed by Same Rattlesnake

1916

Woman Made Widow Second Time — Reptile Is Then Captured and Slain.

HATTIESBURG, Mississippi. — W. C. Cole, Hattiesburg grocer, has just received a dead rattlesnake which he says was responsible for the death of two husbands of a woman in the logging camps of Mississippi.

"I do not want to mention the woman's name," said Mr. Cole, "as she begged me not to. Some two years ago her husband was killed by a snake while logging. He was bitten, the fangs of the snake penetrating a high top boot.

"After his death another lumberman married the woman. Being poor, she offered him her dead husband's high top boots. He accepted them. He died a few days later from snake poisoning. It was found that the fang of the snake was imbedded in the boot and had penetrated the flesh of the second husband, also poisoning him."

Mr. Cole says this is the first case of the kind he ever heard and that several hunters captured and killed the snake.

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

Few Old Signs Left

1920

Many of the familiar trade signs used to advertise business enterprises have been discarded entirely in the onward sweep of advertising progress or displaced by more or less artistic displays of paint and electric lights.

One of the most common of the oldtimers that has vanished, says the New York Sun, was the wooden Indian, which kept its silent, stolid vigil beside the door of the tobacconist. The significant boot that once was suspended over the shop of the repairer of boots and shoes is also only a memory. So are the anvil hanging above the entrance to the blacksmith's shop and the horse's heads over livery-men's doorways.

The origin of the cigar store Indian dates back to Sir Walter Raleigh and his English settlers in our sunny South. These fortune seekers, visiting the unseen New World in the seventeenth century, and for the first time in the history of the white race learning the use of the tobacco weed from the North American Indian, symbolized this industry by the red man's imposing figure.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 6.

Keep Your Shoes "New"

1902

Some people always buy the most expensive footwear, and always manage to look ill shod. Others haunt bargain counters and wear unpretentious shoemaker's shoes, and somehow the boot toe peeping from beneath their skirt is always of the neatest.

All boots, shoes and slippers intended for ordinary wear should be kept on their tree when not in use, and whenever the walking boots get damp, they must be rubbed with vaseline as soon as they are taken off, first, however, removing the mud and afterward padding them with soft linen rags or paper. This will preserve their shape and prevent shrinkage. Shoe polish should be used sparingly, and only after the dust has been wiped off, for more shoes are destroyed by the reckless use of polish than is generally supposed.

The First Rubber Boots: Standing in Water Like a Heron

1916

RUBBER AND HUMOR.

A Closely Clinging Garment and a Laughable Request.

Once Professor Emmet of the University of Virginia visited in New York with his family and while there received from abroad a pair of india rubber cloth boots. His son, Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, in his book, "Incidents of My Life," says that his distinguished father was happier in his new possessions than a child with a new toy and spent most of his time standing like a heron in the water to test them.

Their shape was not such as would have fascinated Packelan, the famous bootmaker. They were made like a long stocking of coarse canvas, with a leather sole, and over all was smeared a paste of rubber which might have answered in cold weather, but which was sticky and ill smelling under a moderately hot sun. In very few articles has there been more improvement than in rubber goods since they first came into use.

My father took back with him a "raincoat" as a present to our old negro coachman, but he could never be induced to wear it in the rain, and when expostulated with his answer was, "Does you t'ink I's gwine wear dis new coat in de rain?" He never wore it except in the bright sunshine and on a warm day, so that when he got off the box at the stable it was necessary to take with him the cushion and remove his trousers before he could get his coat off.

I recollect as a child the first "gum shoes" in use, which were hideous to look at and most uncomfortable over a shoe, but which to the bare feet of the old negroes were a joy and a comfort. The first rubber shoe was shaped like a large sausage, and from one end along the side a piece was removed to permit the introduction of the foot. After the foot was inserted the elastic substance shaped itself about it.

They were always called "gum shoes." While a medical student I was present at the opening of the Girard House in Philadelphia, and I remember that there were printed notices at each entrance with the request, "Please wipe your gums on the mat."

Two Illinois Girls Capture Wall Street, Polishing Boots

1903

GIRLS CAPTURE WALL STREET.

The Forest Sisters of Champaign, Ill., Polish the Brokers' Boots.

The very newest get-rich-quick concern that ever struck New York was launched in Wall street recently by two pretty young girls from Champaign, Ill. Marie and Belle Forest, two sisters, one 18 years old, the other two years her senior, invaded the field just before the bulls and bears had begun to shout their wares on 'change. These two enterprising maidens, both attractive brunettes, with the red rose bloom of country on their cheeks and smiling mischievously, were busy all day distributing tickets bearing the following legend throughout Wall, Beaver, News and Broad streets:

"This entitles the holder to one shine at the Eagle tonsorial parlor, No. 71 Wall street, on Monday, March 2."

At first the brokers and kings of finance turned to them the real icy countenance. "Don't want any women canvassers," was the answer the Illinois girls had in the offices.

By and by it was learned that the maidens were endeavoring to earn an honest living by shining shoes, and that, too, with dainty white hands. Then "the street fell." Before noon a thousand tickets had been paid for at 10 cents each, and the question now is, how are Belle and Marie going to keep the contract?

What they offer is to shine for one day the boots of every customer who enters the barber shop at No. 71 Wall street. While Marie is at one foot Belle proposes shining up the other.

"I'll just tell you how it was," said the latter, as she spread out fifteen tickets, fanshape, for speedy purchase by gallant brokers in the consolidated exchange. "Marie and I just came from Champaign and we had a notion to start a manicure parlor here. Everybody seems to get rich in this place. We thought it would be easy to earn an honest living.

"But in about three weeks we had not found a thing to do, and our funds were on the last ebb. We were living then in West Twenty-ninth street, right in the Tenderloin district, and the things we saw there just fairly sickened us."

"'Marie,' I said one day, when we did not know whether to have dinner or breakfast, for we were having but one meal per day, 'I'll do any mortal thing rather than live like these women around here. Ill black boots.'

"'Well, just that,' Marie said, 'let's black boots,' and now you know it all. We're going to be on hand next Monday bright and early, practice up in the meantime, and I'll bet we make a lot. Just see the way they're buying tickets."

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, Iowa, March 5, 1903, page 2.