Man's Death Due To Fright

1920

Acute Indigestion Sets In When His Horse Runs Away.

COLUSA, Cal. — Louis Zeisler of San Francisco died at Wilbur Springs, near here, as a result of being scared by a horse. Zeisler had been riding when the horse became frightened and ran away. Zeisler became ill and died. The inquest jurors decided death was due to acute indigestion brought on by "a scare from a horse soon after eating a hearty meal."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 3.

Experience Proves It

1916

We see in one of these New York papers that women have a "Hereditary Fear of Man," that this fear has come prowling down the ages from the time when woman was not safe from the predatory male, and so on. Yes, we can prove it.

Some twenty-odd years ago or more we came face to face with our teacher over a small difference of opinion concerning a matter of deportment. We looked her right in the eye as lion tamers do now in moving pictures, and we talked up as United States senators have always done. We remember very clearly the haste with which she grabbed into her desk for her ruler. That hereditary fear was working.

Over what followed we draw a veil — no doubt she did it in self-defense and the interests of culture. We are still sorry we scared her so badly and it is rather nice to know that it was really her fear of us that made us such a model pupil for the next week or two. You see they didn't have all the advantages of sociology back in 1880 odd, but we can all live and learn and read the papers. — Collier's.


Where He Had It

Little Fred — I've been awful sick.
Little Harry — What was the matter?
Little Fred — I had brain fever — right in my head, too — the worst place anyone could have it.

Big, Impudent Black Bass

1916

Jumps Into Rowboat and Occupants Nearly Drowned.

LAKE MILLS, Wisconsin. — While boating up the Fox River a 5½-pound black bass jumped into the rowboat of Lloyd and Ione Thomas, of Waukesha, 10 and 12 years old, respectfully, and because of the confusion that followed a serious accident narrowly was averted. Other fishermen came to the rescue of the children.

It has been reported that on at least six different occasions this summer fish have jumped into boats on the Fox River and other Northern Wisconsin lakes. They become frightened, it is said, when struck by the motorboats which they are unable to see at a distance because of the muddy water.

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

The Lady and the Cobra

1901

An English woman residing in India one evening found to her horror that a huge cobra had coiled itself about her veranda rails, near which she sat playing the violin. She was too near the snake to run with safety, so she continued playing while she gradually edged away. At first her only idea was to keep the creature thus engaged while she escaped, but when she had gained a safer distance and perhaps fascinated by the unwonted sight a strange inspiration seized her. She played air after air of different characters.

The effect was magical. That snake behaved like an ardent, hot blooded disciple of Paganini. Every variation in the music, whether of volume or of tone, produced instantly a corresponding change in the attitude of the cobra. If she played a lively dance, it swayed its body sideways in quick time and yet in graceful curves. Once she struck a number of false notes in rapid succession on purpose, The cobra winced and writhed in pain as if suddenly struck with a whip.

Thus the creature behaved like a mad musician till the lady, getting tired of the sport, gradually worked herself farther and farther and then made a sudden bolt into her room and banged the door, leaving the cobra to wander disconsolate to its lair in the fields.

Braves Surgeon's Knife; Balks at Facing Altar

1920

NEW YORK, N. Y., Jan. 1. — Dr. William Gray Vermilye, 62, a former naval surgeon, did not flinch when he was called upon to face the surgeon's knife in a Brooklyn hospital. But when it came to leading Miss Ruth M. Keeney, 35, to the altar he balked. In fact, he disappeared on the day he was to have been married and sought the hospital to have a minor operation performed rather than face the preacher with his intended bride.

Dr. Vermilye was found by Miss Keeney, who was on the verge of collapse. She carried a bouquet for him and sent to his room a request that he see her.

He refused.

Miss Keeney fainted.

Interviewers were unable to get a statement out of the physician for quite awhile. Finally he issued a prepared statement to the effect that on his return from South America recently he was met with an invitation to his own wedding. He denied he was hiding from any one, but intimated that he just didn't have the nerve to get married after living in single blessedness so long.

A Rattlesnake Story

1910

In "Life and Sport on the Pacific Coast" Horace A. Vachell relates one of his narrow escapes from a friend's bullet.

"My cousin and I had been camping and hunting for several days in a sort of paradise valley. One day during a long ride on horseback we had seen a great many rattlesnakes and killed a few, an exceptional experience. That night my cousin woke up and saw by the light of the moon a big rattler crawling across my chest. He lay for a moment fascinated, horror struck, watching the sinuous curves of the reptile. Then he quietly reached for his six shooter, but he could not see the reptile's head, and he moved nearer, noiselessly, yet quickly, dreading some movement on my part that should precipitate the very thing he dreaded, and then he saw that it was not a snake at all — only the black and yellow stripe of my blanket, which gently rose and fell as I breathed. Had he fired — well, it might have been bad for me, for he confessed that his hand shook."

Gypsy Is "Sot" On Him

1901

Young Man Who Has a Wild Time With a Fair Romany

Janesville, Wis., April 25. — A well-known young man of this city has applied to the police for protection, as he fears he will be kidnapped.

For some days past a gypsy named Zyra has been telling fortunes here, and many people have been to consult her, among them the young man in question. After the gypsy had told his fortune, according to his story, she declared that he was hers and that she could not live without him. She cried that she loved him, and begged him to run away with her. He had a wild time leaving her, as she tried force to keep him. She vowed that members of her band would bring him back to her. She is the queen of a band of gypsies encamped on the outskirts of the city.

—Waterloo Daily Reporter, Waterloo, IA, April 25, 1901, p. 2.

Fear of Lightning Storms

1900

Nervous Persons Often Victims of Needless Suffering

The keen suffering which some undergo just in advance of or during a thunderstorm is of a dual nature. The sense of impending danger alarms and terrifies, but there is also a depression of spirits which is physical and real brought about by some as yet unknown relation between the nervous system and conditions of air pressure, humidity and purity. The suffering due to depression and partial exhaustion requires from those who are strong sympathy rather than ridicule.

The suffering due to alarm and fright, however, is unnecessary. It is largely the work of the imagination. To a nervous nature there is something appalling in the wicked, spiteful gleam of the lightning and the crash and tumult of thunder. But such a one should remember that the flash is almost always far distant and that thunder can do no more damage than the low notes of a church organ.

The question is often asked, "Do trees protect?" The answer is that the degrees of protection will vary with the character of the tree and its distance from a water course. An oak is more liable to lightning stroke than a beech. The character of the wood, the area of leafage, the extent and depth of root, will determine the liability to stroke.

Another question which is often asked is whether there is danger aboard a large steamship during a thunderstorm. On the contrary, there are few safer places. Sufficient metal with proper superficial area is interposed in the path of the lightning and its electrical energy converted into harmless heat and rapidly dissipated.

Accidents occur chiefly because the victims generally place themselves in the line of greatest strain and thus form part of the path of discharge. for this reason it is not wise to stand under trees, near flagpoles or masts, in doorways, on porches, close to fireplaces or near barns. Those who are not exposed in any of these ways may feel reasonably safe. It should be remembered in the event of accident that lightning does not always kill, but more often results in suspended animation than in somatic death. Therefore, in case of accident, try to restore animation, keep the body warm and send for a physician without delay. — Century.

Cat Caused Much Trouble

1916

Family Pet Has Been Formally Cautioned that "The Cave" is Not Public Property

Out in Woodruff place a number of small boys have banded together and done what most boys have done if they were real-for-sure boys — built a cave, says the Indianapolis News. Approaching this cave is a long underground tunnel about two feet square. What there is in this tunnel in the way of side chambers and the like, the fathers and mothers never will know, but at the inside end of the tunnel is the den, about five feet square, built in a side hill and as dark as the most cavernous depths of a Wyandotte cave.

One of the youngsters belonging to the band of cave dwellers hurried home from school the other afternoon, donned his cave outfit, and made for the tunnel. Crawling in flat on the ground, he made his way toward the den. Arriving there, he heard a scrambling noise just ahead and two fiery spots loomed up in the darkness. His teeth chattered with fright. He couldn't back away, he was too frightened to go forward, and there was no chance of escape at either side. The fiery spots became active and the boy became panicky.

Just what happened in there the outside world will never know, but when the cat — it was the family cat — came out of the tunnel it was going some. No cat ever moved faster, and it didn't stop until it had reached a barn three lots away.

And the boy — when he emerged his face was as white as the arctic snow and he was moving rapidly for the open. The next afternoon the boy painted a sign on which were the words: "The Cave" in white paint, on a blazing yellow background. Gazing proudly at the sign he explained: "Now, if that fool cat can read, he'll keep out of there."

—The Edwardsville Intelligencer, Edwardsville, IL, Sept. 19, 1916, p. 4.

Weapons of the Teachers

1917

Evil Methods Inspiring Fear Not Conducive to Best Results

Power to produce fear is a poor weapon. The teacher who uses it is not doing his best work.

Snakes are feared by reason of their sting. So are lions and tigers for reason of their power to produce harm.

Fear is the weapon of an enemy. We do not fear our friends, nor can we fear anything that we love.

Evil is just absence of good; for it cannot exist where good is. And evil chooses fear for its weapon. Neither evil nor fear should exist in the schoolroom, says an exchange.

Good is always stronger than evil; love always stronger than fear. Why should teachers employ evil methods and inspire fear in the hearts of children when springs of love are bubbling up on every side?

There are smiles, and kind words, and kind thoughts, and deeds of kindness and — but the list is too great to complete. These inspire love, and as weapons are much more efficient than is fear.

And then there is faith! When good loses its trust in its ability to overcome, fear disarms and evil conquers. An animal will not attack a man who has absolutely no fear of it. That is the secret of the lion-tamer's power. Evil cannot defeat a man who is strong in good, and therefore he has no cause to fear evil.

Sharks Bite? Oh, They're Afraid, Hawaiians Claim

1915

Fisherman Swims for Hours Near "Man-Eaters"

HONOLULU, Hawaii, Dec. 16. — South sea fishermen have branded the shark story as a myth, made up by authors of adventure stories.

They say there is no such thing as a man-eating shark.

There is "Dudie" Miller, for instance. Every one in the South Pacific knows "Dudie" Miller of Honolulu.

Recently he dangled naked in the tide, hanging in a life preserver in 100 fathoms of water, spearing fish. A 11-foot shark began circling him, attracted by dead fish the man carried in a sack strapped to his waist.

Hobnobs With Shark

"I want to show you something," said Miller, summoning two canoemen.

They watched the "man-eater" sweep around the fisherman poised in his life belt.

"Dudie" merely laughed. The canoemen lifted him from the water and deposited him again 100 yards away. And there the fisherman and the shark hobnobbed all afternoon.

Kahia Moe, maker of hula drums, is another of these myth shatterers.

Rides on Shark's Back

Kahia Moe, a native Hawaiian, stretches shark-skin across his far-famed dance drums. And to make them properly resonant, as well as to consecrate them fittingly, the shark, "must be slain in mortal combat," he maintains.

And so Kahai Moe kills his shark in the water, with a knife, slitting the pallid belly with a dexterous slash. He has dispatched hundreds in this kind of "mortal combat." And he speaks of them as "cowards."

David Mahu is an expert killer. When the water is low he leaps into the Pakule and rides sharks, straddling them with his naked limbs.

"Shark attack living men?" chuckles David Mahu. "It is a joke! They are even afraid to bite a dead horse until they're almost gone with hunger!"

The Hand Upon the Jail Wall

1896

Upon the wall of cell No. 7, in the County Jail at Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, is the imprint of a man's hand, which would not attract attention were it not for the strange story connected with it — a story which can be vouched for by many of the town's citizens.

Alexander Campbell, of Lansford, was an occupant of the cell in June, 1877. The Mollie Maguires were holding their reign of terror throughout the coal regions at that time and he was arrested and sentenced to be hanged in connection with the murder of John P. Jones. He stoutly asserted his innocence, and it was only through the confessions of his comrades in crime that he was convicted. The night before he was hanged he stood on his cot, and, it is said, placing his hand upon the wall, he declared that in proof of his innocence the imprint would remain upon the wall forever. The impression of the hand can be as plainly seen now as if placed there yesterday, though the walls have been whitewashed often.

The phenomenon has been viewed by many, but none of them has been able to suggest a plausible solution of the mystery.

The cell is regarded with awe by the prisoners in the jail, and if any of them become unruly the warden has only to threaten them with a night in cell No. 7. — New York Herald.

Scared Dog Bests Long Dead 'Gator

Printed Feb. 1920

Fearless Journalists and Compositors Pale at Scene of Devastation

SHELBYVILLE, Missouri. — A dead alligator caused more terror to a long, slim country dog that came to town the other day than a dozen live ones would have created. While the dog's owner was talking to the editor of the Herald, the dog went to sleep over in a corner, and when he woke up the place was dark and all the doors locked.

In the office was a baby alligator in a glass tank. The alligator had departed this life some time ago, and was preserved in some sort of fluid. But the country dog didn't know that. All he saw was some strange looking animal floating around in the tank of water.

Just what happened when the dog became aware that he was locked in with such an uncanny companion can only be surmised by such deduction as Sherlock Holmes might make on the ensuring homicide.

When the foreman of the print shop arrived at the hour prescribed by union labor regulations, he thought at first he might be in the wrong place. The shop he left the night before was orderly, everything where it belonged. Now it looked like a devil's dance had been going on. The alligator was sprawled out on the floor, and suggested a big toy that had run down. The glass tank was in more pieces than the Dutchman's clock. The doors and windows showed marks where the dog had frantically tried to gnaw its way to freedom and, the foreman said, "There were indications that he had climbed up to the telephone to send in any alarm."

Sheets of heavy editorial, country correspondence and poetry were scattered about, with imprints of dog feet upon them, as he had tracked across the press fountain and distribution plates in seeking some place to hide.

The foreman said that everything that wasn't spiked down seemed to have moved about. No cyclone from Kansas could have jostled things about more than did that poor country dog during his exciting night when he had the power of the press all to himself.

If that little 'gator had been alive he would certainly have enjoyed himself.

Progressing among the wreckage, the foreman found the dog over in a corner, seemingly all in, but when he opened the back door something whizzed past him and he heard the snapping of wind out in the alley.

The dog had gone back to the country.

The Queen of Romance

1904

An English lady tells a story of Queen Victoria which she believes has not before appeared in print, and which she knows is true. Three children were walking along the road between Windsor and Stoke Poges. They heard the sound of carriage wheels. It was the queen's carriage, and she was in it.

The oldest child, a little boy, had been reading Oriental stories and fairy lore. He knew what was due to a queen, and cried to the others: "Get down flat in the dust before the carriage, and we'll all call out at once, 'O queen, live forever!'"

Down went the three little bodies flat in the dust, much to the mystification of the coachman, who reined up sharply.

The queen leaned forward and asked, "What in the world is the matter, children? Are you frightened?"

Three voices came out of the dust in a smothered treble: "Yes; O queen!"

Then there was a pause, and one reproachful voice said, "There, we forgot the 'live forever' part!"

The queen grasped the situation and laughed aloud, as her coachman afterward said, "more heartily than she had laughed for years."

Truthful Children

1900

Children are naturally truthful. Nature does not lie. Let nothing be done to alter this happy disposition. Cultivate in them the love of truth, candor, and the confession of error.

It is lamentable to think what fearful falsehoods are uttered to deter children, to keep them quiet, or to make them obedient. Threats of being taken by old men, and black men, and other like terrors, are resorted to by ignorant and foolish servants to frighten them, and make them lie still in bed. It is ascertained that death, fits, idiocy, or insanity have been the consequences of such inhumanity.

But, setting aside the probable chance of such calamities, there are other certain results. If the child discovers the falsehoods practiced upon him, he becomes boldly indifferent to the threats, is more disobedient and willful than ever, disbelieves all that is said to him, and, finding no respect for truth in others, has no regard for it himself.

Firmness in adhering to promises, or any particular line of discipline in relation to children, is of first importance.


Japan Consumes Much Rice

Japan is the largest consumer of rice in the world, the average being 300 pounds a person a year. The Americans use but four pounds per capita. Belgium uses more tobacco in proportion, than any other country, about 110 ounces per capita yearly, while Italy uses only twenty-two ounces.

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.

Paul de Kock — A Great Novelist's Oddities

1874

During the whole life of Paul de Kock he never left the suburbs of Paris, simply because he was mortally afraid of meeting with an accident in traveling. He never, in his long career, rode in a carriage, and the idea of entering a railway car seemed frightful to him.

He was so notional that he could not write with any pen except coarse goose quills, which he cut himself, and one day, when he had to sign a document, at the "mairie" of his "rondissement," he took his old goose quill to write his name with it. He wrote a very fine hand, but very legible. He never read his own proofsheets, because typographical errors, which he considered inexcusable, owing to the legibility of his copy, made him exceedingly angry.

Most romantic was his first interview with the woman who afterward became his wife. One day in the winter time a sleigh drove past the little Belleville where Paul de Kock kept bachelor's hall. In the sleigh sat a young woman. The horse ran away and the young woman was thrown out. The fall had stunned her, and De Kock carried her kindly into his house and cared for her. She proved to be the daughter of a well-to-do hack-driver, was only eighteen, and very pretty. Paul de Kock fell at once in love with her, and four or five days afterwards his betrothal with M'lle. Jeanne Perrin was duly celebrated.

Note: Paul de Kock is mentioned in James Joyce's Ulysses as an author Molly Bloom read. "Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock's. Nice name he has."

Keeps His Youth By Risking Life

1920

Man Does Peril Stunts to Stave Off Age

Says Fear is "Vampire" That Breaks One's Spirit

LOS ANGELES -- Physical fear and undue caution, to which the softened city dweller becomes increasingly subject, are the twin vampires that help prematurely to steal away a man's youth and break his spirit.

Out of this conviction, L. W. Walker, capitalist, philanthropist and famous daredevil of 64 years, has evolved a singular formula for staving off "age" while growing old.

Whenever he sees the "vamps" in the offing he promptly takes 'em out on a mountain top, into the tip of a giant tree or drapes himself over a precipice with them, and pronto -- they're gone.

Wins Name as Daredevil

For years Walker has performed hazardous feats that have won him a name in the clan of daredevils. And, to add zest to his adventures, he garnishes them with wager readily taken by men already in the grip of fear.

His winnings -- and he seldom loses when he attempts a humanly possible exploit -- are devoted to the poor and the handicapped.

Here are some of Walker's most recent stunts, all wage-winners (and remember he's 64!):

Stood out at right angles half way up a 100-foot tree, one foot in the crotch of a limb.

Hung by the knees, head down, from topmost branch of a towering pine.

Stood erect, hands free, on the top of another tree leaning over a deep chasm.

Climbed an almost vertical mountain wall to a point which many hardy young mountaineers had pronounced inaccessible.

Scaled a cliff where the foothold was so precarious that he had to be rescued with ropes from above.

Dived Among Sharks

Walker has proof of many other equally hair-raising performances, and continues to add to the list whenever he feels in need of a "bracer."

Once he dived into a school of sharks that lashed away in terror as the "old" man splashed his defiance.

He is now taking up aviation by way of further diversion and conquest of fear, claiming that he is growing steadily younger as his life-span lengthens toward the proverbial three-score-and-ten.

As modest as he is fearless, Walker gives freely, but without ostentation, from his ample funds to those he feels deserving.

Sad "Ghost" Foils Police

Pennsylvania, 1915

Wraith of Man Killed Who Was on Railroad Tracks Upsets Old Neighbors

Philadelphia. — On Garrett Hill, in Radnor township, the police are looking nightly for the "ghost" of a man who was killed several months ago at the railroad station at Radnor. The man lived at Garrett Hill, and has returned, his old neighbors say.

A number of residents say they have seen the wraith. It flits out of dark corners, they say, stares at them with sorrowful eyes, and then passes, moaning. A woman tells of being called to her door the other evening, and of finding the man there facing her with his piteous stare. As she stood, she says, paralyzed with fear, he vanished.

So many tales of the "ghost" have reached the police that they have begun an investigation, on the theory that a crank or a maniac is annoying the residents. So far, however, no trace of a flesh and blood marauder has been found.

The Wogglebug Story — Witches and Hobgoblins

Wisconsin, 1905

Bachelor Brothers Move Away to Avoid Witches and Hobgoblins

Christian and William Born, who live in Lebanon on the Woodland R.F.D. road next to J. B. Schneider, have been busy for some time past in building a sort of a Noah's ark on wheels, and there has been considerable speculation by their neighbors as to whether the outfit would turn out to be an automobile or a flying machine. Nothing would have surprised their friends, however, as the boys have long been regarded as foolish.

Last week Thursday they loaded up their deep sea going cab with a number of trunks and boxes, and started on a pilgrimage, leaving everything on the place as though they intended returning that day. Their shepherd dog was left as custodian over the eighty acre farm and about thirty head of stock, besides a large number of chicks.

When they did not return that day nor the next the neighbors went over and cared for the stock and notified the chairman of the town, Herman Witte, of the case. He started a deputy sheriff after the boys, and he overtook the outfit at Troy Center Tuesday evening. They said they were en route to the sunny south in obedience to a command from the spirit of their dead father, who has also ordered the construction of their portable house. The deputy invited them to return by rail with him to Juneau to meet a number of his friends, members of the medical profession and they readily assented, as their team needed a rest anyway. So they are now in Juneau, where they were examined as to their sanity.

The boys' father died some years ago, and they have been living with their mother on the farm, neither of them being married, although they are both over forty-five years of age. They have been having a strenuous time with the witches and hobgoblins the past year. Somebody bewitched three of their best milkers at a time when milk was high, while another witch cast a spell over their chickens when the egg market was around thirty cents. All this they were up against for years and withstood manfully, but when the Wogglebug told them that their farm was heavily encumbered and would soon be foreclosed upon by a number of witches, they gave up in despair and at this time their father's spirit appeared and billed them for a trip to Missouri.

The neighbors say that Mrs. Born has been mentally unsound for years, and that the boys have always been very eccentric and extremely superstitious.

Their team and wagon passed through the village this afternoon being driven back to Lebanon, and its odd appearance attracted lots of attention. — Neosho Standard.