A Troubled One

1895

It is said that the expression, "There is a skeleton in every closet," arose from the following incident: A young Italian student, finding he was dying, fearing to break the news to his mother, adopted the following device: He informed her that he was ill, and that it had been foretold he would not recover until he had worn a shirt made by a woman who had no trouble. The widow soon discovered it was no easy task to find such a person, but at length was referred to a lady who seemed surrounded with every comfort and happiness and possessed a husband who seemed devoted to her. The widow made known her request and for an answer was shown a closet, where a skeleton hung suspended from a beam. She was told it was the remains of the lady's former lover, who from motives of jealousy had been slain by her husband, and that he compelled her to visit it every day. The widow concluded that no one was without trouble, that "there is a skeleton in every closet," and became reconciled to the approaching loss of her son. — London Tit-Bits.


The Opera Journalized

Night Editor — What's this?
Musical Critic — It's my criticism of the opera; very important; first production in this country —
Night Editor (wearily) — Yes, I know. The whole local staff was there. We have three columns of names of occupants of the boxes and five columns' description of dresses. Think I want to fill the whole paper with it? Cut that stuff of yours down to two sticks. — New York Weekly.

Man and Bear Die In Fight

1920

Rancher Finds Their Skeletons, Still Clasped Together.

LIVINGSTON, Montana. — The skeletons of a man and a bear, clasped together, recently were found a few inches underground on Chicken Creek, near here, R. A. Fifield, a rancher, reported.

The skull of the human being was missing, and because the discoverer has been a resident of the district for thirty-seven years, it is believed the man was either one of the earliest prospectors or an Indian.

No weapon was found to show how the man, while within the clasp of the bear, was able to kill the beast.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 1.

Boys Play Skittles With Skulls

1905

Numerous bones and skulls hare been recently dug up near the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, and boys of the locality are playing skittles with them.

This will soon be stopped, as the human debris is to be carefully collected by the workmen who are excavating in the district.

The skulls and bones come from the old graveyard of the Abbey of St. Martin-des-Champs, which existed where the Commercial Conservatoire now stands. There was also another cemetery, that of St. Nicolas, in the same district, and it was built over in the eighteenth century. — Paris correspondence, London Telegraph.


Japanese Live By Rule

Their Diet and Habits Regulated Strictly Through a Thousand Years

An army officer, discussing recently with friends the surprising immunity from sickness of the Japanese troops as manifested in the present war, said that, while the first cause was doubtless the diet prescribed, the real reason was to be found in the way the dietary is adhered to.

The Anglo-Saxon fighting man might be told what to eat and what to eschew, but centuries of personal liberty in eating and drinking and the ordering of his daily regimen to suit himself had given him a certain independence. With the gallant little yellow man, however, the adherence to the instructions they receive on such matters was slave-like.

Their minutest personal actions had been regulated through a thousand years of feudal strife and dependence, which, taken with their peculiar temperament, had made them submissive to a degree unknown among the freer races, or races which, if not freer, had freer institutions, in which minute details of life were not so closely regulated.

President Garfield's Assassin — A "Stuffed" Human Head

1896

All that remains above earth of the irresponsible crank who fired the shot which ended the life of President James A. Garfield is the skeleton, brain and stuffed head, which are now preserved among other ghastly relics in the Army Medical Museum at the city of Washington.

The skeleton was cleaned by the museum workmen immediately after the execution, and has since been kept in a glass case in an out-of-the-way corner of the great National repository of ghastly curios. Each bone is carefully lettered with indelible ink, probably as a means of identification should the skeleton or a portion of it be stolen.

The brain is kept in a large glass jar of alcohol, and, like the skeleton, its presence in the building is known to but few outside of the employes.

The most grewsome memento of the great tragedy of 1881 kept by the museum authorities is the mounted head of Guiteau. Before putting the body in the boiler for the purpose of removing the flesh from the the bones, the head was cut off and the skull denuded of its skin and flesh. After this had been done, the skin was sewed up and stuffed, so that it would look as lifelike as possible, and then pickled in alcohol.

After this ghoulish work had all been completed the flesh was cremated by those having the work in charge, this last act taking place on the night of November 27, 1882. — New York Advertiser.

Dead A Million Years

1895

Priceless Bones From the Historic Waters of Bitter Creek

Men who once become interested in queer bugs and animals with which nature has peopled every part of the earth become so devoted to study of animal and plant life and so deeply interested in the bones of the man, woman or monkeys that lived and loved and died so many hundred thousand years ago that no personal sacrifice is too great for them to make in pursuit of their calling.

Prof. J. S. Worthman has just returned from the mountains of southern Wyoming, bringing with him the priceless treasure. It is the skeleton of a supposed human being dead some millions of years more or less, and may lead to the establishment of the missing link. The bones were found in the historic waters of Bitter Creek from which the fiery tempered cowboy is supposed to rise before spilling the blood of the towns-people in general. "The skeleton," says Prof. Worthman, "of a human body estimated to be a million and a half years old has interested scientists keenly. The Professor says the priceless skeleton was found near the head of Bitter Creek in Southern Wyoming, about ten miles from the Colorado line. The region was once the bed of a fresh water lake. Sediment gradually accumulated through unknown centuries until it formed a deposit two thousand to four thousand feet thick. The sage inhabitant whose remains are now disclosed to the eye of man was apparently drowned in the lake. His body was preserved as in an Egyptian mummy cave. By and by the water receded, new forces began to operate, mountain streams rippled across the dry lake bottoms, great chasms were out through the soft earth and the skeleton was exposed on the surface of a vast cliff.

The bones were broken in pieces and portions fell to the base of the cliff. Professor Worthman came along in the nick of time. His practiced eye detected the presence of an unusual specimen, but who can describe his joy as he stopped and picked up the tooth of a monkey? "The fragments of bones," said the Professor, "were many of them almost as small as a pin head and it required many hours of time and great patience to gather the pieces together until we could make one perfect whole. We gathered all the surface dirt over an area of twenty-five or thirty feet square and washed it out as the miner washes out the gravel for gold. Then we located the original resting place of the skeleton in the side of the cliff and dug out the remaining bones."

Length of the Skeleton

The Professor says he did not attempt to take complete measurements, but he estimates the skeleton to be two and a half feet long, forming an animal about the size and with the general make-up of a species of monkey, known as the white-faced capuchin. The Professor says some of the bones are missing, but the skull is complete, and it would be a simple thing for any paleontologist to draw a complete picture of the representative of the human race as he appeared long years ago.

Soon after his return to New York Professor Worthman will issue a pamphlet, giving a full scientific description of the skeleton and deductions to be drawn from the discovery. In this work he will be assisted by Prof. Osborne, curator of the museum and professor of biology in the college. Professor Worthman is a modest man and spoke guardedly of the conquest he has made over old Father Time, in grasping from the aged gentleman's hand one of the most sacredly guarded mysteries. In fact, the Professor talked just as enthusiastically about other finds that were made as about the skeleton of the monkey.

"Our object in coming to the west last summer," said he, "was to look for fossils which were deposited at the close of the cretaceous epoch, a period when the sea receded, the Rocky Mountain plateau arose and the fresh water lakes of the mountain region came gradually into existence. It was one of the greatest changes known in the geological history of the American continent.

"Another find," said the Professor, "and one in which the general public may be interested, was the skeleton of what is known as the little horse. This horse was the ancestor of the present species. It may perhaps surprise you if I say that this animal was no larger than a shepherd dog. Instead of a single toe, he had no less than four toes on each of his fore feet and three on his hind feet. The story of the evolution of the horse is one of the most convincing proofs of the doctrine of evolution. We now have materials to demonstrate to the most casual observer the evolution of this remarkable animal from his primitive beginning, away back in the commencement of the eocene period, at least 1,500,000 years ago, up to the present moment."

Petrarch's Tomb Opened

1874

A singular ceremony lately took place at Arqua, in North Italy, where Petrarch lies buried. The tomb of the poet was opened in the presence of the municipal officers of the town and a few invited spectators that the remains had been inclosed in an imperfectly-made coffin, and that the bones, thus exposed to the effects to the atmosphere, were discolored and moist.

The skull, of medium size, was entire, the development of the forehead being yet perceptible. Several of the teeth were well preserved, and the bones of the body were but little decayed. From the size of the skeleton it was easy to infer that Petrarch must have been a large, robust man.

Permission to examine these honored remains had been given by the authorities to certain students of anthropology, and it was to aid in their researches that the coffin was opened. These gentlemen took accurate measurements of the remains, which were then carefully placed in a new coffin.

The brief exposure to the air, however, had its effect, and the skull partially fell in, while some of the bones were resolved into dust before the eyes of the spectators of this curious exhibition of mortality.

The Heart of Jumbo the Elephant

1904

It's the Biggest Heart in the World

ITHACA, N. Y., Jan. 30. — The biggest heart in the world, that of the elephant Jumbo, is preserved in the museum of the department of neurology, vertebrate zoology and physiology of Cornell University. If the heart were not so large it would stand in a glass jar on the shelves of the museum with hundreds of those of other animals and men.

But Jumbo's heart is so big that it lies in a barrel stowed away in the cellar of the museum, glass jars not being made large enough to hold the great mass of muscle. Some time it will be dissected by a class of students and then thrown away.

Jumbo had a heart ninety-eight times as large as the average human organ. It now weighs 36½ pounds, after having soaked several years in alcohol. A human heart, which weighs a little more than a pound, soaked in alcohol for the same length of time, weighs 10 ounces. The human heart is less than six inches long. Jumbo's is 28 inches, and 24 inches wide. The ordinary heart could be contained in the main artery of Jumbo's heart. The walls of the artery are five-eighths of an inch thick, while the walls of the ventricle are three inches thick.

When Jumbo met his heroic death at St. Thomas, Ont., trying to save the baby elephant and being himself killed by a locomotive, his carcass was sent to the Ward Natural Science establishment at Rochester. The skeleton was presented and put on exhibition and the hide mounted.

Dr. Burt G. Wilder of Cornell purchased the heart of the animal to add it to his colossal collection. The brains of Jumbo were also desired, but these had been shattered in the collision. When the heart reached Ithaca it was found impractical to preserve it by the process which retains its original shape, and so the organ was put in a barrel of alcohol. It had not been removed for years until Dr. Hugh D. Reed lifted it from the barrel to show to The Herald correspondent.

—The Sunday Herald, Syracuse, New York, Jan. 31, 1904, p. 23.