Dramatic Funeral Ceremony of the Lascars

1893

How the Lascars Prepare Their Dead For the Grave

In the deadroom of the Medico-Chirurgical hospital recently a strange and dramatic ceremony took place. The occasion was the observance of the last rites and ceremonies by the crew of Lascars of the steamship Lanark over the body of one of their shipmates, who died in the hospital. The body had as usual been prepared for the undertaker by the hospital staff soon after death, and the body was removed from the ward to the deadroom. As soon as the steamship crew learned of the death of their countryman they all presented themselves at the hospital and asked to see the body.

The scene that followed was an impressive one. The dimly lighted room, the still form lying on the table surrounded by a dozen or more of his sorrowing people, with strange costumes, dark, handsome features and pointed beards formed a memorable picture. As the men stood with bowed heads and clasped hands and muttered their prayers to Allah, those who witnessed the scene were filled with emotions of respect and sorrow for those strange people, far away from their sunny tropical home among strangers.

They requested a bountiful supply of warm water and soap and 20 yards of clean new linen. This being provided they reverently removed the winding sheet. Every time their hands came in contact with the body they offered a prayer in concert. Then they removed their own shoes and stockings and washed their feet and ears and nostrils. After this they began the ablution of their late comrade, pouring the water over the head and face of the dead man. The entire body was thoroughly cleansed, the men touching it lovingly and reverently.

The new linen having been prepared by one of their number and the body having been dried the sailors requested another table, the one in use being thought contaminated by the water. This was provided. The shroud was placed upon it and sprinkled with camphor. Then the body was gently lifted and laid on the shroud while all offered up prayers in concert. It was rapidly enveloped in the winding sheet and strict instructions were given in broken English and by signs to those of the hospital staff present not to touch it. The sailors then formed in line, one who seemed to be the leader standing alone, the others standing behind in threes and fours. Turning their faces to the east and raising their hands above their heads they solemnly committed their comrade to Allah's care.

No Christian can touch the body after performing this rite, so the Lascars presented themselves at the hospital again the nest morning and placed the body within the coffin. — Philadelphia Press.

Big Blue Grass Family

1893

Old Joe Morrison and Giant Wife, Sons and Daughters

"As a specimen of what Kentucky can do in the way of producing stalwart sons and daughters," said a proud native of the blue grass country, "I might mention the old Joe Morrison family of Bourbon county. Anybody of the present generation who ever lived in Kentucky will remember old Joe Morrison's family. The family consisted of Joe and his wife and six sons and three daughters. Joe stood 6 feet 4 in his stockings and weighed 210 pounds. His wife was the same height exactly, but she weighed 266 pounds. The oldest son, Tom, was also 6 feet 4, and he weighed 286 pounds. Jim topped his brother Tom by two inches in height, but he wasn't as heavy by 70 pounds. Their sister Sarah was a slim girl, weighing only 165 pounds, but she was taller than either Tom or Jim, for she stood 6 feet 6½ inches.

"But John was the big boy of the family. He only lacked an inch of being 7 feet high, and he weighed 300 pounds. Sister Mary was a midget of 6 feet 2 and only weighed 149 pounds. Elijah wasn't very tall either, being the same height as his sister Mary, but he was of pretty fair heft, tipping the scales at 212. Matthew was 6 feet 2 also and weighed 220, while Eli, standing 6 feet 4, weighed less than 200. The youngest girl, Martha, was 6 feet 3 and 160 pounds in weight. She undoubtedly would have been the giant of the family, for that was her height and weight at the age of 14, a few weeks before she died.

"When these measurements were taken, a few years ago, the family were all together, but since then old Joe and his wife have died, and the boys and girls are married and scattered about the state. I don't know what their progeny have done to keep up the family reputation as to size, but I'll bet on 'em to keep up the record." — Chicago Post.

Are Animals Ever "Bored?"

1893

Surely mankind has sufficient faults and failings of its own to answer for without being called upon to assume the responsibility of animal failings as well. An American author has discovered that domestic animals, such as cats or dogs, are not only subject to ennui, but also display their feelings under that infliction after very much the same fashion as their human friends, a fact which no one who has kept tame animals will be tempted to deny.

But from this fact our contemporary, The News, leaps to a perfectly unwarrantable conclusion and boldly asserts that ours is the fault, that mankind has inoculated the beast creation with its own particular disease and that it is civilization "which produces ennui, not only in man, women and children, but even in cats and dogs." "We may well blush," it continues, "when we think how man has demoralized the dog. We have taught the dog to be bored. We have corrupted him by our society." And again, "Ennui is one of man's many inventions, but he has taught the unprofitable vice to the domestic or at least to the household animals — pupils only too apt in evil."

Was ever so monstrous a charge leveled against our innocence! The next thing we shall be told is that we are the cause that dogs do bark and bite and that whatever may have been the morality of Dr. Watts his natural history is no better than his poetry. The News, if it is so assured of the demoralizing influence it has exercised upon dogs, is welcome to blush for itself. We prefer to maintain that dogs sorrow under boredom for the same simple reason that they delight to bark and bite, "for 'tis their nature to." — London Spectator.

The Fear of Snakes

1893

Why Many Children and Some Grown Persons Dislike Them

There are many authenticated instances of children becoming attached to snakes and making pets of them. The solution of a question of this kind is sometimes to be found in the child mind. My experience is that when young children see this creature, its strange appearance and manner of progression, so unlike those of other animals known to them, it affects them with amazement and a sense of mystery and that they fear it just as they would fear any other strange thing. Monkeys are doubtless affected in much the same way, although in a state of nature, where they inhabit forests abounding with the larger constrictors and venomous tree snakes, it is highly probable that they also possess a traditional fear of the serpent form. It would be strange if they did not.

The experiment of presenting a caged monkey with a serpent carefully wrapped up in a newspaper and watching his behavior when he gravely opens the parcel, expecting to find nothing more wonderful than the familiar sponge cake or succulent banana — well, such an experiment has been recorded in half a hundred important scientific works, and out of respect to one's masters one ought to endeavor not to smile when reading it. A third view might be taken which would account for our feeling toward the serpent without either instinct or tradition. Extreme fear of all ophidians might simply result from a vague knowledge of the fact that some kinds are venomous; that, in some rare cases, death follows swiftly on their bite; and that, not being sufficiently intelligent to distinguish the noxious from the innocuous — at all events while, under the domination of a sudden, violent emotion — we destroy them all alike, thus adopting Herod's rough and ready method of ridding his city of one inconvenient baby by a general slaughter of innocents.

It might be objected that in Europe, where animosity to the serpent is greatest, death from snake bite is hardly to be feared; that Fontana's 6,000 experiments with the viper, showing how small is the amount of venom possessed by this species, how rarely it has the power to destroy human life, have been before the world for a century. And although it must be admitted that Fontana's work is not in the hand of every peasant, the fact remains that death from snake bite is a rare thing in Europe, probably not more than one losing his life from this cause for every 250 who perish by hydrophobia, of all forms of death the most terrible. Yet while the sight of a snake excites in a majority of persons the most violent emotions, dogs are universal favorites, and we have them always with us and make pets of them in spite of the knowledge that they may at any time become rabid and inflict that unspeakably dreadful suffering and destruction on us.

This leads to the following question: is it not at least probable that our excessive fear of the serpent, so unworthy of us as rational beings, and the cause of so much unnecessary cruelty, is partly at all events, a result of our superstitious fear of sudden death? For there exists, we know, an exceedingly widespread delusion that the bite of a venomous serpent must kill and kill quickly. Compared with such ophidian monarchs as the bushmaster, fer de lance, hamadryad and tio polonga, the viper of Europe — the poor viper of many experiments and much (not too readable) literature — may be regarded as almost harmless — at all events not more harmful than the hornet. Nevertheless, in this cold, northern world, even as in the other worlds where nature elaborates more potent juices, the delusion prevails and may be taken into account here, although its origin cannot now be discussed. For my own part I am inclined to believe that we regard serpents with a destructive hatred purely and simply because we are so taught from childhood. — Macmillan's Magazine.

Noise — "You Gotta a Problem With It?"

1893

The Philosophy of Noise

Aversion to Disturbance is a Symptom of Neurotic Degeneration

A woman suffering from neuralgia stations her son to keep boys from making noise in front of the house. A boy comes by whistling — a performance in which we must recognize a natural, wholesome and boylike act, whereupon there ensues a short, sharp fight between the pair, in which one is accidentally cut. The upshot is not important; the origin of it is.

It has long been usual to accord special privileges to invalids in relieving them against noise. Formerly straw would be strewn in the street, and thousands of persons who were not sick would be inconvenienced to ease the pains of one who was. In part, this custom was one of ostentation. It could be practiced only by the influential who were exalted by making themselves a nuisance. When death ensued, a hatchment was set up in the same spirit of vainglory. All the windows in the house were closed for a term, the duration of which was fixed by custom, but which bore a relation to the estate of the deceased and the consequent degree of exaltation descending upon his heirs.

All healthy animals delight in noise. The description includes barbarous folk and children. Dogs bark (curs only sneak off), birds scream, boys shout, girls clap hands to their ears in sweet confusion, horses paw, all animate nature responds to the exhilaration of noise. The sick do not. In every form of sickness the nervous function is deranged. As we have seen above mankind has shown its appreciation of this fact by its customs. Excessive sensibility to noise is thus one symptom of neurotic degeneration. It is the mark of one broad distinction between the state of civilization and its opposite. It testifies to one part of the price which that state exacts from man on his physical side.

Within civilization itself indifference to noise is one of the distinctions of a system rudely healthful, both in body and mind. The converse of this proposition is equally true. Whenever a person displays peculiar sensitiveness to noise we may know that the case is one of an unwholesome mind in an unwholesome body. From the fact that the disturbance is essentially a neurotic one it follows that it is controllable to a great extent by the will. Much of the disturbance that is experienced from noise can be put completely aside by exercise of the will. A barking dog may keep one person awake while his healthier or wiser neighbor sleeps the sleep of the just. Under the pinging of the cable car bells a valetudinarian subsides into frenzy while his younger clerk is lapped in dreams of the equally unconscious typewriter on the next floor. The contrast here need not be one of relative strength of mind merely; one of the two minds is sick.

In such a case the willpower is impaired. It would probably be found that the complaining person is also irritable, passionate, perhaps consumed by self contemplation. In many cases of this order relief could no doubt be gained through treatment by suggestion. But in vastly the greater number the patient is competent to minister to himself. He is still capable of exerting the will, and in this exercise lies complete and permanent cure. Furthermore, the cure does not apply alone to the particular noise that may have called for it. It will be found to have influenced the mind permanently. The injurious effects attributed to noise do not proceed from without, but from within. They do not inhere in the aerial vibrations, but in the mental response made to them.

Finally it ought to be observed that the disease is one that increases by being yielded to. The noise that is first noticed as an annoyance in some moment of irritation, anxiety or other nervous disturbance can be nursed into an object of horror. Time was when folks thought sensitiveness to noise to be evidence of high strung character. They were rather proud of it and trotted it forth in public. The world knows better now. It erects hospitals for the Mrs. Wittitterlys, whom it rather admired in Nicholas Nickleby's time. It no longer holds poor Tom of Bedlam for inspired, and since it has learned how much sickness is either a fruit or a phase of ignorance it is getting a little sick of those sick folks, at least of whom it has a right to look for something better. — New York Evening Sun.

Robinson Crusoe's Island Inhabited

1893

The People Who Now Inhabit the Refuge of DeFoe's Hero

It is not generally known that Juan Fernandez — the island on which Alexander Selkirk, the Robinson Crusoe of romance, lived for so many years — is at the present time inhabited.

Two valleys, winding down from different directions, join a short distance back from the shore and here now stands a little village of small huts scattered round a long, low, one storied building, with a veranda running its whole length. In this house lives a man who rents the island from the Chilean government, and the village is made up of a few German and Chilean families.

The tiny town is called San Juan Bautista, and the craterlike arm of the sea on which it is situated and where Alexander Selkirk first landed is now called Cumberland bay. The island is rented for about £200 a year. The rent is paid partly in dried fish. Catching and drying the many varieties of fish and raising cattle and vegetables wholly occupy the contented settlers, and much of their little income is obtained from the cattle and vegetables sold to passing vessels.

The cattle need no care, and the vegetables almost grow wild. Turnips and radishes, first sown here by Selkirk himself, now grow rank and wild in the valleys like weeds. There is also a race of wild dogs which completely overrun the island, depending for existence mainly upon seals. They are the descendants of a breed left by the Spaniards.

At the back of the little town in the first high cliffs is a row of caves of remarkable appearance hewn into the sandstone. An unused path leads to them, and a short climb brings one to their dark mouths. About 40 years ago the Chilean government thought that a good way to be rid of its worst criminals would be to transport them to the island of Juan Fernandez. Here, under the direction of Chilean soldiers, these poor wretches were made to dig caves to live in. In 1854 they were taken back again, however, and the caves have since been slowly crumbling away.

The narrow ridge where Selkirk watched is now called "the saddle," because at either end of it a big rocky hummock rises like a pommel. On one of these is now a large tablet with inscriptions commemorating Alexander Selkirk's long and lonesome stay on the island. It was placed there in 1868 by the officers of the British ship Topaz.

A small excursion steamer now runs from Valparaiso to Juan Fernandez island. The round trip is made in six days, and three of these may he spent on the island in fishing and visiting those lonely but beautiful spots which, nearly 200 years ago, were the haunts of Robinson Crusoe. — Melbourne Argus.

Some of The Genuinely Odd Things That Happen in Life

1893

OF GENERAL INTEREST.

—Dr. McBride, of Orange, Va., uses a flock of geese as a team of horses, which draw him over the ice in a specially prepared vehicle at the rate of one and a quarter miles a minute. He is now making a balloon in which he proposes to ride drawn by the same team.

—The man who orders plain butter in a New York restaurant and discovers it to be oleomargarine, or other kind of substitute, can have the proprietor arrested and fined, and the informer receives half the fine. The way in which the proprietor can protect himself is to print on his bills of fare the confession that his butter is not genuine.

—Uncle Joe Ardle, an old Georgia darky living on the Savannah river, thinks it about time to take to the woods. After the earthquake of 1886 he was afraid to live on the ground, so he built a hut in the branches of a huge oak tree, where he lived contentedly until the storm of a few weeks ago blew him and his hut clear out of the trees and almost into the river.

—The keeper of a cheap but clean restaurant in the French quarter in New York has hit upon the plan of advertising his wares by means of pictures on the flags of the sidewalk. He hires a chalk artist for this work, and you may see upon the flags just within the stoop line well-drawn fish in groups of three, and other lifelike representations of the viands that the place affords.

—An alligator eight feet two inches in length and weighing two hundred and twenty pounds was lately caught in the Mississippi. Alligators are quite plentiful in southwestern rivers, but they rarely attain a length of more than four feet. So far as known, this one is by far the largest ever taken from the Mississippi. Some of its teeth are over two inches long and very like the teeth of a shark.

—The Evening Democrat, Warren, PA, Oct. 17, 1893, p. 3.

Note: I've never heard of the French quarter in New York. Probably make that New Orleans.
—Towns county, Ga., boasts of a novel specimen of the "white" negro. This one has been "turning" for several years, until the left side of his face is perfectly white while the right side remains almost jet black. Negroes whose skin changes from black to a light brown or reddish white are not uncommon in the south, but the change mostly shows in blotches, giving them a mottled appearance.

—Stock raising is a business beset with many risks which do not cease until the flocks and herds are safely marketed. A flock of sheep was being driven through Grant county, Ore., to market at Baker City a few days ago, when, in passing through a narrow ravine, the sheep stampeded, and after the scare was over the stockman counted over sixty head of dead sheep that had been smothered in the crush.

—It may distract the attention of those who suffer from headache to learn that in early English days there were remedies "for headache, and for old headache, and for the ache of half the head." "Eye work and the fiend's temptations" are also mentioned in this catalogue. Ache of half the head, or hermicrania, from which George Eliot suffered so much, has been considered a distinctively modern disease, but there is nothing new.

—A strange fatality hangs over the Weeks family of Albion, Ind. Sherman was killed recently while climbing a tree. His brother entered the army during the war and died of lockjaw. Cornelius lost his life by swallowing a copper cent. Thomas jumped from a train and was killed, while Charles, still another brother, committed suicide by swallowing poison. Edward Weeks, also a brother, moved west some years ago and has never been heard of.

—Miss Minnie Rush, of Lakeville, Indiana, has discovered for herself and, perhaps for her sisters a new field of employment. For the past three years she has had charge of the passenger, freight and telegraph offices of the Vandalia line in her town, the receipts for which are fully ten thousand dollars a month. Miss Rush is only twenty-one years old, but she has organized railroad excursions which have netted handsome profits to her employers the past year, besides conducting the ordinary affairs of the office with skill and success.

—An ingenious mechanic in the Catskills has long manufactured small articles of use and ornament from the excrescences that grow upon the maple and other trees of the mountain region. He travels far in search of these nodules, seasons them for many years, and then fashions them into polished jewel boxes and many other beautiful things. He is especially careful that his material shall be well seasoned, a fact that means a good deal when one knows that the wood that goes to form some parts of thoroughly well made pianos should be seasoned thirty or forty years.

After Hours, Railway Mean Checking For Dropped Coins

New York, 1893

Nickel Hunters

Anyone who chances to take a stroll just before sunrise along the line of any of the surface railways in New York, will be sure to see from two to a dozen men walking near the tracks with hands in pockets and heads bent down. He may also observe that the conductors and drivers on the infrequent horse cars of that early hour also have their eyes turned earthward. They are all hunting for money.

During the night, and particularly when the after theater homeward rush is on, the conductors are very busy collecting fares and making change by the dim light of the car lamps. In the process both they and the passengers allow more or less small coin to slip through their fingers, and it is for the dimes and nickels that have rolled to the pavement that search is made at dawn. The change that falls beneath the floor slats of the closed cars belongs to the cleaners at the stables.