Boys "Catch" Peck of Gold

1920

Two Young Fishermen Bring Up Hidden Treasure From River.

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island. — The Pawcatuck River gave up one peck of gold to Claude and Clinton Azarmarskie while fishing in the rear of the home of Tristram D. Babcock at Avondale.

The catch, made in a grain bag, consisted of watch chains and ornaments of 14-karat gold. The boys took bag and contents to their home and Patrolman Curtin was notified.

The police believe the chains and lavalieres were stolen and that the thief, fearing detection, threw the bag into the river. The boys are hoping for a reward, and if the owner of the valuables is not found they will ask that the bag of gold be returned to them.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 5.

Astor's Speed Boat Outraces Torpedoes

1916

Newport, R. I., Sept. 23. — The fastest craft on Narragansett bay is the motor boat Mystery, owned by Vincent Astor. Its speed is estimated at about 45 land miles an hour.

On Thursday Mr. Astor, with his machinist, took the Mystery to the torpedo testing range. From the decks of passing yachts and from the steamer General of the Wickford line, Mr. Astor could be seen chasing torpedoes, which were being tested. The Mystery outdistanced the speed boats the government uses to follow close behind torpedoes in speed tests in order to pick them up in case of trouble.

In all the runs the Mystery was able to keep ahead of the torpedoes, something the government motor boats cannot do.

Attached to the Bakery

1900

A plausible tale of a man who bought a loaf of bread and took away more property than he paid for, is told by the Pawtucket correspondent of the Providence Telegram. The man was in a hurry to catch a car.

His impatience made the clerk nervous. She forgot to snap the string which bound the paper about the loaf, and away sped the man with the loaf, while the string reeled off behind him.

He caught the car all right, and although the conductor and some of the passengers noticed, as he sat down close to the door, that the twine paid itself out as the car rolled along, the man did not discover the tangle until he alighted. In the meantime the conductor was having a good time; as passengers stepped on the platform he cautioned them not to walk on that string, and they did not.

It might have looked mysterious to the people who saw the string moving along the street, for the unravelling continued until the bakery twine bobbin had been nearly emptied by the connected loaf a mile away. The man with the bread felt a tug at his loaf as he stepped down from the car. Then he followed up the cord, winding as he went.

He was one of those strictly honest men who want nothing that does not belong to them; and the best part of the story is that he followed the string back, winding as he walked, and in due time entered the bakery and restored the ball of twine. — Youth's Companion.

Froze To Death Before A Crowd

Printed Jan. 1908

Friends Unable To Give Aid

Providence, Rhode Island — In view of 200 persons who were powerless to extend aid, Alfred Jackson, aged 22, a Providence clerk, was frozen to death while his right foot was imprisoned by a rock on which he was standing under the falls of the Pawtucket river, in Pawtucket, the other afternoon.

Jackson, his brother Arthur, aged 20, and Earl T. Mathewson, aged 19, of East Providence, left the Pawtucket Canoe clubhouse about three o'clock and paddled slowly down stream. When just above the falls they allowed the canoe to drift too near the edge and were carried over. All were thrown into the water. Alfred Jackson was able to reach a half-submerged rock at the foot of the falls, grasped his brother Arthur, and kept him from drowning, although the water from the falls fell on them.

Finally persons on shore threw a line. Alfred caught it and fastened it around his brother, Arthur, who, shorter than himself, was gasping in water that was up to his chin. Arthur was pulled ashore and so was Mathewson, who had floated down stream.

They were removed to the Rhode Island hospital in a critical condition from exposure.

Alfred Jackson in the meanwhile remained standing up to his waist in water close under the falls, and when the rescuers threw a line to him expecting to pull him to a place of safety, they found they were unable to move him.

In the roar of the cataract his shouts could not be heard, but it was evident that his feet had been caught under water.

Several attempts were made to rescue him. Adelard Potvin, the strongest man in the village, popularly known as "Nervy Nat," risked his own life by climbing out hand over hand on a slender rope to the side of the drowning man. When he reached Alfred Jackson's side he used all of his great strength in a useless attempt to release the captive foot from the treacherous crevice, but, chilled to the marrow, he was forced to give up the attempt, crying like a baby when he realized that his work had resulted in nothing.

Dr. Clinton Westcott attempted to reach the perishing lad, and almost lost his life by a boat upsetting.

For two hours the rescuers worked hard and valiantly, Jackson standing calmly under the fall up to his armpits in water and the spray breaking over him, awaiting his doom bravely and uncomplainingly.

Finally, frozen stiff, the unconscious body sunk in the foamy waters, only a white life-buoy bobbing up and down in the water marking the place where he had gone down.

Farming in Mexico

1908

Primitive Methods Still in Vogue in Many Sections

Mexico City. — The most primitive methods of agriculture are still in vogue in many parts of Mexico.

Even upon the farms adjacent to the City of Mexico and other large cities of that country, where it might be expected that modern machinery would have replaced the antiquated implements which have been in use since the time of the Aztecs, the ground is broken by wooden plows drawn by oxen.

These plows are cumbersome in construction and method of operation. The beam is about eight feet long and to it is frequently spliced another beam in order to afford working room for two yoke of oxen. The handle of the plow is an upright curved piece of timber. The plow point is also made of wood and is lashed to the brake-beam by means of thongs of rawhide.

The plowing with this heavy and unwieldy piece of mechanism is frequently done by Indian women. The men pick the easier kind of labor. The plow does little more than scrape the surface of the soil and but for the natural richness of the land and the splendid climate little could be grown where the work is performed by the ancient implement.


Famous Woman Life-Saver

America's bravest woman, in the opinion of the Society of the American Cross of Honor, is Ida Lewis Wilson, keeper of the Lime Rock lighthouse, off Newport, R.I. "Mistress Wilson," as the sailors call her, is declared by the society to have "rendered greater service tending toward the saving of life than any other woman of the country." The society has therefore awarded her a cross of honor. Mrs. Wilson is better known as Ida Lewis, who years ago gained a world-wide celebrity through her many heroic rescues of drowning persons. — Leslie's Weekly.

With Heaps of Wool, They Spin It by Hand

They Spin by Hand

1896

The hum of the spinning wheel is still a familiar sound in Block Island, quaint and interesting resort in summer and a miniature world in winter, in which the habits and customs are those of one hundred and fifty years ago. The island is fifteen miles off the Rhode Island shore and almost directly south of stormy Point Judith.

The heads of thirty Block Island families set sail in fishing boats the other day and pushed up the Thames River to Oakdale, where they left heaps of wool to be carded into rolls for hand spinning. The rolls will be spun and knitted into stockings and mittens for the protection of the hardy islanders against the bleak winter winds of the Atlantic.

There are times during the winter when the wind sweeps across the treeless land at a velocity of eighty-four miles an hour, and women take their lives in their hands when they venture out of doors. The isolation of the island is almost complete.

John Schofield established the first woolen mill in Connecticut near Oakdale, where the carding was done by power cards. In 1798 the Block Islanders began to send wool to the mill to be carded into rolls, and generation after generation have kept up the practice. Formerly many bags of grain accompanied the wool, and grist and woolen mills were kept running day and night, while the fishermen and farmers enjoyed themselves in the quiet Connecticut village until the work was done. — New York Herald.

Unity Club Discusses Six Poets, Studying "Cranks" Next Week

Newport, Rhode Island, 1896

Unity Club.

The miscellaneous literary evening last Tuesday proved to be a very pleasant one, at which the six New England poets, now dead, were discussed. Miss Emily B. Chace read a short paper on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Miss Maude Harrington on John G. Whittier, Miss Emily Bradley on H. W. Longfellow, Miss Ada Crandall on James Russell Lowell, and Miss Grace Brazier on William Cullen Bryant. Extracts were read from their most celebrated poems. Miss Maude Harrington displayed considerable elocutionary power in her reading of Whittier's soul stirring poem entitled "Barbara Frietchie." The idea of having one evening devoted to the study of six New England poets was an excellent and very successful one. The next study evening is on the 5th of March and the two subjects to be treated on will be "Galileo" and "Cranks."

—Newport Mercury, Newport, Rhode Island, March 2, 1895, page 1.




A. O'D. Taylor's Paper On "Cranks," at Unity Club, March 5, 1895

Newport, Rhode Island, 1895.

On "Cranks."

At a Study meeting of the Unity Club held on Tuesday evening the 5th instant, Mr. A. O'D. Taylor read a short essay on "Cranks," of which we have the pleasure in giving a summary. He treated the subject in a thoroughly original way, and it created considerable merriment amongst his audience.

He began by saying that the oft-quoted recipe of Mrs. Glasse for making hare soup, "First catch your hare!" might well be quoted as an introduction. That saying was really one of the humorous Tom Hood's brilliancies, and originally ran "Ahem! Hare! First catch your hare then do him till he's done." Mr. Taylor went on to remark, I would therefore say "Crank! Ahem, first catch your crank, then do him till he's done." With this view, I invited three specimens here tonight, in an apparently guileless way, but they all refused to come, having evidently some furtive idea that they were wanted for illustrations. We must, therefore, do without them. It is all well enough to begin in this jocular way, but before we are "done" you will probably feel uncomfortably warm, and say this essay is no laughable matter at all.

What is a "crank?" He then explained the mechanical crank, the bit of machinery; then the application of the idea of a twist therein involved, to topography, to speech, and to the mind. But, like all words which first have an objective and clearly defined meaning of some material thing the word "crank" has, by colloquial use, come to be applied to human character, to individuals, and in the sense of meaning a person given to impracticable schemes, one who has a twist in his mental perceptions, one whose judgment is perverted on some one particular subject. The use of the word as a noun in this sense is much more general in the United States than in Great Britain and Ireland. Yet it is not what is sometimes called an Americanism, except in the usage of being applied to people. As a word applied to caprice, whim or crotchet, or even a fit of temper, it is a provincial and truly English word — while its application to a human being is American, and apparently originated in New England. May there not be a good side as well as a bad one, in cranks? May not the crank of 1605 become the sage of 1845? We are censorious. There is no harm in forming a judgment; that arises automatically by the exercise of our reason, but the golden rule "Judge not that ye be not judged" means, and would be better translated "Condemn not, that ye be not condemned." He then spoke of the murderous crank like Guiteau, the economic crank like the absurd Coxey — the religious crank, the political crank, the domestic crank, the literary crank, and the scientific crank. Or it might actually be some Unity Club crank, who tells you that he has long noticed with alarm the steadily increasing influx of female members into the club, and that, if the men do not stand shoulder to shoulder, every office of honor, those of President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer &c., will be snatched from them by triumphant women, and that the only evening on which men will be allowed to open their mouths, will be on a "Miscellaneous Literary Evening." Then, perhaps half a dozen of the tamest and best behaved males will be allowed to read extracts from the works of approved and strictly moral authors selected for them by the female directorate.

Mr. Taylor then outlined the characteristics of enthusiasts, oddities, devotees, visionaries and fanatics. Without enthusiasts the world would stand still. Fanatics are not mere cranks; they are more dangerous, more united in action, less individual — a herd of wild animals instead of one. He then discussed psychologically the boundary lines between sanity and insanity showing how feelings can arise outside the sphere of sensation. It is when emotions are not controlled by the will, but are allowed to develop into passions, that the process of mental disintegration begins, that the bounds of sanity are overstepped. But in the good natured sense of the word "crank" we often include all those who differ a little bit from the ordinary hum-drum people of the world. We have a sort of affection for such "cranks," in fact nearly every family will privately confess to you that it has one in its own domestic fold, quietly packed away, either sitting reading in the parlor, or just gone to bed.

The grandmother who is "crank" enough to tell Carrie that it would be better for her to be mending her little brother's stockings, than sitting up past midnight in a twilight room with her lover Harry — is probably both a sensible and loveable old lady, despite her alleged "crankiness." The father who is so "cranky" as positively to prevent his growing son from joining some young men's club where billiards and cards are played every evening, and where just a glass of beer or a little claret and water, can be had by any one who is thirsty — may be regarded by his young hopeful as a "crank" about drink, but the boy will probably live to bless the day, when his old "dad" showed that cranky turn. And our young lady — who sulked when advised to mend the stockings — will probably, when a grown-up woman feel that her dear old "crank" of a grandmother had given her an excellent lesson in pointing out that domestic duty ranged above a personal gratification.

In the working world of men, we all know some other wise good fellow, who is simply a terror on a committee. A man whom no argument can convince, who is as set in his opinion and hard as a rock, when he has taken up some position opposed to the majority. He is a "crank" for the time being, of the first rank; for he has espoused some crotchet which all his peers agree to be impracticable, yet he holds on to it like a bulldog. Yet may it not be that such men — in the first place — are sent as a sort of test of our good temper, as a trial for our forbearance? and in the second place, is it not possible, that as this whirligig of time goes on, we are amazed to discover that the one obstinate man, the so-called "crank" on the jury was right — and that the other eleven men in the box were wrong?

This has many a time happened; and the lesson I draw from it is this. There is a good side to the apparent "crank." As I said in the early part of this paper the supposed "crank" of today, may be the admitted sage of tomorrow.

The records of science and literature bear ample testimony to this view, Galileo furnishes a notable instance. Socrates was regarded as a dangerous "crank" — and had to die – why? because he was the noblest and best man of his age.

Cornelius Agrippa, a philosopher and chemist, was regarded by the people as an object of horror, and sometimes found the streets empty at his approach, why? Because he had displayed a few philosophical experiments which any school boy can now perform but which was then supposed to be magical. He was a terrible "crank."

Roger Bacon, said to have been the inventor of gunpowder was equally hated as a "crank" and worse, because he knew more about the constituents of matter, and what their combinations effected than his neighbors did.

Petrarch the poet, was supposed to hold counsel with some demon, as the inspirer of his poems; and Descartes the materialistic philosopher, was horribly persecuted in Holland for his opinions on scientific subjects. There is no doubt that the idea which we now associate with the word "crank" was in some degree applied in those bygone days to the famous men whom I mention.

Religious, political, social erudities — novelties whose superstructure attracts, but which have no real foundation — are pre-eminently the hobbies of "cranks." Let us bear in mind that present conditions have grown, by the unfaltering process of evolution, out of the past; and that all innovations are very far from being reforms. A new thing is not necessary a true thing, and this is what the dangerous "crank" cannot be made to believe. As a rule when a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it, the general opinions and feelings will draw that way. As Edmund Burke wrote when treating of the French Revolution — "Every fear, every hope, will forward any mighty change and then, they who persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs, will appear rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself than the mere designs of men."

Strange it is, yet true, that those who are quick to perceive faults and defects, do not make the best reformers. "By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little." So it is in certain well-meant efforts to set wrong habits right. The measures adopted omit human nature. And, as regards theories of government, we will find, in looking quietly round, that much as we have been led to believe that fanaticism about some dogma in religion is the worst sort of fanaticism — fanaticism about some form of government really excites men as much, and that political fanaticism is nearly as bad as religious rancor. In these two great regions the "crank" is always pre-eminent. Of late years the economic "crank" is also becoming dangerous, with all sorts of absurd nostrums for reforming the social fabric, ignoring the human texture of which that fabric is made.

What, finally, is the outcome of all these random reflections which I have jotted down?

It seems as if what the old divine, Bishop Hall, wrote, nearly 260 years ago, strikes the true key for us in our investigation. "Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues."

Even though enthusiasts on any subject, we can be moderate with those who differ from us. We can avoid ever being "cranks." Each of us can so control his will, so weigh his conclusions, as not to be betrayed into morbid habits of thought or act, can so guide himself, by nurturing a regard for others and the feelings of others, as never to become an abnormal excrescence on society — never be a "crank." Each of us should study to be

"Rich in saving common sense,
And — as the greatest only are —
In his simplicity, sublime."

—Newport Mercury, Newport, Rhode Island, March 9, 1895, page 1.


In our issue of today we give our readers a tolerably full report of a paper read this week before the Unity Club on "Cranks," by a well-known literary gentleman of our city, who is the president and managing director of the Newport Herald. As it is an unusually interesting paper, and as neither the Herald nor the Daily News published any outline of it, we feel glad in being enabled to furnish our readers and the public with a summary. "Cranks" can be found even in Newport.

—Newport Mercury, Newport, Rhode Island, March 9, 1895, page 4, editorial page.