Fits Horse With Snowshoes

1919

Mail Carrier Fulfills Contract Despite Heavy Drifts.

VANCOUVER, B. C., Canada. — By fitting his horse with snowshoes, "Ole the Bear" (A. R. Westerberg) was last week able to live up to the terms of his contract and deliver the mail from Downie Creek to Revelstoke, a distance of forty-five miles, making the trip in three days. Ole built the snowshoes out of birch bark, making them circular and about a foot in diameter. To protect his horse's legs he covered the upper part with old blankets and gunny sacks.

Up the Big Bend district, where Ole takes King George's mail, the snow is several feet deep, and is covered with a breaking crust. A short time ago George Laforme, a packer, lost thirty horses and mules in trying to bring them out over the treacherous surface.

A Glimpse of Caracas

1896

What Correspondent Saw in Venezuela's Capital

Comparatively few of the men here ever venture into the street unarmed, writes a Caracas correspondent of the New York Herald. There are laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons, but they are never observed. One of the professors in the university here assures me that he is convinced that every one of the students who attends his lectures has a revolver in his hip pocket. Weapons are often worn as much for ornaments as for protection or aggression. The caballero with silver spurs and gay trappings who prances about on a frisky mule or Peruvian horse is not fully equipped without a brace of revolvers. The humbler fellows who trudge the country lanes afoot or on burros' backs take special pride in the knives they carry in fancy sheaths at their waists, and which are equally available for cutting food or enemies. The far-famed machete is so long that the most convenient way to carry it is in the hand. It is the most terrible weapon in war and is used for every possible purpose in times of peace, opening virgin forests, cutting down trees, digging and building.

Human life is held very cheap in Venezuela, except by the law of the land in dealing with murderers. There is no capital punishment here, and a man who is caught red-handed in crime knows that the heaviest sentence that could be imposed on him is ten years' imprisonment. The worst cases, I am told, are sent to a prison in the marshy districts near the western frontier, where the man who survives his term is a phenomenon, and where two years is as much as most men can endure. Stabbing and shooting affrays are very common and rarely receive more attention than half a dozen lines in the local papers, in which sympathy is expressed for the relatives of the deceased.

The proportion of men that one sees in the streets of Caracas who are minus an arm or a leg is greater by far than it was in the United States at the close of the Civil War. Comparatively few of the cripples here were maimed in battle during the revolutions, most of them having been hurt in private brawls.

The Vargas Hospital, in Caracas, is a large institution, admirably located on a hillside and excellently managed. No public building in Venezuela is complete without a statue, and as one enters the main door of the hospital one sees in the central patio a statue of Vargas, who was, I believe, President of the Republic at the time the hospital was founded. There are ten wards for women, all opening on a long courtyard to the left of the entrance, and as many for men on the other side.

The tiny hack horses of Caracas are mainly skin and bones, and the drivers, like their prototypes all over the world, show them very little consideration. Besides the little native horses one sees in the streets many Peruvian horses, which are one size larger and are excellent for riding, and big American horses in swell carriages. Burros far outnumber the horses, and mules are very common.

Teams of oxen are used to haul the heavy wagons, and cows are driven by milkmen from door to door with their calves by their sides. Most of the calves have their muzzles tied in rags to prevent them from getting any milk before all the customers have been supplied. It is also a common thing to see a boy driving a flock of turkeys through the main streets, usually in the direction of the markets. In the corrals are usually many live animals that have been brought in from the country and left for sale — deer and wild pigs, with bristles like porcupines, predominating.

About the market place are kept the skins of huge snakes and wild animals, for which fancy prices are asked if they are in reasonably good condition. The prettiest fur is that of the leopard-tigre they call it here. The tigre is very ferocious and is dreaded by all who have occasion to travel. The puma, which is dignified by the name of lion, is far less common, and about equally dangerous to meet.

I fancy that the supply of dogs has always been large in Caracas, as the Cathedral here has an odd functionary called a perero, or dog boy. The office dogs bark to the colonial dogs, and the present occupant is an urchin with a black face, very bright eyes and a beautiful set of teeth. In the street he looks like any other little fellow who does not keep his face particularly clean, but in the Cathedral he is quite imposing in his long gown of dark purplish blue and his big white collar. He carries in his hand a stout whip, with a long, knotted lash, and he walks about with all the pride of a recruit in the army carrying a gun for the first time. He is quite expert, and loud yelps occasionally prove that his whip hurts.

Fox Hunters Bag Deer

1911

Witty With The News

Three New Jersey "sportsmen" who went out for fox hunting are on trial for killing deer. Possibly New Jersey rabbits wear horns.

The Los Angeles man who was sent to jail for 30 days for smiling at a strange woman evidently does not see the point of the joke.

Automobiles to the number of 460,000 are flitting here and there in this country, but all their flitting does not reduce the cost of mules.

The average life of a statesman is said to be 71 years. This doesn't necessarily conflict with the old theory that the good die young.

Those Chicago crooks who stole a 600 pound safe in the dead of night evidently missed their calling. They should have been piano movers.

Reckless automobile driving is to be eliminated.

And now will not the Pullman company reduce the porter's tips.

Don't mind the pessimistic weather prophet's prediction of a long winter.

Horseless Vehicles May Be Used By the Army

1896

War Horses of Steel

Cavalrymen to Be Mounted on Motor Cycles, Artillery Hauled Without Mules

Horseless vehicles will probably be used in our army before very long. General Miles is now studying the question, and later the army may purchase or have built a horseless vehicle to be tested at one of the posts.

Before many generations, it is predicted, battles will be fought by navies, so to speak, patrolling the land as well as the sea, in ironclad vessels. True, the horseless vehicle, as we now know it, cannot be depended upon to climb fences, run over steep rocks or such obstacles, but it is contended that with these machines in use will come good roads.

The value of movable forts was greatly appreciated in ancient warfare, but modern rapid movements in battle made them useless; but with these forts propelled by steam their utility becomes at once apparent. An armored fortress moved by a power from within, and containing a picked body of sharpshooters, could work havoc on an enemy.

The army wagon has always played an important part in the protection of small bodies of men attacked from ambush on the march. Where there is animal power exposed, however, that propelling force is soon exterminated with a single bullet. The horse is much more easily hit than the man. War statistics, including all the world's battles fought between 1800 and 1865, show that for every 100 cavalry or artillery soldiers killed there were 120 horses. But a traveling fort could not be destroyed nearly so quickly as a warship, for the reason that there no water to rush into the former. A hundred holes can be shot clear through it, and yet it will go on unless the vital machinery be broken.

The adoption of the horseless vehicle, as is contemplated, for the simple army train, may lead to the adoption of these armored land vessels some day. At each of its forty-one military posts our army employs two or more wagons. There are two styles of army wagons prescribed by the Quartermaster-General. The larger, the six-mile wagon, is for transporting army supplies to and from railroad stations on the frontier posts. The other, known as the escort wagon, is pulled by two or four mules. It is used in the more thickly settled regions for the same purpose, as well as for official errands.

These wagons have been used in the army since the war, with but little alteration. Both would be important factors of the army train in the event of war with a foreign Power. They are slow, but sure, as are the Government mules which draw them. But the Government mule will not long be use in these advanced days, when all the armies of the world are striving to solve the problem of rapid transit.

The movement is fast on foot to mount our regular soldiers, as well as militiamen, on bicycles. When these are in use marches of a hundred miles or more will be made in the light of one day. Forced ones of double length will easily be made in twenty-four hours. The bicycle needs but a little oil and is always ready. It is, therefore, apparent to progressive military men that with the advent of the bicycle must come the advent of the horseless carriage in the army provision train.

Another important bearing of the compact road motor upon modern warfare will be the possibility of hauling field cannon without the aid of horses. The field piece is the clumsiest of all instruments of warfare to manage during a retreat. For this reason alone cannon are so often deserted in the field to fall into the hands of the enemy.

When good roads make the horseless conveyance popular we will have to propel our cannon at a rapid rate, on the march, to keep up with the rapid pace of the bicycle cavalry and infantry, and the provision wagons propelled by the storage battery, naphtha, gasoline, petroleum and other motors.

It is said that a New Jersey inventor has prepared plans for an acetyline automobile carriage, soon to be built and run in Washington this winter. This promises to be a very cheap motor, employing the new gas renowned for its low rate of cost.

Developments in the lightness, compactness and power of motors will also probably permit air-ships to be made and utilized in war.

A striking vista of a great military engagement a century hence now begins to appear to the mind's eye. Imagine that a great foreign host is falling in upon us. Myriads of floating fortresses are guarding our shores from far out to sea. Our seacoasts are scattered with impenetrable fortifications built at every point which might prove tempting and beneficial to an enemy.

Our armor covered cavalry fly about the country upon their two-wheeled war horses of steel, propelled by powerful light motors. Rapid monitors patrol the continent, now netted with glazed highways, and flocks of warrior birds, driven by compact engines, soar above the enemy's fleets or forces, dropping death upon them, as did the fabulous rocs, the giant birds told of in the "Arabian Nights." — New York Herald.

Animals as Criminals

1896

Instances in Which They Were Tried in Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts

During the middle ages, and even as late as the time of Shakespeare, animals were considered legally responsible for their acts. They were tried for various offenses, and if found guilty were convicted and punished. Mules were occasionally deprived of their ears for wrongdoing, and this altered the appearance of the animals, whether it improved their morals or not. There was another punishment inflicted on mules which suggests that there was method in the madness of the authorities. A mule which was particularly wicked was made forfeit to the crown, and the king had a corral of asses which could not be equaled for depravity in the world.

Occasionally the animals were tried before an ecclesiastical tribunal. Swarms of flies, bees, leeches and other insect pests were often condemned to vacate within a certain time under penalty of "malediction." As a rule certain sections of the country were set aside to which the condemned animals might retire and live in peace and quiet.

A horde of flies that bothered the residents of Mavence, France, were tried once, and escaped punishment because of their small size and extreme youth. Rats one time began eating the barley of France and were tried in court. They were defended by an eminent lawyer named Chasseneux, and he actually won the suit and the rats escaped punishment. In Naples an ass was tried — by a jury of his peers, no doubt — and sentenced to die at the stake. The sentence was carried out, and that ass never committed murder again. About the year 1700 the practice died out, and some time after the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was organized, and since then domestic animals have been better treated.

"White Mule" Sign Lured Thirsty Ones

1920

Maude Was There, Also Something Else With a "Kick"

VINCENNES, Indiana, March 18. — "White Mule for Sale." Thirsty ones who heeded this inviting sign, tacked to the door of a stable, found a real, somewhat alive white mule for sale. Here's the story, as told by one of the Federal agents who aided the State prohibition enforcement commissioner in a recent roundup of whiskey peddlers in this section of the State:

A clique of bootleggers purchased an old white mule, scoured the animal up, placed him in a stall and then hung out the sign.

Those interested enough to inquire were "sized up" thoroughly. If in doubt, the bootleggers' representative on duty displayed the mule's good "points" and quoted a price far beyond reason. If the prospect looked "safe," his thirst was quenched.

Why Sixty Minutes Made an Hour

1910

The hour is divided into 60 minutes simply because in old Babylon there existed, by the side of the decimal system of notation, another system, the sexagesimal, which counted by sixties. There is no number which has so many divisors as 60. The Babylonians divided the sun's daily journey into 24 parasangs, each parasang, or hour, being divided into 60 minutes. The parasang is about equal to a German mile, and the Babylonians compared the progress made by the sun during one hour to the progress made by a good walker during the same time.


Discouraging

On arriving at San Bernardino after a five months' prospecting trip in the desert two California prospector found that one of their packmules had developed a limp. An examination of the mule's hoof revealed a gold nugget, worth probably $50. The prospectors have no idea in what part of the desert the nugget was picked up.


Olive Industry Safe

There is little prospect of the olive industry of this country being overdone, for there are only three localities in this country where the olives will thrive.


Caterpillars Ravage Trees

Washington. — Shade trees of Washington, famed for their number and beauty, are undergoing an attack from a horde of caterpillars. The trees are being stripped of their foliage rapidly. So numerous are the pests that they have baffled the caretakers' efforts to cope with them. Property owners have joined in the attempt to repel the invaders, but it seems that there is little chance to prevail against them. Some fear for the lives of the trees is expressed.

He Walloped 8 Men, But the Ninth One...

1920

"Thought a Mule Kicked Me," Man Tells Judge Next Day

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Thomas Fisher, a railroad brakeman, drank something and entered the lists. He met eight men. He hit seven men. Seven men hit the sidewalk and the eighth fled when Fisher's fist missed his nose and knocked his hat into the street.

Another was approaching out of the darkness.

"I'm a wild man," announced Fisher, "and I'm looking for a person named Dempsey."

"I'm G. E. King of the vice squad," replied the newcomer, "and I'm looking for wild women, but maybe I can accommodate you."

"I was going fine until a horse kicked me," Fisher told Judge John M. Kennedy the next day in the North Side Court. "It was the first drink I ever took, judge, and it was some of this prohibition whiskey."

"It wasn't a bad night's work," returned the court. "Discharged."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 20, 1920, page 1.

Mules Being Abandoned, Replaced by Motor Equipment

1920

Motors Displace Mules

The First cavalry, stationed at Nogales, Ariz., has abandoned mules in favor of motor equipment, but the change is not so revolutionary at it sounds, because you can swear just as fluently at a balky carburetor as you can at a stubborn quadruped. And it does just as much good.—The Home Sector.


Largest Wooden Building

The parliament building in Wellington, New Zealand, is the largest wooden structure in the world.


Protect the Song Birds

Song birds may be protected from cats by winding four or five strands of barbed wire around the tree trunks, Cats have a great dislike for barbed wire and will not cross it. The wire will not harm the trees and can be removed when the birds leave.

—Bedford Gazette, Bedford, Pennsylvania, January 9, 1920, page 4.

Railroad Man Has Walked 151,850 Miles

1920

Trackman Figures Distance He Covered in 32 Years

DENHOLM, Pa., March 25. -- On completing his thirty-second year as a trackwalker for the Pennsylvania Railroad, Benjamin F. Burns, 65 years old, figured just how many miles he had walked in that time in making his rounds.

In the thirty-two years of service he lost but six days. His rounds each night total ten miles. Walking to and from work adds another three miles to the total.

His figures show that he has walked a total of 151,850 miles, or more than six time around the world.


Mule Lodge Is No More

GREENUP, Ky., March 25. -- Mule lodge, organized two years ago for the purpose of driving mule thieves from this country, has disbanded, the object for which the band was organized having been achieved. It was shown that thieves now have turned their attention to automobiles.

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 27, 1920, page 1.

Mule on Car's Radiator

1920--

BARBOURVILLE, Kentucky, May 20. -- An automobile driven by Ellsworth Henson ran into a mule ridden by Jack Lewis. Lewis landed in the rear seat of the car and the mule was carried 200 feet on the radiator. Nobody was hurt.


Rats Spoil a Pumpkin Record

CYNTHIA, Kentucky, May 20. -- J. L. Garnett has just had cut and made into pies a pumpkin which he kept for two years. It was in a prime state of preservation and he says it would have lasted much longer if rats had not gnawed it.


Defamed Beauty Wins Suit

French Cartoonist Must Pay the Woman 1 Franc

PARIS, France, May 20. -- Jan Catulle Mendes, the writer, who gave lectures in America during the war, was cartooned in a Paris magazine in 1914 by Roubeyre. The cartoon displeased her, and she indignantly sued the artist for damages, alleging defamation of beauty. The suit has just ended with an awared to Mlle. Mendes of 1 franc.

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, May 22, 1920, page 4.