Antique Clocks

1901

A common trick of clock makers and repairers of years ago, when the craze for antique "grandfather" clocks first showed itself, was to alter the names and dates of the original makers on such of these clocks as came to them. This trick has made it difficult to prove the exact age of an old clock now, even by experts, and still more difficult to learn the name of the real maker. Reputable repairers do not follow the practice in these days, having realized that it results in the end in injury to the business. — Jewelers' Circular-Weekly.


Lions and Tigers

There is nothing odd or peculiar about the sleep of the lions and tigers. In captivity they show the same indifference to danger that they manifest in the jungles and by day or night will slumber through an unusual tumult, unmindful or unconscious of the noise. Their sleep is commonly heavy and peaceful.

Note: Interesting for the eye, the combination of u's, m's, n's together: "an unusual tumult, unmindful or unconscious."

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.

An Extinct Animal — Saber Toothed Tiger

1907

The Saber Toothed Tiger Was a Formidable Creature

The most remarkable of all the extinct feline animals are those known to naturalists as the saber toothed cats or tigers, a group comprising the greater part of all the fossil forms. They date back to the earliest times of which we know anything about the family in North America and reach down to the time of man himself.

A large and powerful species described from the Indian Territory by Cope lived contemporaneously with the hairy mammoth, as evidenced by the commingling of their skeletons. There can be little or no question but that the hairy mammoth was contemporaneous with man in North America as well as in Europe. Its geological range is from the close of the Eocene to the latter part of the Pleistocene.

The chief peculiarity of the animal is the extraordinary elongated canine teeth. The tail is of unusual length and the legs are short. The animal measures about seven feet in length aside from the tail. The lower jaws have a downward projection in front, due to a flange-like widening of the jawbones, which doubtless served as a protection to the teeth, preventing their injury or loss. In some of the larger forms from South America this flange was not present, while the canine teeth were even more elongated than is the case with this species, attaining a length of over six inches and protruding far below the jaws when closed.


A Chinese Solomon

Two Chinamen, brothers, well advanced in age, quarreled over a piece of land which they had jointly inherited from their father and went to law. The native magistrate heard the testimony on both sides and determined that both were wrong and both right, according to the different points of view. Therefore, instead of rendering a judgment in favor of either, he ordered that both be locked up in a cangue with their heads fastened face to face and kept there until they settled their quarrel. The cangue is a sort of cage in which prisoners are placed with their necks locked into a hole in a board. It resembles somewhat the stocks which were used for the punishment of malefactors in olden times. When the brothers were placed in the cangue, they were both very stubborn and indignant, but toward the end of the second day they began to weaken and on the third day reached a satisfactory settlement and were released.

Hornets Got Him in Tree — and Other Painful Stories

1909

CHESTER, Pennsylvania — His head swathed in bandages, his sight temporarily gone, a leg and arm broken, and a rib splintered, Albert Thachrah, aged 15 years, of Aston Mills, is suffering from the effects of a fierce battle with a nest of hornets.

He was high up in the branches of an apple tree, when, in attempting to save himself from falling, he grabbed a branch to which a huge nest of hornets was attached. Immediately the angered insects began to sting him, and the boy tumbled to the ground, breaking his arm and leg and splintering his rib. Being unable to run, Thachrah was easy prey for the hornets until his cries brought relief and he was carried to a place of safety.


Mad Dog's Scratch Fatal

WAVERLY, New York — A scratch from the paw of a rabid dog was responsible for the death today of George Murray, the 4-year-old child of a local merchant. The boy was playing near his home one afternoon, three weeks ago, with two older boys, when they were suddenly attacked by a strange dog. The other two were bitten and were sent to the Pasteur Institute for treatment as soon as it became known that the dog was made. The Murray child's injury was so superficial, however, that no alarm was felt. yesterday he developed unmistakable symptoms of rabies and died today in great agony.



Tiger Chews Boy's Arm

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico — During the arrival of Campbell Bros. show, Ernest Hammond, aged 13, leaned against a tiger's cage and the animal seized his arm, breaking it at the wrist, and lacerating it so that amputation may be necessary. The boy was held by the tiger for ten minutes before the keepers could pry its jaws open with iron bars.