Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1883-01-12
Obituary CUriOsilics.


lime was when people were content to
wait n month"; know how things were GO
ing i'll the world, and looked to the maga-
zine quite as much as to the newspapers
for enlightenment on that head, an eX-
pection in which they were not disap-
pointed. A hundred years ago, the do
ings at court and in Parliament naval
and military dispatches, the results if not
the details Of criminal trials, theatrical
criticisms, commercial statistics. and
notifications of births, marriages, :nl
deaths Heightened with II column or tv }
OF poetlcal eiiusions-were the staple co l.
tents of the periodical publications of the
day, as represented by the GcHticmaltS,
the Scots, and the European magazines.
Announcements of births, marriages, and
deaths were then accepted as gratuitc us
contributions, and the last mentioned
were often expanded into biographical
paragraphs, much more amusing and in
teresting than the curt advertisements
familiar to modern eyes.
Dobbs, sexton of Ross, dying in 119S
aged eighty-seven, is described us the
only inhabitant of the place having any
recollection OF the person or manners of
John Kyrle the Man of Ross. There was
much ringing, singing, ard drinking ut
his intcrment the ceremonies commence
ing ut noon, ''and the clock had told
three i'll the morning before the tears of
the tankard were dried up" No such I'M
seemly merry-making attended the obsc-
quies of Thomas Bond, of Lichfeld, "the
original of .Scrub III the 'Beyux STRAIT
agem," or those of "Mr. Psalmanazar-
well known i'll many ingenious perfor,
mances III different parts of literature, 4"
who died i'll August, 1862, many years
after he created n sensation by the publ
cation of his fictitious History OF For
mosa.
In the GcnttemoH's .Igaa:iHc of July,
1899, we read : AT Bristol Hot Well,
Anthony Morris Storer, Esq, of Dovon-
chire Street, and Turley, Busks. A man
whose singular felicity it was to excel i'll
everything he set his hand and heart to,
and WHO deserved in certain degree, il
any one ever did since the days of Cricl-
ton, the epithet oi Admirable. He was
the best dancer, the best skater of his
time, and beat all his competitors at
gymnastic honor9. He cxceled, too. as
II musician and disputant, and, very
early, as Latin poet. In short, what
ever he undertook, he did it c0U aniOrc,
and as perfectly as if it were his only ac-
complishment He was polite in his con.
versation, elegant i'll his manners, and
amusing in high degree or otherwise, in
the extreme, as he felt himself and his
company
Recording the death, in 1902, Of the
| Hon. John Peire, Mr.. Urban informs lis
that this younger brother Of Lord Petre
was the eighteenth member OF the family
that had died of smallpox III the space Of
twenty seven years. In 1898, was 'ex-
ecuted, behind his own mecting-house,
at Gray-Abbey. near Belfast. in Ireland,
for treason, the Rev. James Porter, Il
dissenting minister. HIS head was
not severed from his body" In the same
year, Sergeant Mackay, of the Royal
Edinburgh Volunteers, went over to til,
majority prematurely. "The cause OF
his death originated in the treatment he
received mt the barbarous amusement fre-
quent in that city on His Maiesty's birth.
day called making burghers; ut which
time, and from the same cause, a gentle.
man of the royal corps of artillery unfor.
tunately received his death" More mys
terious was the demise of the landlady OF
the "Ihrec Stays, iii st. Georges
Fields, London. Indulging in an after.
noon nap behind the bar she dreamed
she saw herself come into room in
which she was sitting, md that she spoke
to and shook hands with her second self
Whether it was her cidOion or not Ger
tain II is that the next morning she was
taxed i'll and died in IL quarter of an hour.
A Mrs. johnson went off without ever
that much warning dying, suddenly M
she sat i'll her chair, and next day hei
husband AS suddenly" Even more oi
one mind were a Yorkshire pair, who
were born on the same day, died nearl,
Mt the same hour, and-but that was
matter OF course-'wcre deposited III the
same srave"-a notification that woult
have betitted the announcement "a
Prescott, Lancashire. Mrs. Blakesley
aged lOS; Mrs. Chorley, aged ninety
seven; and Mrs. Bennet, aged seven
five. They were intimate acquaintance
and all died within the space of twelve
hours
The turtle is so slow that he must take h
house with him when he goes out for wall,
otherwise he might not he able to reaCl