News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-03-19
50 WAGS THE WORLD.
STRANGE, STARTLING AND CURIOUS
EVENTS DESCRIBED IN TIE COL
UMNS OF OUR EXCHANGES.
A British Majors StrataRem-A Death Trap
"A Burglars Grave-The Bottle of
Smelling Salts, Etc., Etc.

"A Burglars Grave-The Bottle of
Smelling salts, Etc., Etc.
MARCUS. WARNER, of Shusham, N.
| z, has been bothered by chicken
thieves lately. A few nights ago he set
large steel trap at the entrance of his
chicken coop door. He also loaded q
shotgun with powder and fine salt and
placed it at the door of the coop, so that
when the door was opened the gun
would be discharged, and the intruder
would receive the contents IN his body
while held in the jaws of the steel trap.
The same day some friends of Warmers
came to visit him. They drank cider all
day and until late in the evening. When
the visitors were ready to go Warner
went to help them harness the horse.
| They broke a strap. Warner had one
in the chicken coop. He forgot about
the trap and the gun, and went after the
strap. When he opened the door of the
hen house he stepped in the trap. The
gun went off. and bored large hole in
his side. making fatal wound. The
trap broke his leg.
The timber RATS of the Rhine are
noticeable characteristic of that river.
They consist of timber felled in the
mountain forests and brought down to
the Rhine by the Neckar, Main, Moselle,
and other rivers. The single logs are
first hurled down from the heights into
the mountain torrent, then few are tied
together and as they float down the
streamlet grow like SNOWFALL, till in
the Rhine itself they are made into huge
floating fabrics, which are carefully nav
ieated to Dorhecht and sold. A raft
has often eight or ten small houses on
it, and 400 to 500 people, rowers and pi-
| lots. The vast pile is steered by means
Of immense oars, and is SO constructed as
to twist like huge snake in the narrow
channels. The sale of single raft at
the end of the voyage often realizes
$150,000.
DURING the retreat of Gen. Butler,
the honors of the day fell to Major
Wardrop, who, with thirteen men, stole
cautiously round the enemy's right and
found they had only few hundred rifle
men on the hills and no reserve spear
men. Major Wardrop and his Eaen,
keeping out of sight, sent volleys at
range of 800 yards ON the enemy's flank.
Leaving one man at this point to con-
tinue the firing he took the twelve
others, and, as quickly as possible, pur-
sued the same tactics at three successive
hills, giving the Arabs the impression
that new bodies of British troops were
arriving. The Mahdi's forces became
panic stricken, ceased firing and re-
treated toward Metemneh, taking their
guns and dead and wounded with them.
A FEW remarks on the care of watches
are made by a writer in the Popular
Science Monthly. A good watch should
be oiled once a year and cleaned once in
three years. If a jeweler tells you that
there is some very serious trouble or
break in your watch which will cost sew
eral dollars to get repaired, ask him to
take the watch down" and let you see
the trouble. 1t is better to wind ones
watch in the morning than in the even
ing, since, if you wind at night and ex-
pose the watch to the cold, the chilling
of the tightly. wound handspring may
break it. Frequently empty out the
dust that accumulates in your watch |
pocket 1t will not injure a clock or
watch to turn the hands backward.
WHEN the shaft of the Washington |
Monument had been constructed to a
height of $50 feet, one morning when |
the workmen assembled the elevator they |
were surprised to find cat at the top. |
The animal was startled by their ap-
proach and jumped upon the wall of the
monument. One of the men went to-
ward it, and the cat, seeing no way of
escape, jumped over the side to the
ground. Instead of being smashed to
atoms, as the workmen expected, upon
reaching the ground, although evidently
little stunned, it got up and started
to run away, when the watchman's dog
caught sight of it, and, seizing the cat
by the neck, killed it.
On a farm near Gallon, Ohio q large,
partially hollow tree was being convert
ed into firewood, when the sawyers were
Mortified upon saving through the hol-
low near the solid part to find a mans
head cleft from the body by the saw. A
search revealed in the hollow part of the
log, the body of man, $500 in money,
pair of pistols and a kit of burglars
tools. 1t is supposed that the man
crawled into the tree to hide, probably
after committing burglary and being
unable to get out starved to death.
THE Winnsboro, y. c., Neaos relates
that colored man somewhat under the
ordinary stature called ON a lawyer of
that place few days ago and wanted to
know if there was any chance to get a
divorce. He explained that he was
Democrat and that his wife, who was
evidently muscular parsonage of Re- |
publican and pugilistic propensities, had
been whipping him ever since he voted |
for Hampton in 1876. He said he thought |
the Democratic party ought to do some
thing for him.
Mp NTrA e H.
Post, n. T., has found by an extended |
experience that ice water, or water but |
few degrees warmer than ice water,
sprlnkled upon cabbages during the heat |
of the day will kill the imported cabbage |
worm. He found that such an applica-
ton in the hot sun caused them to |
quickly let go their hold upon the leaves,
roll to the ground and die, while the cab |
bages suffered nothing, but looked all |
the fresher for the application.
A DOCTOR who ought to know says |
that the practice of the wholesale use of |
smelling salts, which came in with the |
universal fashion of carrying smelling |
bottles, is sure to have its influence upon |
the olfactory nerves sooner or later, and |
render the victim unable to distinguish |
cologne from asafetida. More than all |
that, it causes headaches, sore throats |
and red noses. The last argument will |
have its weight. The smelling bottle
must go.
IHE burial of young woman who |
died of pneumonia in Salem, Mass, q
week or SO ago was postponed by rela-
tives of the deceased, who noticed color |
and warmth about her, which suggested |
to them that she might be in trance.
After five days, however, all the pros
poets of restoration to life vanished, |
modification set in and the body was
buried. Physicians, it is stated, could
give no satisfactory reason for the
warmth.
The last of the prisoners taken during
the Franco German war have lust left |
Germany. Some Turcos who, during
their imprisonment, had killed a keeper |
by whom they had been badly used, and
who, in consequence, had been con-
demned to Imprisonment in fortress,
reached Cologne the other day from
Vessel. They were dressed in new uni |
forms, which had been sent to them by
the French government.
M. HoUzEAU, of the Brussels Royal
Observatory, has published the first
result of the last transit of Venus, in
which he places the suns distance at
81, 756, 800 miles. Of the previous de-
termination of the distance made since
1862, Leverrier's was nearest, being o.
357, 900 miles.
OF the 600, 900 widows in India under
nineteen wears of age who are Dro- |