News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-06-03
THE MYSTERIES OF A DAY,
STRANGE, CURIOUS AND STARTLING
THINGS OCCURRING ABOUT US.
Alter the Russian CARA Story of Ship
wreck-A Haunted Tree-A Curiosity
An Insane Wife-LiIrle Pete and the
Dynamite. Etc., Etc.

LITTLE Pete Benway, eight years old,
watched the men working on the new
dam at Jewett City, New Norwich, and
was so pleased to see the exploding
dynamite charges blow great chunks of
rock into the air that he determined to
blow up rock himself, with another
small boy sitting on it. He stole part
OF dynamite cartridge, induced his vic
tim, aged six years, to play hockey with
him next day, and together the lads went
out in a field. Pete put the cartridge
under big ledge, put the little boy on
top of the ledge, ignited the explosive
with fuse and train, as he had seen the
workmen do, and then ran away. The
cartridge went off with loud crash, the
big ledge rose about half an inch, the
small boy on the top went up six inches,
and then he sat down and drove the
ledge back into place. He was stunned
for a few moments and so severely
bruised that doctor had to patch him
up, the shock causing the flesh on his
arms to crack. When Pete Benway got
home to his parents that night there was
another dynamite explosion, but his
father superintendent it and touched it
off. The small boy heard it half a mile
away and was ccnsoled for his bruises.
A ROMANTIC story of shipwreck and
residence on a small island in the Caro-
line group among the natives for ff
teen monthsSs told by Joseph Brinskiny
land Gus Wenswend, sailors who have
arrived at San Francisco. They sailed
Gm Newcastle, Australia, November Is,
"a, on the Australian bark Borthwick
G-1stle, for Annoy, China. The captain
lost his reckoning and ran out of his
course, striking on reef of the Mokin
Isle, in the Caroline group, on January
B, 1885. The ship went down at noon,
after the crew of thirteen men had tax
en- to the boats, and with small guam
tity of food and clothing reached the
island. To their surprise and Joy, they
found it inhabited. They were treated
very kindly by the people, taken in their
huts and made at home. The natives
are described as fine looking people,
who have very little intercourse with
the outside world. After sojourn of
year and quarter, Brinskin and
Wenswend. were taken off the island by
the ship H. L. Herman.
A GENTLEMAN and his wife who had
emigrated to Arkansas, where the lady
lost her mind and became a raving ma
MAC were passing through Augusta, Ga.
on their way to their former home in |
South Carolina. Being left alone for |
an instant at the union depot. the lady |
wildly dashed into the street and ran |
some distance, closely pursued by her |
anxious husband. Entering a yard on |
Telfair street, the maniac, in some mis- |
teIious way, crawled under a house |
which stood barely a foot above the |
ground. All efforts to induce her to |
come out or extricate her proved futile |
1aborers were called in and, after dig |
ging a two-foot trench under the house, |
pinioned the woman, and two strong |
men then hauled her out. The affair |
created deal of excitement and aroused |
the neighborhood.
ONE of the forest curiosities of the |
Isthmus of Darien and lower Central |
America is the tree killer (matapalol. |
This starts in life as climber upon the
trunks of large forest trees, and owing
to its marvelously rapid growth, soon
reaches the lower branches 1t then
begins to throw out many shoots, which
entwine themselves all around the trunk
and branches, and also erial tendrils,
which, as soon as they reach the ground,
take root. In few years this gigantic
parasite will completely envelope the
trunk of the tree which has upheld it,
and kill it. The whole of the inner
dead tree will then rot away, leaving
the hollow matapalo standing alone and
hourishing- This tree h~iAlss'' is u Iri-