The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-05-07
CHASE OF THE WOLF.
Stories Of the Pest of the Rus
sian Steppes.
Pasteur's Mujik Patients-The Beast OF
the Novelist and the Traveler-Hunt-
ing Him With Club and Lasso-
A Fight With Horses.


incubation as preventive of hydro
phobia has received another setback in
the cabled report of the death of one of
M. Pasteur's patients. The victim of
the dreaded disease was Russian mu-
jik, who. with eighteen others, had
been bitten on the 1st of March last by
''mad' wolves. DIR. Pasteur is informed
by physicians from Russia that bites
from rabid wolves are very common in
Russia, apd that 50 per cent of those
bitten by such brutes die of hydropho-
bia. This is the first time that the
world has heard anything about mad
wolves, and proofs of the assertions of
the Russian physicians will be awaited
with interest. At the inquest held upon
the body of the hapless mujik, however,
an examination revealed the presence
in the mans cheek-bone of portion of
decayed tooth that undoubtedly be-
1onged to the wolf by which he had
been bitten. Now, the tooth of most
fesh-eating animals are poisonous, be-
cause unclean. A wolf does not need
to be mad for its bite to produce death.
Blood-poisoning is the inevitable result
of wolf-wounds when neglected, or
when the blood of the victim is in an
impure state. There are hundreds and
hundreds of villages in Russia where
the entire population of peasants are
afflicted with hereditary disease and on
whom the bite of any wolf. mad or not
mad. is liable to prove fatal.
That wolves do attack the Russian
mujiks occasionally may be accepted as
the fact. In the present case we have
to imagine that the wolves, driven by
hunger, attacked the live stock of a
Russian communal village, and that the
nineteen mujiks, including the priest,
received their wound in attempting to
drive the brutes away from their quarry.
But that the wolves were mad is ques-
tionable. They were desperate and
dangerous, but that they had rabies has
yet to be proved. There are thousands
of people who have been attacked by
wolves in Russia who have recovered
without showing any signs of hydro
phobia. The peasants of the interior
districts of Russia have every winter to
defend their stock from wolves, and
sometimes to defend their own lives.
But wolves do not attack human beings
as rule, and the Russian peasant is
not particularly afraid of them. True,
he may be attacked when coming home
to his village on his sled, but wolves
can generally get their booty at an
easier price than by attacking mujiks.
The artist, however, loves to depic,
scenes where a pack of wolves is seen
in full pursuit after sled full of peas
ants. The novelist of Siberian exile
life delights in dealing with wolf stories.
and especially loves to depict the peas
ant urging his horses to their full gait,
and his wife preparing to throw the
baby out as sop to the Infatuated
brutes. There is one picture that is
well known, since it has been the rounds
OF the illustrated press of the world. 1,
is the famous one by Schreyer, repre-.
senting a Russian courier in a sled
drawn by six beautiful horses and pur.
sued by wolves. This picture is 8
Renaissance from the Russo Turkish
war of 1855, when the artist spent 8
long time in Wallachia, Hungary and
Southern Russia, where he is said to
have met the Russian courier whose ad.
ventures formed the subject of his
picture.
There is one thing, however, that the
artist has forgotten in drawing his siz
magnificent horses. That is the bells.
These are very necessary thing in
Russian or Siberian travel Their
pleasant Naturalization is heard on
your sled journey wherever you 90.
listened to them during twenty-eighi
days journey across Siberia from Oren.
burg to Irkutsk, and again on a four.
teen days journey northward from the
capital of Eastern Siberia to Yakutsk.
Their cessation, indeed, became a
startling as the sudden stoppage of the
machinery of transatlantic steamer ID
to the ocean voyager. 1t usually an.
nounced the fact that we had arrived al
some large town, where the jingling Of
bells is prohibited BY the authorities. On
the steppes, where there is but little
need of proclaiming your coming to the
wintry wastes, one is surprised to
find that the bells generally jingle
the loudest. l was surprised to learn,
indeed. that the jingling has its use, as
it is generally assumed to frighten of
the wolves. The sound seems to inspire
them with fear or caution, for the con.
tinuous sound of tbs bells certainly pro
claims the fact that all is well with the
traveller. And in all my journeyings,
must say that never heard of q yem.
-shik being attacked by wolves while
driving his sled from one stanzia to the
other. In very severe winters, how.
ever, the run from post-station to post
station is not always completed without
the excitement of being chased by the
ugly brutes-
During my winter journey across 81
IBERIA was somewhat disappointed al
seeing SO few wolves. In my journey
Of 5000 miles across the steppes I saw
only fourteen, eleven in one band. two
in another, and one solitary brute at q
distance Prowing about on the ice o.