The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1886-04-29

ing Him With Club and Lasso-
A Fight with Horses.
incubation as a preventive of hydro
phobia has received another setback In
the cabled report of the death of one of
NJ. Pasteur's patients. The victim of
the dreaded disease was a Russian mu-
jik, who. with eighteen others, had
been bitten on the 1st of March last by
'.mad' wolves. DR.. Pasteur is informed
by physicians from Russia that bites
from rabid wolves are very common IN
Russia. and that So 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 a portion of
a decayed tooth that undoubtedly be-
longed to the wolf by which he had
been bitten. Now, the tooth of most
~hesh-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
mujiks, including the priest,
received their wound in attempting to
drive the brutes awayfrom 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 a 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 muiiks.
The artist, however, loves to depict
scenes where a pack of wolves is seen
In full pursuit after a sled full of peas
ants; The novelist of Siberian exile
AHe 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 a sop to the Infatuated
brutes- There is one picture that is
well known, since ithas been the rounds
OF the Illustrated press of the world. It
is The famous n by S~chreyer, repre-
senting a Russian courier in a sled
drawn by six beautiful horses and pur-
sued by wolves. This picture is a
"reminiscences from the Rpsso-Turkish
war of 1886, when the artist spent a
long time in Wallachia, Hungary and
Southern Russia, where he is said to
have mel the Russian courier whose ad.
ventures formed the subject of his
picture.
There is one thing, however, that the
artist a forgotten in drawing his six
magnificent horses. That is the bells.
These are a very necessary thing in
Russian or Siberian travel. Theil
pleasant Naturalization is heard or
your sled journey wherever you 60. ]
listened to them during a 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 a transatlantic steamer il
to the ocean voyager. 1t usually an.
nounced the fact that we had arrived a
some large town, where the jingling O
bells is prohibited by the authorities. Or
the steppes, where there is but littl,
need of proclaiming your coming to tn,
wlntry wastes, one is surprised tt
find that the bells generally iingl
II i0uuOot. L was ouI pI1Scu W ledTu
indeed. that the jingling has its use, a
IT is generally assumed to brighten of
the wolves. The sound seems to inspir,
them with fear IT caution, for the con
tinuous sound of the bells certainly pro
claims the fact that all is well with tn,
traveller. And in all my journeyings,
must say that 1 never heard of a yem
sink being attacked by wolves Will
driving his sled from one stanzia to tn
other. In very severe winters, how
ever, the run from post-station to post
station is not always completed withou
the excitement of being chased by tn
ugly brutes.
During my winter journey across s.
IBERIA / was somewhat disappointed a
seeing so few wolves. In my journe
of 5000 miles across the steppes l say
only fourteen, eleven in one band, tw,
in another. and one solitary brute at
distance prowling about on the ice G
TENNESSEE. But the sled is a grea
place wherein to brood wolf stories
When you are lying down under you
furs at night and the sled passing quick
" over the frozen roads you imagine
If the weather is not extremely colo
that you Can hear the deep growing {
the wolves following your sled. If tn
weather is terribly cold you hear wins
you imagine to be the short, quick yell
ing of a thousand famished brutes aftt
you. 1t is a dreadful sound when 70
FIRST hear it, but you soonlearn to kno
that this peculiar noise, which, assiste
by the Imagination you fancy to be mad
by the iery-mouthed wolves, is cause
hy the wooden runners passing evs