Iuka reporter. (Iuka, Miss.) 1888-1894, 1889-08-22
SOMEWHAT STRANGE,
ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS or
EVERYDAY LIFE.

A0cADENTs AND INCIDENTS OF
EVERYDAY LIFE.
Sueer Facts and Thrilling Ad.
ventures Which Show That Truth
y Stranger Than Fiction.
'.OUT OF thousand people bitten bv
tatuesnakes do not think dozen re-
cover, said Editor j. H. Estill, Of Sa-
vsnnah. "There is no known cure, in
spite OF the fact that many people have
SAID that they were cured BY whiskey.
lou may depend on it, that when man
says ne was cured Of a rattlesnake bite.
though not necessarily q liar. he is ri
'east laboring under misrepresentation
Of the facts. There is o small snake
similar to the rattlesnake in appearance
whose poison is not SO venomous. and
negroes bitten by it place lime upon the
spot or else drink enough whiskey to
counteract the poison. Whiskey, if
TAKEN IN large quantity, goes directly
INTO the blood and counteracts the poi-
son OF the snake. But the regular
Georgia RATHER, from five to seven feet
IN length, is deadly customer to meet.
II does not give any warning, but strikes
the moment it is disturbed, and il can
strike an object as far distant as It Is
long. A friend of mine was riding
along IN the saddle one day when a big
RATHER lying in the road leaped at him
IS he passed. It closed to his bootleg.
driving one of its fangs clear through
the thick leather Of his boot and through
his trousers, just escaping the flesh. 1t
required considerable kicking to shake
that snake off, and when he was finally
got rid Of he started in pursuit. NV
friend faced bullets in the army with
nonchalance, but his hair stood on end
when he saw that snake coming, and
ne jammed spurs to his nag and didn t
stop until he had gone quarter stretch.
MY plantation is full Of rattlesnakes,
and only last week my hands killed
twenty-six in field Of twenty acres
zone of the greatest terrors in the
oil regions, says an old-time oil opera
tor, lis the man with-the. lantern. He
has beenthe cause Of more needless con
dagrations among oil wells than any
other thing, and has cost the region
millions Of dollars. He is usually an
employee about the wells, and nine cases
out Of ten man Of experience and in
telligence, but he will persist in taking
the chances in paying visit now and
then to some gas-enveloped tank, carry
ing his lighted lantern with him. The
result isn't always disastrous, but that
isn't the fault Of the man with the Ian
tern. Usually an explosion results. II
destructive fire does not follow the ex-
plosion the fact will be without prece-
dent. Sometimes the cause of fire Of
this kind will not BE- quite certain at
6rst, but it only needs roll call OF the
employees of that particular property
and the taking Of an account Of the tool
house stock to ascertain the cause.
There will be one employee short, and
the number of the lanterns will be less
by one. Then it is known that the man
with the lantern has been walking. He
always disappears on occasions Of this
kind, and instances are rare when even
. piece Of his ear is ever found. But he
~ NOT dead The man with the Lantern
never dies IN the oil regions. He vii
be snre to walk again not long after he
has disappeared. and will continue r.
walk,at disastrons intervals as long As
oil wells last
SEVERAL large ponds owned py :; ~
Nhitzger, Just east q Wooster' onio'
were stocked with German carp OF the
ieat9er variety, me oeslgnatlon ieatnel
scales and having skin similar to that
81 4 catfish or grass pike. In some
manner large numbers Of suckers, sun
flsh and clubs got into the Naftzger
ponds and he desired to clean them Out
~ drawing off the water from the ponds.
AZ this was done and as the water be-
came very shallow, numbers Of the carp
were seen to secret themselves in the
mud. The carp were noticed to stick
their noses in the soft muck in the bot
tom Of the pond, and rise up, give Their
tails 4 ZAP. and disappear in the muck,
the places where they went down being
marked similar to places where frogs
come out Of the ground in the spring d
the year. The carp in the mud were
not molested, but thousands Of others
some weighing eight pounds, were
caught and returned to the pond after
the other fish had been cleaned out al
much as possible. The following day
when the pond had filed up again, tn