The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-10-22
ELECTRICAL FREAKS.
Some Peculiar Occurrences as
Seen by Bob Burdette.
THE REV. LARS CHRISTOPHERS0N.
A Miss-NaUtical QuestiOns-A POser-FOr
More Uses Than 0ne-WeIl Up in
His Business.
ELECTRICAL FREAKS.


By this term we do not mean the experts
who testified recently that they could receive
a shock of $4,000 volts and feel sort of braced
up on it, We make this explanation in order
80 prevent any misconception of the tenor of
this article by the intelligent reader. By
electrical freaks" we do not mean people
who play fantastic tricks with their imagina-
ton when they talk on this subject, but
rather the prarks which the forked lightning
plays when it strikes hen house and lights
up the emotional fancy of the reporter who
is working on space.
A few years ago a young man named Cas-
par Weidpants, residing in Asbury park, was
sitting at the window of his boarding house,
counting his weeks salary and wondering
whether he should divide it equally among
himself or give some of it to his tailor and
little to his landlady or take it all and hire
horse and narrow buggy and take a proud
but wealthy heiress out to drive. At that
instant a bolt of lightning struck the corner
of large house in Long Branch, not more
than seven or eight miles away, and the
young man never thought of his tailor or his
landlady again. They often thought of him,
but nobody ever found out where he went
In the summer of 1879 John j. Fowler was
a practical paper hanger in Albany. During
the first week of June he was hanging paper
IN the residence of Mr.. Clarence L. Mont
gomery when heavy black cloud came
slowly over the city from the west, and
single flash of lightning fell from the cloud,
entered the room where Fowler was at work,
ran up the trimming machine like buzz
saw for few minutes, stirred up the paste,
hung all the paper in the room and trimmed
sixteen yards of arabesque border. Some Of
the family went in the room about o'clock
that evening and found Fowler lying on the
table, still sleeping from the effects of the
shock The stroke had also affected his
mind and seriously biased his moral faculties,
for he afterward brought in a bill for the
work, and had to sue for it (Alr. Montgom-
cry being very rich mani, and he testified
that he had done all this work before going
TO sleep. But that was impossible, and the
court so decided, as it was established by the
evidence of more than twenty householders
that no paper hanger ever did that much
work in a day
People now living in Skaaeateles who re-
SIDED there in the spring of 1888 still remem-
Der the excitement over the remarkable case
of the Rev. Lars Christophersson, rector of
the Aboriginal American church. He was
sitting in his study one Sabbath morning, in
q morbid and gloomy state of mind, having
Just learned that his son, who had gone off
on little scalping party down the lake the
nightshefore. had taken the only razor in the
manse. While the elder sat gloomily rub
bling his chin and wondering if he couldn't
sandpaper it before class meeting, storm
that had been gathering for some time sud-
denly broke above the town with terrific vio-
]ence. A long zigZag streak of ball lightning
entered the window of the minister's study,
shaved him once over without raising a
pimple trimmed his hair straight across the
back of the neck, giving him that peculiarly
meek look of meekly meekness which is the
artistic triumph of that style Of cut, banged
it in front to make him look childike and
simple, gave his shoes a patent leather shine,
brushed his coat and was out of the window
again with crashing noise like a 4-year-old
boy falling off pew during the long prayer.
The stranGest thing about the occurrence was
not discovered until that evening, when the
preacher discovered that the lightning, on
departing, had burned a hole in his vest
pocket and fused a silver quarter into a
.roaud sphere, which had dropped out on his
way to the meeting house.
Last July, Mrs Weatherby Showers, wife
of the we'll known financier of that name,
WAS DQJsl0H leT UnTGo 10 Deu Ouo
very warm, sultry evening when a flash of
sheet lishtning-Hcyi Sir2 want to re-
member that this IS 4 Sunday paperW Ha;
I'D like to see ma get 4 chance to forget it
We'll, that's 50; guess I'll leave that Showers
story out 1t Is pretty tough, little. But
the others may stand; if they are not as true
as somo lightning stories I've heard told by
some awfully truthful people, don't want a
cent that can't get.
ECONOMICAL MEASURES.
President of Electric Light Company to
Secretary-Look here, we've got to cut down
these gas bills some way or other. You must
do more of your work by daylight or else
you'll have to burn kerosene in the office.
Why not get couple Of student lamps, If
YOU must work after nightg"
NOW YOU SEE HOW IMPORTANT IT Is.
''The aim and end of manual training i'll the
schools" says teacher. 'is ethical" And
vet there are some people who denounce
four years college course Of football and
Ha: come to think of it, they are correct;
football isn't manual training. -Burdette in
Brooklyn Eagle.