Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-12-04
An Caused by the Comet.

There are wise people to-day who believe
hat the proximity of q comet to the earth
brings with it various diseases, mental as
well rs physical disturbances.
'T never took any stock in this comet bus
fness," said practical friend of mine. i've
seen several comets in my time and read all
sorts of rot about them-very little OF which
1 believed. But this comet
He paused and drew me away from the
crowd. Having glanced about him uneas-
fly, he continued:
"This comet nearly drove my wife crnzyl
Yes, sir; factI And she's nearly driven me
crazy. Do you-have you seen anything
queer about me lately7"
told him that had not-that he looked
as sane as his average fellow mortal.
"Well," he resumed, 1've run q mighty
narrow chance, tell you But she's curedt
now. If this internal comet hadn't gone
away Just when IL did I should have been
locked up by this time.
"My wife is ordinarily quiet little woman
and takes no particular interest in the
newspapers, except when there is mys-
terious murder case, like the great Maybrick
poisoning case, or the Carlyle Harris case,
or something like that-something mysteri-
Gus, you know. Then she grabs the news
papers and reads up on It, and talks about
thoroughly masters it, hanging the defend
ant every day. She can find more clews
than the whole metropolitan police force.
She pounces down upon me at breakfast
with her theories and clews and suspicious,
and as these are changed after reading the
evening papers get another dose az night.
"But this cometi She has been stricken
yes. sir; stricken by the mysterious tnfiu-
ence the comet is said to have upon the
human mindl 1t was manifest IN her the
very day she read the dispatches. and the
differences of learned opinion as 20 whose
comet it was and its probable orbit, its dis
tance, the number OF sparks in its tail, etc.
II 1t had been Straightforward comet, and
come right out where everybody could see
it, and where everybody expected it, she
would have been all serene. But the mys-
terry OF the thing, the uncertainty, the dis
agreement OF astronomers; that settled her.
She began reading up on the comet from the
newspapers. As every newspaper differed,
and every authority in every newspaper
differed with every other authority in that
or any other newspaper, she FOUND herself
eIcitemsnt i She sprung comet on
me every hour in the day and swept the
heavens with two-inch opera glass every
night. She had sort OF an idea thatred-hot
chunks of iron were liable to drop into our
fiat. She went up on the roof to see the
meteorIc shower and got locked out up
there by the janitor. If hadn't missed her
she'd have been frozen to death. She got
up ten times a night to look out, and once
she said, she smelled sulphur She slipped
out of bed the first thing in the morning and
read what the papers said about the comet,
then went back to bed again. When sat
down to breakfast with my paper she was
loaded for me. You could see q hazy red
light hanging over tho Jersey horizon from
our windows and she had those windows
open so mucn ut night we all got colds and
snuffes. On Sunday night the sky over
there was bright red at intervals Well, she
was Just wild. Then she smelled the sulphur
in the air. l never saw q woman get so ex-
cited. She scarcely slept a wink.
"The next morning, when she found that
1t was the Jersey meadows on fire and that
she hadn't seen the comet at ALL she was the
most disguised woman you ever saw. she
won't touch q newspaper now. She says the
newspapers are the biggest liars-next 20
the astronomers-on earth. If say comet
at her now she Is as mad as hornet
"In my opinion. it's been coniounded
fraud all along. This man Bella, or Beely,
ought to get six months on the island"