St. Landry democrat., 1893-08-19
SOMEWHAT STRANGE.
ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF
EVERYDAY LIFE.
Queer Facts and Thrilling Adven-
lures Which Show That Truth is
Stranger Than Fiction.

ONE of the most remarkable and puz
cling cases of sOmnambuilsm is told by
the Bishop of Bordeaux. The subjec,
was a young ecclcsiastiC at the seminary.
The Bishop was so deeply interested
that he went nightly to the young mans
chamber. lie saw him get out of bed,
secure paper, compose and write sermons.
On finishing a page he read it aloud
When a word displcased him he wrote q
correction with great exactness. The
Bishop had seen the beginning of some
of these somnambulistic sermons and
thought them we'll composed and cor
rectly written. Curious to ascertain
whether the young man made use of his
eyes, the Bishop put a card under his
chin In such manner as to prevent him
seeing the paper on the table before him,
but he still continued to write. Not vet
satisfied whether or not he could dis
tinguish different objects placed before
him, the Bishop took away the piece of
: paper on which he wrote and substitu-
ted several other kinds at different times.
He always perceived the change, because
the pieces of paper were OF different
sizes. When piece exactly like his
own was substituted he used it and
wrote his corrections on the places cor
responding to those on his own paper.
1t was by this means that portions Of
his nocturnal compositions were OBJ
tanned. His most astonishing produc-
ton was piece of music written with
great cxactitude. He used a cane for a
ruler. The clcfs, the flats and sharps
were all in their right places. The notes
were all made as circles, and those re-
quiring it were afterward blackened with
ink. The words were all written below,
but once they were in such large charac-
tiers that they did not come directly
below their proper notes, aud perceiv-
ing this he erased them all and wrote
them over again. St Louis Globe
Democrat.
IDLESEss, domestic infelicity, dissipa-
ton aud long illness summarize the trout
bles of John Glasgow who tried to end
his miserable life in an unusual and aw-
full manner in Cincinnati recently. He
was q cabinet maker and had been mar
ried but short time. He got out of en-
ployment and his domestic troubles COM
and took to the use OF narcotics, includ-
ing morphine. He cared not whether he
lived or died. In fact it soon became
evident that he preferred death. He
was i'll, very ill, for many weeks, but at
last became able to go about and then
decided to end his troubles at once and
forever. The awful novelty of
the method he selected for end
ing his life is a sufficient indication
of the frenzy to which brooding
over his troubles had driven him. lie.
went down to where the Freeman
avenue bridge crosses the railroad
tracks and looked in both directions for
an approaching train. None was in sight
and he walked up md down the bridge
anxiously waiting. Finally an outbound
Baltimore and Ohio train approached,
and he mounted the railing of the bridge.
AS the train came laundering on he
plunged head foremost from the bridge
He intended to throw himself in front of
the engine but waited just an instant too
long, in dread of meeting the horrible
fate he had planned for himself. His
body struck the convex side of the en-
CINE boiler, glanced off and rolled into
the mud at the side of the track Those
who had seen Glasgow make the terrible
leap and rushed to the spot expected of
course to find him crushed and bleed |
ing mass. They found instead that,
though he was badly bruised and his |
nose and face crushed and lacerated, he |
had few bones broken, and recovery was
possible.
WHILE a large pine log was being
worked up at the Brown & Hall saWmill, |
Acton, Ontario, Canada, a wonderful |
discovery was made After the outside |
"slab" had been cut off, large toad
was seen to poke his head out of hole,
in which he was imbedded, and where he |
barely escaped being cut in two by the |
saw. How the creature ever got there is !
a mystery, as he was perfectly incased |
in the wood with no possible means of |
ingress or egress. As the log was the |
fourth or fifth up from the butt of the
tree his position must have been at least
fifty or sixty feet up from the ground.
There is but one way of accounting for
the fact that he was found IN the stua-
ton mentioned: He had grown up with
the tree from infancy, and was probably
hundreds Of gears old when the saw
awakened him from his long nap. Natur-
alists of Acton say that he is of an un-
known species of the reptilia, and that
the cavity in which he was found was
perfectly sound and as smooth as though |
chiseled out by a carpenter. He was
surrounded on all sides with solid wood
from A inches to p feet thick.
ANDREW BARLOW, of the Gold Hill
mining district, Washington, while
visiting relatives in Spokane, recently
told story Of the discovery of the most
valuable mines in that region. He
bought load of wood from a rancher
and prospector for $3.50. The man re-
marked that he was greatly distressed
for want of money and Mr.. Barlow
loaned him $3.50, whereupon he went
away rejoicing. He bought some ammu-
milton with part of the money and went
hunting for squirrels. His dog freed
one and he shot it. AS it came tumb-
ling down he discovered another, and
after some difficulty he brought that one
down. He picked it up, and looking
around for the first one found that his
dog was burying it for his own use in
the future. The man dug the squirrel
out. and in doing so was delighted to
find the sand rich in gold. He located
the claim and afterward sold it for
$50, 1000.
An isolated mountain called label
Naiba, about $4,000 feet high, situated
naor Roma Alberta is fouDd tn he ran