Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1896-11-12
ISHMAEL'S MANGROVE TREE.
A Rorticulturist from India Works Won
ders in a Maine Jail.

A Rorticnlturist from India Works Won
ders in Maine Jail.
Chief Gilman of the Bangor police
force has curiosity up at his residence
to thrive, will be likely to prove more of
sensation to people of this vicinity than
anything which may result from the No
yember election or the continued fall in
the price of lard. This is pretty little
plant about foot in height, which Jsh-
mael, the circus Hindoo now IN the
county Jail here, Ftricked out of pile of
wet dirt up at the prison the other night.
Ishmael is already we'll known to our
readers 1t was he who stabbed the
Singalese rascal who dared ridicule the
faith of Brahma, and he got into Bangor
Jail for doing it.
AS soon as he struck the Jail he
beean to amuse the other prisoners with
his antics. He is more of an athlete than
has ever been seen in Bangor, and, though
he is only 10 years of age, and rather
understood, he can handle a man twice
his weight and years in way that sim
ply astonishes. the latter; there is no
fathoming his tricks of wrestling, for he
has catches and holds that have been
handed down in the inner circles of his
race for many generations. he is as
solid as bundle of wires and as docile
as child He is Il handsome boy, and
he became the pet of the Jail inmates
about as soon as he got acquainted there.
Ishmael brought with him to Jail II few
of his goods and chattels. They are
queer lot of dinky doodles, miniature
tomtoms, dried betel nuts, pieces of
cork, spools, snake skins, stones, cocoa
nut shells and tin dishes everything you
can think ola pile of common things
with very uncommon powers, as lshmael
makes them work.
The young Hndoo is fakir-not the
kind that haunts the street corners and
sells shoestrings and patent medicines,
for they are the creations of the slang
language of the day; he is a real East
Indian fakir, and the tricks which he
does are regarded by his people as we'll
nigh supernatural. They have never
been solved excepting when betrayed by
some members of the race who got drunk
on Western freWater, and exposed the
whole thing. These rascals die sudden
ly, soon after.
One of the best of the tricks is the
growing of bush out of pile of dirt
in full view of an audience Ishmael can
do it. He did it the other night up in the
Jail when Sheriff Brown gave him a
chance to use his apparatus and Chief
Gilman has the plant as proof.
1shmael took little pile of sand and
mud which had been brought for him in
the jailyard underneath the window
where he looks out and thinks up new
tricks every day, and placed it in the
middle of the floor on a cloth. Then he
took what he said was a seed and showed
it to his small audience. This seed was
the same thing from which he had pro-
duced dollar bill few minutes before
by simply squeezing it, but that didn't
make any difference to him, but he put
it in the dirt and got ready to grow his
bush. Nobody thought he was really GO
ing to do it. He sWore that he would
produce mangrove tree.
ISlmaol first took n cloth and Dl0 cod II
over the earth; then he began to say off
some kind of a heathenish incarnation,
and in the course of half minute, when
he removed the covering, there was q lit
above the pile. That's pretty good Ish-
mael smiled demurely and Winked the
other eye.
Again Ishmael put the cloth on the
dirt and again he ratified off his rubbish
in choicest Hindoo. Something suddenly
stuck itself up inside the cloth, which
peaked up and wrinkled as it did so, and
then off came the cover with n swish
and exposed very healthy young bush
standing there in the dirt
Of course everybody said that the bush
was made of paper, but it wasn't. 1t
was a real thing, and it was moist and
soft and pithy just as if it had been new
~ plucked from the ground outside. At
it's bottom was full set of little roots,
which were covered with the clinging
earth in which it had-well, grown
Chief Gilman, who was present took
the bush home with him, and set it out
in his garden. He said on Saturday that
it was getting on well, and that it looked
as if it had come to stay. He can't I'M
derstand how Ishmael did it, Neither
can anybody else. Some Of the men in
the Jail declare that the youngster is
devil in disguise, but most of them con-
slider him a mighty smart lad.
But he q great vegetation StartpP.
he beats superphosphates at their own
game
The bush is worth seeing; it is COM
posed of close-growing green leaves on
straight stalk, and little red blossoms are
beginning to grow on the top of it. It's
a curiosity.
Ishmael says it's easy as rolling off
log.-Bangor Commercial.
Wild Turkeys in the South.