The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1897-06-01
is 1T AN OMEN?
Wall Street Beset By Millions
on Millions
Of the "Death Watch" Which
Taps, Taps, Taps.
HIDDEN IN THE WALLS
When Death Is About to Visit
the Household.
A Superstition That Is Many
Centuries Old.
is THIS VISITATION
The FOrerunner of Some Terri
BILE Cataclysm,
Which Will Have Its Center in
Wall Street?
is THIS VISITATION
The FOrerunner of Some Terri
BILE Cataclysm,
Which Will Have Its Center in
Wall Street?

New York, June 1.-Wan street is lit
orally over-run with a curious looking
insect. They have literally taken pos
session of busy downtown blocks and
the defenseless merchants have raised
a cry for help.
Excited citizens have appeared daily
for two weeks at the board of health
with reports of the new bug. Each has
placed before the authorities a sample
specimen of the insect invader tightly
corked in a bottle.
Every complainant has hailed from
some office in the South street block
bounded by Wall and Pine streets. Their
stories and sample bugs agreed to a
nicely.
The bugs appeared six weeks ago.
They We're small, brown fellows, no
bigger than so many grains of wheat.
They appeared as if by magic on the
desks, among the papers and upon the
walls. In a week the minute invaders,
like the frogs and the locusts in ancient
Egypt, literally filled the block. They
covered the floors of stores and offices,
carpeted the sidewalk from Wall to
Pine street, fell in showers from the
windows upon the heads of pedestrians
and romped all over the disgusted ten
ants.
They seemed to fatten on bug-exter-
minating powders and thriVed equally
well in fire or water.
The eXasperated tenants found that
regular procession of bugs poured from
Charles Grifen's storage warehouse at
No. 81 South street, in the middle of the
bug-infested block.
1t seems that about two years ago
Stallman & Fulton, drug importers, No.
10 Gold street, invested heavily in cori-
ander seed. This f1avoring seed is en-
plOyed largely in the manufacture of
sausage meat, and also lends its relish
to certain popular tOnics and Hqueurs.
One OF the many shipments received
by the firm from Bombay was stored
away on the third floor of Mr.. Griffen's
warehouse.
Time passed, bringing a sharp fall in
the price of cOriander seed and robbing
the 200 bags in Mr.. Griffen's care of
their Importance. So they have remain
ed in the gloom and quiet of their South
street prison, Matching a revenge for
the neglect of years.
About two months ago the new bug
made his first appearance in Mr.. Grif-
fen's private office. He was ignored at
first.
Within a week the big storehouse.
from cellar to roof was alive with the
frisky invaders. Investigation traced
them directly to those 200 unconsidered
bags from distant Bombay
Every coriander seed, no larger than
French pea, was found to have launch
ed from five to ten bugs upon the COM
munity.
The health officers took a look at this
honeycombed and ruined seed, gazed
helplessly at the invading millions and
sent a peremptory order to remove the
seed within four days.
That was on Monday A reporter
visited the afflicted block yesterday and
listened to narrowing tales from solid
men of business.
Standing on a, carpet of Insects, with
dozen of them on his hat and a multi
tude playing tag over his coat tails was
Mr.. Schofeld, Griffen's chief clerk
E. ]. Luyley, who conducts a cloth
ingand furnishing store at No 62 South
street, pointed ruefully to his bug in
Tested stock and swore that another
week of this sort of thing would land
him in lunacy and bankruptcy.
A & S. Weiss, cigar dealers at No. IS.
told the same story and showed how
the cOriander invaders had taken pos
session of the shop, burrOwing in hun
dreds to the bottom of every cigar bax
F. c. Crosby, bOOkkeeper for Swan
& Son, shipping merchants, on the sec
ond floor of No. 66, insists that the in
vaders bite with the viciOusness of a
Jersey mosquito.
Il have had to use ointment every
day for weeks" he said.
The cOriander seed still remains a t
the warehouse, but the owners will re-
move it today It will be burned
The World today says:
If you are feeling excited over the
big evasion, take hope. The East In
dia visitor is an old friend, after all.
1t is the sitOdreDa panicea. If you
don't recall it by that name don't be
discouraged. Put your ear on the ground
and you will hear a low rumbling of
many voices from South street near
the Mallory line pier. 1t is a chorus of
bugs. and each bug in this instance IS
an old but ominOus chronological chum
the death watch."s
That is the expert opinion of Prof
William Bentenmuller, the entomolo-
gist of the American Museum of Nat
uraI History Prof BentenmuIIer was
silently gazing into the yawning depths
of a chinch bugs eye when a World
reporter dropped a delegation from
South street on his desk.
Wow, what have we here?'' said he.
Followers of the Great Mahatma, all
the way from India"
At first glance this theory seemed
probable, for each bug was shedding a
fine ray of light. One of them sprinted
at once to a corner where two chinch
bugs were resting from an hour of
posing under a microscope. Instantly
there was a fight. The East Indian
rushed the first chinch bug to the edge
of blotting bad. There he was met by
the chinch bugs big brother, and in a
flash there was a vacancy in a large |
and promising family.
Aha said the entomologist. they
are not from East India after ALL
1t appears the East Indian bugs are
not fighters, but Prof. Bentenmuller
had another reason for his belief. The |