The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1900-03-28
CRAZEO By THE COMET.
The Prospective Arrival of Biela's Orb
Left Its influence Behind.

sho Irrespective arrival Gf BIela'1 Orb
Left Its Influence Behind.
There are wise people to-day who be-
leve that the proximity of a comet to
ihe earth brings with it various diseases,
mental as well as nhysica! disturbances.
Il never took any stock in this comet
business said a practical friend Of
mlne. I've seen several comets in my
time end read all sorts of rot about
them, very little of which | believed.
But this comet
tie paused and drew me away from
the crowd. Having glanced about him /
uneasily, he continued:
"This comet nearly drove nv wifei
crazy! Yes, sir; fact! And she's nearly |
driven me crazy. Do you-have you
seen anything queer about me lately?"
l told him l had not-that he looked |
as sane as his average fellow mortal.
well, he resumed, "I've run a |
mighty narrow chance, tell you. But
she's cured now. If this Internal comet |
hadn't gone away just when it did [ |
should have been locked up by this time. |
my wife is ordinarily a quiet little
woman and takes no particular interest |
III the newspapers except when there is
mysterious murder case like the great
Maybrick poisoning case or the Carlyle- |
Harris case, or something like that |
something mysterious, you know. Then
she grabs the newspapers and reads up |
on 1T, and thinks about it, and talks about |
1t, and advances theories about it. and |
thoroughly masters it, hanging the de-
fendant every day. She can find more
ciews than the whole metropolitan DO
lice 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 at night.
But this comet! She has been
stricken-yes, sir, stricken-by the mys-
terious influence the comet is said to
have upon the human mindl II was
manifest in her the very day she read
the dispatches and the differences of
learned opinion as to whose comet it
was and its probable orbit, its distance.
the number of sparks in its tail, etc. IL
1t had been straightforward comet
and come right out where everybody
could. see it and where everybody ex.
pected it, she would have been all Sc
rene. But the mystery Of the thing, the
uncertainty, the disagreement of astron.
omers-that settled her. She began
reading up on the comet from the news
papers. AS every newspaper differed.
and every authority in every newspaper
differed with every other authority in
that or any other newspaper, she found
herself suddenly plunged into a whirl
Of excitement.
"She sprang comet on me every hour
in the day and swept the heavens with q
2-inch opera glass every night. She
had sort of idea that redhot chunks of
iron were liable to drop into our fat
She went up On the roof to see the me.
teoric shower and got locked out up
there by the janitor. II 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 hazy red light hanging
over the Jersey horizon from our win
dows, and she had those windows open
so much at night we all got colds and
snuf1es. 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. never saw a
woman get SO excited. She scarcely
slept wink.
THE next morning, when she found
that it was the Jersey meadows on fire
and that she h 'dn't' seen the comet at
all. she was the most disgusted woman
you ever saw. She won't touch a news
paper now. She says the newspapers
are the biggest liars-next to the astron-
omers-on earth. If | say comet at
her now she is as mad as hornet.
'ln my opinion, it's been a confound-
ed fraud all along. This man Biela, or
Beely, ought to get six months on the
island. New York Herald.