The Paducah sun. [volume] (Paducah, Ky.) 1898-1906, 1904-01-06

II was q strange. fearful experience
that Miss Hitchcock, beautiful young
California girl, had as welcome
home to her native state after three
years spent in school In Paris, says
the New York Herald. How she es-
capped a terrible death is a mystery
but although she received no injury
she sustained a shock that made her
ia many days and lived through
night so full OF horror that the mem,
ory Of It will never fade from her rec.
objection.
During one long night she was be-
! sieged by hideous tarsntulas, whose
bite is death. They erawled and wris-
gled all about her. They were on her
face and arms. and when she tried TO
escape from the room they were I'M
der her feet and forced her to retreat
again to the bed.
She was stopping at the home OF
some friends in Los Angeles on the
night OF her arrival. She was awak-
ened in the middle OF the night by
some bristling, fuzzy thing crawling
over her face. She struck the object
away. She dropped her hand and II
fell on some other hairy, wriggIing OBJ
tect. She was badly frightened and
stepped from the bed, and her bare
foot fell upon some coarse. vrigsling
creature. and another one brushed
against her ankles.
She cried out, but her room was in
a wing Of the house removed from the
parts OF the mansion where the other
members Of the household and the
servants slept and no one came To her
aid.
She plunged back into bed, and her
face as IL touched the pillow came In
contact with another OF the mysterious
visitors that had so alarmed her. She
pulled the bed clothes about her, but
the night was warm, and she was
forced to throw them of, and then the
horrible. wriggling, hairy dlsturbers
Of her sleep swarmed over her. All
night she sat screaming and trembling
and striking at the mysterious objects
that assailed her. When morning
came the family heard cries and
rushed 10 her room. To discover that
she was besieged by tarantulas. The
loathsome creatures we're crawling all
over the bed and about the room.
Miss Hitchcock's host secured cane
and killed all of the tarantulas and
then the young woman promptly faint
ed and was III for several days before
she finally recovered from her fright
The explanation OF how the taran-
tulas came TO be in Miss Hltchcock's
room could not Ue secured at first.
The case was a great mystery until a
small boy in the family was observed
to be in some distress. He was taken
into the inquisition and his father in
I terviewed him at some length. Then
/ the mystery was solved. The small
boy had secured the tarantulas in a
/ vacant field. A curio firm in Los An
| geles who kin and mount the insects
| pay a royalty of 8 cents apiece for
them. and the boys OF the town go
out into the fields and catch them with
! pincers.
The boy in the family where Miss
/ Hitchcock was stopping had rounded
up forty or fifty OF the insects. He
put them in big basket and took
them home. Rightly conjecturing
that his family would raise a protest
against their home being made peni-
Tertiary for tarantulas, the small
boy had hidden his basket in Miss
] Hitchcock's room, not knowing IL
was going to be occupied. The taran-
tulas during the night bad tunneled
their way 10 freedom, but not being
able 70 escape from the room had
turned their attention TO sssaulting
Miss Hitchcock.
The vigorous discipline applied 10
the small boy by his father when the
facts In the case came out caused him
to loathe tarantulas with a deep and
deadly loathing, and now when they
are even mentioned In his presence
he grows sad and hastily slides for