Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1910-04-07
Some Very Curious Stories.

defeat of temperance bills in the Mary
land Legislature.
The Cincinnati baseball club will en-
ploy no player this season who takes
drink Of red liquor at any time. Even
good baseball player cannot afford to
look upon the wine when if is red in the
cup. In fact, it is now an accepted truth
that a "booze guzzler is not good for any
thing but to guzZle booze"
In New York last week Otto Kahn, the
wealthy ba ker, paid $500, 900 for pic
ture by Franz Halls, a celebrated Dutch
painter. He outbid J. Pierpont Morgan,
who also wanted the painting. This is
the highest price ever paid for painting.
Franz Halls, however, got no benefit from
this enormous price e-he has been dead
over 300 years.
Mrs Sarah Brandon, l09 years old, of
Moundsville, W. Va, claims the United
States record as the mother OF Civil War
soldiers. No fewer than l6 OF her boys
served in the battles of that war, IA on
the Union side and two with the Confed
crates, while her total family was q.
Her g children are also the parents Of
large families. The oldest, Hiram, is SO
years old, while the youngest, Evan
Brandon, is II years and works daily in
a coal mine.
Pete, an old gander which had been
on the farm of Abner Stilton, near Mont
vile, N. J., for more than ten years, and
which had acted as nurse to the Stilton
youngsters, was killed by and automobile
while protecting Mr.. Stilton's two-year-
old daughter from harm. When little
Agnes was threatened by an automobile,
just rounding the turn at lively clip, old
Pete, seeing the danger to his little charge,
pushed the child over, throwing her on
the side of the road and out of harms
way. Pete had not time enough left to
get out ofthe way himself.
Giving his prize bull pint of whiSkey
to cure an attack Of, pneumonia, Philip
Jones, a farmer of Fruitland, Va, nearly
caused the death not only of the bull but
of himself and a hired man as well. A
jag was new thing for the bull, and the
liquor, which must have been of the
fighting kind, sent the big fellow on a
rampage. The animal began to tear up
things generally in the barnyard, and al
most butted his own brains out before
he was corralled. The bull got both the
farmer and the hired man down ready to
gore them when neighbors interfered and
saved them.
Mr.. Earl Douglass of the Carnegie In
stitute spent the winter in Utah for the
purpose of extricating the remains OF
three gigantic dinoSaur skeletons which
he discovered embedded in hard sand
stone, and which appear to be in perfect
Mr.. Douglass says Of them:
eve have found what paleontologiSts
have been searching for for the past 40 or
80 years-SkeletonS OF sauroped dino
saurs of huge size, apparently absolutely
every vertebra in position, and
even the ribs in place, not removed more
in any instance, than two or three inches
from the point where they articulate with
the facets of the vertebrae." Great pre-
are being taken to preserve these
fossils in their original shape.
All the original thirteen States are inter
ested in the claim which Virginia is en-
deavoring to establish against the United
States government. The story OF the
claim goes back to 1880, when the first
steps were taken for the creation OF the
Northwest Territory, the domain north o
the Ohio and east of the Mississippi.
Virginia and other States claimed parts of
this vast region by virtue of their origina
but they ceded the claims on
certain conditions regarding the diSposi-
tion of The land within the territory. The
alleged violation of one of these condi-
tons by the United States government
has been the cause of litigation for gener-
atioDs, and the recent action of Virginia is
another chapter in the long story. Scores
Of millions of dollars are involved, but
outside of Virginia there seems to be no
feeling that the claims can be pressed Sue
1t has been generally accepted by men
of science that the last dinosaur trod the
earth great many centuries ago, in fact,
something like four hundred thousand
years ago. From the fossilized remains
a good knowledge has been obtained OF
the gigantic proportions and terrifying ap-
pearance of the creature, and all have
agreed in a preference to study the bones,
rather than living specimen at large.
From South Africa there now comes the
story that there is a living di-
nosaur somewhere in the northern part Of
Rhodesia. Natives have recently told OF
a mighty reptile in lake near the river
Lunga, and nave identified drawings OF
the dinosaur as resembling this creature.
Thus far the proof is hardly convincing,
but the story arouses certain interest.
Unfortunately, the Roosevelt expedition
did not penetrate that part of the African
but perhaps here IS the op-
portunity for some hunter or naturalist to
win immortal fame.
Many a lad can sympatflize with the