Year: 1873

from the New YORK Evening FosI


Everybody, we suppose, is aware that


some men are 80 highly charged with


electricity that they will discharge


sparks when rubbed as easy as cats


back will. Bunker, when we knew


him, was perfect galvanic battery. Not
only would the spark phenomenon be
apbarent on his touching silk and slmN
| ilaf substances, but his hair was highly
electrical; and it was remarkable that
whenever a thunderstorm occurred 1t
would stand up on end. (Not the
storm, but the hair.) II he would try
to brush it down it would fly up again,
Just like sspling which is pulled to
the earth. Bunker at such times used
to lam a hat tight down over his head,
and this would sometimes answer, but
often, when there was an extremely
severe electrical discharge, the
hat would be jerked off savagely
and projected ten feet into the air.
There is one of Bunker's hats now on
the Baptist church steeple near his
house, thrown there by the action OF
his hair during q thunder gust last
August, Everybody that didn't know
Bunker used to look at his upright Ealr
and think he was frightened, and when
ever there was lightning rod man in
the vicinity be always heard OF Bunk
er's hair, and came ronud and prosecu-
ted him. Bunker endured this for a
good while with calmness and patience;
but one day an agent came by in a
storm and saw him standing with his
hair erect, at the window. and
Immediately rushed out OF his
wagon aud put thirty-four lightning
rods on the house without mentioning
the subject to Bunker. And the conse-
ouence was that the dwelling was
struck fourteen times that afternoon,
and Bunker was stunned by shock
which came just as he put bis head out
OF the window and jammed it against
one of the rods. When the agent call.
ed to collect his bill, a fight ensued,
during which Bunkers nose was much
enlarged and his bones considerably
mellowed. Then he shaved off all his
hair, and has gone it bald ever since.
But even now, in a thunder storm, his
scalp can be observed 10 work, and
twitch, and winkle and jerk, as if it
wanted to come of.


We have been troubled for some
time past with dsmpness in our cellar
and last week we got a couple OF men
to come and dig it out for foot or two
and fill it in with cement and mortar
floor. We heard screams for help all
that night. but concluded that Chubb,
lust back OF US, must either be tondling
his wife with the rolling pin, as he does
sometimes when HE muscles need ex-
ercise, or padding one of his boys with
a bed.slat. So we paid no attention to
it. The next morning both our servant
girls were missing. After hunting
around for awhile we looked into the
cellar, and there was the cook, stand.
ing by the furnace, knee-deep in the
cement, holding on to the coal
shovel, which was also buried half
way up to the top OF the handle
The nurse had sat down in her fatigue.
and only her head was visible, while in
several places on the surface Of the floor
there were air holes where the milk
Jug, the butter pot, the cold veal and
lima beans had sunk. To make the
situation more dreadful! the cement had
hardened during the night and it be-
came a question whether it would be
better to blast out the cook with gun
powder and rtssurrect the nurse with
ni.ro-glycerine, and run the risk of kill.
ing them, or to let them die where they
were and save funeral expenses, except
for the cooks upper half and the nurse
girls head. But when the cement man
came he said it would be better to cut
them out with a cold chisel, and did
it at cost of two hundred.dollars,
and that very night both girls left with
out warning. The cold veal is there
vet. Centuries hence some antiquarian
will grub around and blow it out and
present il to museum as fossil spe-
cimen ofhome unknown animal, while
he will probably 60 round lecturing on
the milk jug and the butter pot as uten-
sils used in bygone ages by race OF
sayages called the "Adelers We
would like to be alive then and have a
pass to that lecture. We would like,
also, to get our hands on the receipts to
pay for excavating the two children OF
Erin