Operating pneumatic drill with air tube.

No one had a brain in his or her head in 1900. How else to explain the story of a Philadelphia boy who was killed after an older boy inflated him with air? In addition to this report of remarkably dumb and bizarre behavior, this story features the word “skylarking,” which long ago passed into disuse. It meant “to frolic.” There must have been a lot more than frolicking going on, however. An excerpt from an article titled “Inflated a Boy with Air,” which ran in the May 9, 1900 edition of Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Jospeh Currier, aged 16 years, who worked in the Cramps’ shipyard under the name of John Frier, was to-day committed to prison on the charge of being partly responsible for the death of Christopher Donnegan, the 13 year old who was pumped full of wind on Monday afternoon. Currier said he was merely skylarking with Donnegan and had no vicious intent.

Donnegan’s death was due to an unnatural inflation of the body caused by the inhalation of air through a tube attached to a pneumatic drill. Before his death the victim accused Currier and other boys at the shipyard of being the cause of his condition. The coroner is investigating.”

More Old Print Articles:

• Hobos steal fine clothes from decent folk. (1895)
• General Robert E. Lee kisses pretty girls. (1891)
• Prisoner gives evil eye to jailer. (1900)
• Hairy woman thrown through barbershop window, uninjured. (1897)
• Three-card monte man passes away. (1878)
• Monkey rides bicycle. (1897)
• Bears brawl in Central Park. (1902)
• Umbrella duels. (1895)
• Boiling eggs with electricity. (1890)
• Billy goat guards recluse. (1900)
• Kissing bandit captured. (1892)
• A maniac gymnast. (1877)
• Performing bears at Bay Shore. (1895)
• Brooklyn judge encounters sea monsters in his bathroom. (1902)
• Man finds severed human head, throws head back into creek. (1897)
• Brooklyn geezer tries to shoot noisy dogs. (1896)
• Hoaxer pretends to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. (1889)
• Manhattan madman goes on rampage. (1890)
• Fisticuffs at a male beauty pageant. (1893)
• Viennese surgeon performs experimental operations in NYC. (1902)
• Tough girl breaks detective’s nose. (1898)
• Circus Freak gets indigestion after swallowing metal objects. (1904)
• George Francis Train loses his mind. (1888)
• Hunchback paramour has throat cut. (1877)
• Organ grinder has monkey kidnapped. (1899)
• Human vampire behaves poorly. (1892)