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A Brief Note From 1891 About A Widower

December 30, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the August 13, 1891 New York Times:

“SAN FRANCISCO–The steamship Oceanic, which arrived last night from Hong-kong and Yokohama, brings copies of a native Japanese paper called the Kokkai, which publishes a remarkable story of a monster serpent.

It says that on the 17th inst. a man called Neemura Tahichi, twenty-five years of age, went out with his wife Otora, who was forty-eight, to pursue his usual avocation of tree cutting in Koshitamura, Province of Lamba. The husband and wife separated at a place called Matsu Yama. Shortly afterward, while engaged felling a tree, Tahichi thought he heard his wife cry out. Running to the place he was horrified to find that a huge snake, described as being three feet in circumference, had Otora’s head in its mouth, and was engaged in swallowing her, despite her struggles. Tahichi ran off to the hamlet and summoned seven or eight of his neighbors, who when they reached the scene of the catastrophe found the snake had swallowed the woman as far as her feet, and was slowly making its way to its home. They were too much terrified to touch it, and it finally effected its escape unmolested.

The Province of Lamba is one of the most desolate in Japan, and monster reptiles and wild animals are frequently killed there.”

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Old Print Article: “Times Man Views Splendors Of Tomb Of Tutankhamen,” New York Times (1922)

December 29, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Photography, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The 1970s sensation of the King Tut exhibit obviously had it roots in ancient times, but its modern story began in 1922 when Howard Carter unearthed the unimaginable trove, wonderfully preserved. Soon after the discovery, the New York Times sent a reporter to Egypt to document the find that stunned the world. The article’s opening:

Through the courtesy of Howard Carter, the American Egyptologist, who, as director of Lord Carnarvon’s expedition, has, after thirty-three years’ search dug up the tomb of King Tutankhamen of the eighteenth dynasty, the correspondent of The New York Times was allowed today an exclusive view of the interior of the two ante-chambers of the tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Upper Egypt. The rest of the chambers of the tomb are still sealed.

Down a steep incline we entered straight to the first chamber. In the middle of the wall to the right is a doorway evidently leading to the chamber or chambers wherein doubtless are the sarcophagus and mummy of the King, and perhaps other treasures, since the antechambers are merely a hallway with a drawing room concealed behind a tantalizing sealed door, which will not be opened before the return of Lord Carnarvon from London, which will be about the middle of February.

Against this doorway are two life-size statues of the King made of bitumenized wood–not ebony, as at first reported. They are still standing on reed mats, just as they stood in the King’s palace and exactly as laid down on the Pharaonic funerary ritual. This again is evidence that this is the tomb and not the cache of Tutankhamen, as, if it were the cache the statues would be standing anywhere and anyhow, certainly not in exact accordance with the ritual.

The feet of each statue are shod with solid gold sandals of inestimable value. Each statue is crowned with a golden crown, bearing in front the royal serpent, or uraeus. As Thebes was the shrine of the cult of the serpent this is not unusual.

Incidentally, the day the tomb was opened and the party found these golden serpents in the crowns of the two statues there was an interesting incident at Carter’s house. He brought a canary with him this year to relieve his loneliness. When the party was dining, that night there was a commotion outside on the veranda. The party rushed out and found that a serpent of similar type to that in the crowns had grabbed the canary. They killed the serpent, but the canary died, probably from fright.

The incident made an impression on the native staff, who regard it as a warning from the spirit of the departed King against further intrusion on the privacy of his tomb.

But the most notable thing about the statues is the rare beauty of the faces. They have evidently been made from plaster casts such as were made by the ancient Egyptians a thousand years before the Greeks or Romans ever thought of them. They show the King as a man of royal mien. Gazing on the beautiful, calm, kindly and strong countenance on the left-hand statue, which is undamaged, one finds it difficult to realize that such a monarch could have succumbed to the overwhelming influence among the priests as he did, to become again an adherent of the orthodox religion. The explanation is probably that he realized the futility of opposition to pressure so strong that it even forced the Queen to change her name from Ankhosenaten to Ankhosenamen.

It is certain that the King would not have agreed to his humiliation unless there was no alternative. This fact is historically most interesting as indicating that the power of the Hierarchy of Amon in the days of Tutankhamen was greater than that of Pharaoh, though these sacredotal Princes did not seize the throne from the Pharaohs until more than 300 years later.

As works of art those statues reach a plane of excellence probably higher than has been reached in any subsequent period of the world.

On the other side of the chamber is a throne incomparably magnificent and wondrously beautiful. One must note its infallible evidence of the wholly unsuspected height reached by ancient Egyptian art. The innate refinement, pure lofty estheticism and amazing skill of the craftsman constitute a startling revelation. It shows not only the imperial splendor of ancient Egypt was far more delicate and magnificent than was imagined or equaled in the world’s history, but also that the late greatest craftsmen of ancient Greece were mere hacks compared to the master who designed and adorned the throne.•

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A Brief Note From 1914 About A Spat

December 27, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the April 23, 1914 New York Times:

“ST. LOUIS–With a stick of dynamite in his hand, to which had been attached a lighted fuse, Stephen Sieben, a farmer, 78 years old, was pursuing his wife, threatening to blow her up. Sieben did not pay close attention to the explosive, and the fuse, burning to the fulminating cap, exploded, blowing his head off. …

Mrs. Sieben told the Coroner’s jury that Sieben had been drinking heavily for several days and had frequently threatened to kill her. She has been an invalid for many years, and it was with difficulty that she could walk. She saw her husband approaching her with the stick of dynamite in his hand, and saw that the fuse was sputtering. For the first time in years, she said, she ran out of the house.”

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Old Print Article: “May Make Monkeys Talk,” New York Times (1905)

December 26, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Let’s give monkeys prosthetic noses so that they can talk like humans, thought drunk scientists in 1905. From a story in that year’s New York Times:

“W. Reed Blair, the animal physician at the Bronx Park Zoo, and several other scientists have come to the conclusion that the only reason a monkey cannot talk like a human being is his nose. They have found that a monkey’s vocal chords and the general contour of his head are the same as a man’s, but the nose is different. They say that it is too flat to allow a monkey to articulate like a man. They propose to remedy this by a gutta-percha nose and to experiment with the artificial nose on August, the latest orangutang which has arrived at the Bronx Zoo. Later similar experiments will be tried on Duhong, another orangutang, and Soko and Polly, two chimpanzees.

Keeper Reilly, who says he has taught the monkeys to do everything but talk, has volunteered to be their language teacher. The keeper will begin to teach August his A B C as soon as the new nose arrives. Monkeys are very quick in imitating, and it is believed that with the right kind of nose they will be able to imitate the sound of the human voice. August will be taught to talk just the same as a child in school.

The scientists got the idea of a gutta percha nose from a well-known professor who has studied monkeys and the supposed monkey language for the last fifteen years in the Congo. Some years ago the professor met a man whose nose had been shot off in a battle. The man was able to talk only by forming a cone with his hands over the place where his nose had been. The professor reasoned that a monkey was in about the same condition as a man with his nose shot off, and has been working on the theory of an artificial nose since.”

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A Brief Note From 1896 About A Common Cold

December 23, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the October 18, 1896 New York Times:

“Cincinnati, Ohio–Charles Doran, a business man of Glendale, took a pinch of snuff to-day for a cold. So severe was the sneezing that followed that the inferior oblique muscle of the left eye was ruptured, and as he continued to sneeze the exertion forced the eye out of its socket.

Doran says he felt as if something had broken in his head. With his right eye he saw his left eyeball hanging down his cheek. Dr. Heady replaced the eye and applied a lotion to the muscle. The eye was then bandaged, so it could not fall out again. 

Dr. Heady believes the eye is not destroyed.”

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Old Print Article: “Horrible Murder From Religious Fanaticism,” New York Times (1859)

December 22, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"BELDING followed her from that room to the front room, in which the murder was committed with a shoemaker's hammer."

“BELDING followed her from that room to the front room, in which the murder was committed with a shoemaker’s hammer.”

Sometimes people can separate from the world and be uninterrupted from delusions. They needn’t even move away–they just disappear inside themselves. That can lead to a dangerous, fever dream of a life, one in which a monster grows undisturbed. Such a departure from reality in 1859 led a father and daughter to enter into a religious mania which caused the elder to brutally slay his child. From an article in that year’s New York Times:

“The quiet Sabbath was broken in upon yesterday by the commission of a horrid murder, in the town of Sandlake, about 11 miles from Troy, of a daughter by her father and only surviving parent, a man of 60 years of age, named JOHN BELDING. The scene of the homicide is about 4 miles east of Sliter’s Tavern, and near the steam saw-mill on the Sandlake road. The parties lived in a little house, in which the father earned a livelihood for himself and daughter by following the trade of a shoemaker. The daughter’s name was CHRISTINA. She is about 19 years of age, and is described by the neighbors as a quiet and well-behaved girl. She had been unwell for some time, and, it is said, had been under the care of a female doctress residing in Berlin, in this county, named WEAVER. Her mind, it appears, was somewhat affected, but whether from religious excitement or from some other cause, we are unable to say. She labored under the impression that the devil had possessed her, and used to pray very frequently for deliverance from his grasp. A day or two before the murder, the old man and daughter went over to the house of DAVID HORTON, who resided opposite the BELDINGS, when CHRISTINA said she had taken medicine of MRS. WEAVER, and it made her feel as if ‘the devil was in her and she would scratch him off; but that she had thrown the medicine away, and drove the devil away, too.’ The old man had not done much work recently, as it affected the girl’s head, and it is supposed that in consequence of his care of her and want of sleep, &c., his own mind had become temporarily affected, and while under the delusion [that] ‘Dena,’ as he called her, was the devil, he killed her.

The account which BELDING gives of the affair is that he saw the devil lying upon the bedroom and he struck it in the face. The girl, it appears, was lying down in the back room. BELDING followed her from that room to the front room, in which the murder was committed with a shoemaker’s hammer. Her skull was completely smashed to pieces. Portions of the hair were scattered around the room, and pieces of the skull were lying over the floor. Her face, too, was considerably bruised and disfigured, but no marks of violence were discovered on the other parts of her body, BELDING says he thought she was the devil–that she appeared to him to be four times as large as ‘Dena’–that her face was too large for ‘Dena’–and that from his previous and subsequent conduct there can scarcely be a doubt that the old man imagines he had a fight with the devil, or, as he expressed it, with ‘three devils, and he had all he could do to kill them.’ They lived alone in the house. It is supposed the murder was committed about 12 1/2 o’clock yesterday afternoon. The first person who discovered the murder was NICOLAS RYBERMILLER, who first saw the old man outside the house. He appeared very much excited, and told RYBERMILLER that he had ‘Killed the devil, and it was lying in there,’ pointing to his house. RYBERMILLER looked in and discovered the dead body of the daughter. He asked the old man if it was not DENA that he had killed? BELDING replied that he did not think it was. BELDING’S hands and shirt-sleeves were covered in blood.  RYBERMILLER testified before the Coroner’s jury that the father and daughter had lived with him about six months, previously to their residing in the house where the murder was committed, and that they always appeared happy together, and, as the witness expressed it, ‘Never had any crazy times.’ CHRISTINA was a quiet, good girl.

BELDING was raving like a maniac when the Coroner arrived. Several witnesses were examined, and the jury rendered a verdict that, ‘in their opinion said CHRISTINA BELDING came to her death on Sunday, May 1, 1859, from fractures of the skull, and said injuries were inflicted with a hammer in the hands of her father, JOHN BELDING–he at the time laboring under temporary aberration of mind.’

The Grand Jury sit to-day. The evidence in this case will be handed over to them for their action at once. They will probably authorize a commission to investigate the sanity of the murderer, and if he is declared insane, will send him to the Lunatic Asylum; or they will indict him for murder, as in their opinion the evidence warrants.”

 

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A Brief Note From 1910 About A Frolic

December 19, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the May 1, 1910 New York Times:

“As a result of a girl companion’s prank, played more than a year ago, Miss Mary V. Sullivan lies dead at the home of her mother, Mrs. Catherine Sullivan, at 821 South Eleventh Street, Newark. The young woman died on Friday night. About a year ago Miss Sullivan and several girl friends were playing jokes on each other. During the frolic one of the girls pulled a chair from under her just as she was about to sit down. In falling she injured her spine.”

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Old Print Article: “The Horrible Jameson Affair,” New York Times (1890)

December 18, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"This is a present from a white man who desires to see her eaten."

“This is a present from a white man who desires to see her eaten.”

In 1890, James S. Jameson, heir to the famed whiskey-distilling family’s wealth, was accused of a crime that was singular and sinister even by the standards of colonialism. Syrian translator Assad Farran testified that the peripatetic explorer paid African natives a number of handkerchiefs to kill and cannibalize a small girl. Jameson, it was alleged, desired to not only witness the heinous acts but to sketch them. From an article the November 14, 1890 New York Times:

“London— The Times publishes the full text of Assad Farran’s affidavit. After describing Barttelot’s cruelties, it deals with the Jameson cannibal affair in Ribakiba.

Jameson expressed to Tippoo’s interpreter curiosity to witness cannibalism. Tippoo consulted with the chiefs and told Jameson he had better purchase a slave. James asked the price and paid six handkerchiefs.

A man returned a few minutes after with a ten-year-old girl. Tippoo and the chiefs ordered the girl to be taken to the native huts. Jameson himself, Selim, Masondie, and Farhani, Jameson’s servant, presented to him by Tippoo, and many others followed.

The man who had brought the girl said to the cannibals: ‘This is a present from a white man who desires to see her eaten.’

‘The girl was tied to a tree,’ says Farran, ‘the natives sharpening their knives the while. One of them stabbed her twice in the belly.

‘She did not scream, but knew what would happen, looking to the right and left for help. When stabbed she fell dead. The natives cut pieces from her body.

‘Jameson in the meantime made rough sketches of the horrible scenes. Then we all returned to the child’s house. Jameson afterward went to his tent, where he finished his sketches in water colors.

‘There were six of them, all neatly done. The first sketch was of the girl as she was led to the tree. The second showed her stabbed, with the blood gushing from the wounds. The third showed her dissected. The fourth, fifth, and sixth showed men carrying off the various parts of the body.

‘Jameson showed these and many other sketches to all the chiefs.'”

 

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Old Print Article: “A Dog That Talks,” New York Times (1910)

December 16, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

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“The dog stupefied the family by replying in a deep, masculine tone.”

Because everyone in 1910 was apparently an alcoholic, The New York Times reported in that year that a talking dog had been discovered in Germany. The prosaically named Don, an allegedly loquacious setter, soon came to America to share his supposed six-word vocabulary with vaudeville audiences, even once sharing a bill with Harry Houdini. Don would bark his last words five years after the Times story ran. “You all smell like wine,” I’m sure people imagined he said. The story:

“Berlin–The scientific sensation of the hour in Germany is the talking dog Don, a dark-brown setter belonging to a royal gamekeeper named Ebers at Thiershütte, near Hamburg. Don promises to become as celebrated an attraction as the horse Clever Hans, which startled the sociological savants of Europe eight years ago with his alleged mathematical feats.

Karl Hagenback, the world-famed animal dealer, has offered Don’s master $2,500 for the privilege of exhibiting the dog in the Hagenback outdoor menagerie at Hamburg. The dog’s vocabulary, it is said, already embraces six words.

His alleged elocutionary powers came to light early this week as the result of reports from the United States that Prof. Alexander Graham Bell had succeeded in teaching a terrier to speak. It was declared that Germany not only possessed a dog with similar gifts but a dog which had been talking for five years, in fact, ever since he was six months old.

The story was first considered a joke, but Thiershütte all the week has been the Mecca of interested inquirers, who have come away convinced that Don is a genuine canine wonder. His callers included a number of newspaper men, who went to Thiershütte to interview the dog. The gamekeeper, Ebers, affirms that the dog began talking in 1905 without training of any kind. According to his owner, the animal sauntered up one day to the table where the family were eating, and, when his master asked, ‘You want something, don’t you?’ the dog stupefied the family by replying in a deep, masculine tone, ‘Haben, haben,’ (‘Want, want’). The tone was not a bark or growl, it is declared, but distinct speech, and increased in plainness from day to day as his master took more interest in the dog’s newly discovered talent. 

Shortly afterward, the story goes, the dog learned to say ‘Hunger’ when asked what he had. Then he was taught to say ‘Küchen,’ (cakes) and finally ‘Ja’ and ‘Nein.’ And it is added that he is now able to string several of these words together in sensible rotation and will say ‘Hunger, I want cakes,’ when an appropriate question is addressed to him.

The New York Times correspondent has caused inquiries regarding Don to be made though trustworthy authorities at Hamburg. He is assured that the dog is an unqualified scientific marvel.

Don’s owner is overwhelmed with applications from circus and music-hall managers, who are outbidding one another for the privilege of exhibiting the dog.”

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A Brief Note From 1904 About Dynamite

December 15, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the March 21, 1904 New York Times:

“Paterson, N.J.--The little mining village of Sterling Junction, N.Y., is at present speculating as to what is going to happen to Antonio Colone, six years old, who is lying in a serious condition in his father’s hut near the iron mine there. Last Thursday Antonio ate a stick of dynamite.

According to the story told by the boy’s father, Guiseppe Colone, he and some other laborers were employed at the junction on Thursday afternoon unloading a car of dynamite consigned to the Sterling Iron and Mining Company. Little Antonio sat by watching the operations.

The boy got hold of a stick of the explosive, and it is supposed that he took it for some kind of candy, for he ate it. He was still chewing the stuff when his father noticed the stump of the cartridge in the boy’s hands. He took it away from him and carried the boy very gently to the hut. There Antonio became unconscious. 

The father only knew one thing about dynamite, and that was its explosive properties. He dared not move the child for fear of an immediate disaster, so he sent to Sloatsburg for Dr. J.M. Gillett.

The physician found the boy in a state of coma, his temperature very high, and his heart beating at top speed. The latter symptom he attributed to the effect of the nitroglycerine contained in the dynamite. The doctor said the boy would certainly die.”

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Old Print Article: “He Had Married His Sister,” New York Times (1893)

December 12, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

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“For six years they lived together happily.”

A strange tale of an unfortunate coupling, which sounds like an urban myth, was presented as fact in an article in the April 28, 1893 New York Times: The story:

“Toledo, Ohio–There lived in the vicinity of this city many years ago a family of the name of Worthington. The father and mother of the household died within a few days of each other, leaving two children, a girl of two years old and boy four. The boy, Jarvis, was adopted by a friend of the family living in Ontario, Canada. Jennie, the daughter, was adopted by a family of the name of Ainsworth, residing in Detroit, Mich.

When Jarvis becomes eighteen he went to work on a boat running between Detroit and Chicago. In June of 1883 Jennie boarded the boat for a trip to Chicago, accompanied by her godmother. At Mackinac Island the vessel stopped for repairs. On the second day of the delay Mrs. Ainsworth asked for a guide and a boat to take them over to the island. The request was granted, and Jarvis was sent as the guide.

On the return trip the boat was dashed to pieces against a rock, and the occupants thrown into the water. Jarvis, who was an expert swimmer, saved the women. This act resulted in a close friendship between himself and Jennie. They saw one another from time to time, became engaged, and one year after at Mrs. Ainsworth’s house, in Detroit, they were married.

For six years they lived together happily. They had two children. The discovery of their true relationship was made while on a visit to Jarvis’s god-parents in Ontario. The shock was so great that a few days later the husband and brother committed suicide.

The wife afterward came to Richmond, where she was married about two years ago to a prominent citizen of that place. They now live in Dayton, and are active in church and social circles.”

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A Brief Note From 1909 About A Human Sacrifice

December 10, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the June 16, 1909 New York Times:

“St. Petersburg--Dispatches from Perm, European Russia, say the local police have begun an investigation into the ‘Sect of the Crimson God,’ the members of which are accused of human sacrifices and various other horrible practices. Repeated disappearances of people in the region where members of the sect dwell drew suspicion to the organization, which worships a red wooden idol colored, according to the statements of the country people, with human blood. The police have located a secret grave containing the mutilated body of a man supposed to have been sacrificed, and they expect to find others.

The Ural region, of which Perm is the centre, is a breeding ground for many fanatical cults. It is a meeting place for the Pagan tribes of Asia, as well as persons who flee from Russia on account of religious persecution. These refugees have lived for centuries in the dense forests of the district, and their beliefs have developed along the most fanatical lines.”

Old Print Article: “She Skinned A Horse,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1895)

December 9, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

The colorful 19th-century Gravesend clan known as the Moreys loved horses, especially with salad and a baked potato. From an article in the January 13, 1895 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“The eccentricities of the Morey family, which for the past ten years have kept the town of Gravesend guessing what was to come next, have given the place another shock of such an entirely different nature from any of the former performances that even the old residents shake their heads and declare themselves beaten. A complaint was made at the police headquarters yesterday that a horse belonging to the Moreys had died and was lying in the yard. An officer was sent over and upon entering the yard found, to his amazement, that the horse had been partially skinned and cut up. When he arrived on the spot, Lena Morey, the 16 year old daughter of Elizabeth Morey, was just finishing the work of skinning the dead horse. Portions of the carcass–the best parts–had been cut out and placed in a tub, awaiting the process of pickling, which would keep it for the future use of the family, while the portions considered poor for eating were being fed to the dogs and the pigs owned by the family.

Mrs. Morey told the policeman that she had a right to do as she pleased with her own, that there was a great deal worse meat eaten every day than horse meat and that she did not propose to starve while she could get anything as good. As to the hide, she said she proposed to make strong leather bags of it.

In spite of her vehement protests and threats, the officer seized upon all of the carcass in sight, as well as the hide, and all was sent to Barren Island for cremation, while the board of health was notified.”

A Brief Note From 1898 About A Blessed Event

December 8, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the September 19, 1898 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Uniontown, Pa.–A christening last night at Banning, a mining settlement near here, ended in a free for all fight, in which knives, pistols and clubs were used. One man was killed and five others were injured. The participants in the melee fled and the police are after them.”

Old Print Article: “French ‘Ripper’ Guillotined,” New York Times (1899)

December 6, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

“This desperate criminal was notoriously vain, and fancied himself a hero.”

French serial killer Joseph Vacher didn’t deny his atrocities–he just refused culpability for them, assigning blame to God. He was no doubt brain damaged from one or other mishaps in his life and had almost a Leibnizian optimism for his brutal crimes. From an article in the January 1, 1899 New York Times at the time of his execution:

“Paris–Joseph Vacher, the French ‘Jack the Ripper,’ was guillotined at Bourg-en-Bresse, capital of the Department of Ain, this morning. He protested his innocence and simulated insanity to the last. Vacher, who was twenty-nine years of age, was condemned in October at the Ain Assizes.

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The crimes of Joseph Vacher have surpassed in number and atrocity those of the Whitechapel murderer known as ‘Jack-the-Ripper.’ His homicidal mania first broke out seriously in 1894. He claimed, after his arrest, that as every action has an object, and as his motive neither theft nor vengeance, his irresponsibility was established He one day told a Magistrate that he considered himself a scourge sent by Providence to afflict humanity. It was claimed in his defense that when a youth he was bitten by a mad dog, and that the village herbalist gave him some medicine, after drinking which he became strange, irritable and brutal, whereas he had previously been quiet and inoffensive. It also appears from these statements that from that time he developed a passion for human blood. It was also shown that Vacher had been confined in an asylum for the insane, and that a love affair once caused him to attempt self-destruction by shooting.

Referring to his crimes, Vacher is quoted as saying, ‘My victims never suffered, for while I throttled them with one hand I simply took their lives with a sharp instrument in the other.’ I am an Anarchist, and I am opposed to society, no matter what the form of government may be.’

This desperate criminal was notoriously vain, and fancied himself a hero. He refused to speak about his crimes except on two conditions. One was that the full story of his murders be published in the leading French papers, and the other was that he should be tried separately for each crime in the district where it was committed. 

The exact number of Vacher’s victims will never be known, but, it is said that twenty-three murders had been brought home to him in October last, and the number was added to as time went on. In fact, it is doubtful whether the murderer himself knew the real number of his victims. Many persons whom he attacked narrowly escaped being killed.

Born near Lyons, Vacher served his military term in a regiment of Zouaves, and showed himself to be a good soldier, so much so that he was made a non-commissioned officer, although there were complaints against him of being brutally severe to recruits. It was shortly after he left the service that he attempted to kill himself. The bullet was never abstracted from his skull, and, according to reports the wound produced recurrent fits of insanity, and caused him to be confined in an insane asylum at Dole. The physicians, however, released him because they were afraid of an outcry in the press against the arbitrary confinement of a citizen, although the physicians were well aware that he was not in a condition to be at large.

Since that time and until his arrest Vacher appears to have wandered through the country districts of France, leaving a trail of blood behind him. He was undetected and unsuspected until, by mere accident, he was caught almost redhanded near Lyons at the beginning of October.

One of the remarkable features of this extraordinary case was the clever manner in which Vacher succeeded in shifting suspicion from himself. About two years ago he murdered a shepherd boy on a country road a few miles from Lyons, hacked the body almost into pieces, and then continued on his way. The murder was discovered within a few minutes afterward, and search for the murderer was promptly instituted in all directions, with a result that a gendarme, mounted on a bicycle, overtook Vacher, and called upon him to produce his identification papers, whereupon Vacher quietly handed over to the police officer his discharge as a non-commissioned officer from a regiment of zouaves. 

‘Why, this is my old regiment!’ exclaimed the gendarme. ‘I am hunting for a man who has just cut a boy’s throat. Have you seen any suspicious character?’

‘Oh, yes,’ answered the murderer serenely. ‘I saw a man running across the fields to the north, about a mile back from here.’

‘Thank you!’ cried the gendarme. ‘I’ll be after him,’ The gendarme then hurried off after the imaginary murderer, and the real culprit stole away from the scene of the crime.

By lucky chances, some of Vacher’s would-be victims escaped him. For instance, a boy, thirteen years of age, named Rodier, was herding cows near Clermont Ferrand one day in October a year ago, when he saw an ugly-looking, grinning tramp approach him, carrying a big bag on his back and a heavy stick in his hand. The boy was alarmed and as the stranger came nearer Rodier ran away. The same afternoon Vacher attacked three other women in the same manner, and they all escaped him as Mme. Marchand did.

The most prominent victim of Vacher was the Marquis of Villeplaine, who was killed while walking in his park in the southwestern part of France, not far from the Spanish frontier. Vacher crept up behind him, felled him with a heavy stick, and then cut his throat. The murderer carried off the coat of the Marquis, and the pocketbook containing some bank notes. He then sought refuge in Spain.”

 

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A Brief Note From 1909 About A Mini Guillotine

December 4, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the February 21, 1909 New York Times:

“Paris–Since the guillotine has been revived in France the proprietor of a small Parisian café invented a new method of drumming up trade. He arranged a miniature guillotine, and for the price of one drink you could have the pleasure of seeing a puppet’s head roll off into a basket.

As Frenchmen seem to revel in executions, and as real ones are more or less rare since the new law went into effect, and there has been none in Paris itself, this clever invention had much success.

One puppet’s head was placed in the stock and the knife fell as in a real execution. Other puppets were standing about to represent the officers of the law. The proprietor of this café told me that the device had been worth a great deal of money to him, as all day long workmen came in for drinks and asked to see ‘La Veuve,’ as the guillotine is called in France, at work; but at the end of the week he was forced to put up a sign which read: ‘By Order of Police, There Will Be No More Guillotinging Here; so henceforth the real executions will have no rivals.”

Old Print Article: “A Talking Skeleton,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1883)

December 3, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

"A more repulsive sight to any lover of the 'human form divine' it would be difficult to imagine."

“A more repulsive sight to any lover of the ‘human form divine’ it would be difficult to imagine.”

Isaac Sprague was a nineteenth-century dime museum performer who was billed as the “Living Skeleton.” He had some sort of progressive muscular disease and was invited into classrooms as well as sideshows, so that medical students could study his malady. Such a visit to academia was covered by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in truly insulting fashion in its November 25, 1883 issue, which was published four years before his death. An excerpt:

“Isaac Sprague, who is usually advertised in museums or traveling shows as the living skeleton, was exhibited yesterday to the students of the Rush Medical College, and was made the subject of a lecture by Dr. Henry M. Lyman. Several hundred students filled the tiers of seats that rose above each other to the roof of the amphitheatre, and in the small semicircle below sat the skeleton. A skeleton he was, indeed, for there did not appear to be a single vestige of flesh on his body, and the skin was drawn tightly over the bones. He wore a pair of trunks, leaving his legs, chest and arms nude, and a more repulsive sight to any lover of the ‘human form divine’ it would be difficult to imagine. The man’s spine was curved to one side and there was a tremulous pulsation in the neck over the right shoulder that produced an irritating effect upon an observer’s nerves. Sprague’s face is not attenuated in comparison with his body, and his neck seems to preserve some muscular tissues, but all the remainder is a mass of living articulated bones.

The skeleton said that he was forty-two years old and had been suffering from progressive muscular atrophy for thirty years. ‘Cases such as this,’ said the lecturer, ‘generally run their course in five years, and few have been known to exceed twenty years. It is safe to say that there is no case like the present one on record.’

‘Have you suffered much?’ the doctor asked.

‘No,’ said the skeleton in a voice almost as thin as his legs. ‘I have had almost no rheumatic pains; have suffered no loss of sleep; I can eat three hearty meals a day, and have been married twice and now have three children.’

The skeleton, in conclusion, told the students that he now weighs fifty pounds, which was half what he weighed when the disease began. He said, in an incidental and humorous way, that his wife weighed 172 pounds. He himself is five feet five and one half inches in height, and his boy, weighing 125 pounds, can carry his father about like a child.”

A Brief Note From 1901 About An Exploding Frog

December 2, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the July 12, 1901 New York Times:

“Albany, Mo.–An accident in which three children, a pet frog, and some dynamite figure here to-day resulted in one death, the injury of two persons, and the partial wrecking of a dwelling. The three children of George McCurry, a contractor, found some dynamite in the cellar of their home, and, thinking it was putty, fed it to their pet frog. The pieces of dynamite resembled insects and the frog ate them. A large tool chest fell on the frog and exploded the dynamite. A chisel pierced the temple of youngest child and killed it.

Another child and Mrs. McCurry, in the kitchen above, were seriously hurt and that part of the house was wrecked.”

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Old Print Article: “Happy Father Of 66,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1900)

December 1, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

“For a time, all lived in one large house.”

Heber Z. Ricks had twelve wives, though it’s really not polite to count. He was a Mormon who really, really believed in the teachings of Brigham Young. The family man was profiled in an article in the January 29, 1900 Brooklyn Daily Eagle. An excerpt:

“In the Valley of the Snake River, near where that stream forms the boundary line between Wyoming and Idaho, lives the father of the largest family on the American continent, and probably the world. The owner of this unique distinction is Heber Z. Ricks, one of the faithful followers in religion and practices of the late Brigham Young. Reliable persons who have known Ricks for many years say he has 12 wives and 66 children. Many of his sons and daughters have long since taken unto themselves helpmates for life and to these have been born 218 children, thereby bringing the number of souls in the Ricks family, exclusive of the venerable father, up to 296.

The members of the Ricks family are scattered over a stretch of country fourteen miles long by two miles wide. Heber Ricks has an even dozen ranches, which, with those of the sons and daughters, make quite a good size settlement. In the center of this settlement, a town called Ricksville has been established. Here are located a general store and a church. During week days the church is transformed into a school room, and a regularly employed teacher (usually one of the Ricks daughters) labors with the descendants of Heber Z. On Sundays, and not infrequently of an evening, services, which are, of course, strictly Mormon, are held. These religious meetings are usually presided over by the elder Ricks, and are very interesting, being conducted in that manner peculiar to the Mormon faith. In the absence of the ‘bishop,’ as the head of the family is known in the settlement, as is frequently the case when he makes a visit to one of his wives living in the extreme upper or lower ends of the colony, one of the sons will fill the pulpit and preach the doctrine of his father, says the Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

ricks456When Ricks left Missouri, it is said, he was a single man, but when he and his party reached Salt Lake valley, he was the possessor of five better halves. Settling near Salt Lake, Ricks continued to take unto himself additional wives until he had ten. In the year 1856, with the number of his wives increased to twelve, Ricks pulled up stakes and moved across the mountains through eastern Idaho to the valley of the Snake River. There, upon one of the most fertile spots to be found on the continent, he established himself. The first few years were ones of great activity for Ricks and his already large family. For a time, all lived in one large house, which was hastily erected, but later twelve houses, composed of roughly hewn logs, were constructed at different points along the river. To these were added, in due time, corrals and other outbuildings, and in a few years Ricksville was something more than a name.”

 

A Brief Note From 1895 About A Friendly Grocer

November 27, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the August 22, 1895 New York Times:

“Camden, N.J.–Charles Atkinson, aged eight years, is in the Cooper Hospital, his eyes being nearly burned out with acid. One eye is very badly eaten. Frank Schuck, a clerk in Shuster’s grocery, is under bail, awaiting the action of the court, charged with having inflicted young Atkinson’s injuries.

Young Atkinson went into Shuster’s store to make some purchases. The boy was waited on by Schuck, and he and Atkinson started fooling. Schuck, in a joke, picked up a glass containing what he supposed to be water, and threw it into young Atkinson’s face. It turned out to be acid that was in the glass.”

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Old Print Article: “The Growing Evil Of Plundering Cemeteries,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1888)

November 26, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

Robbing graves to supply medical schools with cadavers is as old as the dissecting table itself, but the ransoming of famous corpses began in earnest in America when an attempt was made to disinter President Lincoln’s remains from his final resting place. A report from the March 13, 1888 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

Within the last ten years there has arisen a phase of grave robbing against which the law in its present form seems to provide but poorly. Previously the operations of grave robbers had been confined to procuring subjects for the dissecting table, and it is for this class of crimes that the present laws are framed. They do not contemplate the union of shameful extortion to sacrilege in the form of grave robbing for the purpose of obtaining ransom.

Of late years the plundering of cemeteries and vaults with this purpose has become of such frequency that it is now deemed prudent, if not necessary, to place a guard over the grave of every person of wealth or distinction immediately after burial. This kind of grave robbing began in this country in 1876, with an attempt to steal the body of President Lincoln from its resting place in Springfield, Ill. It was the purpose of the conspirators to hold the body for a ransom of $250,000, together with the pardon of a noted counterfeiter to whom they were friendly. The success of the scheme was happily thwarted by the confusion of one of the confederates.

Two years later a like attempt made on the body of A.T. Stewart, of New York, was more successful. The details of this robbery are still remembered. The body has been recovered by the family, but at what cost is not accurately known. Those concerned in the plot have never been apprehended. These well known cases serve to indicate the good reasons for the precautions taken in the protection of the bodies of ex-President Grant, of William H. Vanderbilt and more recently of Mrs. John Jacob Astor. 

By way of showing to what extent the law is powerless in such cases, it is of interest to cite the theft of the body of Earl Crawford, in Scotland, in 1882. On the arrest of one of the perpertrators of this outrage it was found that there was no statute more applicable to this case than that for the punishment of sacrilege. No penalties for robbery could be imposed, since a dead body could not be regarded at law as property.

The maximum penalty prescribed by the public statutes of our State for criminal grave robbing is imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by fine not exceeding $2,000. The whole chapter of which this section forms a part has for its subject the preservation of chastity, morality, decency and good order. It is true that it is no more an offense to steal the body of a rich man than it is to steal the body of a poor man, yet there is in the former case an additional element which finds an additional punishment in the eyes of the law. It would seem that but just that in cases where extra inducement in the hope of extortion exists, extra penalties should be imposed; for sacrilege may remain mercifully unknown to the relatives of the dead, but grave robbing, with the aim of extorting ransom, cruelly wounds the hearts of the living and is one of the most shameful forms of plunder.•

A Brief Note From 1914 About A Wooden Leg

November 24, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the June 7, 1914 New York Times:

“Denver, Col.–An artificial leg containing $8,000, the property of Henry C. Wise, who died recently at a local hospital, is today in the possession of the Public Administration, awaiting an heir.

Wise, who was said to have been a Texas oil man, was found unconscious in his room in a hotel. An examination of his wooden leg after his death revealed certificates of deposits amounting to $8,000, concealed therein. The certificates were on banks at Sherman, Texas.”

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A Note From 1886 About A Pitchfork Accident

November 21, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the July 18, 1886 New York Times:

“Detroit, Mich.–Near Jamestown, in the western part of this State, a singular and terrible accident occurred Thursday. Gerritt Bouma, whose parents reside in the village, was at work on a load of wheat and fell off in such a manner that two tines of a fork which fell off the load at the same time entered the back of his head and passed completely through it, coming out near his nose. He pulled the fork out himself, and ran to the house, some distance away, climbing a fence on his way. He asked for water, but soon after went into convulsions and died in about two hours. He was 24 years of age.”

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Old Print Article: “Parachute Leap Off Statue Of Liberty,” New York Times (1912)

November 20, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

In 1912, a daredevil who delighted in heights ascended to the peak of the Statue of Liberty and parachuted from the raised hand of the American icon. The full story as told in the February 3 edition of the New York Times of that year:

Frederick R. Law, listed in the telephone directory as an aerial contractor, with offices at 50 Church Street, growing tired of monotonously swaying to and fro on lofty flagpoles and of being conventionally referred to in the newspapers as a daring steeplejack, decided yesterday to startle the world with an entirely original feat.

Law is about 35 years old. He was the first man to paint the flagpoles of the Pulitzer and Singer buildings, and it has been said of him that he had to be at least 300 feet in the air with a cigar in his mouth to feel absolutely comfortable. Business has been dull in the steeple rigging line, and Law saw the necessity of doing something which no one else had ever done before.

According to one of his foremen, the boss steeplejack sat in his office all yesterday morning looking over the city’s high towers. Suddenly, it was said, he announced his intention of jumping from the Singer Building with a parachute. That seemed unpractical, however, after an investigation, and the Metropolitan Tower, a few stories higher, offered the same objections. The steeplejack did not fear the jump, but impeding traffic and the risk of causing a runaway or two deterred him.

The happy alternative of the Statue of Liberty suggested itself, and at noon the aerial contractor set out for Bedlow’s Island. At 2 o’clock he was armed with a special permit, issued by Capt. Leonard D. Wildman in charge of the post on the island, and half an hour later half a dozen moving picture machines and operators and several thousand spectators were on hand to see the jump from the top of the statue.

Law dragged his 100-pound parachute into the elevator, and in company with one of his foreman went aloft to the head of the Goddess. There he dressed his ropes and started up the remaining 50 feet through the mighty biceps and forearm until he reached the hand with supports the torch. There is an observation platform at this point which, since the issue of a recent order, cannot be visited without a special permit. This platform is 151 feet from the base of the statue and about 225 feet above sea level. It is large enough to hold twelve persons, and Law and his assistant had no trouble in arranging the parachute so that on the jump it would slide easily over the edges of the railing.

Awaiting a lull in the wind Law chose the eastern side of the statue for his descent, and at exactly 2:45 P.M., with all the moving picture machines trained in his direction, he jumped from the top of the railing, clearing the edges by ten feet. 

Whistles shrieked in the harbor, and every one within seeking distance held his breath while the bulky parachute followed the man over the railing. There was fear of a tragedy for a moment, for the steeplejack fell fully seventy-five feet like a dead weight, the parachute showing no inclination whatever to open at first.

When it opened the wind blew it clear of the statue. Then Law began waving his hands frantically. It was not a sign of alarm, merely a steering method which the young aeronaut had adopted to keep his craft out of the bay. It proved practical, too, for the parachute descended gracefully.

When it neared the surface it seemed to fall fast for a moment, and Law, forgetting to jump, fell heavily on the stone coping, thirty feet from the water’s edge. He limped away from the pile of canvas and ropes, but declared that he was not injured. Later he packed up his parachute and personally carried it to his office in the Hudson Terminal Building. He did not want to be interviewed, he said.•

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A Brief Note From 1894 About A Masked Man

November 19, 2013 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

From the March 12, 1894 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

“Attleboro, Mass.–A well dressed young man who refused to give his name and wore a black cloth mask arrived here Saturday night and created something of a sensation. He engaged a vacant store and filled the windows with pictures of himself and announcements that he was Paul Pry, just starting on a trip around the world. He stated that he had agreed to make the trip in one year and was to wear the mask for that length of time. The store became filled with a noisy crowd and he was forced by the police to discard the mask. He has left town.”

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