Entries from July 2006 ↓

“Died at her residence, of a nauseous smell, Margaret Smith, in the 40th year of her age.” If in the mortuary column of this or every other paper, the expression “died of typhoid fever” was stricken out, and in it stead printed “died of a nauseous smell,” the frequency with which we should find these words occurring would not a little surprise and alarm us.

Is it, indeed true, that nauseous smells actually kill? That they are very disagreeable we all know, but that they are deadly not everyone is fully aware. We are accustomed to regard our olfactories as sources from which pleasure may be derived, rather than as monitors to warn us against unwholesome and destructive odors. Did we trust them in the latter capacity and heed their monitions, delicate and almost imperceptible as they frequently are, much sickness and many deaths would every year be prevented.

It is a fact now very well understood in the medical profession that all excrementitious matters of the human body received into the body again through the lungs, or the pores, or the mouth are direct and deadly poisons. They will kill as certainly as arsenic, or prussic acid, or a pellet of cold lead, if enough of them are taken.

Prince Albert died of a minute crevice in the mouldering mansion of an old London sewer that ran under a closet adjoining his summer sitting-room. The odor was imperceptible, but it made Queen Victoria a mourner all her days. One among the distinguished and lamented American dead in 1869 died of a water closet adjoining his office which was not properly drained. The papers said “typhoid fever,” and thousands mourned his “untimely removal from a field of extensive usefulness here, to his everlasting reward.” The clergy and pious people called it “an inscrutable and mysterious Providence;” the doctors said “imperfect sewerage.”

In the country there are fewer deaths from this cause than in the city, for reasons quite obvious: populations are not crowded together, and effete matters are returned more promptly to the soil. Yet in the most healthy localities typhoid fever sometimes occurs, and may always be traced to its only source.

In the summer of 1860 the writer of this article spent some months on the plateau of the Cumberland Mountains, that which, perhaps, the world does not afford a more salubrious region. Within a mile of our cottage an entire family lay prostrate with typhoid fever, and two of their number died. What was the matter there? In one large log cabin, imperfectly lighted and ill ventilated, ten persons, ate, slept, lived. There was carried on all the work of the family; the beds were never aired, the linen seldom ever washed, and the slops were thrown where ease and convenience suggested. To a healthy pair of lungs the atmosphere within and around the house was simply intolerable. But they had become accustomed to the odor, though it utterly refused to make peace with them.

As the warmth of the sun increases, more and more vigilance should be used by the house-keeper to keep everything in and around her premises perfectly sweet and wholesome. Dry earth will completely disinfect and deodorize every offensive substance. Where this cannot be applied, lime, dilute sulphuric acid, and copperas water form very good substitutes. Particular attention should be paid to the drainage of the sink, especially if that and the well are contiguous. Sleeping rooms should be thoroughly aired and sunned every day, and the bedding hung upon a line or fence at least once every week during hot weather. If these simple rules are religiously observed, whatever other diseases may affect the family, typhoid fever will not be among them.–Hearth and Home.

[tags]Michigan Argus, June, 1870[/tags]

Mr. Noah Brooks, who is publishing a series of personal reminiscences of Lincoln in the Century, tells the following strange story:

On the day mentioned, Lincoln narrated an incident the particulars of which I wrote out and printed directly after. These are his own words, ad nearly as they could then be recalled:

“It was just after my election in 1860, when the news had been coming in thick and fast all day and there had been a great ‘hurrah, boys,’ so that I was well tired out and went home to rest, throwing myself down on a lounge in my chamber. Opposite where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass upon it (and here he got up an placed furniture to illustrate the position), and looking in that glass I saw myself reflected nearly at full length; but my face, I noticed, had two separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion vanished. On lying down again, I saw it a second time, plainer, if possible, than before, and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler, say five shades–than the other. I got up, and the thing melted away, and I went off and in the excitement of the hour forgot all about it–nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up, and give me a little pang as if something uncomfortable had happened.

“When I went home that night I told my wife about it, and a few days afterwards I made the experiment again when (with a laugh), sure enough the thing came again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife. She was somewhat worried about it. She though it was a ’sign’ that I was to be elected to a second term of office and that the paleness of the face was an omen that I should not see life through the last term.”

That is a very remarkable story–a coincidence, we may say, to which some significance was given by the cruel death of the president soon after the beginning of his second term. I told Mrs. Lincoln the story, and asked her if she remembered the details. She expressed surprise that Mr. Lincoln was willing to say anything about it, as he had up to that time refrained from mentioning the incident to anybody and as she was firm in her belief that the optical illusion (which it certainly was) was a warning, I never again referred to the subject to either the president or his wife.

Subsequently, Lincoln’s version of the story was confirmed by Private Secretary John Hay, who, however, was of the opinion that the illusion had been seen on the day of Lincoln’s first nomination, and not, as I have said, on the day of his first election.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, April, 1895[/tags]

History of English Humour; with an Introduction upon Ancient Humour, by Rev A G L’Estrange, volume 2 of 2.

Thanks to Janet Blenkinship for post-processing this book.

Bookp(h)ile

There was begun in the last week or two a very thorough revision of the telegraphic cipher codes in use by people in this city doing business with european countries, says the New York Sun. The revision is in order to conform with a new regulation of the International Telegraph bureau, designed to put an end to the difficulties, disputes and inconveniences that have been connected with international telegraphing for very many years. The International Telegraph bureau is a telegraphic clearing-house and intelligence office located at Berne, Switzerland, of which all the governments of Europe, and all the important nations of the world, with the sole exception of the United States, are members. “Berne,” as the bureau is generally referred to, is the central information bureau of the telegraph service of the whole world. Any interruption to a cable or land line, the opening of a new line, or rearrangement and shortening of an old one; all delays to telegraphic communication, anywhere and from any cause, such as storms or earthquakes, or censorship on telegrams because of war or civil disturbances in Cuba or Armenia, or anywhere else; anything or everything that improves or disturbs the telegraph service in any part of the world, is at once reported from the affected locality directly to Berne, and the information is promptly sent out from there to the headquarters of every government and telegraph company, and so on to every telegraph office of importance in the world.

The bureau was first established as a result of an international telegraph convention held at St. Petersburg in 1875, to settle all matters of rules and regulations for the interchange of telegrams among the various countries; to collect and apportion the charges on international telegrams, according to the proportion of work done by each country, and generally to do the work of the telegraph companies and systems that the clearing-house does for the banks. Every five years a convention is held, at which all the governments are represented, and the rules to govern Berne are considered and revised and enacted.

There has always been difficulty between the telegraph service and its customers over the use of cipher words. Of course, where the cost of telegraphing runs to several dollars a word, every effort is made to be brief. Most elaborate and really wonderful codes have been constructed, some at a cost of thousands of dollars, by the aid of which one word is made to express a whole sentence, or paragraph, of commercial information. To such a science has this matter of codes been reduced that the bulk of telegrams passing between this country or England and distant places like China an Australia rarely consist of more than two or three words. Many hundred contain only one word, besides the name and address. And one word often sums up a whole day’s business. To insure accuracy and speed the convention decided many years ago that only legitimate words, belonging to one of eight languages, should be allowed in codes, and no word should contain more than ten letters. Arbitrary combinations of letters, such as xqp, or wzy, are only accepted on a basis of three letters to a word. While cable operators are not expected to know eight languages, yet there is something about legitimate words of a modern language that makes it easily recognized. It sounds all right on the Morse instrument and looks all right on the cable slip. A mutilated word is as readily distinguished and stopped. The sender of a foreign telegram of eight words may use a word each from English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and Latin, but they must be good words and not over ten letters long. The receiving clerk in a cable office will almost infallibly spot an illegitimate word, and, as he is held responsible at the rate of several dollars a word for any wrong word he may pass, he lets very few indeed get by him.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, May, 1895[/tags]

The cold backward spring weather which we are experiencing has led to much surmises as to the cause of the failure of the earth’s heating apparatus to do its work. In regard to the matter a contemporary remarks:

Some have supposed that we are entering upon a change of seasons, and the rather appalling theory has been broached that the poles are changing position, and that the arctic region is to swop places with the equator. The astronomers have, however, brought forward an explanation of the late “cold spell” somewhat less disturbing to the nerves, though not altogether tranquilizing. They say that the sun’s disc is at present riddled with holes, in other words, with spots, one of which is of very considerable size. It is a deep cavity in the photosphere, and so wide that the whole terrestrial globe would find room in it without touching edges. There is another spot which, though much smaller, still has one of its diameters as large as that of our earth. Herschel and Arago having conceived the idea of comparing the annual price of corn to the number of solar spots observed each year, found on comparing a series of twenty-five results, that the greater the number of spots the higher was the cost of bread-stuffs. This shows that these phenomena may reduce the heat of the sun considerably.

On this theory a piece of smoked glass will be a handy thing to have about the house; and in laying in the coals or providing for winter clothing the first thing in order will be to take a squint to ascertain the dimension of the holes in the solar atmosphere.

[tags]Peninsular Courier and Family Visitant, May, 1868[/tags]

The women in the Neudorf convent prison were all so kindly in their ways, so peaceful and good-humored, they differed so completely from our preconceived ideas of criminals, that we were puzzled to imagine what could have brought them into prison, says a writer in the Cornhill Magazine. We had never a doubt that their offenses were of the most trivial nature and we said so. The superior gave us one of her odd, humorous smiles.

“Did you notice that woman in the corridor?” said she. “She is Marie Schneider.”

That insignificant-looking little woman who had stood aside with a gentle, deprecative smile to allow us to pass, Marie Schneider? Why, in any other place one would have set her down at once as the hard-working wife of a struggling curate, so throughly respectable did she look. And she is Marie Schneider, a European celebrity with more murders on her conscience than she has fingers on her hands!

“And you let her stay here?”

“We have nowhere else to put her,” the inspector, who had joined us, replied, “and we don’t hang women in Austria.”

Nor is she, as we soon found, the only notoriety in the place. One of the prisoners is a delicate-looking girl, with large brown eyes and golden hair–a type of beauty almost peculiar to Australians. She has a low, cooing voice and a singularly sweet, innocent expression.

“What on earth can that girl have done to be sent here?” I whispered.

“Done,” the inspector replied, grimly, “set a house on fire in the hope of killing a man with his wife and five children.”

The girl must have had extraordinarily sharp ears, for, though we were standing at some distance away, she heard what he said, and she gave him a glance such as I hope never to see again in my life. It was absolutely diabolical; had there been a knife within reach the man would have died on the spot. Yet only a moment before she had been looking up into my face with a smile an angel might have envied.

Several of the prisoners are in the convent for killing their own children; some for killing, or trying to kill, their husbands; others for stealing or embezzling; others, again, for no more serious crime than begging. There are all degrees of guilt there, in fact, and all ages, from girls of 16 to women of nearly 80. And they all live together on terms of perfect equality; for there are no distinctions of rank there–no one is better or worse than her neighbor. When the convent door closed behind them they have done, for the time being, not only with the outside world, but with their own past. They start life afresh, as it were.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, March, 1896[/tags]

1. The reference appears in a story about Jesse Pomeroy, who has appeared on Odd Ends before.[back]

A well-known artist of Syracuse, N. Y., is amusing a very few of his friends with an experience he had some days ago that has a tinge of the uncanny. It seems, says the Star, that the artist has a friend who is an undertaker and who at that time was badly in need of assistance. It seems that the undertaker had accidentally spilled a fluid upon the face of a body he was preparing for burial, and on account of his carelessness the fluid had acted upon the skin and turned it black in many places. The undertaker realized that something must be done, and that very soon. It would be out of the question for the family to learn of the accident. For a moment he was nonplussed, but his mind shortly turned to his artist friend, and he thought that he could relieve him. “It was at night when he called,” said the artist, in narrating the story, “and I had retired. At first it seemed impossible for me to attempt such a job as he laid before me, but his sad plight touched me, and I finally consented to do the best in my power. I went to the house with my box of paints. The undertaker entered the front door, but he feared that suspicion would be aroused if I was seen. According to arrangements I waited outside until he had reached the death chamber. Then he silently raised the window, and I crawled stealthily in. For more than an hour I labored silently upon the spotted face, carefully painting over the black places, and finishing the whole with that effect which betokens death. It was a ghastly job, and I never want another like it. After it was all over the body looked as lifelike as possible, and no one ever know that the face was entirely made up.”

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, July, 1895[/tags]

Fire Marshal Whitcomb has been pretty busy taking testimony in regard to fires lately, and while speaking about examining witnesses the other day he mentioned several curious things he had noticed. He says that in every case where he has discovered a pyromaniac he has had his suspicions of the person’s guilt aroused by a peculiar smile which plays around the mouth of the guilty one when under examination. It is hardly a smile, rather a peculiar puckering of the corners of the mouth, an expression almost indefinable, but it seems to mean, “Well, I’m too smart for you to catch me, anyhow.” The marshal says he can recall a dozen cases where he noticed this smile and at the time had no other cause to suspect a witness, yet by following these smiling ones he has obtained the most convincing testimony of their guilt an almost invariably confession from the guilty ones themselves.–Boston Transcript.

[tags]Ann Arbor Register, April, 1896[/tags]