Entries Tagged 'Weird Stuff' ↓

Pussy Makes a Pet of the Rat and Is a Mother to It

It is related in the San Francisco Chronicle that, four miles from Farmington, in California, resides a well-to-do rancher named Morrow. He has a little 4-year-old son, Vernie, who usually has about everything he takes a fancy to. Among the things he fancies an which he has is a large, matronly cat that has been brought up to make due provisions for herself and her progeny. Jet is this cat’s name and jet her color. Jet and Vernie are great friends, and they are frequently seen roaming around the premises together when Jet’s time is not taken up with her own private affairs. Jet has always borne the reputation of being “sure death” to any rats or ground squirrels. A short time ago, in exploring the barns, granaries, and barn yard, Vernie came upon a nest of young rats, which he immediately took up an carried to the house, and placed carefully in a drawer in his mother’s sewing machine. Mrs. Morrow objected to the nest of rats being in the drawer, and took them out to drown them, when Vernie insisted he must keep one, and begged so hard for it that his mother gave it to him. In a short time he laid it down and forgot about it. Then Jet came along and took up the young rat and carried it to her bed as a companion for her one kitten and a solace to her own mind. Strange as it may appear, the young rat made himself at home, derived his sustenance from the same source as the kitten, received the same maternal attention from Jet, who seemed to forget that she was nursing her legitimate prey, to the great delight of Vernie and the surprise of the older heads about the neighborhood. This strange state of affairs continued for two or three weeks, when the baby rat strayed from Jet’s protection, and met his death at the claws of another cat not so merciful as Jet. Strange as this may appear, it is a fact, and can be verified by several persons who witnessed this peculiar and happy family.

A fashionable audience in Paris recently listened to a lecture on chemistry by a celebrated chemist. At the conclusion of the lecture a lady and gentleman who were among the first to leave the hall had reached the open air, when the lady caught her escort staring at her. “What is the matter?” asked the madame, in surprise. “Pardon me, but you are quite blue!” The lady returned to the hall and approached a mirror. She started back in horror. The rouge upon her cheeks had been converted into a beautiful blue by the chemical decomposition which had taken place under the influence of the gasses which had been generated during the lecture. The majority of the women in the audience had suffered in a similar manner. There were all sorts of colors–blue, yellow, violet and black. Some whose vanity had induced them to put ivory on the skin, coral on the lips, rouge on the cheeks and black on the eye-brows had undergone a ludicrous transformation.–New York Tribune.

(Say 1 vol., octavo, about 128 pages, wanting very much a publisher.)

To Death.

Welcome, sad Death, creed of the glazèd eye,
Our last true friend, the fickle hand of maid,
The faith of dame replacing, unafraid
Who clasp they own and with one latest breath

Bid, “Lead me to some palace of the night
That all must know, deprived of mortal sight,
Of earthly comfort, health, and human aid”;
Welcome, thrice welcome, final hope, sweet Death!

Perhaps in that long vision signs decree
Of aspirations and unclaimed desires
That fitly rose to feed immortal fires

The consummation that came not to me
Within this weary width of land and sea,
Of parents, pavements acres, homes, and spires.

From: My Soundspeed Discovery, by George Winslow Pierce. Boston: Published by the Author, 1895.

Jack Grisby of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, was engaged in storing pumpkins in the loft of his barn and his 5-year-old girl was standing near by watching him. A large pumpkin weighing about thirty pounds, rolled from the loft and, falling, struck the girl in her upturned face, breaking her back and causing instant death.

A Western Passenger Train Held Up by a Swarm of Hornets

A swarm of hornets held up a passenger train on the Chicago, Fort Madison & Des Moines railroad, and gave the trainmen and passengers a battle that will be remembered longer by far than if it had been against bandits, says an Ottumwa dispatch to the Cincinnati Tribune. The train was running slowly up a steep grade just outside the city, where the hillside is covered with trees. Suddenly Engineer Cunningham noticed a black mass moving through the air ahead of the train. Had he known what was coming he could have stopped his engine and backed to the next station. The small cloud soon developed into a swarm of hornets. The hornets notice the slowly puffing engine and made for it. They attacked the engineer and fireman, who were forced to stop the train. It was a sultry day and all the car windows were open. This gave the hornets an opportunity to enter the cars and pester the passengers. It was an hour before the trainmen and passengers succeeded in driving away the hornets. A number of persons were severely stung. The train stopped at a farmhouse until the injuries could be attended to and then proceeded to this city.

London Tid-Bits: One of the most valuable flocks of Southdown sheep in the United States is the property of Mr. Mansan Migg, the beet-root sugar magnate. A peculiar fact in connection with the flock is that it is looked after, not by sheep dogs, but by six trained Spanish game cocks. They are armed each morning with spurs, and have so fierce a way of attacking any sheep that tries to run away or will not be driven that the animals are now thoroughly afraid of the birds and obey their directions perfectly. Mr. Migg’s daughter brought the birds from the Canary Islands.

One of the most singular looking creatures that ever walked on the earth or “swam the waters under the earth” is the world famous man-faced crab of Japan. Its body is hardly an inch in length, yet the head is fitted with a face which is the perfect counterpart of that of a Chinese coolie–a veritable missing link, with eyes, nose and mouth all clearly defined. The curious and uncanny creature, besides the great likeness it bears to a human being in the face, is provided with two legs, which seem to grow from the top of its head and hang down over the sides of its face. Besides theses legs, two feelers, each about an inch in length, grow from the chin of the animal, looking for all the world like a forked beard. These man faced crabs swarm in the inland seas of Japan.

Not my normal posting, but since this was inspired by the Ann Arbor Art Fairs (currently under way), I thought it might fit pretty well.

(CC) Rights

(Sources: I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? and Bill Liao’s Flickr. Editing by Bill Tozier.)