Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book, by C. Alphonso Smith. Published 1896.

Thanks to Louise Hope for post-processing this project!

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A Man’s Value to Society, by Newell Dwight Hillis. Published 1902; ©1896.

Thanks to Jeannie Howse for post-processing this project!

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The Birthright, by Joseph Hocking. Published 1896.

Thanks to Martin Pettit for post-processing this project!

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Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen, by Alexander Chodźko. Published 1896.

A heavily-illustrated (some of the borders are very intricate) book of fairy tales of Eastern Europe. Some of them will sound familiar (”Kinkach Martinko”). And remember: always be nice to talking animals.

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Assimilative Memory or, How to Attend and Never Forget, by Prof. A. Loisette. Published 1899, ©1896.

This is one of the last projects that the late Laura Wisewell post-processed. She is missed.

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Dross, by Henry Seton Merriman. Published 1899, ©1896.

Thanks to Sankar Viswanathan for post-processing this project!

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New York, April 29.–”Jack the Ripper” sat in Sing Sing’s death chair Monday and was killed. His lawyer declared that the man executed was the fiend who set the world horror-stricken with his revel of blood in Whitechapel, and who was put out of existence for the murder of a woman.

This remarkable criminal, who was electrocuted for killing Mrs. Johanna Hoffmann, defied the police of all the continents. He murdered when and where he chose. An now no detective is to reap the glory of bringing the worst assassin of the century to his doom. To a lawyer belongs the credit of revealing the probable identity of the man who, as Carl Fiegenbaum, was executed Monday.

As the murderer’s body was being carried from the death chair to the autopsy-room, William Sanford Lawton, his counsel, who fought for more than a year and a half to save the life of his miserable client, made a statement, declaring his full belief that Fiegenbaum was “Jack the Ripper,” author of many of the Whitechapel murders. And then he told the facts which led to that conclusion. Fiegenbaum, or Zahm, had been all over Europe, and much of this country. He seems on first acquaintance to be simple-mined, almost imbecile, yet the many was crafty beyond measure. He had means of his own, as was probed by a will he made before his death, yet he always professed extreme poverty. Mrs. Hoffmann, who lived in two miserable rooms with her son Michael, was very poor. Fiegenbaum hired one of the rooms for the merest pittance, promising to pay when he had secured work. He lived there for two days.

During the following night Michael Hoffmann awoke to find the boarder in the act of cutting his mother’s throat. Fiegenbaum ran at him, knife in hand, and the boy sprang out on a window ledge. Fiegenbaum stabbed the woman again, jumped from a rear window into an area, threw away the knife, and escaped.

Mr. Lawton’s idea is that he had planned a murder of the “ripper” order, and that the boy’s cries prevented him from carrying out his intentions. The man was caught red-handed that night. He was questioned at length through an interpreter, for he professed entire ignorance of English.

Mr. Lawton frequently conversed with Fiegenbaum in English while the man was confined in the Tombs, but on every occasion when anyone else was present–even today, when he declared his innocence to Warden Sage–he demanded the assistance of an interpreter.

Once in a burst of confidence he told his lawyer that he was a victim of the mania to mutilate women, that it was beyond his control at times, and that it was that which had got him into trouble. He said that in the sight of heaven he was innocent, and added: “God will not let me die.”

The lawyer was greatly impressed by what the man told him. A little later he thought of the Whitechapel crimes and looked up the dates and was talking with him confidentially, he said: “Carl, were you in London from this date to that one,” naming those selected.

“Yes,” the prisoner answered, and relapsed into silence. But as time wen on the lawyer, in tracing his movements prior to the crime, discovered that Fiegenbaum had never lived in any house which was not in charge of a woman. Mr. Lawton once put the question of the Whitechapel murders to Fiegenbaum, whose reply was that the Lord was responsible for his acts and that to Him only could he confess.

By his will, which he signed “Figenbaum” [sic] and not “Zahm,” the murderer made Warden Sage his executor, bequeathed $80 to Father Bruder to pay for his burial, and left the rest of his property to his sister, “Magdalene Strohband, widow, in Ganbickelheim, Alzel, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany.” He directed that a house and lot, which he said he owned in Cincinnati, be sold and the proceeds sent to this sister.

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

In many museums may be seen in the most perfect state of preservation in amber fossilized remains of plants and animals, says the Gentleman’s Magazine. The science of Egypt, in its highest development, did not succeed in discovering a method of embalming so perfect as the simple process taking place in nature. A tree exudes a gummy, resinous matter in a liquid state. An insect accidentally lights in it and is caught. The exudation continues and envelops it completely, preserving the most minute details of its structure. In the course of time the resin becomes a fossil and is known as amber. The history of fossil insects is largely indebted to the fly in amber. And to the preserving properties of amber we owe, likewise, our knowledge of some of the more minute details of ancient plant structure.

The coasts of the Baltic are and have been from the days of the Phoenician traders the great source of the amber of commerce. It occurs in rolled fragments, in strata known to geologists as oligocene. These are tertiary rocks of a date little more recent than those of the London basin and equivalent to the younger tertiary series of the Isle of Wight. The fragments of fossil resin were washed down by the rivers from the pine forests of the district along with sediments and vegetable debris. In them are found most perfectly preserved remains of the period, as well as of insect life. Fragments of twigs, leaves, buds and flowers, with sepals, petals stamens and pistils still in place, occur. A recent genus, dentzia, has been recognized by its characteristic stamens; the valves of the anthers of cinnamomum are seen in others. In one specimen the pendent catkin of a species of oak is seen as distinctly through the clear amber as if ti were a fresh flower. And, besides the insect and plant remains thus sealed up in amber, stray relics of the hight fauna of the forest have also been met with.

Fragments of hair and feathers have been caught in the sticky resin and preserved. Among others a woodpecker and squirrel have been recognized in the Baltic amber.

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