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.

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.

A case of insanity of a curious sort is just now exciting considerable interest among the medial fraternity of London, says an exchange. A negro was found the other day in a gentleman’s house at Willesden and could give no account of himself because of severe fits of laughter which convulsed his frame. He was taken to the nearest workhouse and ever since has done nothing but laugh.

He has not uttered a word in the interval, and what is his name or where he came from is unknown. He laughs continuously from morning till night and at meal times he swallows his food like lightning in order, apparently, that he may continue his fit of mirth with as little interruption as possible. When he goes to sleep his sides shake with laughter, and in the morning the moment he opens his eyes his capacious mouth opens, too, with a loud guffaw.

At first it was thought he had adopted this means to escape from being tried on the charge of attempted burglary, but the physicians who have examined him unite in pronouncing him insane, and say that his cure is doubtful. The chances are, it seems, that he will literally laugh himself to death.

This form of insanity, though rare, is not unknown to medial science, though the mania is generally of a transitory nature. There are several cases on record of grave personages, who had rarely been seen to smile, suddenly breaking into a habit of uncontrollable and contagious laughter. Dr. Clouston tells of a solid, prudent business man who one day startled his family by a fit of laughter which lasted so long and was so hilarious that every one in the room had to join in.

From time to time after that he would be seized in the church, in the train or in the streets, and whenever he started all who heard him would have to follow. It was the first symptoms of mania. Very soon delusions and the most outrageous conduct supervened and then–the asylum.

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.

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

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.