George Sheppard of McKeesport, Pa., is again able to talk. He waked up the night of June 27th with a stinging sensation in his neck and found himself deaf and dumb. Doctors were baffled by the case. July 9th his hearing was suddenly restored. Still Sheppard’s only means of communicating with persons was a pencil and pad. Saturday night he walked into the barroom of the National Hotel at McKeesport and wrote on his tablet that he wanted a drink of whisky and some pepper. This was supplied by the bartender. The Sheppard sat down at a table and began to cry. In a few minutes he excitedly jumped up and began making peculiar noises with his mouth. Finally he could form words and in a few minutes was talking. Sheppard talked for two hours as fast as he could, saying he was afraid to stop for fear he would lose his speech again. He threw his pad an pencil in a corner and joined with his friends in celebrating his good fortune. Sheppard’s case has attracted great attention from physicians, but none has been able to satisfactorily explain it.

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

Washington city is agitated over the antics of a hypnotic tramp, who has scared the nervous suburbanites almost into hysterics. According to several excited parents, he is in the habit of hypnotizing their little boys and girls and making them steal to provide for his wants. The man is described as a well-dressed and polished man, 25 years old, rather tall, with dark mustache and deep-set eyes. Mrs. Martha Hays, one of the complainants, declares that the tramp took her son, Willie, into the railroad yards and hypnotized him by making him gaze at a bright metal disk. After he had got him under the influence, the mother says, the tramp made the boy go to her house and steal a quantity of clothes and provisions. Another case is reported where the man is said to have used his influence on a little girl and caused her to go to the grocery store where her family dealt, and get him a dozen cigars and a pint of whisky. She deceived the grocer by stating that the articles were for her father. Several other cases of the kind have been reported, and the police, who at first were inclined to regard the thing as a joke, are now seriously looking for the man with the deep-set blue eyes.

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

“Bicycling is not nearly so much of a craze in England as here; and the reason therefore, as I figured it out after much interested investigation, is illustrative of a notable difference between the United States and England in athletic and sporting matters, said a wheelman just returned from a transatlantic trip to a New York Sun reporter. “Because of the superb roads to be found in every part of England I expected to find the country simply overrun with bicyclists. But I didn’t. Of course there are bicyclists to be met all over the land, but I soon learned that the sport had by no means the general hold on the people disposed to exercise or athletics that it has here. It has taken a comparatively greater hold upon the women than the men which is entirely consistent with my theory. Here in the United States the growth of bicycling has meant very largely the growth of the habit of taking exercise. We do not go into sports actively, as the English do. We, as a people, don’t play baseball, football, or any other athletic game. We are mightily interested in sports, but mostly in seeing professionals at play in them. Of the twenty thousand people who go to see the three or four big football games in a year, how many play football? How many of the ten thousand or more cranks who watch the paid baseball nines ever play the game themselves? Now in England there are actually dozens of football and cricket clubs in every town, and every village and hamlet has its team. They play cricket all summer and football all winter. Every fine evening and every Saturday afternoon every bit of turf near a town or village is covered with players of some game or another. Sport is a profession here; a pastime there. Here the mass of the people are interested as spectators; there as participants. Bicycling is there only an alternative means of exercise and amusement; here it is practically the one form of athletics that the whole people have taken to. It’s a might good thing that something has turned up at last to turn the attention of the nation to healthful exercise and athletics. The bicycle fad will wane after a while, for it isn’t an ideal sport, although in many ways an attractive one. But other popular outdoor sport will follow in its wake, and I imagine the bicycle craze will figure as the beginning of an important era in American history.”

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

The red men of the west have many curious legends concerning the rivers, lakes and mountains of that region, none more weird than that which is told concerning Rock Lake, Washington. Since time out of memory the Indian tribes of that vicinity have believed the lake to be inhabited by a sea monster, which never grows old, and whose chief diet is Indian flesh. According to the legend, no Indian ever entered its waters and returned therefrom alive, no matter whether the rash act was committed by approaching its margin for a drink, for a plunge and a swim, or for a canoe ride upon its placid bosom. All of the Indians of the northwest know of the terrors of Rock Lake, and each and every one would prefer death than to touch its waters. The last Rock Lake horror, according to the legend, was in 1858, when a whole band of noble red men were sent to the happy hunting grounds by the monster.–St. Louis Republic.

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

The lecture delivered by Prof. W. B. Stickney, of Ann Arbor, at the library building last evening, under the auspices of the Columbian club, was listened to with deep interest by a good-sized audience. “Nicola Tesla and Recent Marvelous Discoveries in Electricity and Ether” was the subject, and it was handled in an able manner by the speaker, who is an ardent admirer and strong champion of the Servian whose startling electrical discoveries have opened up a new era in the world of science. Although Nicola Tesla is by 37 years of age he has fathomed many of the hidden mysteries of electricity and is the patentee of 127 inventions along this line. Prof. Stickney suggested that the world was upon the eve of even greater discoveries in electricity and ether, the latter of which he denominated as the store-house of energy, and ventured the prediction that in five years from now the world would stand face to face with materialized forces of which it does not now even dream.–Flint Daily News.

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

The people of this neighborhood are very much alarmed over the fact that a monster snake has been seen at large on the outskirts of the town for a number of days, and it is feared that somebody will be attacked by the serpent before it is killed or captured.

The monster was first seen about three weeks ago by Justice Veltor. Since then it has been seen at intervals by I. W. Valentine, superintendent of the Baptist Union Sunday School, and by Dr. Oliver Jones. The latter chased the snake into the woods in an effort to capture it, but was unsuccessful.

All agreed that the snake is about fourteen feet in length, with a body as big around as a pail. Its head is diamond-shaped, and the top is surmounted by a crest that is shaped like a crown.

Some time ago, Dr. Wood, a resident of this place, died, but before his death he liberated a number of large snakes which he held captive. The snake which has been seen is believed to be one of them. The monster is referred to by the people hearabouts as the “King of Snakes.”

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

Some time ago it was announced that bee farming had been taken up at Gennevillers, one of the most loathesome industrial suburbs of Paris. This was treated as a joke, but the news is, our correspondent says, nevertheless true, and the Prefect of the Seine has just received a petition from the inhabitants to abate the nuisance. The bees live upon the sugar refineries of the neighborhood, clearing away all the dust of the roofs, and even landing on the bare backs of the workmen. It has been stated by a sugar refiner that every hive in the neighborhood carries away twenty shillings’ worth of sugar in a year from the factories. He does not, however, complain of this loss, but of the irritation the perpetual buzz inflicts on the workmen.

The idea that the hair snakes come from hairs thrown into water, is much more universal than you may suppose. It was only the other day that a lady was talking with the Professor:

“You needn’t tell me that it isn’t so, because I’ve pulled hairs out of my own head and put them in water, and have seen them turn into snakes before my own eyes.”

What could a poor Professor say? For, of course, he didn’t believe her for a minute. She may have seen the hairs move with the motion of the water, and so made up her mind that they must have turned to snakes. You may feel very sure, however, that no hair put into water ever became a snake. In fact the so-called hair-snake is only a worm. You will find it at certain seasons of the year in small pools of water and even on wet or damp cabbages.

Examine one through a microscope and you will see that it has little rings around its long, slender body. It is what scientific books call an annulated worm.

There is one very strange thing about these creatures; they are never still, but constantly wriggling about. Neither do they stretch themselves to their full length when on the ground, but curl themselves up in some way or other.

You have seen an ordinary earth worm crawling into his hole, and have noticed that he pulls his body in almost a straight line; but when the hair worm creeps, his body is generally in the form of a semi-circle.

You remember the notices in the paper about a great “shower of snakes” in Memphis, Tenn., a year ago last winter. These were our hair worms; and, as they were found only in one place in the city, scientific men thought that the heavy storm must have blown and washed them from some neighboring pool or garden.

For such little fellows they seem to be just crowded with life, it being comparatively difficult to kill them when in water.–Christian Union.