In June of 1858, the local papers gave some brutal advice on how to get rid of bedbugs and reported on the cyclops horse. What more could you want from life in those days?
It is better to fall into fortune than into the sea.
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A child, nine years old, died in New York last week from hemorrhage occasioned by circumcision on the day previous. The evidence showed that the operation was performed in the usual manner, but that hemorrhage ensued several hours afterwards, when the efforts of the physician to stay it were ineffectual. The coroner’s jury rendered a verdict of death from convulsions, superinduced by a loss of blood following circumcision.
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A sect has sprung up in Liverpool, England, under the lead of Mr. Thomas Angel, calling themselves “Angelites” or Human Nature Conquerors,” who live without food and who meet daily, mornings and evenings, in Sunderland street, to illustrate their doctrines and to enroll members, by signing a declaration that they will neither eat nor drink. They have put forth a printed pamphlet stating their views, and including a report of their sermons and the manner they adopt to overcome languidness and the total want of food. Also, the eminent physician, Dr. Bickorstith’s certificate of the excellent health of the members of this extraordinary society, with their apology for “eating no food.” Let them try it.
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The working days in Switzerland are from fourteen to nineteen hours. Wages for children are five cents per day; women, from sixteen to thirty; men, forty to fifty.
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More than twenty runaway slaves have passed through Cincinnati within the last three weeks. One of the last was from Kentucky and was so white that the underground conductor could hardly believe he had been a slave. (Source)
The women will be glad to learn there has been a carpet sweeping machine invented.
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Mrs. Partington asks, “What is the use of killing hogs if you go and cure them afterwards?”
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The gold fever is subsiding in Iowa. Some gold, it is true, has been found along the margin of streams, but not in sufficient quantities to repay the labor of digging.
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The Board of Education of the city of Watertown have unanimously resolved that the reading of the Bible, and all forms of prayer, be discontinued in the public schools of that city. Some of the teachers, it seems, were wont to call together such of the children as would attend, just previous to school hours, and read a chapter from the Bible, following it by prayer. This practice the Board have prohibited.
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A woman in Lancaster, Pa., recently got a German, named Lochlin, to marry her by giving him $75. Ever since the marriage the affectionate couple have been on a drunken spree which resulted, on Thursday night, in the husband throwing his wife out of a window. She is very badly hurt.
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The Charleston Standard, which has been published for fourteen years, recently expired. The cause of its failure, the editor says, was his advocacy of the re-opening of the slave trade and of disunion.
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It costs twenty-six dollars an hour to light the new hall of the House of Representatives at Washington, with gas.
A panther was killed near Oswego, N.Y., last week. It was six feet and ten inches long and weighing 150 pounds. (Source)
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Pride is said to be a flower that grows in the devil’s garden.
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When you go fishing, be sure to take a “bite” before you start, for you may not get one after.
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Judge Culver of Brooklyn insists that his expulsion from the Baptist church at Brooklyn was a piece of persecution for his anti-slavery opinions and that there is no foundation for the charge of improper intimacy with the widows of the church. The church having refused to agree to a mutual council, the Judge has called an expert counsel to investigate the affair.
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A correspondent of a Michigan paper states that in Tompkins, after a shower, the earth was strewn with small fish, for a distance of half-a-mile, on each side of the plank road. They were what are called dog-fish, about three inches long.
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A vain attempt has been made to prove an English clergyman insane because, among other similar eccentricities, he was in the habit of playing at cards with his domestics and sanctifying the game by reading a chapter of the Bible between the deals.
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The Connecticut House of Representatives has passed a proposed amendment to the State Constitution providing that the colored population may vote. They refused the same privilege to women by a vote of 127 to 22.
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A little girl, 13 years, attempted to commit suicide in Boston last week by drinking camphene. The cause was her fear of returning to school where she had been ill treated by the teacher. (Source)
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To kill bedbugs, take corrosive sublimate and daub it all over your bedstead: then burn your bedstead and clothing and move to another house.
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It is said that in one of the towns in California, seven-eights of the population are under twenty-one years of age. The yield of gold ought to be abundant where minors are so numerous.
A Connecticut schoolmaster asked a lad from Newport, “How many Gods are there?” The boy, after scratching his head some time, replied, “I don’t know how many you have in Connecticut, but we have none in Rhode Island.”
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A French paper states that by an accident charcoal has been discovered to be a cure for burns. By laying a piece of cold charcoal upon the burn, the pain subsides immediately. By leaving the charcoal on one hour, the wound is healed, as has been demonstrated on several occasions. The remedy is cheap and simple, and certainly deserves a trial.
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The Richmond, Ky., Messenger mentions a freak of nature, which is without a parallel in the animal kingdom. It is a colt with but one eye. It was foaled on the farm of Mr. Elisha Roberts, in Madison county. The eye is considerably larger than the usual size and in the middle of the forehead.
The commissioner of Patents has decided to renew Goodyear’s patent for vulcanized india rubber for seven years. This is of great value to him. He will realize probably a million dollars profit from it during the seven years. (Source)
