“The navy yard is a curse to this city. We wish the plant of it were lifted up carried off and sunk into the sea. Secretary Whitney should realize how his subordinates are compromising him. The president should realize how his administratin is being compromised.” – Brooklyn Eagle
A vulture, measuring nine feet from tip to tip of the wings, was lately shot near Juliet, San Diego county, Cal., as it was sailing away with a full-grown sheep in its claws. Powerful bird that.
Mr. Beane, an Englishman, formerly commander at Stanley Falls, Africa, was recently killed in the Congo state in an elephant charge.
P.A. Stout of Pittsburg, Pa., who killed his son because the latter refused to bid him good by when leaving home, has been found guilty of murder in the second degree.
Two Mormon elders and one of their converts, a woman, were terribly flogged by Indiana White Caps one night recently.
The [Portsmouth] Times publishes a column of Dover news daily, and sends a big bundle of papers to that city by pony express, which makes the distance in just about an hour.
Sloop Addie, of Biddeford, brought in to Joseph H. Jameson on Tuesday of last week a swordfish weighing 420 lbs., which was sold to J.O. Downs & Co. The schooner Lady of the Lake, of Rockport, brought in to Jameson on Wednesday 4000 lbs. of haddock.
The big timber raft was successfully launched at Joggins, Nova Scotia, July 24th. It is 600 feet long, has no masts, and is built on the same general principles as the one last year started out by Mr. Leary, and which has since been floating about the ocean in the form of detached logs. The new danger to navigation contains 21,000 sticks of timber, and its weight is estimated at 11,000 tons. It will be towed to New York by the big ocean tug B.W. Morse, of Bath, Me., or at least that steamer will start with it, whether she gets it to New York or not. There is insurance of $50,000 on the clumsy thing.
Owen O’Brien of Dover, a hop beer manufacturer, while crazed from the effects of hard drinking, on the evening of July 4th shot at several persons with a revolver, wounding one of them, his nephew, in the leg. He was locked up.
Near Carn’s mills, Crawford county, Indiana, on the night of July 24th, a band of White Caps took from their beds a Mrs. Wiseman and her nineteen-years-old daughter, tied them to a tree, and whipped them with hickory branches until they fainted. The White Caps then went to the house of Leslie Morland, told what they had done, and ordered him to start out at daylight to spread the news, that being their custom. He refused, when they opened fire on him with their revolvers, to which he and three relatives answered with rifles, shooting three White Caps, two fatally. The elder Wiseman woman was fatally beaten.
Tuesday afternoon, July 24th, Orrin Kenniston of Newmarket, who had been in Exeter jail since April, was let out, went home, and proceeded to turn down [i.e., drink] liquor until he placed himself in a delightful condition of intoxication. He then went to his boarding house and commenced to try to run it according to his ideas, as a persuader brandishing an empty revolver to scare the bosses. He had it all his own way until the majesty of the law appeared in the person of Officer Arthur Chesley, who quickly quieted him and carried him to the police station, where he stayed all night in durance vile. Wednesday morning he was taken before Justice Mellows, and held in $600 for the supreme court in this city until October; but he thought he had been in jail for as long as he cared for, at present, so before three o’clock Wednesday afternoon he removed the bars from his cell window, and departed.
The fighting between the Hatfield and McCoy factions in Pike county, Ky., has recommenced. One of the McCoys was killed and several wounded in a recent fight with officers.
Elbridge G. Young of Otter Creek, Me., committed suicide Thursday, July 24th, by shooting. Family trouble was the cause. He fastened his gun to a sewing machine.
William H. Moore, the eloping editor of the St. Louis Post-Despatch, and Mrs. Norton, his paramour, passed through Omaha on July 23rd en route to Canada, and in a few days will sail for London, where Moore will become the London correspondent of the New York World.
John Grayson, while drunk shot Lilburn Trigg at Abingdon, Va., and then shot and killed himself. Trigg’s mother died of shock on learning the facts.
The bars of the jail at Brentwood were cut on Friday night, and also the telephone wires between the county farm and this city. Five inmates are reported to have skipped, and to have been moving about the streets here on Saturday.
A river-steamboat man, who claimed to be a first-class democrat, made a violent harangue against “Josh. Foster” of Foster’s Democrat, Dover, on Friday, at the steamboat wharf here. He asserted that Joshua is a “mugwump.” Go, carry the news to Joshua!
The eastern division station of the Boston & Maine railroad at Saco was broken into on the night of July 27th, the safe blown open, and between forty and fifty dollars stolen. The railroad tickets and about $200 worth of mileage tickets were unmolested. The explosion blew the safe door to the opposite side of the office. The office clock stopped at 12:30.
Mr. John A. Cornelius, the plumber, is at home in this city from York, where he has been engaged in the preparation of the water works of some of the seaside hotels. He reports that while he was there burglars attempted to get into the tent of the Indians encamped at the beach, and afterward tried to enter the Marshall house by climbing up on the portico, but in both instances were frightened away.
New Hampshire Gazette, August 2, 1888
A nitro-glycerine factory near Lima, Ohio, blew up on the 29th ult., killing several tramps.
Two maiden ladies, Maria and Viretta Reeves, living near Davisville, W.Va., on the night of July 30th shot and killed one burglar, and mortally wounded another. The ladies live alone, and are quite wealthy.
The destruction of the alligators is destroying the streams and ponds of Florida. When alligators occupy a pond of water they always keep the mud pushed up on the banks, and even when large herds of cattle stamp the banks down, the alligators immediately repair the damage. But now they are disappearing before man’s butchery, the ponds are fast filling up, and the cattle find no water where once it was abundant.
The postoffice at Atlantic City, N.J., was burglarized on the night of July 31st the safe was blown open, and $1200 in two cent stamps and $200 in cash stolen. Registered mail matter was rifled, and a small sum extracted. The postoffice adjoins the police headquarters, and officers were on duty within twenty-five feet.
Hon. Adin Thayer, judge of probate for Worcester county, Mass., and one of the best known republican politicians of the state, killed himself with a razor Aug. 4th, while insane.
Another fool jumped from the Brooklyn bridge on Friday. He wasn’t killed.
Charles Perkins, alias Wilson, a desperado, shot and killed two United States marshals and one citizen at DeKalb, Texas, Aug 5th, while resisting arrest. Perkins escaped unhurt.
There were three square-rigged vessels, two barkentines and one brig, lying at the northend wharves on Monday, awaiting a change of weather before proceding to sea. They looked very well coming up the harbor… Square-riggers, although lately considered a curiosity here by the younger population, hardly seem strange in these waters at present.
The sea serpent is helping out the landlords near Watch Hill. It is arranged to have him at Bar Harbor about the time President Cleveland appears at that paradise of real estate operators.
New Hampshire Gazette, August 9, 1888
–=≈=–
Our thanks to the Portsmouth Athenaeum, holder of the newspapers from which the items above were excerpted. – The Ed.