Better Old News Than New Lies, 269/25

The Elbe at Hamburg has crocodiles in it, thirteen having escaped from a menagerie steamer.

A large paper mill at Neenah, Wis., took fire at 11:30 p.m. on the 22d inst. While it was surrounded by people the boilers exploded, shattering to atoms the building, which was of brick and three stories high, and killing eighteen persons, fatally wounding seven, and injuring many others. The money loss was $100,000; insurance $52,000.

In a fight at a Baptist meeting at Monticello, Ga., Aug. 23d, two men were shot dead, one or two mortally wounded, and several badly hurt. Over thirty shots were fired. Those fellows evidently belong to the church militant.

An unknown man about twenty-seven years old, well dressed and apparently slightly intoxicated, jumped overboard from the steamer Tremont shortly after she left her wharf in Boston, Aug. 23rd, and was drowned. He said “Well, good bye,” stood on the rail.

In Boston, Sunday, James Gerrior, aged eighty-seven years, and his wife, aged seventy-three, with a number of others engaged in a drunken row, and Gerrior kicked his wife’s skull in.

Ogdensburgh customs officials have been arrested charged with stealing opium stored in the custom house. They are reformers.

There was a heavy white frost in the lowlands around Dover, Tuesday morning.

A number of republican boys of Dover announced their intention of having a torchlight procession on Wednesday evening, the 22nd inst., but just as they were getting ready to start they were attacked by a gang of young democratic hoodlums with stones and clubs, their torches snatched away and broken, and the tent where they had their headquarters pulled down.

Several young men who were riding around town in a two-seated carriage, about six o’clock Saturday evening, drove down Congress street at a high rate of speed, circumnavigated the drinking fountain in the middle of the Parade without checking the speed of the horse, and were almost on the straight curse up Congress street again when the off wheels of the carriage collapsed. Bystanders stopped the horse, and the young fellows got out of the carriage and led him away, leaving the wreck alongside the curbstone.

York County, Me., Items

The construction of the building for the Rice Public Library of Kittery is well under way, and when completed it will be a very handsome structure. The walls are to be pressed brick, with freestone and terra cotta trimmings.

King Theebaw’s Chair

Among the loot taken from King Theebaw’s palace in Burmah and about to be taken to London is a carved ivory chair, which, as it took two years to make, was not completed when the king was captured. It was composed of twenty-five elephant tusks and worth many thousands of rupees. – Chicago Herald

The Times calls attention to the fact that the Portsmouth Directory for 1888 – 1889, which was to have shown up months ago, is very backward in coming forward.

The Portsmouth Electric Light company are having all their poles throughout the city being ironed, where the poles are located in places where teams are liable to be hitched to them, so that they cannot be injured by cribbing horses.

At an Irish exhibition in Barrack street, London, Aug. 22d, a band from Cork refused to play the British national anthem, and was hissed by the spectators. Members of the band afterward stated that they would not have dared to return to Ireland if they had played the anthem.

Fix It Up

The old North cemetery, near the railroad station, is in a most disgraceful condition. The grass has not been cut this year, and the weeds have grown rank and gone to seed all over the enclosure. Strangers who are attracted thither to search the tombstones for historic names are amazed at the neglected appearance of this hallowed spot, as they pick their way through the tangled mass of running vines, raspberry bushes, milkweed and goldenrod. We believe Alderman M.J. Griffin is paid for taking care of this cemetery, and he should be required to earn his money. – Penny Post.

The Chronicle has annually published items similar to the above for several years, but the ancient cemetery has continued to be a disgrace to the city right along. And we suppose it will continue to be. What matters it that scores of men whose names are a part of the early history of our nation lie buried there? They can’t vote.

A large party of young men, adorned with tall, white hats, stopped for an hour or two in this city on Saturday evening, on their way from Dover to the beach, in a two-horse barge.

The people of the United States have always welcomed to its shores the poor and oppressed of all nations, who have generally prospered and done well by the kindness of the old American population. But when it comes to this, that, aliens of only a few years’ residence, who were obliged to flee from poverty and disgrace in Europe, undertake to dictate to their patrons how the country is to be managed, is it not time to call for a halt? — American.

The New Hampshire Gazette, August 30, 1888

The Alaska Commercial Co.’s steamer St. Paul arrived at San Francisco on Aug. 29th, with 100,000 seal skins from Alaska, valued at $2,000,000.

The largest market for the purchase and sale of mules is St. Louis, where the trade reaches $6,000,000 a year. Atlanta comes next with a trade of $2,000,000.

It is stated that William Scully, alias “Lord Scully,” the alien Illinois landlord, will offer his farms for sale and dispose of all his property in that state. By the enforcement of the alien land law Scully’s system of “rack renting” has been broken up, his tenants refusing to pay rent.

The owners of the baths along the river Elbe at Hamburg, have brought suits for damages against Capt. Fray of the German steamer City of Lincoln, from which vessel a number of crocodiles escaped a few days ago. The owners claim that they were obliged to close their baths in consequence.

A ball tosser of Beatrice, Neb., dreamed last Sunday night that he was stealing second base, and when the captain yelled “slide,” he slid. He landed in the street, having jumped from the second story window of the Grand Central hotel.

George N. Wheeler of Rockport, Mass., made insane because the young lady to whom he had been engaged was about to wed another, attempted suicide, and has been admitted to the Danvers lunatic asylum.

At Worthington, W.Va., Sept. 2d, George Johns and John F. Walls were fatally shot by Samuel Hart; all were young men, and on their way home from church when the fight began.

On Saturday, Mr. Chester, of Antwerp, O., went to Fort Wayne, Ind., and drew $1500 in cash from a bank. While returning home he was waylaid and robbed. The robbers knocked him senseless, bound him, filled his mouth with sand and laid him on the track of the Wabash railroad in such a position that the next train would have run over him.  Fortunately, he was discovered in time and removed to his home.

General James Craig, a warm friend of Abraham Lincoln, is dying at St. Joseph, Mo., He is a lawyer, and, it is said, might have been on the bench if it had not been for his face, which wore an everlasting grimace that no one could look at without an uncontrollable desire to laugh.

If James L. Babcock of Chicago doesn’t get married within five years, it will not be for want of an inducement. A Michigan uncle has left him by will $1,000,000 if he takes unto himself a wife within that period. If he hardens his heart to feminine graces, he is to be cut off with a beggarly $10,000. Many a graybeard would accept this young fellow’s position without a whimper.

Quick Work

At Guide Rock, Neb., a man named John Baker, while feeding a threshing machine, was accidentally cut on the hand by a boy who was assisting in the work. Baker seized the boy and thrust him into the machine, feet first. His screams called the other men to his rescue, but not in time to save his life; so they seized Baker, and despite his appeals for mercy, hung him to a portion of the machine.

A gang of horse thieves in Missouri were surrounded by vigilantes recently, and a fight ensued, lasting twelve minutes. At the end of that time the entire gang of seventeen outlaws were dead; three vigilantes were killed and nine wounded.

Disastrous Fire in Baltimore

An entire block in Baltimore, one of the finest in the city, was burned Sept. 2d, entailing a loss of $1,500,000. By an explosion in a wholesale drug store the building was piled in ruins, burying eight firement, seven of whom were killed or afterward burned to death; it is feared that other lives may also have been lost. May persons were less seriously injured.

The USS Portsmouth is stuck on the ways at the head of the dry-dock basin at the navy yard, owing to the rotten condition of the hauling-out ways. The hydraulic is also crippled, though not wholly useless.

Take Care Of Him

“Black Jack” Russell, the demented fisherman who has already been several times referred to in this paper, on Sunday morning last had all his household goods—bedding, chairs, tables, kitchen utensils, etc.,—in the street in front of his residence on Hancock street, and told passers-by that he was going to move that forenoon “into the place on State street where Henry F. Wendell used keep an auction store.” The man is evidently as crazy as a coot, and should be taken care of before he kills himself or somebody else, kindles a big fire, or does some other damage for which he could not be held responsible. He has no relatives here to look after him, but there should be some power somewhere to do it, and it should be done immediately.

The New Hampshire Gazette, September 6, 1888

Our thanks to the Portsmouth Athenaeum, holder of the newspapers from which the items above were excerpted. – The Ed.