Isaac Bennett of South Berwick visited Dover, N.H. on Saturday, got gloriously drunk and drove his horse recklessly about the streets until the animal ran away and “fired out” the drunken driver, landing him on his head on a reservoir cover. He was badly cut and bruised; had he been sober his brains would have been scattered all over the street.
The Rochester correspondent of the Portsmouth Times asks: “Will some one throw a brick at the Portsmouth correspondent of Foster’s?” He evidently thinks Portsmouth is south of the Mason & Dixon’s line.
Morris Hennessy, sixty years old, was killed by the fall of a campaign flag-pole in Providence, R.I., Oct. 19th.
By a collison [sic] on a railroad near Freeport, Ill., Oct. 18th, three men were killed and seven others injured.
Four men were killed and fifteen others injured by an accident on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad near Washington, Pa., Oct. 19th.
During the past year there were 248 accidents to mail trains on which postal clerks were employed. In these wrecks four clerks were killed [and] sixty-three wounded more or less severely, and forty-five slightly injured. There are no statistics given by the general superintendent of the railway mail service, of the number of postal clerks whose heads were taken off; the postmaster general keeps that tally.
A strange horse disease is prevailing in New Bedford, Mass.
The doors and windows of the old north mill, which for months have been open for the entrance of hoodlums and tramps, have been boarded up. Time for it to be done.
[Our predecessor Washington Freeman, or someone on his staff, complains about the building in the photo above. In a derelict condition in 1888, it was being occupied—certainly for free—by undesirable persons, i.e., “hoodlums and tramps.” Well, some things have changed in 137 years, and some have not. This ancient locale, where the penniless hobo once laid down his head and bindle, is still available for transient lodging. But—of this we can be certain—no hobos need apply. If you plan to flop here, bring your Platinum Card: the rate appears to be about $560 a night. In other hyperlocal news, this bridge is expected to re-open to two-way traffic soon. That’ll be nice. The next question is, will the old mill stone that once graced a front yard about 800 feet west of here be incorporated into the final landscaping?]
The striking street car men in Chicago are fighting the new men [i.e., scabs] with bricks and clubs, and making things very unpleasant.
City Treasurer Axworth, of Cleveland, Ohio, has left; $400,000 short. Senator Payne is on his bond for $500,000.
Jeff King, a negro, died at Mannie, Ga., Oct 21st, at the age of 128 years. He could not remember how many wives he had had, nor even guess at the number of his children. Three years ago he married a colored girl twenty years old, who has borne him two children.
A paymaster for Contractor McFadden, who is building a branch of the Lehigh Valley railroad near Wilksbarre [sic] Pa., started out with a body guard on the 19th inst., with $20,000 to pay the laborers. The entire party were shot by three masked men, and the money stolen. Three Italians are accused of the crime.
W.F. Fritz, treasurer of Hermantown school district, near Duluth, Minn., was waylaid Wednesday night of last week by four highwaymen, who pulled him from his buggy, beat him, and robbed him of a money belt containing over $2000 in school funds. The previous treasurer was robbed in the same manner six years ago in the same spot.
On Sunday night, Oct. 14th, Isaac Van Derne was assassinated by a negro named Nathaniel on a plantation near Wharton, Texas. The murderer was captured, taken from the party and lynched. Noe it is said the negroes in Brazonia and Fort Bend counties threaten a general massacre of the whites.
Col. R.M. Pulsifer, publisher of the Boston Herald, was found dead in bed at his country house in Islington last Friday. The cause of his death was nervous prostration induced by insomnia.
There are 481 names on Seabrook’s check list. There are seventy-five Eatons, thirty-seven Dows, and thirty-two Fowlers.
The late John Wentworth of Chicago is to have a monument erected to his memory in that city. It is furnished by the Hallowell Granite Co. of Hallowell, Me., and sent to Chicago by rail, with the exception of the base, which is eighteen feet square and two feet thick, and which from its size had to be shipped by vessel to New York, and thence by barge through the canal to Chicago. The shaft is four feet six inches square at the base, fifty-five feet high, tapering in shape, and weighs seventy tons. Two special cars are being constructed at the Portland car works to carry it, it being the largest stone ever transported by rail in this country. The whole monument, which will cost about $30,000, is expected to reach Chicago this week. [At the time of its erection—no other term seems to do justice here—Wentworth’s monument was said to be the tallest tombstone in the west. Suspecting that Mr. Wentworth suffered from a Trumpian degree of self-regard, we consulted our friend Wikipedia, perusal of which disabused us of that unkind notion. Born in the Granite State, “Long John” (he stood six feet and six inches tall) was one of those Wentworths. Moving west, he owned and edited the Chicago Democrat for a quarter-century, served five terms in Congress as a Democrat, and, back in the day when it made sense to do so, changed parties and served one more as a Republican. He was also elected twice to be Mayor of Chicago. – The Ed.]
In January, 1886, Robert J. Smith of Jessup, Ga., was murdered by Lewis Edwards, a negro, who was sentenced to life imprisonment. His attorney secured a new trial and the case was to have begun on the 15th. Sunday night, the 14th, the sheriff took Edwards to Jessup, and at two o’clock in the morning on the 15th a party of masked men entered the jail and shot him dead.
An Adams county (Penn.) farmer was told by one of a band of gypsies that any money he might hide on a certain spot on his farm would double itself in a night. To test the matter he placed $10 in a deposit and the next morning found $20. This so elated hiim that he went to the Littletown Bank, drew out $800, and deposited it, but next morning, to his dismay, the $800 was gone, and so were the gypsies.
The New Hampshire Gazette, October 25, 1888
Gaetno Russo, an Italian of New York city, and his wife Para, notorious counterfeitors and passers of counterfeit money, got twelve and fourteen years in the penitentiary last month.
Mrs. J.P. Lynch, daughter of John Tobin, formerly president of the New York central railroad, and wife of a wealthy New York merchant, killed herself Oct. 28th by jumping from a window of the Hotel Bristol, Fifth avenue, while insane. She was thirty-six years old.
Queen Natalie of Servia refuses to accept notice of the decree of divorce recently granted against her by the debauched head of the Servian church, at the bidding of the immoral scoundrel, King Milan. [Among King Milan’s extramarital conquests: Jennie Churchill, mother of Winston. – The Ed.]
A man about sixty years old, giving the name of James Fitzgerald, applied at the police station on Saturday evening, and stopped there for the night, being turned out in the morning. About eleven o’clock Monday forenoon he was hanging around the railroad station, evidently the worse for drink, and was driven off by Mr. Moses Leighton, flagman at the Vaughan street crossing. Shortly after eleven o’clock, as a freight train bound east was passing out by the depot on the tracks to the northward of the building, the man attempted to get on, but fell under the wheels and was literally ground up, his body being scattered for sixty feet along the track. Coronor Whittier viewed the body, and ordered the interment of the remains. It is said the unfortunate man was an honorably discharged soldier of the union, and was trying to make his was to the soldiers’ home at Togus, Me.
Mr. Frank Moore, of No. 3 Woodbury street, aged about twenty years, son of the late John Moore, was terribly injured in the freight yard of the Concord & Potsmouth [sic] railroad about five o’clock, Monday afternoon, being run over by a train, and having one leg cut off just below the knee, and the other leg just above the ankle. The unfortunate young man, who has borne an excellent reputation and has been employed in the freight shifting gang of the concord road for a year or more, was taken to the Cottage Hospital; whether his injuries would prove fatal or not the physicians could not say that evening.
The gentleman who recently stood up beside our desk an umbrella which was once a kind of brown color, but has now faded out so that it is hard to designate its tint in the english language, and forgot to carry it off, is requested to call at this office, and hear of something to his advantage. The miserable thing has some sort of patent anti-burglar alarm attachment, so that you cannot open it unless you know the combination, and we got soaked through the other night on that account. If the owner of the wretched machine has any regard for his property he will claim it at once, before we build a fire with it.
On Thursday of last week the town authorities of South Berwick received a telephone despatch from Biddeford to stop a horse thief who had stolen a team from that place. It had been noticed that the team described had been driven through the town a little while before, and the officers gave chase and overtook the team at the lower landing. The thief seeing he was being chased jumped out of the team, took to the woods and escaped.
Frank Robie of Littleton burned his father’s buildings on Oct. 22d; Loss $2500. He was committed to the insane asylum on the 23rd.
George W. Bancroft of Peabody, Mass., had a hole as big as a silver dollar made through his right foot at West Alton, Oct. 23rd., by the accidental discharge of his gun.
A lady living in Saco was some time ago knocked down and severely injured while walking on the sidewalk, by a young man from Ohio who was riding a bicycle on the sidewalk. The lady has taken legal steps against the city for $5000. [That’s $170,500, adjusted for inflation. – The Ed.]
The New Hampshire Gazette, November 1, 1888
Our thanks to the Portsmouth Athenaeum, holder of the newspapers from which the items above were excerpted. – The Ed.