A Burglar Caught by a Skeleton & Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press (51 page)

The prisoner is an athlete, and on the evening in question was performing at the Princess Concert Hall, Leeds, his chief feat being that of catching a nine pound cannon ball, fired from a breech-loading cannon.

He challenged any man to perform the same feat, and offered £50 to anyone who could do it. The bills announcing his benefit, which was on the night in question, gave a list of persons who had been wounded in making the attempt in various towns.

Three men came on to the platform to accept the challenge. The first to try to catch the ball was Mr Fenton, but when the cannon was fired it struck him on the head and knocked him down.

He was conveyed to the Infirmary, where it was found that his skull was fractured, and that he had received injuries to his nose. He is still under medical care. The prisoner was committed to the Leeds Borough Sessions, bail being allowed.

The Staffordshire Daily Sentinel
, February 25, 1880

Suicide on the Stage

A German actress named Lola Banzolla committed suicide on Sunday before a crowded audience at Cilli in Styria.

She suddenly drew a revolver, and, exclaiming ‘’Tis love which kills me,’ shot herself in the breast.

Indescribable emotion mastered the audience at this sensational interruption of the play, and numbers of them sprang on to the stage, from which the mortally wounded actress was shortly afterwards conveyed to a hospital.

The Leeds Times
, April 1, 1899

AND FINALLY …

Curious Phenomenon – Shower of Beef

Benicia, California:
A shower of meat fell at the barracks in this city at eleven o’clock last Saturday morning.

The sound of the falling bodies resembled hail, and the pieces on examination proved to be
bona fide
beef.

The shower continued two or three minutes, extending over a space 400 yards long, by 100 broad, and the pieces perhaps in amount not less than 100 pounds, varied in magnitude, from the size of a filbert to a hen’s egg.

The meat was generally quite fresh, although some pieces were partly dried, as by exposure to the weather, and all had a ragged appearance, as if they had been torn from the bone, and swallowed by birds.

Two opinions exist as to the cause of the phenomenon; one, that a large number of carnivorous birds were above the spot, at such an altitude as to be invisible, and were caused to disgorge by some – perhaps electrical – change in the atmosphere; the other, that the meat had been blown to a great elevation by a whirlwind, whence it descended in the manner described.

The Hertford Mercury and Reformer
, October 4, 1851

The Wild West.

Desperate Fight Between Two Towns.

Making Arsenals of the Churches.

Kansas, Monday: The citizens of Ingalls on Saturday made an attack upon Cimarron town, owing to a dispute as to which place should be the county town.

After a desperate fight the Ingalls men raided the Clerk’s office at Cimarron, and carried off the records. Two men were killed outright, and about one hundred wounded. The citizens of Cimarron set out on Sunday to burn the town of Ingalls, but finding the military in possession postponed their revenge.

Both towns are now like two armed camps. Even the women are armed, and the churches have been turned into arsenals. A renewal of the war is expected shortly. Two citizens from the rival towns met on the road yesterday. They promptly fought, one being killed.

The Evening Telegraph and Star
, Sheffield, January 14, 1889

An Incredible Story

The
Indian Daily News
says: Private George Samphier, of the G Company of the 78 Highlanders, saw a poor little girl about five years old drowning in the river Moola at Kirkee, and, jumping in, tried to save her, but the first attempt failed from the way the child clutched him.

The second time she had sunk, and he then dived and brought her to the surface, and managed to get her ashore, when Apothecary Dias recovered her with some difficulty.

Private Samphier helped to keep the people off from crowding the apothecary during the time he was endeavouring to resuscitate the child, and then returned to barracks.

There the officers in command of the detachment, with true British obtuseness, ordered him to be confined to barracks for 14 days for returning late.

The Dundee Courier and Argus
, September 1, 1879

A Strange Journey.

From Vienna to Paris in a Packing Case

Securely packed in a big box, labelled ‘This side up,’ ‘With Care,’ ‘Fragile,’ and other reminders to railway porters, an Austrian tailor named Hermann Zeitung, according to the police report, has come in a train all the way from Vienna to Paris.

The affair seems incredible, but it is none the less an adamantine fact, and yesterday afternoon the daring tailor was sent off from the Eastern Railway Custom House to the Paris Central Police Station.

The following is the true and authentic version of the strange voyage and adventures of Herr Zeitung. He found himself bankrupt in Vienna, but as he was an able cutter, and had invented a new style of lady’s riding dress, he thought that by going to Paris he might be able to make capital out of his invention.

He accordingly ordered a large box, lined it well with straw, and got into it supplied with beer, bread, and sausages. A trustworthy friend or assistant, formerly in his employ, wrote the necessary directions on the box, which was then forwarded to the railway station for Paris.

Ingenious Hermann, the tailor, was thus conveyed by the Orient express across Austria, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Alsace into France. During nearly 60 hours he suffered purgatorial pains, for he was unable to move, drink or sleep, and could only squeeze a few pieces of bread and meat now and then into his mouth.

Sometimes he felt himself thrown violently on handcarts by porters while being transferred from one carriage to another; at others he was buried beneath a pile of boxes which threatened to crush in his ribs or smash his skull at any moment.

At last, after having undergone a time of indescribable torture, of which probably no one has ever before had experience, Herr Zeitung suddenly found himself longer than usual out of a railway van.

Then he knew that he had arrived at his destination, but the difficulty was now to extricate himself from his narrow wooden prison. He heard voices and people about him at every minute, and consultations were evidently being held over him, or, rather, his box, which was lying by an unusually long time without anybody coming to claim it.

At last he began to sneeze, and heard somebody mutter an exclamation. Then he coughed, and he heard himself tapped overhead.

Suddenly the lid of his case was lifted off, and out he jumped, to the amazement, if not the consternation, of a group of Custom House officials, who uttered a chorus of interjectory exclamations at beholding a veritable ‘Jack in the box’ in the shape of a stout under-sized man with a brown moustache, and clothes all covered with straw, salute them in a hang-dog manner, and accost them in a language which they did not understand.

The practical
douaniers
soon recovered from their very natural surprise, and taking in the situation they promptly made a prisoner of the sartorial parcel and marched him before their chief officer, who handed Hermann Zeitung over to the police.

At the station the tailor coolly remarked in German that he did not care about the consequences of his actions as he was now in Paris. He also promised the station superintendent to repay him as soon as he could, but all this he will have to settle with the magistrates.

The Nottingham Evening Post
, January 18, 1890