Fred Fearnot's Day, or The Great Reunion at Avon
TIMELY TOPICS
John Van Bramer, driver of the mail wagon between the postoffice and railroad station at Pittsfield, Mass., was arrested by Postoffice Inspectors on a charge of opening letters andd stealing from the mails. The arrest took place in the postoffice, where Van Bramer was caught in the act of opening letters. He admitted he was trying to find money, and had been opening letters almost since he started work last September. He was taken to Boston, where the Federal Grand Jury is in session. Seventy-five bags of mail, destined for Vermont points, were destroyed by fire recently in a mail car on the West River branch of the Central Railway. The mail had been accumulating at Brattleboro, Vt., for three days, the snow accumulating at Brattleboro, Vt., for blocked tracks having made it impossible to send out the car. Included in the destroyed matter were 3,000 letters, many annual town reports and a quantity of parcel post matter. It is thought that the flames started from attempts to thaw out the frozen running gear.
A definite programme for the development of aviation in the navy has been decided upon and will be put into operation at once. A naval aviation school will be established at Pensacola, the battleship "Mississippi" will be assigned to that station for use by the navy aviators, and during the winter practical experiment and training of naval officers in the operation of aeroplanes will be carried on. Flights will be made from the deck of the "Mississippi" and other experiments conducted in developing the use of the aeroplane in connection with battleships.
A curious "gastronomic clock" is said to have been made in the old times by an ingenious Frenchman for telling the time in the dark, He installed a large flat clock dial beside the bed on which the hours each had a small cavity. In each one he placed a different spice, for instance, the figure 12 held quiqe and the figure 6 cloves and so on. To find the time, he followed the short hand with the finger and then tasted the contents of the cavity opposite, then he did the same for the long hand, and had he pasted pepper and nutmeg for instance, he knew that the hour was half-past three.
An event of great economic and geographical importance will be the opening early in 1914, of the extension of the present railway across German East Africa to Late Tanganyika. The eastern terminus is Dar-es-Salam, on the Indian Ocean. At the lake end the Germans are building the port of Kigoma-Ujiji, from which a line of steamers will run to Albertville, in the Belgian Kongo, where a port is now being constructed under the supervision of Captain Mauritzen, hydrographer of the Danish Navy. Albertville is the terminus of the he great Lakes railway, which in a few years will connect with the other railways of the Belgian Kongo and with steamers on the Kongo River.
Killing cougars in the winter months is a profitable occupation, according to J. L. Jacob. He and his partner, C. E. Owens, both ranchers of the upper valley, were in Hood River, Ore., collecting the bounty of $15 each paid by the county on three of the big cats that they killed recently. The men also receive the sum of $15 each from the State Game and Fish Commission. "We have never seen the cougars so numerous as this year," said Mr. Jacob."We have heard several others since we killed the three, for which we received the bounty. We expect to try and get several others, and the money that we receive from them will be expended next summer in clearing land for orchards."
The Berlin correspondent of The Daily New, says that a soldier, bored by sentry-go outside the ducal palace at Brunswick, looked around for diversion and presently saw a charming young woman, very plainly dressed, approaching. He decided that he would pass the time of day with her, and gave her a wing, to which she paid no heed. Then he whistled, but the young woman passed quietly on toward the palace. Finally the sentry became desperate and called softly after her; but still she declined conversation and presently disappeared into the palace. A few minutes later Duke Ernst came out, summoned the terrified sentry, and demanded what he meant by insulting a lady. "This time you are let off with a warning said the Duke, "because it so happens that it was just my wife; but if it had happened to be any other Brunswick lady-well, you would have caught it!" The Brunswickers are delighted with the anecdote, which has rapidly gone the rounds.
A wife's heroic efforts to save her injured husband from drowning in a well, on their farm near Kansas City, failed. While digging the well, Gabriel Kinkel slipped and fell forty feet to the bottom. Mrs. Kinkel heard his cries and ran to the well. He told her she must hurry with aid, as he was fast becoming exhausted. She fastened a rope to a plank, then, band over hand, she went down the rope. When she reached Mr. Kinkel, the narrowness of the well made it difficult for her to get a firm hold. Bracing herself against the slippery sides, she grasped him by the hand, then began a terrific fight to pull him back up the rope. He was injured severely and could give little assistance. She began to weaken, her grasp loosened and her husband slipped and disappeared into four feet of water. Then began the fight of the woman to save herself. Realizing that her husband had drowned, and almost exhausted by her efforts to rescue him, she climbed slowly up the forty feet of rope. Time and again she nearly fell backward, only saving herself by bracing against the sides of the well, reaching the top and summoned help. Neighbors brought the body of the husband to the surface.
