THE NEWS OF ALL NATIONS.

Want Shorter Course.

The Cornell faculty has directed the committee on student affairs to give serious consideration to the plan to cut down the length of the varsity race at the Hudson regatta from four to three miles, and has directed that committee to take the matter up with the stewards of the Intercollegiate Rowing Association.

The question of shortening this course was taken up seriously at a recent meeting of the faculty, and a considerable number of the professors expressed themselves as in favor of shortening the course. An agitation by Cornell to this end may be expected during the winter.

Calf With Eight Good Legs.

Wrily Simpson, of Big Laurel, Va., owns a calf which has eight well-developed legs, the extra limbs being just behind the forelegs and just in front of the hind legs. The animal gets about splendidly on its extra walkers.

Exhibits of Ten Nations Arrive for the Fair.

Large consignments of foreign and domestic exhibits are arriving daily for the Panama Exposition, which will be opened promptly February 20, 1915. The latest consignments are:

Japanese shipment of 1,671 cases; 1,568 crates and cases from Canada; 126,000 pounds of exhibits from the Philippines; 110,000 pounds of materials from the Argentine.

Heavy shipments from England, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, China, and Italy are already on the grounds.

Two Prolific Apple Trees.

Frank Weber and John Trent, of Troy, Kan., picked from two trees twenty-seven barrels of apples. They were of the York Imperial variety. Trent’s orchard is considered one of the most productive in that section.

Wireless Tit-for-tat Shots.

Europe’s two principal wireless stations, the Eiffel Tower, at Paris, and the Nauen Tower, between Berlin and Hamburg, have been exchanging conversations.

The Nauen operator, discovering that the Eiffel was able to pick up his war messages ticked an indictment of Eiffel’s news as flimsy and unreliable, to which the Eiffel rushed a long, rhyming retort, jeering the Germany army for its failure to reach Paris, and concluding:

“Despite your fine telegraphic victories, the Germans are slowly plunging into an abyss.”

Oldfield Wins Desert Race.

Barney Oldfield, “master driver of the world,” is the title the automobile speed king now is wearing.

Greeted by 15,000 cheering people, Oldfield drove in his car, a winner of the 671-mile Los Angeles-Phoenix road race.

Although led into the fair grounds seventeen minutes by Nikrent, Oldfield won first place and a cash prize of $2,750 by thirty-six minutes elapsed time. Oldfield’s elapsed time was 22 hours 59 minutes, and his average was 29.1 miles per hour. Nikrent’s time was 23 hours 35 minutes.

The 134 miles from Prescott, the second-night control, was driven in mud, and the drivers and cars were covered with a coat of clay.

Town Sells Jail at Auction.

Noank, Conn., is getting rid of some of its luxuries. The lockup and contents have been sold at auction and brought $83.12.

The jail building, an unpretentious affair as compared with the Tombs in New York, was knocked down to Squadrito Brothers, of Mystic, for $75, and two other bids took the jail stove and utensils for $6.87. A quilt and mattress fetched $1.25.

Schoolhouse Topples Over.

While the school at Sulphur Point, Fla., was being dismissed for recess, the building, which was built on high blocks, suddenly toppled over and went crashing to the ground, killing a cow that happened to be lying alongside of it. Fortunately none of the inmates were injured. A crowd gathered and succeeded in freeing the carcass of the cow by raising the building back into its place. Studies were resumed after the excitement died down, but some repairs have been made to the schoolhouse.

Old Gravestone is Replaced.

A century-old gravestone, made in 1814 to mark the graves of two victims of an Indian massacre near Alton, Ill., was brought to an Alton stonecutter to be repaired.

The stone, which commemorated the deaths of William and Joel Moore, July 10, 1814, had been split by the weather, and the parts will be cemented together. It was a rough sandstone slab, not smoothed, and the early-day pioneer had carved out an inscription in the sandstone with some crude tool. The letters are still legible.

A granite tablet has been placed on the site where the sandstone slab was found, and the slab has been taken as a relic by Irby Williams.

Prophesied His Long Sleep.

“I feel so tired that I believe I could sleep forever,” remarked C. A. Kinkaid to a hotel clerk at Seattle, Wash., as he obtained his key and repaired to his room.

On the following afternoon Kinkaid was found dead. Death was due to asphyxiation, and evidently was accidental. One of the gas burners was partly open, but the window was up about six inches.

Kinkaid, who was a bridge carpenter, was a well-known member of the Eagles. He is survived by a wife, who left the city a few weeks ago to visit relatives in Lafayette, Ohio.

State Map Made from Seeds.

One of the unique agricultural exhibits that will be displayed at the Pan-American Exposition is a grain map of Kansas, made from twenty-eight varieties of field and garden seeds by J. C. Hastings, of Grantville, Kan. The grains and seeds are glued to a canvas, and the coloring contained in the ordinary map of Kansas is carried out so far as possible with the various grains, so that the reproduction shows a splendid similarity. The size of the map is 48×88, and the grain on it weighs nineteen pounds.

Boy Helps Build Church.

Verne Hall, fifteen-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. George Hall, of Portland, Ore., is helping to build a church by soliciting bricks and hauling them to the site of the new St. John’s edifice. In answer to his letter to Governor West, he received 500 bricks.

Hole Was Dug by Scientist.

The English newspapers recently made what they declared to be a startling discovery of extensive underground galleries at Totternhoe, in the Chiltern Hills, which the Germans had dug, supposedly for some mysterious military purpose. The residents of the neighborhood even described the Germans and the mysterious way in which their excavations were conducted.

William M. Safford, whom the Observer describes as a distinguished American scholar, now writes to that newspaper declaring that he made the excavations. Mr. Safford says he discovered a cavern, which was nearly closed, and that his excavations in it disclosed carvings on stone dating 1613.

Quits Cattle for Turkeys.

Herding turkeys is a new way of making a living discovered by J. W. Abrams, of Springfield, Colorado. Abrams herds nearly a thousand turkeys through the Colorado alfalfa fields every year, letting the birds feed on grasshoppers. Two especially trained collie dogs assist in the work of herding. The ranchers are glad to have the pests which destroy their crops eaten from the fields, so Abrams and his outfit are welcome wherever they go.

An old cow pony, with a slicker, a shelter tent, and a cooking outfit packed on his back; two beautifully marked collies, and a thousand bronze turkeys, strutting and gobbling, make up the outfit. Abrams always herds within reaching distance of a stream, so his charges can get plenty of water.

When the turkey herder sold his flock last year at Thanksgiving time, the $2,450 he received was almost clear profit. Abrams had 980 birds, averaging ten pounds apiece. He topped the market with his grasshopper-fed turkeys, receiving twenty-five cents a pound on the lot.

The only expense the birds had been to him was for oil to run his incubators, feed during the first six weeks of their lives, when they were too small to herd, rent on the ten-acre place where they were hatched, and the cost of raising a small field of spelt in which they ran to fatten after the fall frosts had killed the grasshoppers. Some turkey hens which he kept through the winter laid the eggs he set in the incubators.

“It isn’t difficult to teach young turkeys to let dogs herd them,” Abrams said. “They are rather timid at first. But Jeff and Mutt, here, have been trained never to frighten the birds. You’ll notice they never bark at them, just growl a little and pretend to snap at their legs when they don’t behave. Turkeys are stupid birds, you know. Every flock has a leader, who walks ahead. The others follow him blindly. I always keep an old gobbler from the year before for a leader. He is used to the dogs, and Jeff and Mutt manage the flock by guiding him.”

The real work of the two dogs begins at dusk, when they herd the turkeys to the nearest shelter and keep them there until they settle for the night. When their master has cooked and eaten his supper and has rolled up in his blankets for his night’s sleep, it is their duty to guard the flock from wandering skunks, stray coyotes, cats, and other animals who are fond of young turkey. By dawn the old gobbler is stirring, eager for a breakfast of bugs and grasshoppers.

Abrams was a cowboy before he started herding turkeys, about five years ago.

“The range was all fenced in Colorado,” he said, “and it was up to me to find some other job besides running cattle.”

“Big May,” Circus Lady, Dead.

Christiana Sinclair, who traveled with circus side shows as “Big May, the tattooed woman,” is dead at her home at Baltimore, Md. She weighed three hundred pounds.

Eyewitnesses Tell How “Audacious” Sank.

According to witnesses of the sinking of the great British dreadnaught Audacious, off the coast of Ireland, there was only one fatality. Naval men in New York unite in praise of the work of the crew of the steamship Olympic, in effecting the rescue of nearly nine hundred men of the sea fighter’s crew. All those not taken off by the Olympic were rescued by the British cruiser Liverpool.

Whether the Audacious is still at the bottom of the sea or is being repaired by the British admiralty and may again see service is now the only mystery connected with reports of the vessel of the first line of England’s naval defense falling victim to a German mine or torpedo. It is the general opinion that the Audacious struck a mine.

Two men who arrived in New York on the steamship New York, from Liverpool, confirmed the stories of the loss of the warship that had previously reached here, and added numerous details. One statement they made was that the Audacious was blown up by the cruiser Liverpool at nine p. m. on the day it was disabled. This has not been confirmed.

The men who told the story were James Rupert Beames, leader of the orchestra on the White Star liner Olympic, which rescued the crew of the Audacious and made fruitless efforts to tow the battleship to shoal water, and Hugh Griffiths, one of the orchestra musicians.

The story of Beames, who was helped from time to time by Griffiths, substantially was as follows:

“Neither the Liverpool nor the other small warship that had steamed to the work of rescue was capable of saving the superdreadnaught.

“It was decided that the Liverpool could better risk hitting a mine than could the Olympic, and for this reason the Liverpool made a serpentine maneuver ahead of the Olympic as a feeler for mines.

“Hardly had the Liverpool cut across our bow when the order was given to man the starboard lifeboats. Before this a call had been issued for volunteers.

“More answered than the boats could accommodate, and when it came time for action the Olympic’s crew actually fought to get into the boats, so eager were they to do something for their country and for the sailors on the doomed Audacious. When one of the boats hit the water they found in it a little bell boy, eleven years old, who carried messages to and from the purser’s office.

“Although the starboard lifeboats were manned, Captain Haddock suddenly changed his plan.

“Instead of dropping down on the port side of the pounding warrior, he decided to put about and approach on the starboard side. By so doing he made a lee, which enabled the fourteen lifeboats dropped from the port side to accomplish a task that never could have been done if the original plan had been put into effect.

“The seas were high, and the men in the Olympic’s lifeboats had a hard pull. It took them twenty minutes to get over to the Audacious, which lay about five hundred yards away. We could see the crew at quarters. They were the calmest body of men I ever have seen. The discipline was perfect. Through the binoculars the captain of the Audacious was seen walking up and down the deck calmly, with his hands behind his back. The rescue work proceeded rapidly, and there was but one fatality.

“The Olympic dropped anchor off Lough Swilly at eight p. m. An hour later a tremendous flash lighted up the entire ship. We rushed to the deck and could see, for fully twenty seconds afterward, burning fragments shooting upward from the place where the Audacious had been. Then there came a roar. It sounded, they said, as if some mammoth boiler were letting off steam. It stopped as suddenly as it came. That was the end of the Audacious.

“As a reason for destroying the Audacious it was said that the battleship was hopelessly damaged, and that if not blown up it would become a menace to navigation.”

Seek Brave Man to Ring Haunted Bell.

At midnight Christmas Eve the ringing tones of “Big Sam,” the haunted bell, as it is called at Richmond, Va., will be heard for the first time from the tower of the new armory. Chief W. H. Thompson, of the fire-and-police-signal system, makes this announcement, but he does so with a hesitancy that frequently brings this question:

“Are you sure?”

“As reasonably sure as any one may be about anything in connection with the haunted bell,” said Chief Thompson, still with an air of mystery and as if evading a direct reply. “That bell has been silent almost from the time it was brought to this city twenty-three years ago, and they say it is haunted.”

“So I’ve heard,” ventured the scribe, “but what about it?”

“It has had a baleful influence upon everything connected with it. All who had a hand in bringing it here are dead.”

“Good gracious! What more?”

“It is the biggest bell in the city. It weighs four thousand pounds. It was presented to the Grace Street Presbyterian Church by David Sinton in 1891. We called it ‘Big Sam,’ and the first time he spoke he shook the tower so hard all feared it would come down. The vibrations were so great that it was decided not to ring it again, and, being useless, an effort was made to sell it. The city bought it for the Blues armory in November, 1909, but the acoustics there made it impossible to operate the striker, and finally it was transferred to the new First Regiment Armory and installed in the tower.”

“Well, how about this midnight business on Christmas Eve? I would like to know,” said the scribe, “because it may be that I won’t be here.”

“I was directed to make the necessary connections so that it will strike the hours, both day and night, and automatically strike all alarms of fire, military, and special calls. It should be ready to strike the midnight hour Christmas Eve.”

“Will you have the honor of starting the apparatus that strikes the first call?” Chief Thompson was asked.

“No,” he replied quietly. “I told you that every one connected with the haunted bell is dead. I shall sublet the contract of making the connections. Now, possibly you, being a newspaper man and one used to dangers, will——”

“No, sir; I positively will not! Good night!”

Serenade for Newlyweds.

William Munn was married at Corry, Pa., on a recent evening, and while the wedding supper was in progress a party of serenaders arrived. To make the affair interesting, Munn’s friends set off several sticks of dynamite. The charge shattered every window in the house, and the bride and groom and several of the guests were hurled from the chairs upon which they were sitting. To avoid arrest, the serenaders paid all of the damages.

Strange Animal in His Trap.

Jerome Redmond, known all over the Northwest for his skill in trapping, recently captured a strange animal in Lake Sixteen, Cheboygan County, Michigan. It resembles an otter, only its body is more like a serpent. It has two front legs, and its tail is shaped like that of a fish. Running the full length of its back is a ridge with teeth like a saw’s. Redmond has been offered one hundred dollars for it by the local taxidermist, but refused the offer. The animal measures eight inches from tip to tip.

Bars Whipping from School.

Corporal punishment has been abolished in the public schools at St. Louis, Mo., except for extraordinary cases, as a result of the petition of George E. Dieckman, chairman of the humane society executive committee, who maintained that St. Louis was the only one of the big, progressive cities in which this “brutal and ineffective punishment” was preserved.

The new regulation adopted by the board of education provides that corporal punishment may be administered only in incorrigible cases, with the consent of the parent, and in the presence of the principal. A thin rattan is to be used. Slapping, shaking, and boxing the child’s ears are all absolutely prohibited.

Daylight Bandits Get $25,000 in “Swag.”

The most daring robbery that has been perpetrated in Chicago in many months, in which a jeweler, his clerk, and two other men were seized in broad daylight, bound hand and foot with rope, held prisoners, and menaced with revolvers, while gunmen robbed the safe of $25,000 in jewelry and money, occurred recently.

The scene of the robbery was the North Avenue loan bank and jewelry store, 517 West North Avenue, founded six years ago by Max Klein and Max Spear. An important part of the business is loaning money on jewelry, and all the valuable pieces were in a safe in the rear of the store, which was looted. The four men who were seized, bound, and held prisoners while the men packed the loot in a suit case and got away were Max Spear, partner and manager; George Kacker, clerk; Charles A. White, customer, who entered while the robbers were at work, and Frank Dallas, a saloon keeper, who came in to get change for a twenty-dollar bill.

All four victims remained bound hand and foot in the little rear office for forty minutes while the money, watches, rings, bracelets, necklaces, and other jewelry were taken from the safe by one of the men, while the other robber kept a gun close to their heads. They saw every detail of the robbery, and finally watched the robbers depart.

Says 150 Hens Equal Six Bales of Cotton.

“One hundred and fifty hens equal six bales of cotton,” is the economical equation demonstrated by George Echols, a farmer, of Brazos County, Texas.

Echols has a flock of 150 hens. He has sold, this year, $200 worth of eggs. Reckoning sales for the next two months, and adding sales of live poultry, making due allowance for eggs and poultry used by his family. Echols figures he will clear $300 on his flock.

Echols has a tenant who pays him $140 for the use of his farm land. The tenant’s crop this season is six bales of cotton, worth but $40 more than his rent. Under normal conditions the cotton would not net more than $360. The cotton required most of the tenant’s time since April and the feed of a team.

Echols says his wife devoted only about one hour a day to the hens. Counting the equipment of team and implements for growing cotton, and contrasting the investment in chickens and poultry houses, Echols declares the gross figures prove 150 hens are equal to six bales of cotton.

Egg-laying Contest Closed.

The third international egg-laying test, held at Storrs, Conn., is concluded, and every poultryman should be interested in the few following facts:

1—Of the five leading pens, three were from New England.

2—The leading pen is owned by Francis F. Lincoln, of Mount Carmel, Conn.

3—The leading pen—White Leghorns—laid 2,088 eggs.

4—Tom Barron’s White Wyandottes finished second, with 2,085 eggs.

5—The average production per hen is 144 eggs.

6—The highest individual record, 265 eggs, was made by a White Wyandotte, owned by Merrythought Farm, Columbia, Conn.

Rabbit-killing Boy Released from Jail.

Oscar Phillipson, of Plainfield, N. J., the nineteen-year-old boy who was recently sentenced to the county jail for 120 days for shooting a rabbit, is at liberty on bail pending an appeal. Former Mayor N. B. Smalley put up the $250 bail.

Ernest Napier, president of the State game commission, and William Hoblitzel, game warden for Union County, conferred with Mr. Angleman, the boy’s lawyer, and an appeal was decided upon. Justice of the Peace Thomas Snape, who sentenced Phillipson, accepted Mr. Smalley’s bond and Mr. Napier paid the $9 costs himself. They then went to Somerville and brought Phillipson home in an automobile.

Young Phillipson has declined a number of offers from men who want to pay his fine. He has declined because he doesn’t want half of the fine to go to the man who informed against him.

Mr. Napier upheld Justice Snape as well as Game Warden Hoblitzel in the action taken over the violation of the game laws. At the same time he said he was willing to do all in his power to relieve the present situation, which has aroused so much public sentiment.

There is a feeling that the case will not be argued on appeal. Governor Fielder himself suggested an appeal as a means of getting the boy out of jail in the event that the court of pardons, consisting of the governor, the chancellor, and six members of the court of errors and appeals, should not look favorably upon a pardon.

The governor has directed his secretary, L. Edward Herrmann, to make an investigation of the whole case in preparation for the meeting of the court of pardons. Governor Fielder said it seemed to him that some plan might be devised whereby the exaction of the maximum penalty might be avoided where the circumstances seemed to warrant.

Newsboy Becomes Dairyman.

With nickels and pennies made after school hours and on Saturday selling newspapers, Noble McKillip, thirteen years old, of Fort Worth, Texas, has been paying for school books for himself and his eleven-year-old sister, Goodie, and also car fare for both, and in addition clothed himself and put so much in the bank each day. He has now set himself up in the dairy business with his newspaper earnings. He drew his savings out of the bank and paid for the cow, a four-gallon Jersey.

Noble is a student in the Vickery school. Selling papers did not interfere with his studies, and he is progressing rapidly in them and expects to go through the higher branches.

De Oro’s Mark to Stand a Long Time.

Alfredo de Oro, the world’s champion at three-cushion billiards, has experienced the thrills of victory in many hard-fought matches, but it is doubtful if any of his performances afford him greater satisfaction than his world’s record run of 13, made in his match with George Moore, for the three-cushion title, at New York, recently.

Previous to this, the best mark of the veteran Cuban in a title match was ten, but now that he hoisted the mark three points, it may stand for a long time. The present season has been productive of some phenomenal performances at the angle game. Early in the season, Pierre Maupome, the Mexican expert, ran eighteen in a practicing game at St. Louis, and a little later August Kieckhefer, champion of the Interstate Three-cushion League, made a run of seventeen points in a game at Milwaukee.

Quite as remarkable as these two big runs was the performance of Harry Wakefield, one of San Francisco’s leading experts, who in a game against a coast amateur scored fifty points in twenty-two innings. Wakefield started With 5, 5, 2, 5, and then electrified the crowd with a run of fifteen on his next trial, giving him thirty-two points in five innings. He made forty-six points in sixteen innings, and in the seventeenth inning scored three, missing his fiftieth point by a whisker. His opponent played five safety shots in succession, so that it took Wakefield five more innings to count his remaining point. Among those who saw the performance were Joe Carney, former three-cushion national champion, and W. H. Sigourney, the well-known balkline amateur.

With the big Interstate Three-cushion League affording the sixteen contestants every incentive to practice, some great performances can be looked for.

This prediction also applies to the balkline stars playing in the Champion Billiard Players League and to those who are not. The contestants around the big circuit are getting more billiards this year than any set of players have enjoyed in the history of the game in this country.

Too Heavy for Hikes of War.

Rudolph Berger, who is a well-known operatic baritone singer, and who is six feet five inches tall and tips the beam at 240 pounds, has arrived at New York from Naples after serving three weeks in the Austrian army. He took part in long marches. The Austrians started for Lemberg, but Berger never got there. He was overweight, and after a while his feet refused to carry him. He was allowed to abandon his military career. He says he will become an American citizen.

New Fluid to Take Place of Gasoline.

John Andrus, a Portuguese, came to this country to make his fortune. He has become an inventor. Recently the government paid him thirty thousand dollars for a discovery he made in toughening armor plate. A much more important discovery, however, has been made by Andrus. He is working on a substitute for gasoline that can be manufactured, he says, for one and one-half cents a gallon.

According to some of the biggest men in the automobile business, who have observed tests of the new fuel, it will revolutionize not only the automobile business, but all manufacturing business. The substitute is declared to be superior to gasoline in more respects than cost. It is claimed that it runs automobiles faster and that when it is used the engines are cleaner and cooler.

Andrus has a good business head, and has interested influential men in his plans. No stock is for sale, but the automobile men are talking about the discovery as the most important news in their industry. They say that the new fluid consists mostly of water, a little naphthalene, and two secret ingredients. Andrus mixes these in a still to which heat is applied. The fluid looks like water and smells like camphor balls.

Says His Rifle Fires 200 Shots a Minute.

A one-man gun, invented by a Rochester man, and guaranteed by him to increase a soldier’s fighting efficiency twenty or thirty times, is for sale. Its inventor, Harry W. Sweeting, says he has begun negotiations with Germany for the sale of the invention, which he has protected by American patents. Mr. Sweeting is now in New York on his way to Washington. At the Park Avenue Hotel he admitted that he was trying to sell the gun to Germany, but hinted that there was some probability of negotiations with this government.

The new gun weighs only nine pounds, half a pound more than the present standard rifle. It will fire from 165 to 200 shots a minute, Mr. Sweeting said, ninety shots consecutively without being taken from the shoulder. He says the velocity is 2,700 feet a second.

“By holding the trigger back,” Mr. Sweeting said, “ninety shots are fired. The ejector is on the under side. The sight is only three inches from the eye, giving a quicker and more accurate aim than in the present rifles, in some of which the sight is thirteen inches from the eye.

“My gun has only one-third as many working parts as the present rifle. There is not a flat spring in the gun, and all the parts are inclosed, which protects them from the weather. It has safety locks which make it impossible to fire after the gun misses fire, and a self-cleaning device. Give me the gun to bring down a man a mile away who is six feet from a tree and I will get him before he gets to the tree. If I should fail, I can shoot him through the tree, if it is not more than eighteen inches in diameter.”

The inventor has been working on the invention for more than a year. His thirty-eight pages of specifications are registered with the Patent Office.

Dollar a Year is His Salary.

At a salary of one dollar a year, Frederick W. M. Burmeister has been appointed custodian of the cut-off channel front and rear-range lights in the Patapsco River, near Baltimore, Md.

Custodian Burmeister has but few duties to perform. In addition to his salary, he has the free use of a home on the lighthouse reservation. He could not be carried on the government pay rolls without a specified salary, and to give official importance and responsibility the salary of one dollar was agreed upon.

It was not stated whether he would be paid monthly, as is the department’s custom, or let it accrue to the end of the year.

Big Eagle Drops Baby.

About two weeks ago a posse of farmers scoured Will County, Illinois, for two huge eagles, which were killing hundreds of chickens and young turkeys. One of the pair was killed. The other disappeared, and the hunters finally abandoned the hunt.

On a recent morning, Delmer Reeves, the two-year-old son of David Reeves, was playing in the back yard of the Reeves home. His mother heard the child scream and rushed to the door in time to see an enormous bird clutch the baby by his dress and lift him from the ground.

The mother screamed, and the eagle dropped the child after the baby had been carried a few feet. The eagle’s talons badly lacerated the child’s flesh. Members of the farmers’ posse have resumed their hunt for the dangerous visitor.

“Wild Man” Was Only Ill.

Women and girls of Port Jefferson, L. I., who had been frightened frequently in the last few months by the appearance in deserted stretches of road near the town of a “wild man,” learned with relief recently that Constable Harry Gover had caught the man. Their fears changed to sympathy when they learned the wild man’s story, and his capture probably will result in his getting assistance.

He said his name was Juan Rodriguez, and that he had come from Monterrey, Mexico, ten years ago. He was sent to a hospital in New York some time ago, and eight months back was discharged as cured. It was spring then, and he walked out into the country looking for work.

His strength has been sapped by his long illness, he said, and at last he found himself too weak to work. Then he took to the woods, subsisting on what he could beg at first, and then, as his clothes became mere tatters and his appearance began to frighten strangers, on what he could find in the woods.

He said he had never accosted a woman or a girl, though he realized many had seen him and had run, and he said he had frequently spent the night in trees while he listened to farmers beating the woods around him for traces of him after their wives or daughters had seen the wild man.

He was fed, and decent clothes were given to him.

Three Boys Travel Far in Piano Box.

The trucker wheeled the heavy piano box into the Erie freight house, at Fourteenth and Clark Streets, Chicago, and dumped it on the floor.

“That’s some box!” he complained.

“You bet it is!”

The words came from the mouth of a youth whose grinning head stuck out from the top of the box. The trucker fell over his truck and ran yelling into the night. Attracted by the noise, the night watchman, William Schimmel, came into the freight house.

“Hey!” shouted the boy. “Can I get some water?”

Schimmel questioned the head.

“I’m Willard Montague, snake charmer,” it said. “Got two pythons and their baby here. Get me some water for myself and some cocaine for the snakes.”

Mr. Schimmel left the freight house in a great hurry. He described what he had seen and heard to C. D. Ward, general agent; A. C. Brundage, claim agent; Policeman Toussaint, and Detectives Zohora and Jansen. Ward called up James Burke, superintendent of the Chicago terminal division of the Erie, who came down in his auto. The crowd grouped itself around the box, which was marked. “Don’t Stand on End,” and signaled for the young man inside to stick his head through the trap. Montague, grinning, complied.

Burke asked to see the snakes.

“They’re wrapped up in those comforters,” said Montague. “I don’t like to disturb ’em. Besides, I couldn’t get out of here in time.”

Burke insisted. Montague made a dive at the comforters, whistled through his teeth, and drew his hand out sharply.

“One of ’em kinda catch you?” prompted Burke.

“Yeah,” said Monty, sucking his thumb; “the big one sorta got me.”

“How big are they?”

“One’s ’bout eleven feet long. Ugly. Haven’t been fed. Been keeping them asleep with ‘coke.’ Just run out of the dope.”

“Well, let me see their scales,” Burke insisted.

Two electric lights were rigged up and held in the opening so that Burke and others might have a glimpse of the interior of the box.

Monty was stirring up the blankets as though some monstrous reptile were there.

“Come, come!” said Burke. “If you don’t pull that comforter off that boa constrictor I will.”

Then the covering was yanked off and the men on top of the box looked directly into the cherubic face of another grinning boy. Simultaneously another heap of covers back of Montague was thrown off and a third head revealed.

“Those are the pythons, are they?”

“Yes, those are the snakes.”

“Well, now, suppose you come out here and tell us the story.”

One at a time the boys wriggled through the trapdoor and came out, blinking, to face the audience. Each was bathed in perspiration and all were in stocking feet.

A reporter took their names: Willard Fox, 18 years old; Howillard Edward Montague, 22 years old, and Carl Espe, 17 years old. All were from Binghamton, N. Y.

They had been disguised as a piano box for seven days, and were on their way to Alameda, Cal., to the ranch of Montague’s uncle, Doctor William Tappan Lumb. They chose to go as a piano box because it was cheaper than three passenger tickets.

The box was built by a carpenter in Binghamton. It had a false bottom and the sides were padded. The boys put stones in the bottom, and also their suit cases.

“We expected to be on the way about three weeks,” said Monty, who seemed to be the leader of the expedition. “We took along canned goods, bread and cereals, coffee and tobacco.

“We had a phonograph and records, but it is broken. We had also arranged to have light. We had some electric batteries in the false bottom which connected with a bulb, but the bulb broke.

“There was also a stove and alcohol to run it. We have shoes, coats, sweaters, hats, and, in fact, all our possessions.”

They even had a framed certificate on the wall—Montague’s diploma from the “Boan Lake, Mich., College of Manopathy.”

“We didn’t have much sleep, add we got bumped around some,” said Fox, “but, say, wasn’t it a peach of an adventure? My parents live in Wiegel, N. Y., and Monty and Espe haven’t any.”

“The boys have violated a Federal interstate law,” said Mr. Burke, “but I don’t know what action the road will take. We shall probably take steps against the shipper and the man who was to receive them at the other end. The fare was to be paid in Alameda.”

Officer Toussaint questioned the travelers, then turned them over to the South Clark Street police. He could not say definitely what would be done with them.

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