Indiana Progress notes and curious historic tidbits
The column compiles assorted 17th to 19th century topics including London burglary insurance, Allen of Pennsylvania, a hired man shot incident, national tunes debate, the Yeking Gazette publishing practices, a Three Oaks, Michigan anecdote, Hungarian government tavern to schoolhouse plan, early phonograph prospects, a Fort Jervis fireman expelling a live Mississippi dogfish, a New York ad stamp controversy, Maine logging and spruce dominance, and timber stock past and present in Hancock County.
World News and Oddities From Victorian Era Dispatches
A mash of fortune stories and curiosities including P T Barnum in England, a Persian cholera ban on grape consumption, and English swimming baths in schools. It notes vast navy payrolls, global population claims by telephone reach, a Chicago murder case with a beneficiary suit, a broken promise lawsuit, Paris Exhibition visitor stats, and international visitor rankings with France hosting millions in Paris.
Inspector General reports steamboat safety gains and losses
Inspector General Dumont of the United States Steamboat Inspection Service notes that in the fiscal year ended last June over 6700 steamers were inspected. Accidents causing loss of life totaled 32, with a death toll of 301 among about 550 million passengers carried.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
General Dumont
United States Steamboat Inspection Service
Steamboat Inspection Service
American exhibit at Paris Exposition earns more prizes
Judged by its merits the American contribution to the Paris Exposition has been eminently successful. It was very little more extensive than the corresponding exhibit in 1878 at the Trocadero, but the prizes taken were more numerous, especially in the higher grades. The following table shows how American exhibits compare this year with those of ...
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Trocadero
PB Cctad Weiner O
Ladies' Department styles and Chinese marriage customs
Vanity Fair notes a shift to silvery blue for ladies with broad brim hats trimmed in velvet. It also highlights Chinese distress over arranged marriage, citing Confucius and cases of self-drowning to avoid wedlock. The piece surveys gymnastic training for women, fashion trends like corded skirts and tartans, and winter wraps, hats, and trimmings.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Vanity Fair
Arctic whaling fleet reports discouraging catches
Captain Kelly notes the San Francisco Arctic whaling fleet is returning with discouraging news as catch reports peak at sixty four whales. He cites high whalebone prices, a shift to steamers, and rising Indian competition as key factors hurting profits and risking whale extinction.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Kelly
San Francisco Chronicle
Mike
San Francisco
Arctic
India
Boas
Cape Behring
Point Barrow
Japanese Funeral Draws Large Yokohama Crowd
The eldest daughter of Otani Kahei, a wealthy Yokohama rice merchant, died at 15. Frederick Stearns reports the funeral procession moving through the city, nearly a mile long with about a thousand mourners. Six towering floral stands, eight feet high, led the ceremony, each with bamboo handles and conical arrangements of flowers and evergreens.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Otani Kahei
Yokohama
Saya Frederick Stearns
Detroit Free Press
Pulpit to Gambling House Tale Told by Captain
Captain Nesoa recalls a Savannah case of a popular clergyman who vanished after a church visit. Detectives hunted him, money was spent, and it ended in presumed death or murder. Later a Savannah physician saw the ex-clergyman, now a gambling house proprietor in Paris, who begged secrecy and confessed abandoning the ministry for risk and fortune. The physician-teller is a respected Savannah doctor.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Savannah
Paris
Nelson
Philadelphia Inquirer
Women Who Fight the Tiger and Poker Debts
A New York letter to the Pittsburg Post reports gambling among society women. Poker thrives at a South Side hotel with nightly sessions that drew married women and young ladies, many mothers, into large stakes. Debts of honor strain marriages as husbands refuse to pay.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Archdeacon Gray
China
Cinton
Canton River
New York
Pittsburg
Sounl
Chicago Herald
Primitive Spanish farming in harsh conditions
The article describes Spain's agriculture as primitive with grain cut by reaping hooks and thrashing by foot power. A crooked iron-painted plow, heavy woolen ox-drawn carts, and donkeys handle most transport. Animals shoulder nearly all movement across rough terrain and canyons similar to the Rockies.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Spain
Rocky Mountains
The Depth of Love Seemingly Foiled by Odd Confession
In a fragmentary exchange, Algernon notes five hundred people died from eating ice cream last year, while Maud replies with a wry, cryptic remark about facing death beside him, leaving the bizarre misquotation and moral ambiguity to linger.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Algernon
Maud
Baear
Curious items from old times span ore thefts to language roots
Eight thousand pounds of leaf ore were taken from the De Graff mine in Missouri. Baboons trouble South African farmers by killing sheep and raiding beehives. A hunter in Idaho bears a 42 prong horn. Two 24 and 20 pound wild turkeys were shot in West Virginia. Vienna houses the world’s largest coin collection, over 125,000 pieces. A bear halted a locomotive near Cold Springs and was killed. Greece’s oldest statue found at Tripolitza resembles ancient Egyptian sculpture. Massachusetts governors born in 1918. a golden owl was exhibited in Santa Rosa. A Crescent City girl sold a true emerald worth 2600 dollars to a lapidary in San Francisco. A widow in Georgia seeks a pension. A spotter leopard prowls near Scottdale, Indiana. Siberia’s soil remains frozen 56 inches deep. 150-year-old corpses recover unaltered. A fox and other fur animals sustain a harsh Lake County, California farm. Coasts’ curlews and gulls eat many clams on Charleston, British Columbia, and a word origin debate on hurrah cements its Teutonic roots.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Cold Springs
Penn
Greece
Tripolitza
Massachusetts
Stealing a Squirrels Food Lesson on Empathy
A tale from Wood describes a friend who mocked a squirrel by swapping nuts for stones, returning to find ten inches of snow scratched away. The joker regrets the cruel joke, imagining the squirrel starving yet secretly hoping a safe winter hoard remains intact and wonders about the creature’s fate.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Wood
Value of Little Things From Professor Holden
An account by Professor Holden formerly of Wisconsin University now directing Lick Observatory, records his children's early attempts to form sounds and words. The private publication earned him honorary membership in a French philological society, an honor he received for his fatherly curiosity and precise baby talk notes.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Profesor Holden
Wisconsin University
Lick Observatory
French Philological Society
Kesam
Scotch Names the Queerest
A snapshot of humorous and odd Scots naming habits. The piece notes few Christian names amid many Smiths, with locals using quirky "to-sames" like Deadly, Pus, Don, Cock, and Bandyke to distinguish individuals. It explains how a man named John Brace becomes Jock, then Jock's Wall, and so on through generations, showing a labeled naming system still in use in Scotland.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
England
Britain
Scotland
Scotamas
Don
Post
Bandyke
Halen
John Brace
Jock
William
Jocl
Willian
Williamie
John Smith
Beowm
William Robinecus
Dream of love fades as wife drifts away
Fragmentary note speaks of a troubled marriage with growing distance and fading affection. The writer laments the loss of interest and emotional distance in the relationship, hinting at personal strain and unsettled connection.
Also Mentioned on This Page
Indiana Progress
Werxtspes
London
Syria
Faumine Allen
Pennsylvania
Kent
Lired Wan
Tia Colimba
America
Tur Yeking
Capital
Trivax Barnes
Three Oaks
Mich
Benjamin Goble
Erie Railroad
Fort Jervis
N.Y
Washington
Halls of Congress
Maine
Penobscot
Hancock County
Vietouri
P. T. Barnum
Persia
Messopotamian
United States Navy
Maggie Shreiner
Chicago
High Court of the Catholic Order of Foresters
William 8. Roberts
Kearney
Neb
Minnie Bears
Minnie
Roberts
Belgium
M. Eiffel
Siam
Bangkok
Worm
Confucius
New York Mailand Hepress
Gymmnastica
Come
Arctic Ocean
de Graff
Zincite
John Hinson
Pocatello
Idaho
Boise Rver
Greenbrier County
W. Va
Vienna
Pacific Methodist College
Santa Rosa
Cal
Crescent City
Margaret Stuart
Ping, Ga
Siberia
Jimmy Cranshaw
Lake County
B. C. Barkley
Charleston
B.C
Helen F. O Nell
Family Oddum
Soctsly
Elas ———S
Tosrae Odies
AG Piorfey
Philadelphia
Mate
Samuel Curningr
Irks Pa
Onice
Berest
Railreed
Tagles
Rane
Rai, Tere
Grocer
Nickleby
Lemuel Johnston
Braggs
Tallis
Peck
Albert
George
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