April 4 1906 (Wednesday)

ANOTHER SARAH, PLAIN AND TALL: The great Sarah Bernhardt has been on tour. A description of her recent performance in Convention Hall in Kansas City (written by Ed. H. Smith) has been picked up in numerous papers. Mr. Smith originally wrote it for the Chula News in Missouri. It's the Show-Me state, and Sarah surely showed Smith something. Here's some of what he wrote: "Making love and dying are Sarah's two long suits. She may be better at dying than she is at making love, but if she ever wants to give me a private demonstration of her art I shall not ask her to die. That's sure as God made little apples."

NO, HE'S NOT THE TEA GUY: Earl Grey, the governor-general of Canada, and his wife, the countess, visited the White House yesterday. They came from New York, where he had made an eloquent speech dealing with the close relationship between the U.S. and Canada. Evidently nobody ruined the mood by reminding him that we in the south have tried to invade Canada quite a few times -- in the Revolutionary War, in the War of 1812, in the Patriot and Aroostook wars in the late 1830s and in 1866.


FATAL SHOOTING IN ATLANTA: This paragraph from today's front page of The Atlanta Constitution says it all: "The story of the shooting, the fight, the death and the love of the dead man for the woman he attempted to kill is one of the most dramatic that has been brought to light in Atlanta for a long time." It's talking about the death of L. Ben Wilmouth, who was stabbed to death by Walter Hightower, who was enraged at the injury to his sister Carrie Bryant, who was shot in the hip at the boarding house of her mother Mrs. Joe Johns, who had offered room and board to L. Ben Wilmouth, who was stabbed to death by.....
Well, you get the idea. It was dramatic. Wilmouth, 30, was a night watchman for the Southern railway. He had loved Carrie when she was little. After she married W.L. Bryant, Wilmouth ran off to join the Army. He returned about three years ago and was an occasional boarder at the home of Carrie's mother. Recently, Mrs. Johns had fallen ill and Carrie had been helping out at the house. That was OK, because Carrie was estranged from her husband. (It's amazing what the "Constitution man" -- e.g., reporter -- discover while sitting at Carrie's bedside after the shooting.) Sensing a romantic opportunity, Wilmouth -- especially when drunk -- would warn Carrie not to return to her husband; otherwise, he'd have to kill her. (OK, that's NOT the best pick-up line, but it's a start.) Well, according to police, he tried to do just that -- kill the woman he loved.
Yesterday evening, as Carrie Bryant and her brother Walter Hightower and another boarde were sitting in a room reading the afternoon paper (evidently, they were reading about the strike of Atlantta painters), Wilmouth walked in. He nodded at Carrie, aimed a pistol and shot at her. The article says "THE SHOT STRUCK AN ORGAN." Fortunately for Carrie it was an organ of the musical kind. Carrie ducked behind a chair. The ailing Mrs. Johns rushed in; the shooter pushed her aside and fired again. This shot hit Carrie in the hip. Walter Hightower, enraged, then chased Wilmouth from the house. Wilmouth fired at him. In turn, Hightower emptied both barrels of his derringer at Wilmouth. No bullets hit their targets. Hightower caught him about 100 yards from the house. Put simply: "When Hightower had wore himself out in stabbing and cutting Wilmouth he rose. The man was dead." Hightower surrendered to Deputy Chastain and is now behind bars in the Tower. Coroner Thompson will hold an inquest today.

April 3 1906 (a Tuesday)

ENOUGH IS ENUF: The Carnegie Simplified Spelling Board has published a couple of circulars, one of which contains a list of suggested spellings. The Post-Standard (Syracuse) provides some examples: confest, tho, thoro, cutlas, discust, fantom, thoroly, thru, thruout, altho and kist. It's suggested by Andrew Carnegie (shown here), or as one wag puts it, ANDROO KARNAYGEE. Xtra letrs won't be mist. It mite work.



BIG HEIST IN MINNEAPOLIS: One of the nation's slickest thieves has evidently been apprehended, police say. For now, he is known as Thomas J. Wainwright. The victim was Dr. Nicholas Pinault of Minneapolis. It turns out that the doctor hired Wainwright to take care of his mansion while he (the doctor) went south to Pass Christian, Miss., during the winter. He said Wainwright's credentials were impeccable and that he told him he was a lawyer who was out of practice. Once the doctor headed south, Wainwright went to work. He emptied the mansion of diamonds, silverware, rubies, antiques, laces, pearls, paintings and a gold watch that was evidently once owned by Cardinal Richelieu. That's the cardinal in the picture. It certainly could be his watch. A careful look at the wrists reveals NO WATCH. That means it could have been stolen from him BEFORE he posed for the painting. Or, maybe that is a watch peeking out from under the sleeve on his left hand. Hmmm. Investigators will have to look into it. Police have been looking for Wainwright for about four weeks. They found him in New York, heavily armed.

April 2 1906 (Monday)

THAT'S ONE SMART DOG: The Washington Post begins a story with this sentence: "Apropos of nothing in particular, Alexandria wishes to arise and announce to the world that a resident of this ancient and honorable municipality owns the smartest dog in the world." The proof? Well, it turns out the dog, belonging to Mr. A. Powell Brookes of Alexandria, Va., became sick about two months ago. Someone (the paper notes it was "a negro") took him to Creighton's drug store. After an examination, he was given some capsules and was carried home. Two weeks after that, the same dog showed up at the drug store -- alone. He sat by the door and slipped in when a customer opened it. He sat near a counter and wagged his tail. Finally, Mr. Creighton took a look at him and found the dog was ill once again. He gave "Sank" the same medicine, and the dog walked home. This happened one more time. Critics might say that the dog returned because the medicine was tasty. The people of Alexandria, however, are certain that this is not the case and that the dog is, indeed, the smartest dog in the world. If the dog really wasn't sick, he was still smart.... smart enough to fool those Alexandrians.

GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT: The soldier who took the family Bible from a home in Fredericksburg, Va., during the Civil War has returned it -- about 40 years later. Or maybe it was a relative or friend of the Union soldier. The Washington Post says that someone named R. R. Riddell of Albany, N.Y., contacted the clerk of Fredericksburg, saying they wanted to return to Bible to the family that owned it. The clerk did some research. Now, the Bible is on its way to Miss Fannie Nash of Carters Wharf in Richmond County, Va. She's the granddaughter of William O. Belderson, who owned the Bible at the time of the war. Evidently the plundering soldier -- or R.R. Riddell -- is a slow reader. It sure took the thief a long time to get to Exodus and the "thou shalt not steal" part of the book.

A LOOK AT LANGUAGE: One of the headlines in The Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) uses an intriguing word for a story of a fatal drunken fracas among miners in Charleroi, Pa. The phrase goes, "End of Orgy in Woods." It's not what someone might think. There were not females, or sexual activity, mentioned in the story. The definintion of "orgy" is simply "a frantic revel; a drunken revelry." One wonders: When did the word get sexy?