May 14, 1906 (Monday)

GAPON MYSTERY SOLVED: Word out of St. Petersburg and Finland indicates that the fate of Father Georgi Gapon (right) has been determined. His corpse was found hanging from a nail in the upper chamber of a villa in Finland. Some man had rented the villa on April 8 but the landlord hadn't seen that person since April 11. So, she told the authorities, who entered the building recently and found the corpse. Authorities are certain that Gapon was killed before he was hung on the nail. The face had decomposed but other evidence indicates they found the body of the missing labor leader, who was linked with last year's Bloody Sunday. Revolutionists have suspected that Gapon has been spying for the government. That's the current thinking, anyway.

ANOTHER EARTHQUAKE TALE THAT CAN GIVE YOU A SHUDDER: Sad tales continue to trickle in from San Francisco, nearly a month after the earthquake struck. E.T. Johnson, part owner of a restaurant that was destroyed has finally found what he thinks are the bones of his partner, Theodore Hansen. Here's how Johnson tells what happened:
On the morning of the earthquake, I was just getting up. My partner was lighting the fire in the front part of the restaurant. When the shock came the front part of the building collapsed. I was able to escape the back way. I at once sought to rescue Hansen. I called for him, but there was no answer. I madly tore away the debris hoping that I would find him and be able to drag him to a place of safety. The fire came so rapidly that I was driven away and was compelled to leave poor Hansen under the collapsed building.
He had returned to the site every day, looking for any sign of Hansen. He found the bones yesterday.
I hope that he was killed outright and did not have to suffer the torture of being burned to death, Johnson said.


A CHAMP WITHOUT A CHOMPER: Boxing champ Tommy Ryan (left) visited briefly with friends in his former hometown of Syracuse. He was riding the Lake Shore Limited from his farm in Michigan to New York City. As he talked with friends yesterday as the train paused at the station, he kept his hand over his mouth, explaining he had lost his false teeth. It didn't happen in the boxing ring. It happened yesterday morning in the bathroom on the train. He said, When I was making my toilet in my state room this morning I laid my teeth on the wash stand. It was one of those bowls that fold up, and when I finished washing, I punched the button and modern mechanism did the rest.
When he lowered the bowl, the teeth were missing. He's still a champion, I think. He's gotta be about 36. He spoke of a possible match with "Philadelphia Jack" O'Brien. Someone asked where he got his tan. He reminded them that he was farming, near St. Joseph, Mich. He also spoke of his fondness for Syracuse as the train pulled out and he waved to people on the street and at hotel windows.
I tell you, Syracuse is all right. You can't get away from it. Nearly every time that I have come home from the Pacific coast I have met a person or two from Syracuse on the Overland. Wherever you go you meet a Syracuse person or hear something about the town. If I wasn't farming I guess I would live here.

SCHOOL FIGHT TURNS DEADLY: Seven-year-old William Songrin died at his home in Schenectady yesterday, about two weeks after getting into a fight "with several little boys" on their way home from school. Doctors say the cause of death is peritonitis. Despite his bruises, his parents thought the injuries weren't all that bad. A physician was called to the school May 10. (The fight was May 2.) By that time the boy was beyond saving. The coroner might make an arrest.

May 13, 1906 (Saturday)

THE FOUR TOPS: Get a load of these women. No, this is not a look at a new singing group. Instead, it's the lineup of ladies who are showing off the "exquisite lingerie waists" that are on sale at the J.M. High store in Atlanta. They fill a large section of the front page of today's issues of The Atlanta Constitution; not surprisingly, they are "above the fold," which might help single-copy sales. The store has about 1,000 waists, which normally cover the neck-to-waist areas. Styles available include "sheer Batiste, French Lawns and Persian Lawns.'' Waists that normally cost $2 and $3 are going for $1.75; waists worth up to $3.50 and $5 are selling for $2.75. Don't know if this includes the shoulder pads, which must account for the upper dimensions on these wasp-waisted women. Come to think of it, if they were a singing group, they could be called The Four Wasps.


OUT, OUT DAMNED SPOTS! Some fashionable women in London are having trouble trying to keep up with the speckled beauty of Queen Alexandra (left). Evidently, she returned from a vacation a couple of years ago with some freckles on her cheeks. That prompted numerous keep-up-with-the-Joneses types to have some artificial freckles added to their faces. A report printed in the Atlanta paper (via "special cable" from London) says that women are trying now to get rid of the freckles. It's not all that easy; the article says: Many painful operations have been submitted to without the desired result. Princess Victoria claims to have a recipe that might do the trick on the spotted cheeks. The concoction comes from an "obscure woman in Sandringham." Probably someone who's at home in the beginning of "Macbeth."

May 12, 1906 (Saturday)

ABOUT THAT 'FLAG' COMMENT: Bishop H.M. Turner, the first man of color named a chaplain in the U.S. military, is in Syracuse for some medical treatment. Turner, who lives in Atlanta, spoke at length about his recent comments about the U.S. flag. He had been criticized for saying, in February, that the flag was a "dirty rag." He told a reporter, "I never said the flag was a dirty rag. What I did say was that since the government could not protect the negro and give him his rights the flag to him was nothing but a 'dirty flag'." He pointed out that - in the past 13 years -- about 2,700 colored men "have been put to death without judge or jury by miserable drunken, lawless mobs."


A PRESSING TIME FOR SCHURZ: Carl Schurz, one of the remarkable German-Americans of our time, is near death, according to reports out of New York City. I've got to get to work, so I don't have time to describe all his accomplishments, which are numerous. One quote attributed to him is "My Country! When right keep it right; when wrong, set it right!" I think that's a little off. Here's what I think he said, in the Senate in 1872: The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, “My country, right or wrong.” In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.

BIG PROBLEMS UNDER THE BIG TOP: It was a tough night for circuses last evening. In New Rochelle, a lamp exploded and shot flames into the top of a tent that covered about 2,000 people. Circus workers hustled to cut open the walls of the tent so people could flee. A large number of people were injured but nobody was killed.
Another circus had a problem in Columbia, Mo., where university students and circus employees got into a brawl. The students even went to far as to grease the rails of a train track, forcing one of the circus cars to jump the track. The problem started when students refused to leave the tent after a show.

STRANGE TIMETABLE FOR TRAIN TRIAL: I don't know much about it, but what sounds like a really interesting trial ended yesterday in Albany. The decision in favor of Edward Johnson, a colored man, comes two years AFTER HIS DEATH. He had sued New York Central Railroad, saying that he was kicked off a passenger train in 1900 and lost his arm in the process. Yesterday, a jury awarded his attorney about $4,000. This ends the sixth trial. Charges of jury tampering dogged this one. The articles says ,"The case is one of the most remarkable in the history of civil actions in this country." That's right. It says "country," not "county." Wish I knew more.

May 11, 1906 (Friday)

NOW I UNDERSTAND WHY THEY CALL IT 'THE DIP OF DEATH': Miss Isabelle Butler is drawing some attention for her driving. She is driving a car through the "Dip Of Death," which is part of the Barnum & Bailey's circus. It's really hard to describe what she does. But seeing a poster (above) can help. It's traveling around the country and arrives in Syracuse at the end of the month. At its highest point, this structure is 60 feet high. The gap is 40 feet. The trick takes a little less than four seconds. A helpful, thickly-brained journalist calculates that Butler earns a little less than $100 a second (which might approach JP Morgan territory). Butler's act is also called "L'Auto Bolide." One thing is for certain: It's easier to do this with a car than a horse. Isn't progress great? By the way, another show in the circus is called "The Twirls of Terror." I wish I had the space to show you more of an early 20th century circus.

FINALLY THE TITLE MEANS SOMETHING: I spotted an ad for "The White House Cook Book." The compilers are Hugo Ziemann and Mrs. F.L. Gillette. The F.L. stands for Fanny Lemira. I don't know much else about Mrs. Gillette, but I think she was the lead author and first came out with this about 20 years ago. She used the White House name in the title, but it gained some legitimacy when Ziemann got involved. He used to be the steward at the White House. I think he was the mastermind behind President Grant's birthday celebration, which featured 1,000 guests. The book has got more than 500 recipes and it's selling now for 51 percent off the regular price. That makes it 69 cents. The book could stand to be modernized a bit. Can't tell if it has President McKinley's last meal or not.

A HOUSE OF ILL REPUTE: Massachusetts legislators look to be in a bit of trouble. Speaker Cole wants all members to cooperate with a grand jury as part of an investigation into (gasp!) corruption. Numerous esteemed members of the House avoided the corridors of power because they didn't' want to be on the receiving end of a summons. Some representatives can be easily seen by the bailiffs, but they are protected by a line over which only politicians and some officials are permitted to step. Evidently the boundary is called the "dead line," which must make the journalists feel quite at home.

BETTING ON LIVE BIRTHS: The American Birth Insurance Company of Boston has been charged with mismanagement of funds. Evidently, promoters of American Birth Insurance say, and this is quoted from the news story, the laws governing birth were as stable as those governing mortality, upon which life insurance is based, and statistics were carefully compiled. The company was conducted on mutual lines and by its means the policy holders who paid a small sum monthly received, upon birth of a living child, a cash benefit of from $50 to $500 depending upon the class of policy and the number of payments before the time of birth. Clearly the operative word is "living." Certainly don't want one of those insurance salesmen wandering loose around someplace like the old Boston Lying-In Hospital or the Boston Hospital for Women or some such place.

May 10, 1906 (Thursday)

PRICELESS WORDS: The word is that eskimos have lots of words for snow -- because they are surrounded by it and because there are lots of subtle distinctions. I like the many words we might have for "embezzlement." One little article today talks about a brokerage-firm clerk named Edwin S. Greenfield who absconded with $175,000. The article -- with a Philadelphia dateline -- uses these two synonyms: defalcation and peculation. The article notes that Greenfield lost the money by "investing" in bucket shops.

WHO'S MINDING THE ASYLUM? A congressional panel got an earful yesterday during testimony about the treatment of patients at the government's asylum for the insane. Could it be talking about the place that Civil War soldiers called St. Elizabeths? I think so. One person who testified, a tailor named Joseph A. Kensey, had been an inmate in the institution twice. He said he was told that, in the words of the reporter, "choking was the surest remedy for insanity."

May 9, 1906 (Wednesday)

HARRIMAN'S RECORD RUN: Railroad magnate E.H. Harriman (right) has set a record in his cross-country train trip (from San Francisco to New York). He arrived in Manhattan on the Empire State Express of the New York Central & Hudson Rail Road at 10 p.m. yesterday. That ended a trip that took 71 hours and 27 minutes. One of the fastest sections was covered in Nebraska, between North Platte and Grand Island. His train covered the 138 miles in 114 minutes. When his train paused for three minutes in Syracuse, two reporters jumped on board and chatted with him. He was reading a novel in a drawing room car. To illustrate the extent of the damage done by the earthquake in San Francisco, he said, "If you can imagine that part of New York city from Fourteenth Street to the City Hall all torn down and charred, then you have a picture of San Francisco."

A LYNCHING FOR A HORSE: A report from Mississippi states that a mob lynched a negro named Sam Sims six miles from that state's capital. Evidently the man was resisting arrest and killed a horse that, at the time, was being ridden by Constable Lamar Hendricks. That enraged friends of the constable. They tied the constable to a tree, so he wouldn't interfere. Then they lynched Sims. To avenge a horse.

THAT WOULD BUY AN AWFUL LOT OF CLARINETS: Former conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Arthur Nikisch, (left) has a suggestion that might help the BSO land a first-class conductor. His idea: Bring him back to the podium. Nikisch, who was with the BSO from 1889 to 1893, is willing -- if he gets paid $50,000 and has a $125,000 life insurance policy while he's in this country.

May 8 1906 (Tuesday)

OLD BOYS NETWORK HONORS "UNCLE JOE": "Uncle Joe" Cannon (left, in 1904), speaker of the House of Representatives, was the honored guest at a reception yesterday marking his 70th birthday. The party was at Washington's Arlington Hotel. Most of the influential leaders in Washington were there, including all Cabinet members who were in town, most members of the House and Senate and the members of the Supreme Court. The party lasted from 9 p.m. to midnight. President Roosevelt showed up at 10 and stayed about an hour. The final tally indicates that 1,200 were there. One news article adds this incredible observation in its last sentence: "There were no ladies present."

TIL INDICTMENT DO US PART: The Rev. J.B. Dosier of Ashburn, Ga., is a little embarrassed. Evidently he read a notice in a matrimonial paper that Miss Lucile Patterson of Lewiston, Pa., was looking for a loving husband. So, he wrote to her. They exchanged numerous letters. He proposed marriage to her. She accepted, on one condition. Could he please send here $30 for train fare from Lewiston to Ashburn. He sent her the money. That was the last he heard of her. He told postal authorities in Washington about the situation. The article says that an investigation has led to the arrest of Patterson and her "pretty niece," Edna Kirk. They are charged with fraudulent use of the mails. Evidently, "a large number of other victims to the tune of from $20 to $35 each have complained to the postal authorities of Mrs. Patterson's matrimonial negotiations."