March 10, 1907 (Sunday)

VICTORIAN EXPLORER IS SAVED BY A COPY OF PUNCH MAGAZINE: A reporter with Reuter's recently spoke with African explorer Maj. Powell-Cotton (right)who recently returned from Africa. In one tale, the explorer described an encounter with a male lion near Lake Albert. He shot the lion, who then retreated into some bushes. After a while, Powell-Cotton and his fellow hunters found the lion and tried to determine the extent of his injuries. Suddenly, the lion rushed at the Englishman. He fired his double-barrel gun, but the lion kept coming. Powell-Cotton then turned to his assistant, expecting to grab another loaded firearm. But his assistant had fled. The lion pounced on the Britisher and began to bite and claw at him. Soon, someone else int he party shot the lion dead. Powell-Cotton said he was saved from great injury because the lion's claws and teeth mostly tore up a folded-up copy of the magazine Punch, which the explorer had in a pocket.

DON'T LET THEM SEE "THE DEPARTED": A report in today's Washington Post tells that numerous women in the audience of a London play are fainting because of the overwhelming number of MURDERS that take place on stage. The play is called "The Final Struggle for Gold." The script call for FOURTEEN REALISTIC MURDERS. Reportedly women have to be carried out at every performance "in a fainting condition." The paper says the stage "resembles a slaughterhouse" in the third act, when there are eight murders. Producers have tried to reduce the tension in the theater by having "comic singers" perform between acts.

COLLEGE STUNTS ATTRACT ATTENTION IN BOSTON: Thanks largely to the stunts performed by Theodore Roosevelt Jr. at Harvard attention in Boston has been turned to a greater degree than before on the recent initiation activities performed by colleges in and around that city. Here are some of of the stunts, according to an article in today's Washington Post:
1. Count the number of hairs on a guinea pig.
2. Ride a camel from Boston to Harvard Square -- and race a trolley car along the way.
3. Count the number of trees on the Boston Common, write the number on the back of a bullfrog and present the amphibian to the overseeing committee.

March 9, 1907 (Saturday)

ARCHIE ROOSEVELT IS STILL SICK: One of President Roosevelt's sons, Archie, is sick. Very sick. Twelve-year-old Archie (shown at right in 1902) is suffering from diphtheria. He is resting comfortably according to today's Washington Post but he's still in danger. Mrs. Roosevelt has been sleeping in Archie's room. A typical night for the president: fall asleep about 2 a.m. and get up and talk with doctors about 6:30 a.m. Neither Theodore Jr. (at Harvard) nor Kermit (at Groton School) has been summoned. Four doctors are involved in the case.

A FORMER SOUTHERN GOVERNOR SPEAKS OUT AGAINST LYNCHING: Speaking at Harvard College yesterday, Andrew Jackson Montague (right), the former governor of Virginia, says there's no justification for lynching. Here's part of what he said, according to the Washington Post:
In our system of governkment, above all others, there is no place for private or personal vengeance. I think that a strong constabulary is the best school to teach the virtue of self-restraint and the beneficence of law and order over riot and murder. I give it as my deliberate opinion, shared by the bulk of the law-abiding people of the Southland, that there is never an occasion where resort to lynch law is justifiable among civilized people. Such practices snap the fundamental bonds of society and will eventuate in a government as capricious and as relentless as that of wild beasts.

March 7, 1907 (Thursday)

THERE MIGHT NOT BE ENOUGH PEOPLE TO FILL A JURY BOX, BUT THEY SURE WILL BE SEQUESTERED IN ELLIOTT COUNTY, KENTUCKY: Judge Carnes has ordered that the trial of Kentucky feudists needs a new venue -- one that's remote and deeper in the back woods of that state. He wants the proceedings against James Hargis, Elbert Hargis, John Smith and John Abner to be moved to Elliott County. Today's New York Times says that Elliott County is "totally inaccessible by telephone, teleraph or railroad." Furthermore, its county seat, Sandy Hook, has fewer than 200 residents.
The trial relates to the killing of Dr. Cox (left) in Jackson, Ky., in April 1902. The killing was part of some remarkable feuding in Breathitt County. Smith confessed to killing Dr. Cox. He said former judge James Hargis (right) was one of the men who encouraged him to commit the crime -- promising him that he would be acquitted if charged and to give him work. Smith has said that he received $100 from James Hargis for the killing. Here's part of Smith's confession, as printed in The New York Times on Jan. 12, 1907:
So Judge [Hargis] and Ed [Callahan] put us three -- Spicer, Abner and myself -- under the barnshed and sent Elbert Hargis to stand on the corner, and when Dr. Cox did start from his home and came down just across the street from us, Elbert Hargis called to him and said: "Is that you, Doc?" and he said "Yes" and stopped, and all three of us fired at the same time or so near the same that it was all one report.

A YALE MAN AND HIS MONEY ARE SOON PARTED: Prof. William Bailey of Yale has been studying how Yale students spend their money. According to today's New York Times, he concludes that "poorer students devote little to liquor and tobacco." The average amount of money spent by students working their way through school is about $202. Most students spent between $500 and $1,000. Nine students spent more than $2,000. [For 2007 dollars, multiply by about 20. The article does not say how many students were involved in the study.] The article sums up his findings this way:
The wealthy students are lavish with gifts, spend more on intoxicants than on tobacco and liberally patronize the theatre. The pipe is the favorite with the Yale smoker.
For each dollar that the poorer students spend on tobacco, the wealthiest ones spent $8.43. The wealthy students spend 82 times as much as the poorer students on "tobacco and intoxicants."

March 6, 1907 (Wednesday)

VETERANS ARE WHIPPED UP INTO A LATHER ABOUT A GERMAN NEWSPAPER'S STORY ABOUT THE KAISER'S PIT STOP FOR A SHAVE: Way back in November, Germany's Emperor Wilhelm II (right) traveled by train to Munich. Newspapers dutifully reported that he stopped the train at a "wayside station" so he could get a shave. The Socialist paper called the Fraenkische Tagepost evidently went a bit further in its reporting. Its story added that local groups of military veterans "stormed the barber shop to obtain the LATHER SCRAPED OFF HIS MAJESTY'S AUGUST CHIN." The soapy stuff was distributed to the former soldiers while a band played the national anthem, according to the paper's report. The veterans SUED the paper for what today's Washington Post calls "libelous insult." The article says the recently ended trial "furnished side-spitting [sic] amusement for everybody, including the judges, who, nevertheless, sued the editor for overstepping the bounds of fair comment."
There's no mention of whether or not the report was true.

SURELY, THE PHYSICIAN IS JOKING: Noted nerve specialist Dr. Charles Loomis Dana has a bizarre notion about the future of women -- or more specifically of their ARMS, according to an article in today's Washington Post. He says the arms of women are going the way of the vermiform appendix and, in the words of the Post, "in time may disappear altogether, and be replaced, perhaps by WINGS or FINS." Seriously.
Dana, a visiting physician in Bellevue, has made an extensive study of shoulder and arm neuralgia. The article says, "He has made the DISCOVERY that the ARMS of women, SOCIETY WOMEN ESPECIALLY, are falling into disuse and gradually losing their economic functions as members of the body." Oddly, this was NOT a front page story in the Post. It appears on Page 3.

NEW YORK MEDIUM FACES AN EXTRA-LARGE THREAT: I haven't seen today's copy of the New York World, but there's a note in today's Post that the paper contains a "bombshell" for the spiritualists and mediums who thrive in Manhattan's hotbed of life-after-death activity -- an area bounded by Sixth and Seventh avenues and 13th to 23rd streets. Mrs. Harriet E. Strickland seeks $25,000 in damages from Hugh Moore, a medium who is pastor at the First Church of Progressive Spiritualists. She charges him with defamation of character. Part of her suit includes statements from her that she was paid $12 a week to ACT AS A SPIRIT during Moore's seances and she gives the names of eight others who were employed to portray disembodied spirits. Clearly, Moore should have seen this coming.

SHE WON'T BE TRAVELING IN COACH, THAT'S FOR SURE: Consuelo, Duchess of Marlborough (left), the daughter of William K. Vanderbilt and Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont and recently separated from her "ducal husband," is coming to live for a period of time in New York City, according to reports in today's paper. She turned 30 on March 2. I won't bore you with details. Rather, I think it's best to simply let the telegram that the Martha Washington Hotel received recently speak for itself:
Manager the Martha Washington
Dear Sir:
Please cable if you can reserve for the Duchess Consuelo of Marlborough ten rooms en suite, with bath, at the Martha Washington. Will arrive in New York April 23. Would like four rooms done in rose, others immaterial. Would like meals in apartment. Will bring my own furniture and tapestries.
Worthington Hudson, Secretary.

March 5, 1907 (Tuesday)

A FEW GALLONS OF DE-ICER WOULD HAVE HELPED: Passengers and crew of the Anchor liner Columbia, which arrived in New York yesterday from Glasgow, said they battled ice for much of the trip since "the Banks." According to today's New York Times, ice at one point "coated the vessel from stem to
stern." In some places, the ice was 3 feet thick. For three days the ship carried lots of extra weight thanks to the TONS OF ICE coating some surfaces. When the weather moderated on Sunday, some passengers helped the crew chop away at the ice with axes. Two passengers were nearly crushed when a 200-pound icicle fell on them from the bridge and smashed into about a hundred pieces. Many passengers then decided to allow the crew to do the work themselves, the article said: "After this their ardor was almost as cool as the weather."

COURT OKs SEPARATION OF FLAG AND ADVERTISING: The Supreme Court rules that a state may pass a law that prohibits the use of the US. flag for advertisement purposed, according to a decision released yesterday. The case, Harlan v. Nebraska focused on Omaha, Neb., liquor dealers Nicholas V. Halter and Henry Y. Hayward. They were selling a beer in bottles decorated with images of the flag. Each was fined $50. The name of the beer: Stars and Stripes.

IS CSI READY FOR THIS OFF-THE-CUFF TECHNIQUE FOR GATHERING EVIDENCE? The Rev. Alfred H.C. Morse, who runs the Storng Place Baptist Church in Brooklyn, was startled when he passed a saloon Sunday and heard the ringing of a cash register bell. He tracked down a police officer and brought him back to the saloon. The minister says he found eight men in a back room. They smashed their glasses when the law entered, thereby leaving no evidence of wrongdoing (drinking liquor on a Sunday) on the table. That didn't bother Rev. Morse. He removed a cuff from his shirt and dipped one end in a small puddle of beer on the floor. Then he dipped in other end into a small dab of whisky. Officer Galagher then arrested saloon keeper Patrick McInerney. During a hearing yesterday in the Butler Street Court, the Rev. Morse asked for, and received, an adjournment to allow a chemist enough time to analyze the stains on his cuff. He wants the analysis to be used as evidence.

March 4, 1907 (Monday)

IN SAN FRANCISCO, PROTESTERS HISS THE FLAG: About 4,000 people gathered yesterday and hissed the American flag. The group gathered as part of the (Bill) Moyer, (Bill) Haywood and (George) Pettibone Defense League, which is trying to free the three men (right), who have been charged with complicity in the assassination of former Gov. Steunenberg of Idaho. The flag became the focus of attention when a German singing group marched into the hall with the banner. The group passed a resolution that told the Mine Owners Association and capitalists in general that "if you pack the jury and attempt to judicially murder our brothers, we will pack hell full of you."

CONGRESS MANAGES TO MAKE TIME STAND STILL: The 59th Congress is quickly drawing to a close. Last night was the closing night, and it seemed like an opening night, according to today's Washington Post. The paper pointed out that Congressman John Wesley Gaines was decked out in a tuxedo and cream-colored vest. The galleries of both houses were crowded all day and "well into the night." Everything is expected to come to a close about noon today. In an exhibition of a curious power of Congress, any work done until then will still be officially part of SATURDAY'S BUSINESS. Here's the final two sentences of the story that explains this curious TIME-BENDING activity (with emphasis added):
Congress itself avoided by a subterfuge the guilt of working on Sunday by continuing the FICTION OF THE LEGISLATIVE DAY. According ot the Congressional calendar it will still be Saturday when the gavels of the respective presiding officers fall at noon today.