Jan. 11, 1909 (Monday)

GLOBE RECOGNIZES DEATH OF WOMAN WHO DIED AT 108 -- HAVING LIVED UNDER ALL U.S. PRESIDENTS EXCEPT WASHINGTON: Mrs. Salome Sellers died Jan. 9 while eating supper in her home in Deer Isle, Maine. She was born on Oct. 15, 1800 -- late in the presidency of John Adams. She was alive during the administrations of Presidents No. 2 to 26. She almost made it to the administration of William Howard Taft, who will be inaugurated later in 1909. The article ends with her "rules" of living:
Never worry, and never miss a chance for a good laugh.
Breathe plenty of pure air.
Do plenty of good muscular work.
Be temperate in your habits.
Take as much sleep as nature demands.
They're still relevant! Now, there's a museum that honors her.

A BROKEN RIB MERITS A HUGE HEADLINE ON PAGE ONE: For some reason, editors at the Globe thought a man's broken rib merited a HUGE HEADLINE on the front page today. The rib's owner was Harry Nelson Day, who also goes by H. Nelson Gay. He was on board the U.S.S. Bayern, which arrive at Messina under the Red Cross flag, as part of efforts to assist victims of the Dec. 28 earthquake. Gay, a graduate of Amherst who earned a masters degree from Harvard just before the turn of the century, is from Boston and has been very active in Italy since the disaster. A year ago he "was made a knight of the crown of Italy for the services he had rendered that country through historic writings and the discovery of many original documents relating to the insurrection, which are held to be of great value by the crown." It's not mentioned in the article today, but he helped in saving the Keats-Shelley House.

January 10, 1909 (Sunday)

FINALLY, PHOTOS ARRIVE OF DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE IN ITALY: The quake struck Sicily and the rest of southern Italy on Dec. 28. Today -- nearly two weeks after the destruction -- newspaper readers in Boston saw the first "genuine" photographs of the destruction. One photo fills the front page (above). The picture above, which spans six of the front page's eight columns, shows ruins of Bagnara, a village north of Reggio on Italy's homeland. About half of the village's 4,000 residents were killed by the earthquake and, the paper says, "in the panic that followed." Another four photos appear on Page 10.
>This is considered somewhat of a journalistic achievement. The photographs came to the U.S. through the Pictorial News Co. The method used to transmit the photos was ... the Cunard liner the Carpathia (right), which, in 1912, will assist the survivors of the Titanic sinking. The ship apparently left Liverpool England on January 2 and arrived in Manhattan early yesterday morning.

Jan. 9, 1909 (Saturday)

GLOBE IS GOING RETRO WITH NEW ADVERTISING PLAN: Evidently the Boston Globe of 2009, suffering from a widespread decline in advertising, has decided to place advertisements on its front page. As the paper acknowledges in today's 2009 paper, this is nothing new. The paper of Jan. 9, 1909, had an ad on the front page. It's reproduced above. Don't hold your breath waiting for a cigar ad in 2009, though.

WHERE IS INSANITY-DEFENSE HEADING? An editorialist at the Globe describes today some of the worries people have about some recent high-profile murder trials which have been based on "insanity" defenses. Today's Globe refers to the recent acquittal of T.J. Hains in the famous "Regatta Murder" case. (That's Peter and Thornton Hains in the photo above. Likely the younger looking one on the right is Peter)
The brief editorial refers to the Harry Thaw defense of a "brainstorm" and Hains' "impulsive insanity." Then comes the conclusion:
The day can't be very far off when some expert for the defence [sic] will explain that the unfortunate murderer "took a sudden notion to kill" and was therefore not responsible for his act.

Jan. 8, 1909 (Friday)

FINANCIER SPOTS A CUTE BABY AND SHE BECOMES FAMOUS, BUT THERE'S A BIT MORE TO THE STORY: Today's Globe has a charming photo and story about a baby named Virginia Burbige. the 6-month-old is the toast of New York City now that journalists have discovered her identity. The news is the culmination of a search that began on Jan. 5, when newspapers began to try and find out the identity of the baby whom Morgan had anointed the night before with his gaze and generosity. He had spotted her at the opening reception of an exhibition of German painters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last Monday night. He was so smitten by her that he made her a "fellow" of the museum, a title which requires a donation of at least $1,000 to the museum, which Morgan has made. Her mother, who is married to a museum employee, said she brought the baby to the opening because, she said, "I had no one to leave Virginia with."
The event caused quite a stir, and articles appeared periodically after the event, offering a rough tracking of the baby's life. The most recent one I have come across was in the Oct. 26, 1940 issue of The New Yorker (right). This article says that Morgan put up the $1,000 that secured her a spot as a Life Fellow with the museum. He also set aside $5,000 for her to study art -- after she passed her 18th birthday. The New Yorker points out, sadly, that she had a problem with one of her eyes that was severe enough to prompt a doctor to forbid her from pursuing the art field. So, the $5,000 remained in the House of Morgan. She was living in Queens in 1940 and was a clerk at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

IMMIGRANTS FROM ITALY REACH NEW YORK -- AND ARE FRANTIC AT HEARING NEWS OF QUAKE THAT STRUCK HOMELAND WHILE THEY WERE AT SEA: It's hard to imagine what the many Italian immigrants felt like when they arrived in New York yesterday on board the Germania after a trip across the Atlantic from Naples, Italy. En route, they were in steerage, blissfully unaware of the massive earthquake that struck southern Italy more than a week ago.
An article in today's Globe (right) describes the scene as the ship docked and passengers learned through an interpreter and newspaper reporter about the disaster. A similar article in the New York Times carries the same news, although there are some differences in the details.
The Globe's version says there were "400 Sicilian passengers" on the ship. The Times says there were "194 steerage passengers, some of whom came from Sicily" and "the majority of the steerage passengers were from other parts of Italy."
The Globe said a reporter visiting the ship was responsible for breaking the news to the passengers who "were stricken with grief." The Globe added an unidentified passenger was overcome when he heard from the newspaper reporter that Messina was "wiped out."
The Times did not draw attention to any reporter, saying simply that the passengers didn't hear about the quake "until the vessel reached Quarantine." The Times identified the distraught man from Messina as Francisco Valesca.
The Times also explained why the passengers had heard nothing of the event: "The Germania had a rough trip across and most of the time her passengers were kept off the decks." The ship -- of the Fabre line -- left Naples on Dec. 23.

Jan. 7, 1909 (Thursday)

FAMOUS PALM READER IS IN TROUBLE IN FRANCE: Some people in Boston are especially interested in a front-page story about a palmist who calls himself Cheiro. Authorities in Paris are looking for him because two women claim he has bilked them of stocks worth a half million dollars.
The article puts the story this way:
"Count" Louis Hamen, formerly known to America and Europe as "Cheiro, the Palmist," and before that as plain John Warner, is a fugitive from France, and the American and English colony is discussing one of the most meteoric and mysterious careers which ever dazzled Parisian society.
It turns out he had a long stay in Boston in 1895. He stayed at the Hotel Brunswick (right, at the corner of Boylston and Clarendon) and "created a sensation" according to today's Globe.
He practiced his palm-reading craft widely. The Globe described his apartment this way:
While here he was surrounded by East Indian servants and occupied an inner sanctum surrounded by the pervasive atmosphere of another clime. A mystic air was lent the apartments by curious Indian carvings in bronze and wood of Indian idols, a large sacred bull in bronze, beautiful lamps and marvelous hangings of priceless eastern stuffs.
The paper says the ultra-popular Cheiro's real name is probably John Warner, adding that he came to the United States from his native Ireland for the first time as an acting member of Wilson Barrett's theatrical company.

Jan. 1, 1909

RESOLUTIONS HAVE NEVER BEEN GUARANTEED: I liked this portrayal of resolutions -- as a "house of cards" -- presented on the front page of today's Daily Globe.