Miscellany, Oct. 22, 1951

Limited Offensive. In Pittsburgh, haled into court for seasoning her husband’s gravy with rat poison, Mrs. Margaret Kearns declared that she had caught him coming home with lipstick smeared on his shirt, explained that she didn’t really want to hurt him: “Rat poison doesn’t kill rats. It just makes them sick.”

Letter of the Law. In St. Louis, Circuit Judge Harry F. Russell blamed local lawyers for the disappearance of 75 to 100 expensive law books from the court library.

Into the Fire. In Shawneetown, Ill., Gene Oldham and John Nelson broke into the city jail, robbed a prisoner of $150.

Affairs of State. In El Paso, Texas, Mayor Fred Harvey received a message from the U.S. Secretary of Defense: “Re my telegram 29 Sept. which reads 12 Nov. should read Nov. 12.”

For Whom the Bell Tolls. In Korah, Ontario, after Farmer Gordon Reed was found guilty of drunken driving, a businessman of the same name requested a radio announcer to specify that he was not the man in question, several hours later was arrested on the same charge.

Sentimentalist. In Fort Wayne, Ind., attendants at the C. M. Sloan & Sons funeral home noticed a mourner fondly clasp the hand of the deceased, later noticed that a $150 ring was missing from the corpse’s finger.

Rules of the Road. In Kansas, Ill., village cops arrested three state troopers for hauling overloaded trucks from the highways into the village for weighing, thereby violating the village’s own maximum load limit.

First Things First. In San Diego, the Evening Tribune ran an advertisement in its Situations Wanted column: “Woman, 35, general housework, loves children, live in. Husband welcome. TV not absolutely essential.”

Career Man. In Sydney, Australia, cops charged Robert Clifford, 39, with getting jobs at four different firms, then putting in anonymous telephone calls to notify the employers that their new man was an untrustworthy ex-convict, and collecting from each the week’s pay required by the law.

March of Science. In Athens, Ga., after cutting off the tails of two beagles, Psychologist A. S. Edwards put the dogs through an obstacle course, proved to his satisfaction that tails are not necessary for canine equilibrium.

The Wild West. In Detroit, while washing windows in a skyscraper, Moreel Bellfleur came upon a raccoon on a sixth-floor ledge.