Miscellany: Spider and Ants

At Lordship, a town near Bridgeport, Conn., a fat, succulent spider straddled, with his eight legs, two live wires; was electrocuted. Foraging ants who found the corpse haled their mates to the winter’s store of meat. So many ants piled on to the spider, to be electrocuted in turn, that their massed bodies short-circuited the wires of 20 interconnected houses.

Bears

One Clarence E. Martin, Vermont sheep raiser, reported last week a loss of 40 sheep, one Wallace H. Wing a loss of 31, all 71 having been eaten by black bears, who left the sheeps’ skulls and big bones rolled up in the pelts.

Medicine

In the middle of the jungle, at midnight, near Eshowe, capital of Zululand, a lean witch-doctor pranced around a naked black woman while tom-toms rustled and torches veered. A clay pot filled with earth from a slain chief’s grave lay in a pit above which the woman was stretched on a hide; the witch-man leaped high, making medicine for war while tom-toms rustled and torches veered. A chief had been murdered; now the tribe, protected by strong medicine against bad luck, would move through the jungle to kill his killers. They would move safely in a line through the jungle; no spear could wound, no knife had power to part their skin, so potent was the medicine the witch-man made for them in the shaking torchlight. He would kill the woman who writhed on the hide; he would sprinkle her blood on the heads of the warriors to a noise of drums. Drums—but was it drums that beat among the trees, roaring up the dirt path, nearer in the night? A motor-cycle leaped out of the circle of woods; another followed; white men with pistols untied the writhing woman, took the witch-man, the warriors into Durban, tried them in court and put them in jail, saying that they had been guilty of disorderly conduct, at midnight, in the jungle, while tom-toms rustled and torches veered.

Lucky Penn

In Birmingham, Eng,, a druggist lay in his dark bed thinking about hispast day’s business. He caught his breath, lay deathly still, gasped, sprang up, lit his candle, paced his floor. He pored through the telephonebook, telephoned the police, rushed to a series of addresses, called up the newspapers, searched hospitals, enlisted radio. His one clue was aname, “Penn.” After three days, from London came a telegram signed by a Mr. Penn, allaying his fears, telling him that the next post would return to the druggist, unopened, the box of pills into which, in his nightthoughts, the druggist had remembered having put quarter-grains (a lethal amount) of strychnine, by mistake.

Spiteful Glatt

In Lincoln, Neb., one Emil A. Glatt, farmer, started building with his own hands “the biggest spite fence in legal history,” wooden towers 45 feet high supporting six strands of heavy wire near the top. Reason given by Farmer Glatt for his spite:

Next to the Glatt farm, the Lincoln Standard Aircraft Corp. opened a school for air pilots. Great sport was had by Farmer Glatt and family, at first, watching. Then tyro pilots took to “zooming” (swooping low at) the Glatt house, barn, barnyard, cows, chickens. Farmer Glatt’s hens laid few eggs. Baby chicks died of fright. Glatt cows grew nervous, Glatt horses shied, Glatt hogs grunted.

A court had deferred judgment when Farmer Glatt sued to restrain his pesky neighbors. Before thinking up his fence, Farmer Glatt and family and neighbors practiced marksmanship at an elevated target in the Glatt barnyard but desisted because of the high price of ammunition.