Miscellany: TIME brings all things

Eel

In Manhattan, officials of the Aquarium announced that their electric eel will be tickled with a copper hook, stimulated into lighting a neon bulb in front of its tank, only three times a day, at 11:30 a.m., 2 p.m., 4 p.m. Said Trainer V. W. Coates: “He was glad to light his bulb at first but then he got wise to the wires and refused to shoot juice into them. Now I have to tickle him. If he’s feeling right he lights two bulbs.”

Lunch

In Indianapolis, Carol Douglas, 24, told police: “I came back from work at noon and my lunch wasn’t ready. I took a few drinks and then took a short nap. When I awakened, my father-in-law asked me to shoot his pet dog which had been acting queerly. I got my gun and we went to the garage where I killed the dog.

“I had a couple of shells in my pocket, so … I fired through the kitchen wall, intending to hit my father-in-law.” Instead, Carol Douglas hit his year-old baby, his wife, his mother-in-law and his sister-in-law.

Vigil

In Brooklyn, Joseph Shipulo, 53, a retired carriage maker, whispered to his parish priest, “I can’t wake my wife. She has been asleep for two weeks. In the morning I can’t wake her. When I come home she has not moved. When I get into bed she feels cold. I feel strange about it. Will you see what you can do?”

The priest went home with Joseph Shipulo, took one step through the door, inhaled and pulled Joseph back out the door. When the police came, they found Mrs. Shipulo two weeks dead. When finally Joseph understood that his wife was not asleep, he went raving mad, was taken to a hospital psychopathic ward. In the mattress on which he had lain beside his putrefying wife, police found $1,620 cash, two Liberty bonds, a bankbook showing $350 deposits and a dozen mortgages.

Hide-&-Seek

In Yonkers, N. Y., John Carpenter Jr., II, found a perfect place to hide from his 6-year-old sister in a game of hide-&-seek. In a vacant apartment across the hall he had found an abandoned icebox, removed the shelves and climbed in, slamming the door behind him. On the outside, the strong snap-lock fell into place. John was surrounded on six sides by unbroken zinc. Police of five states searched a day for him. Then John Carpenter Sr. found the grimy mark of a boy’s hand on the icebox door, his son’s suffocated body.

Honor

Near Miacatlan on a tour of Mexico with his fiancée, Ellen Mary Byron Gloor of Manhattan, Otto Kym came upon Miss Gloor struggling in the arms of their native chauffeur, Aloises Lopez. Kym focused his movie camera, shot the scene, turned Lopez and the film over to police.