Miscellany, Jan. 14, 1935

Court Scene

In San Francisco, Calif., Nazzareno Tinti was sentenced to life imprisonment after confessing to the murder of John Pavia. At trial’s end Widow Pavia rose from counsel’s table to find herself face-to-face with Wife Tinti. ”An eye for an eye,” screamed the widow, “a tooth for a tooth.” Then abruptly she slumped, sobbing, into the other’s arms. ‘I am sorry. I am sorry.” moaned the wife. Closely embraced, widow and wife wept together.

Liars

In Chicago, President O. C. Hulett of the Burlington (Wis.) Liars’ Club announced that the diamond-studded gold medal for the best lie of the year had been awarded to Vern L. Osborn of Centralia, Wash. Vern L. Osborn’s lie: ‘ was hunting one day with a mule that I had trained especially for trailing jack rabbits. The chase led to a thousand-foot precipice. The rabbit was going so fast it plunged over the brink.

“My mule was so well-trained that he followed right after it, with me aboard. I was nonplussed, for the nonce, but when we were within ten feet of the bottom I recovered my wits.

” ‘Whoa, there!’ I shouted.

“The mule was so darned well-trained he stopped dead in his tracks. I got off, dropped gently the remaining few feet.”

Other samples from the 5,234 entries:

Alidor R. Allemarsch of Sylvania, Sask., said he had made a fortune during the dry season by buying dried wells and cutting them into post holes, which sold like hot cakes. Pastures were so dry about Chippewa Falls, Wis., Guy R. Jewett said, that cows gave powdered milk. From Denver, 1933 Champion Philip McCary complained of the badge: “It isn’t gold; it’s brass. It isn’t a diamond it’s a hunk of glass.”