All the news that fits

Thursday, 10 December 2009 00:00

December 10, 1872. Monkey business, Irish whisky, homeless children, exploding Russian guns, and a melancholy shooting accident were among all-the-news-that-fits in the St. Catherines, Ontario, Evening Journal.

When Mrs. Lydia Peach of Sheffield county, Nova Scotia, was absent from her home, a monkey owned by Mr. Thomas, a neighbouring innkeeper, ran up the spout by the side of Mrs. Peach's house and jumped in through an open window.

"A few minutes afterwards the monkey was seen before a looking glass, with a brush in one hand and a comb in the other. Then a crash of glass and crockery was heard and the blinds were pulled down." When Mrs. Peach returned, "she found ornaments and decanters smashed, and brandy and other spirits spilled." Mrs. Peach successfully sued Mr. Thomas for damages.

Samples of Irish whisky, the type "sold in low class public houses," were analysed in Belfast by Dr. Hodges. The content of one bottle was reportedly "heavily adulterated with naphtha, slightly coloured with genuine whisky." Another contained cayenne pepper, oil of vitriol, alcohol and sulphate of copper, but not a trace of whisky.

In New York, during "the recent severe nights," three small children were reported to have slept in a barrel, while mother and father lodged in an outhouse. They had been ejected "from their hardly more comfortable quarters for non-payment of rent."

After their new 11-inch steel guns "burst upon proof with ordinary battering charges," Russia decided that future trials would be conducted "with powder charges not exceeding one-tenth the weight of the projectile fired."

"A melancholy shooting case" was reported in Ontario's Adelaid Township. "Mr. Robert Feeler rose before daylight, and his son, hearing his footsteps, thought him a prowling robber, and fired a gun at him. The charge lodged in a vital part, and the unfortunate man is pronounced hopeless."