August 23 Monday – “Uncriminal Victims,” attributed to Sam, ran in the Buffalo Express [McCullough 18].

From the Buffalo Express “People and Things Columns” by Mark Twain:

·       Children in Iowa bite rattlesnakes in order to prevent toothache. Probably the cure would be more permanent if the rattlesnakes bit the children.

·       Mourning relatives visited the grave of a friend in Des Moines to find it a burrow of gophers. The mourners went for him, but instinct had suggested to those other creatures to gopher him previously.

·       Mr. Eddes, an octogenarian, residing in Dover, Me., never saw but two steamboats—Fulton’s original and a small one on Sebec lake. He has not been in Bangor, his nearest city, in thirty-eight years. His mind is said to be richly stored with lack of information [Reigstad 241-2].