Oldest Veteran in Southwest Section.
Probably the oldest, and surely the most noted Confederate veteran now living in the Southwest is Doctor Thomas E. Berry, of Oklahoma City, Okla., a typical “Kentucky colonel,” who is now eighty-three years old. He walks as straight as a young Indian, has never used intoxicating beverages or tobacco and has never suffered from fever or other sickness, and during his long and eventful career he has been soldier, globe trotter, author, duelist, physician, and surgeon.
In the Civil War he served with the Confederate generals, Morgan and Forest, was captured twelve times by the Yankees, and escaped that many times from their prisons. He received twenty-two bullet wounds and several saber cuts during the four years of fighting, and since the close of the war has fought six duels in foreign lands.
Doctor Berry served under Joe Shelby in Mexico and helped to organize the French army in Algeria. He rendered valuable service to King Menelik in Abyssinia and sojourned for a while in Constantinople, where, like many others, he swam across the Bosporus. He received several decorations from foreign rulers, but never wears them in this “land of the free.”
In a recent chat with a friend Doctor Berry said:
“My father and grandfather admonished me to never forgive or forget an insult; never offer the left cheek after having been slapped on my right cheek. They also requested me to always keep the Berry escutcheon untarnished; never be a craven nor a coward.”
The doctor comes from a wealthy family that owned large areas of land near Perryville, Ky., but the Civil War made them comparatively poor. The doctor wrote a book entitled “Four Years With Generals Forest and Morgan.” He is now writing a book about his foreign military service.
He has also made several valuable discoveries in materia medica and surgery while practicing medicine forty years. Some of them are very original and should not be allowed to perish with the doctor’s death.
Doctor Berry, though one of the best physicians and surgeons, quit practicing four years ago. He is an inveterate reader and has read 2,000 books. He also enjoys newspapers and magazines. It is needless to say that the doctor’s personal appearance and courteous manners denote him to be a gentleman and scholar. He belongs to no religious sect, but is what he terms a “practical Christian.” He will no doubt be as brave when Death calls him as he always has been during his long life. The doctor is optimistic, however, and says he will probably live to be a centenarian.
Some Facts You May Not Know.
The highest speed ever attained by man on the face of the earth is one mile in 25.2 seconds, equivalent to 142.85 miles an hour, according to the Railway Age Gazette. It was in an automobile run by Teddy Tetzlaff on the level salt beds at Salduro, Utah, 112 miles west of Salt Lake City. The best speed ever made on rails was with an electric car between Berlin and Zossen, Germany, 130.5 miles an hour.
Birds, in the construction of their nests, almost without exception avoid bright-colored materials, which might possibly lead to the discovery of their place of abode by an enemy.
Apple wood, used almost exclusively for saw handles, also furnishes the material for many so-called brierwood pipes.
On a peace footing the Portuguese army consists of 32,000 men. When fully mobilized, the army should have 105,000 first-line troops and 145,000 of the second to put into the field.
In Germany, one man in 213 goes to college; in Scotland, one in 520; in the United States, one in 2,000, and in England, one in 5,000.
Damage to American crops by insects yearly amounts to $580,000,000.
There are fewer suicides among miners than among any other class of workmen.
A booby is not merely a human dunce, but is a Bahama bird, which is so spiritless that when attacked by other birds it fails to fight and gives up the fish it has caught without resistance.
Drawings of human beings and animals in ancient caves in France are regarded as proof that man was right-handed as far back as in the stone age.