After living in darkness twenty-five years, a two-minute operation by Doctor Vard H. Hulen, of San Francisco, enabled Miss Tomsina Carlyle, a University of California student, to gaze for the first time upon her mother’s face.
Miss Carlyle describes her sensations since regaining sight as being difficult to define or classify.
“Being blind since birth,” Miss Carlyle said, “has taught me it is the brain, not the sense of sight, that counts. The speed of moving objects, particularly on the streets, staggered me for a time, and if I become frightened at a street corner, I close my eyes and walk forward rejoicingly in safety.”
Cost of Hanging Man Was Seventeen Dollars.
The first record of warrants ever used by a treasurer of Rush County, Ind., covering the period from 1822 to 1841, was found in the treasurer’s office recently. The record showed that it cost the county only seventeen dollars to hang Edward L. Swanson, the only man who ever paid the death penalty in Rush County.
He was convicted of the murder of Elisha Clark in April, 1829, and, after a motion for a new trial failed, was hanged in May of the same year. The warrants[Pg 61] issued show that five dollars was allowed Beverly R. Ward for making a coffin for Swanson, two dollar was allowed David Looney for digging the grave, and ten dollars was paid William L. Bupelt for “rope, cap, shroud, and gallows for the execution of Edward L. Swanson.”
Twins, Eighty-six, Rocked in Cradle.
Mrs. J. C. Barrett, of Edmonston, N. Y., and Mrs. Nathan V. Brand, of Leonardsville, N. Y., who claim the distinction of being the oldest twins in the State, celebrated their eighty-sixth birthday with some unusual features. The cradle in which they slept as children has been preserved, and the invited guests insisted that the twins be rocked in it in the presence of all, and this was done, adding more merriment to the occasion.
Facts You May Not Know.
There are eighty thousand exhibitors at the Pacific Exposition, and the weight of the exhibits averages one ton each.