The Snake Asphyxiator

Feilding Star, Volume X, Issue 29, 18 August 1888, Page 4

The Snake Asphyxiator

Mr C. T. Buekland* writing about snakes" in Longman's Magazine, tells la funny story about the Duke of Argyllls device to rid' lndia of the Venomous reptiles. "When his Grace ■was/Secretary for India there came to him 1 the cunning^ inventor of 1 the '" asphyxiator," which when ; applied to a rabbit hole compelled the. rabbit either to bolt or be suffocated. The 'JDube thereupon ordered' twenty as--phyiiators to be ; sent to India in order thiat the snake might be treated even' as the rabbit had been. Mi 'Buckland was ordered^ make trial of the device. It comprised a '-'"aor-jb-of iire-boxin which a pestilently smelling paper was to be burnt." The turning, of; a wheel- sent, the smoke through a long nozzle which was to be inserted in the snakes hole. Mr Buukland, having manned the machine with a crew- of three men (one to stroke and turn the wheel, another to uirect the nozzle,: and the third to Stand-by with, a stick in case : the siiftkft elected to r bplt), set out one day tq make the tr.iat The sino&e was promptly injected into, a snal^e hole, ■when, out bolted a terrified, rat. The man with t'tick struck at it madly and broke the nozzle pipe, the man holding that fell back upon him that -workecUhe engine, and both collapsed »nd — .the rat escaped ! Parturiunt )nonto%y &c^ After a natjye had lighted lip his infernal machine to warm himself, and been, found well asphyxiated ■" the men,'*' as r ! Mr Buckland- naively puts it, "lost' confidence" in it and the official career of his Grace's asphyxiatbr in Bengal came, to an end. <)n the whole it was lucky that the men in charge of it never encountered -anything worse; that a rat. Clara Louise Kellogg, the American prims donna; has kept her promise. At the outset of her operatic. career she told 4M. interviewer. :" A girl who aims to become, truly, fire. at must make a covens ant with her eyes md not. look ,on a man, 1 ' because marriage is nearly always fatal to v songstress's ambition. And Clara - Jims so far acted on the advice thus given •that she was a stjrangep to the fender, pnssion till she was well nigh on to forty 'jrwH-k At A'lkhart (Ind,); tbe .other day, she quietly married JVlanrice Strakosli, her uiMn»Ker, and a nephew of the world- . fnn^d;iit\pr^«?arjo, M;aurice, who is ten jstLTs her jtinior, once saved her from, •drowninp'. The time may come when he will wish he hadn't. Life in Corsica seems to be quite. as dramatic in realitj as in fiction: Lately, *t Ajaccio.. the Revelry of a wedding '•danetf was broken in upon by the entry of 'two Kendarmes- The officers then and there ißrwfted one of the; young ladies, •who "with great pr. mptitude drew a reTolver/ and mnd.^ ready fqr s,elfitde. fence. A ball from a policeman's carbine, Jio,w» ■«rer, rendered the fair danseuse incap able either of waliziiig or pistol practice, while closer examination showed the fair -dannicl to be a noied bandit — one Camillo ' Nicolai ' in petticoat disgmse. It seems :a little hard that a gentleman should have to take hi* pleasures in feminine attire, but the fact speaks volumes for his xkiH and grace. What the emotions ,-of M- Nikolai's partners were on the discorerv i? not tol^ : probably Corsica is familiar with these little pretences, and wou4d doubtless find little novpltr in the pages of " Mr Barnes of JVew York'"