DANGEROUS EFFECTS OF BAR-ROOM CLASSICS.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 414, 9 October 1875, Page 3

DANGEROUS EFFECTS OF BAR-ROOM CLASSICS.

Captain Thomas F. Baines connects a small library with his saloon establishment in San Francisco. A customer came in for a drink, and asked the barkeeper, Flood, for Homer's Iliad by way of literary lunch. Flood produced the Iliad, and the customer regaled himself upon its classical pages. When he was through with the book he left it on the counter and went away. Just then Captain Baines came in, and, seeing the great epic on the barroom counter, began to find fault with the bar tender for leaving his books lying round in that way. He told Flood to consider himself discharged then and there. Flood put on his coat and was walking out when Captain Baines received a shot which floored him in his own barroom Flood disappeared, and. could not be found by the police. The ball had entered Baines' back, and as it was dug out of his chest, on the left side, it was supposed to have gone through him. Further surgical investigation, however, disclosed the fact that the bullet had not penetrated the body above an inch. It had struck a lucky bone and ricocheted round without doing much damage. This was good news to Baines and his friends, for all regarded him as a dead man. It was also good news to Flood, for he came out of his concealment and went to the police office and gave himself up. He explains himself by saying that when he got his coat he found a pistol belonging to Baines in one of the pockets, and in taking it out to leave it on the counter with the Iliad it was accidentally discharged. He saw Baines fall, and then he very naturally ran and hid. Flood is, nevertheless, to be tried for assault with intent to murder, all on account of Baines' barroom classics.