ODDEST IMAGINABLE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 514, 24 April 1933, Page 7

ODDEST IMAGINABLE

MAN'S BREATH BLOWS MINE UP AND KILLS HIM. SLAIN BY MUSIC-BOX. The report of queer aceidents of 1931, presented in an American newspaper, included three that were among the oddest imaginable. A man was friightened to death by an explosion in a mine, although he did not receive a scratch. Another man drank gaisoline, touch'ed a match to his breath, blew up and was killed. ■ A oareless person left in a London taxieab one of the most valuable objects in the world, the famous South African fossil of an ancient man-ape discovered by Professor Raymond Dart. Still odder is the fact . that every onei of these three queer happ'mings in 1931 was matehed almost exactly in 1932, as though' there really were some kinds of rule by which the history of oddities repeats. itself." Drank Raw Alcohol. Miss Elsie Cobh, a young nurse in a New Yorlc State hospital, happened to be in an automobile accident but was nnhurt. Nevertheless the sh'ock frightened her to death. In Philadelphia a young man at a party drank raw lalcohol on a bet, much as the previous year's victim dranlc gasoline. Th'e raw alcohol made tho drinlcer choke and cough. Someone tossed a match, the alcohol exploded, and the victim was seriously injured. Finally, another careless Londoner was transporting in a taxi-cab from one museum to another wliat is regarded | as one of the rarest of historcal docu- j ments, an I.O.U. given years ago by | King Chaxles II- Likq 1931's custodian of the fossil, the person in charge j of this irreplaceable document forgot it altogether and left it iri the taxicab. Two years aigo the queer accident | record contained a real example of I the proverbial exploit of setting the j Thames on fire. A young man to'ssed a match into a lot of gasoline which had been spilled accidentally on that river. This promptly blazed up for a few minutes, much to everybody's alarm and with some danger to boats which happened to be too clcse. Last year Morocco r2corded a simiiar incident; a street tha.t caught firc from the sun's heat one day in May. Some bits of broken glass lying on the wood-block pavement focusscd the solar heat, touehed off the wood, and fronts of houses nearby were damaged by the hlazing street before fire'men could arrive to put it out. Shot by Music-hox. The accident record of 1932 eontains one happening still odder than any recorded for several years. A young man in Viehna was shot and killed by an ordinary music-hox, like those which were so popular before the day of the phonognaph. The young man was something of an amateur mechanic. Somehow he hecame possessed of the ancient music-hox, unused for years. As might he expected, age and rust stuck the mechanism so that it would not operate. / Endeavouring to fix this, the young mechanic 'loosened some screws and levers, with the result that the long-tight spring unwound suddenly and violently, as a cloclc spring is likely to do when an amateur clock repairer tinkers with it. Instantly observers nearby saw the young Yiennese islump to the floor. When iaid reached him he was, dead, although not even the slightest wound could he found on his hody. At first police ofhcers and members of the family investigating the death were inclined to ascribe this to heart failure, brought on by the sudden mental shock of the explosion of the spring, One police official, however, was not satisfied and insisted on the examination of the body by X-ray. Thei real cause of death was then disclosed. A tiny sliver of metal had been torn off one of the cog wheels by the exp-losive unwinding of the ispring. This had been shot through the young mechanic's clothing. and directly into his heart, leaving only the tiniest, hloodless hole in the skin. Even the tiny' wound probably was not enough to have caused death directly. The sh'ock | of the sudden injury, however, seems j to have stopped the heart beats and t caused the fatality. j