BINDING THE DROWNED.

Southland Times, Issue 1734, 29 April 1873, Page 3

BINDING THE DROWNED.

Casting bread upon the waters was mad« to mean more "tlian a. figure o£ speech, at Detroit, the other day. While a party was at work dragging the rapid current of the river for a drowned man, an observant Italian, David Bepito, modestly propounded a method for finding the whereabouts of the body. After incredulous expostulation on the part of the workmen, the Italian was obliged to try his plan unaided ; he calmly got a loaf of bread, and, placing a quantity of quicksilver carefully on 'one end, threw the novel buoy into the stream, while the draggers looked contemptuously on. He asserted, notwithstanding their sneers, that the bread thus charged would stop over the spot where the body lay. Th« current carried the loaf downward like lightning, until some distance from the shore and the spot where the men were at work dragging ; but suddenly, to the surprise of all, the loaf stopped in mid-current, and, spinning convulsively about — as vouched for by a number of spectators — absolutely stood still in the face of the current, finally dashing down stream. Sure enough, when the dragnets reached the spot, the body was grappled, and the despised Italian was regarded along the docks as a dealer in legerdemain. — American paper.