HORRIBLE DEATH OF A BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2625, 24 February 1894, Page 3

HORRIBLE DEATH OF A BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM.

Topeka, Kansas, December 2.—George Higgins, a Topeka travelling man, confirms the story briefly told in the press despatches of the death in Cherokee County of August Schrader and his wife, on their wedding night, by serpents' poison. Mr Higgins was one of a party of hunters, consisting, besides himself, of ex-Postmaster A. M. M'Pherson, exSheriff James C. Babbs, W. F. Sapp, and Stice, all of Galena, Kan. They were in camp on Shoal Creek, not far from the Indian Territory line, and within gunshot of the cabin occupied by Schrader and his bride, and early in the morning they participated in the festivities at the old man Schrader's house in honor of the marriage of his son. ' The cabin was less than one hundred yards from the father's, and had been newly built on the latter's farm especially for the young couple. It had only one room, and was built of rough logs, with a rough pine lumber floor and roof. A perpendicular wall of rock, forming pai.'t of a bluff, was utilised for one wall of the structure. Against this wall a fire-place of old-faßhioned kind was built, the chimney extending up its side and towering above the edge of the bluff. In this fireplace the fire was built which warmed the house ready for the reception of young Schrader and his bride after the festivities at th parental home. They retired to their new home at midnight, and the few guests who had gathered to celebrate the event departed. Hardly had the camping party retired to their tent when they were aroused by calls of help from oldmtn Schrader. They responded, and guided by cries, hastened to the cabin of tne young couple, where they found the two writhing in agony and the old man and hia wife standing over them and crying piteously. About the floor and on the low bed were seventeen snakes of various species, principally copperheads and rattlesnaks, Some of them had been killed and others chilled to insensibility. The huuters ran back to their tent for some whisky, which they tried to administer to the dying couple, but the remedy was too late, and the victims died before morning. Upon investigation it appears that the fireplace had been built in close proximity to a sort of cavern in the bluff, in which the snakes had hibernated. The fire had warmed the reptiles into life, and they were driven out into the cabin by the intense heat. Young Schrader was able before he died to explain that he and his bride had been aroused from their slumbers by the moanihg of a house dog sleeping at their feet, and which, too, was bitten to death. Following this, Schrader heard a hissing sound, aad leaping out of bed to ascertain the cause, his bare feet lighted upon the oold and writhing body of a serpent. Next he felt himself stung, and by the light of the dying embers in the fireplace he saw a number of reptiles crawling about the floor i<i the attitude of striking. He was stung again and again. His cries aroused his wife, and she, too, jumped from her bed, only to meet a like fate. Then they ran for the door and cried for help, and in a short time the old man Schrader appeared. In the meantime the open door had admitted the cold, and the reptiles became torpid and were easily despatched. On Saturday, two days after the tragedy, the young couple were buried in the Indian burying-ground on the banks of Spring River, in the Quapaw reservation, seven miles south of Shoal Creek, with all the solemnity of an Indian burial. This was because the bride was a half-breed Indian girl. Mr Higgins and his companions assissted at the funeral, and Mr McPherson read the Lutheran burial service, at the request of the Schrader family. The next day a dynamite shot was put in the cavern by a miner from the lead mines at Galena. Tho explosion tore out several yards of the bluff and exposed the serrpents' den, in which 109 snakes of alll varieties, from the harmless black snake to the copper-head and rattlesnake, were found. They were torpid from cold and were slaughtered.

Sly Gbog Selling—At Christohurch, Michael Houlahan was fined £ls and costs for sly grog selling'. Two constables, who were not known to Houlahan, entered his house, and stating that a liquor which resembled porter, which had been given them, was too heavy, asked for and got whiskey, which was paid for. A search next day resulted in vnly a little drop of whiskey being found.