Monday, September 30, 1912

Two men claim to have seen a biplane fly over Urbana at ten o’clock this morning! “There is considerable speculation over the event as coming of the stranger of the air was not heralded.”

The sorority rushing season closed on Saturday “amid bedlam on John street. A burlesque band of students paraded in derision, while whirling autos driven by co-eds, carried pledges from their rooms to the sorority houses. There was plenty of excitement for two hours.”

John Philip Sousa, who will be here on Thursday, loves trap shooting. “Although he is an excellent shot, it is said he misses clay pigeons oftener than he allows a member of his band to play a false note.”

On Friday and Saturday at the state fair, Madame Somebody-or-Other from Cuba will drive her automobile down a 75-foot incline and turn a triple somersault! (I cannot make out her actual name, because there is a spot of jam over it. Strawberry, I believe.)

Illinois Socialists filed their list of presidential electors and University of Illinois trustees with the secretary of state; all of the trustee candidates are women of Chicago. And finally, the champion corn husker of Illinois sued another man for $20,000, charging “alienation of his wife’s affections.”

Saturday, September 7, 1912

Good news! The doctors say that Bud Mars will recover!

The daughter of a wealthy Illinois farmer went insane from the heat and “blew her head off with a shotgun” near Aurora. I don’t suppose there’s any recovery possible from something like that.

There is a cursed house near St. Joseph, Missouri, that was built upon the unmarked grave of a murdered gypsy. During its twelve years in existence, eight people have died of violence. Each new tenant has been visited with illness and ill fortune, and the crops have failed while those on neighboring farms prospered.

Here is an example of wit: “Why are we so late?” asked the passenger, whose question is reported to the Boston Transcript. “Well, sir,” replied the conductor, “the train in front was behind, and the train was behind before, besides.”

And finally, “Joliet is suffering from the most serious ice famine in years and if the hot weather continues the suffering here will be acute. In order to keep their large customers, the companies are supplying only meat markets, saloons, hotels and restaurants. Private residences have been without ice since last week and hundreds of dollars’ worth of meat and dairy products have been spoiled.”

 

Friday, September 6, 1912

Apparently our Urbana aldermen are not so good at baseball as they said. They lost 23 to 9 to Champaign.

BUD MARS THE AVIATOR IS BADLY INJURED—terrible news! He was just here for the county fair, but some horrid fence in New York has got the best of him.

Suffragettes were thrown out of the Welsh Eisteddfod for interrupting Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd George, and then a mob outside beat them severely and nearly stripped off all their clothing before the women were rescued by police. “The police inside the hall were compelled to handle the women rather roughly in driving them from the building, and one suffragette was slightly injured. None was arrested.”

The Walker opera house will open its vaudeville season Monday night. The opening bill consists of the Marimba band; Harry Thompson, “a clever comedian and fun maker”; Wolf and Zadella, two old favorites; and Miss LaBelle Clark, with her wonderfully trained dancing horse. “The General Films company of Chicago will furnish the motion pictures this year, this fact alone assures us that the pictures will be the best.” I should very much like to see a dancing horse.