much larp 



Jhis city, has beeu awarded by 

 'he publication of the uncalled for let- 

 1 Office for 1856. 



FIRST EDITION. 



SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 17, 1856. 



A Snake Story A Live Snake in a Live Man. 



A gentleman, whose name we did not learn, ar^ 

 rived in this city from Bird's Hill, on Monday lafct^ 

 for the purpose of procuring surgical advice in 

 relation to the possibility of removing from the 

 stomach a large snake, which has inhabited that | 

 locality for the past fifteen years. Exactly at what 

 time the reptile was taken into the stomach, the 

 sufferer is not aware. He first felt its presence in 

 the vicinity of the kidneys many years ago ; but 

 the pains experienced, although sometimes acute 

 and trontblesonie, occasioned no alarm until about 

 two years since, when one day feeling quite unwell^ 

 c he placed his hands upon his bowels and distinctly 

 felt the snake crawling within him. Since then it 

 iias grown enormously, acd has attained a length 

 T f at least fifteen inches, and a size around the raid- 

 lie of five or six inches. It. proportions caa be 

 pretty accurately ascertained, as its entire shape is 

 I fearfully obvious to the touch. It is quite active f 

 and possesses an insatiable appetite, judging from 

 the amount of food and water consumed by the 

 sufferer, who is continually parched with thirst* 

 and not unfrequently requires from three to four 

 gallons of fluid daily. Through the recommenoa 

 tion of an Indian he has lately found considerable 

 relief from his incessant thirst by drinking water 

 liberally diffused with vinegar. 



He has made several ineffectual attempts to 

 dislodge the "varmint" by starvation and the free 

 use of stimulants. On one occasion he abstained 

 from both food and water for three days, in the 

 hope of bringing the occupant to some sort of terms. 

 The first day, the snake became uneasy, the second 

 boisterous, and the third furious, but still the man 

 held out. At the end of the third day, however, 

 his snakeship commenced an attack upon the walla 

 of his prison, with what appeared to be a tolera- 

 bly full set of teeth, and the result was an imme- 

 diate supply of food more agreeable to both parties. 

 As may be supposed, the man is reduced to a per- 

 fect skeleton under the extreme torture of mind 

 ,nd body preying upon him night and day, but he 



oea not despair of finding a surgeon in the city 



fficiently skillful to make an incision in the ab- 

 domen and remove the reptile. We have read of 

 similar cases, but this is the first that ever came 

 under our own observation and we hope it may 

 be the last, for we have felt "all-overish" ever 

 since. 



East Indian Jugglery. 



Madame Pfeiffer, in her " Second Journey Round 

 the World," gives the following description of cer- 

 tain unexplainable (eats of jugglery witnessed by 

 her whilst she was sojourning in the East Indies : 

 ' At the close of the entertainment, the perform- 

 ance of Hercules wa really curious in its way. 

 He appeared with nothing on but a pan: of draw- 

 ers, and a cord was passed around his neck, and 

 with this his hands and arras were so firmly tied 

 behind him that he could not make the smallest 

 movement. He came to us to have the knots 

 : examined, and then he crept under a high covered 

 basket, beneath which various garments were 

 placed ; and after the -lapse of a few minutes the 

 basket was lifted up, and the Hercules made his 

 appearance completely clothed in them. Then he 

 crept again under the basket, and came out with- 

 out them, but holding the cord with all its knots 

 fast in his hands, and so forth. All this would, of 

 course, have been nothing in a theatre, where 

 assistance might have been given him, but this 

 was in a meadow, where no assistance was possible. 

 One of the gentlemen present offered him twenty- 

 five rupees for his mystery, but he declined t^ 

 offer." ,* 



THE CASHMERE GOATITS INTRODUCTION INTO 

 AMERICA. It is not, as yet, generally known 

 that the Thibet goat, from whose wool the famoug 

 Cashmere shawls are made, has been introduced 

 successfully into the United States. This enter- 

 prising undertaking was achieved a few years 

 since, after many difficulties, by Dr. J. B Davlg 

 of Columbia, S. C., at that time employ* d by the 

 Ottoman Porte in experimenting on the growth 

 of cotton in the Sultan's dominions. Dr. Davis 

 succeeded, at vast expense, in securing eleven of 

 the pure breed, which, on his way home, he ex- 

 hibited in London and Paris. Since that period 

 the goat has been introduced from South Caro- 

 lina to Tennessee, where it is said to thrive. The 

 value of a flock may be estimated from the faofc 

 that no real Thibet goat has ever been sold for 

 less than a thousand dollars. This enormoui 

 price, moreover, is not a speculative one, for no 

 fleeced animal has wool of such fineness, softness 

 and durability. The wool of all the Thibet goat* 

 in Tennessee, for example, has been engaged at 

 New York, this year, at eight dollars and a half 

 a pound, the purchasers designing to send it to 

 Paisley, in Scotland, in order to be manufactured 

 into shawls. Exchange. 



THE VEGETABLE SERPENT. A new organization 

 of nature, being pronounced by naturalists the con- 

 necting link between animal and vegetable life, has 

 been found in the interior of Africa, in the form of 

 a serpent with a flower for head. This singular 

 freak of nature is spotted in the body, drags itself 

 along, and the flower forming its head is bell-shaped, 

 and contains a viscid fluid. Flies and other in 

 sects, attracted by the smell of the juice, enter into 

 the flower, where they are caught by the adhesive 

 matter. The flower then clooses, and remains shut 

 until the prisoners are bruised and transformed into 

 chyle. The indigestible portion, such as the head 

 and wings, are thrown out by aspiral openings 

 The vegetable serpent has a skin resembling leaves, 

 a white and soft flesh, and instead of a bony skele- 

 ton a cartilaginous frame, tilled with yellow mar- 

 row. The natives consider it a delicious food. 



I ; . 



