IRISH TIMES ODDITIES:A perusal of some old articles from The Irish Timesof the past, writes Allen Foster
SLEEPWALKER'S TRAGEDY
August 6th, 1941
Henry Seabrook (42), a demolition worker, of Pentonville, London, was a sleepwalker. He was found impaled on railings outside his home.
In hospital he told his wife, "I have been sleepwalking again and walked out of the top window." Accidental death was yesterday's inquest verdict. Seabrook's two children are sleepwalkers also.
FEMALE WARRIOR'S DEATH
November 6th, 1915
The death is announced of the Irish woman soldier, known as Albert F Cashier, whose real name was Hodgers, and who was a native of Clogerhead, Co Louth. She distinguished herself in the American Civil War, and passed as a man up to two years ago, when her sex was discovered in a hospital. Her relatives are being inquired for by John E Andrews, Superintendent Soldiers and Sailors' Home, Illinois, USA.
A BED OF NAILS
December 19th, 1968
Wearing only a pair of swimming trunks, Bernard McCabe, a 24-year-old Irishman, spent two hours 49 minutes yesterday lying on a thousand upright six-inch nails.
This time, he claimed, broke the world record, held, according to the Guinness Book of Records, by a Chinaman who spent nine minutes less on a bed of nails in New York earlier this year.
Last night Mr McCabe, a farmer, of Tullyboy, Co Cavan, said he was "still a bit stiff at the back".
But earlier yesterday, after his feat, performed in a north London public house, and after a cup of tea and a hot bath, he went to Hendon, Middlesex, and passed his driving test.
Mr McCabe, who weighs 9 stone 6 lbs, said he had lain on nails three or four times before. "I don't rub anything on my body. I just build myself up to it, but it does hurt a bit."
He took to his bed in the Admiral Nelson public house, Kilburn, London NW. As he lay there, customers contributed money to the Kilburn Old People's Christmas Fund. It was at this public house that another Irishman, Mike Meaney, was buried alive for 61 days earlier this year. Mr McCabe said after hearing about Mick Meaney he decided to come over to England and get in touch with the landlord, Mr Butty Sugrue.
DOG HAS HIS OWN CADILLAC
July 18th, 1963
A dog named Star has its own air-conditioned Cadillac, dines off silver and lives in a £128 kennel, a court was told in Tucson, Arizona, yesterday. Star is being supported by the £22,458 estate of the late Mrs Olivia Kuhlmann, who specified that "sufficient funds" should be spent on the dog until its death.
Recently Mr Martin Rogers, Mrs Kuhlmann's executor, took Star for a ride to the Grand Canyon in the Cadillac.
Mr Sol Rosenbloom, Mrs Mayme Mullen and Mrs William Walsh filed a suit yesterday to have Mr Rogers removed as executor, alleging that he had abused the discretion granted to him.
They are to receive what is left of the estate after Star's death.
COMPENSATION FOR A SERPENT BITE
February 26th, 1912
The Paris courts have been called upon to decide a curious point, as to whether a music hall management is responsible for a bite of a serpent received by an artiste while performing with snakes. At the Moulin Rouge Mdlle Rethore was bitten by a serpent in March last during her performance, and she has claimed an annual pension of £39 under the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1906. The court gave Mdlle Rethore her case, but appointed a doctor to determine the amount of damage done by the serpent's tooth.