Strange Times 180: An Embrace of Death
Strange Times 180: An Embrace of Death
Coming very soon: the biggest expansion in Deadball history.
Note: This issue was originally published as “June 29, 1921,” but the stories were drawn from June 30. The date below has been changed to reflect reality. Articles for June 29 will be found in issue 181.
Today we have an underindulged bear, an overindulged jury, and one of the worst droughts in European history. Choose spirits over water on…
June 30, 1921
On the verge of the hotly-anticipated Dempsey v. Carpentier bout, the Jersey City prosecutor hears a plea to stop the bout, but promises the contest will go on.
In Turkey, the Greek army abandons Constantinople, leaving a clear path to the capitol for the nationalists led by Mustapha Kemal.
War veterans invade a Detroit socialist conference, accusing the socialists of sedition and offering to fight them. The socialist chairman responds that, “If the Socialist party had been successful throughout the world there would have been no war.”
New figures show that since the start of Prohibition, burglars are burgling twelve times as often and embezzling is up over 400%.
The Weather: Partly cloudy today; Friday fair, not much change in temperature; moderate variable winds.
Be nice to your actors, folks, be they human or bear.
BERLIN, June 29.—In a Hamburg film studio yesterday what was intended to represent a mimic contest between a man and a bear developed into a real struggle. The animal got the better of his human antagonist, who was so seriously injured that his life is in danger.
For the event the producers had engaged a well-known professional wrestler, Fritz Marcussen, and trained the bear. The former had to climb a rope ladder pursued by the animal, escaping in the nick of the time. All went well until the wrestler was at the top of the ladder, when the bear overtook the actor and seized one of his legs in his jaws. A terrible struggle ensued. The wrestler, hanging to the topmost rung, tried in vain to shake off the bear by kicking with his free leg. The animal only clung firmer. After a couple of minutes the wrestler had to relinquish his hold and fell to the ground together with the bear.
Here the unequel struggle continued, the bear seizing the man with his forelegs in an embrace of death. The wrestler, a man of exceptionally fine physique, strained every muscle to escape the fierce grasp, but the bear hugged him even closer, until, under the mighty pressure, his blood vessels broke. Only then were attendants able to drag the bear from its victim.
An investigation of the circumstances proved the usually tame animal’s sudden fury had a dastardly origin. One of the persons responsible for the production of the film was dissatisfied at the previous rehearsals with the manner in which the bear fulfilled its role, having shown fear to climb the rope ladder in pursuit of the wrestler. Accordingly, he instructed the attendants to deprive the animal of food for twenty-four hours before the time appointed for filming the scene.
What if “Twelve Angry Men” were a party film?
CHICAGO, June 29.—It took a Lake County jury twenty hours to decide that Joseph Hoffman, proprietor of a Summer hotel at Fox Lake, was guilty of violating the prohibition law. At the end of that time they staggered forth, hair disheveled and collars awry, but their eyes a proud gleam which told that they had done their duty as they saw it.
“You have reached a verdict, gentlemen?” inquired Judge Persons.
“Yesh-hic-yer honor,” came the response.
It was then the court discovered that the evidence, consisting of three quarts of bonded whiskey and one quart of port wine, had dwindled down to one teaspoonful in the process of weighing the testimony.
“If there had been less evidence a verdict would have been reached more quickly,” observed Judge Persons sadly.
Drought is terrifying! Even if you don’t read this academic analysis of the 1921 European drought, you may be interested in the pictures.
PARIS, June 29.—Whether or not they are water drinkers by conviction, Americans who come to Paris this Summer should not indulge excessively in the brand which is at present being supplied to this city out of the household tap.
Beer, or even wine, it may be found, may be less dangerous, and broken principles may prevent a bout with fever.
So far the water has not, according to experts, become actively dangerous, but that it may do so if the drought continues is their constant fear.
In any case, it has become almost unapalatably hot and “chemicalized,” as a disinfectant has to be used now in most filter stations, owing to the need that has arisen of drawing on the Seine and Marne Rivers for supplies to make good other sources which are giving out.
Water from all available sources is only just sufficient for the city’s need, and if any accident or continued drought should occur, the shortage would at once become serious, in spite of all restrictions which are being enforced.
During the last two weeks Paris and many other parts of the country have been repeatedly tantalized by the appearance of rain clouds and the fall of a few drops of rain, but no beneficial rain has fallen for over six weeks, and the country, which was already parched at the end of the Winter, is now in almost a desert state.
The harvest, according to reports from the country, is already seriously endangered, and the task of keeping market produce and even cattle watered is adding immensely to the labor and expense of the farmers.
