Newspaper Clipping of the Day

via NYPL Digital Gallery

A portrait of marital bliss from the "Hartford Herald," March 13, 1901:

Huntington, W. Va. March 7.--Berry Crowder, a well-to-do citizen of Hams branch in Boone county, is suffering greatly to-day from the effects of a whipping administered to him yesterday by his invalid wife, who he supposed was in the last stages of galloping consumption. Mrs. Crowder has been ill for some months with a lung infection. Her condition at times has been extremely critical. When her husband took a big load of produce to Charleston Saturday he took on the usual number of "high balls" while in the city, and while in a happy mood imagined that it would be a good plan to secure a coffin for his wife, whose death he expected at any time, and take it home, where it would be handy if his diagnosis of the case proved to be correct. His friends endeavored to induce him to abandon the idea, but a $40 coffin was stored in Crowder's wagon before he started home. When he reached there and the wife heard of his action, there was such a change in her condition that the entire neighborhood was attracted to the scene. The mild consumptive was suddenly transformed. Grasping a billet of wood, she felled her man with one blow and with an ax demolished the coffin. Crowder got more attention from her and the club she carried, and is said to be in a serious condition, while the woman is yet on the war path for a female who she claims the husband has been paying too much attention to and praying for her death.

So, gang, here's the moral of this story: It's usually not a good idea to get hammered and present your nearest and dearest with their own coffin.

You see the lessons you learn from reading this blog?