Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

When you start to explore old newspapers, you quickly learn that back in the day, editors had a passionate love for stories involving live snakes or lizards emerging from people’s stomachs.  If these accounts are to be believed, our ancestors swallowed reptiles the way we swallow the morning coffee.  However, I dare anyone to top the story that appeared in the “Wayne County Herald,” August 18, 1864.  It is a reprint from the (St. John’s, New Brunswick) “Telegraph”:

A farmer in this county, James Mulock, of the flat lands has been some three years confined to his bed, through weakness produced from emaciation; the cause of his sickness was unknown, and the symptoms bore no resemblance to any other disease that has appeared in this community. All the doctors have prescribed for him, and all with the same result — complete failure. A few weeks ago, however, a gipsey woman, who has been telling fortunes for some time past, offered to cure him for $100, the sum to be placed in the hands of Mr. Ferguson, who was to be the judge of the cure; Mulock was to put himself completely in her hands, and leave his home for one week. He did so although his wife demurred to the arrangement, and tried to persuade him from it; he however persisted, and went with her, accompanied by his younger brother Charles, and now we may as well take the story of the latter:— 

“We went with her to her camp; immediately after entering we had some bread and ham; Jim and I both eating heartily. After dinner the gipsey said she wished to speak with me alone. I went into the woods back from the camp, when she at once asked me if I was willing that Jim should be hand-cuffed and his feet bound, and to submit altogether to her. I said I was not. Then, said she, it’s no use wasting words about the matter; if you don’t do so he’ll never be cured. I asked her to explain herself; she said she would not. I at last consented thinking to myself there can be nothing wrong while I am here. 

“At tea we had some salt pork fried, and some good bread. Next morning on waking, after a very watchful night, for I never closed my eyes, I found Jim completely tied up. He seemed rather put out, but the gipsey told him at once that she had done so, because he had to suffer a good deal of pain before being cured. I assented to this. He said he was willing to go through with it since he had begun. 

“We had breakfast, salt pork and bread. I fed Jim, and we laughed at the farce, as we considered it, not having faith in her. After breakfast I talked with the gipsey, and asked her what she meant; I told her I was no child, and must either know her plans or I would unloose Jim and go home again. She then told me she knew that Jim had some living reptile in him, and the only way to cure him was to feed him with salt food for a day or two, and then to stop him from drinking altogether, when the animal would come out to seek water. She said she had cured others, but I must expect to see him suffer awful pain and torture when his drink was completely stopped, but it would only be for 24 or 30 hours. 

“I went to Jim, told him all, and asked him if he was willing to undergo it. Says he, ‘Charley, that woman has it; I’ll stand it.’ 

“Well, that day passed, salt pork and bread, and to Jim a very limited supply of water; the next day the same, till after dinner, when the water was altogether stopped. Now commenced the work. He begged and prayed for water, he howled till he was hoarse; the woman then gave him a drink of what I considered water, but which she told me afterwards was salt pork fat, melted; he drank it in a few mouthfuls, and in a few minutes more he was worse than ever. He begged me to shoot him, to drown him, to do anything with him, only not leave him in that state. 

“Towards evening he became quite out of his mind; water and springs was all he raved about. He lay that way for some time, almost until morning, when he got into a high fever. I got alarmed, and told the gipsey I thought it had gone far enough, that Jim was too weak to stand it. She told me I could do as I liked, but if I would leave him two hours longer I would see whether she or the doctors were right. She likewise told him that if he was loosed, he would kill himself drinking at the first water he came to. 

“In about an hour after, she asked me to drag him to the spring, a few rods away from the camp. We got him inside it. She laid his head with his lips almost touching the water; she took up a birth pannikin and commenced lifting up water and letting it fall just before his lips. He was all this time as quiet as if he was dead; sometimes he gave a slight shiver; his mouth was wide open, and his eyelids opened and shut, the white of the eyes only being seen. 

“After about ten minutes she said to me, ‘Now who’s right? but keep quiet.’ I leaned over, and saw a large green lizard peeping out of his mouth; it did not seem as if it wanted to come out, but drew itself in again. ‘It will come out again,’ says the gipsey. While she was speaking two lizards glided out of his mouth into the water; the gipsey quietly killed one with a small stick, and I killed the other. We waited again for five minutes, when three came out, but not together. These we killed, although one almost escaped from the water to his mouth ere it was completely dispatched. We then waited nearly an hour longer, but no more made their appearance. 

“The gipsey then said, ‘There is no more,’ and proceeded to pour water on Jim’s forehead. She did so twenty minutes; she then gave him about a teaspoonful of water to drink; it actually hissed in his mouth. She kept him confined that day and half the next before she let him free, gradually increasing his allowance of water.” 

Such is the story told by Mr. Charles Mulock, and although I am not personally acquainted with the gentleman, I am told that he is one of the last men in the country to tell a wilful untruth. One fact, however, is clear — his brother has completely recovered his health, and not only his health, but his flesh, and now weighs 160 lbs., his former weight being only 73 lbs. This difference has been added in less than nine weeks. 

The lizards are of a bottle-green colour, about 5 inches long, red eyes and forked tongues. 

There is a peculiarity about them different from the rest of the lizard tribe, their being only two feet, and sloping from thence in a wedge shape into a tail. Two of them have been preserved in spirits and forwarded to Prof. Agassiz, of Harvard University. One is preserved in spirits and kept in Mr. Ferguson’s office.