Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

File this one under “Life’s random little oddities.”  The “Miller County Vidette,” May 6, 1875:

A correspondent of the Toledo Blade, writing from Hastings, Michigan, says:

About ten miles south of this place, a farmer, while driving some cows through a deep forest adjoining his fields, unexpectedly came upon an unusually large buck, stretched out upon the ground, and moaning away the last moments of its existence. The animal was evidently very old, and in a sadly emaciated condition, so the fact that the farmer immediately put a bullet through its head should rather be looked upon as an act of compassion than otherwise. Just as he was about to leave he observed a round lump upon the animal's side, which so attracted his attention that he stopped to examine it. Quickly discovering that close under the skin was deposited a round, hard body, he used his knife and brought to light a silver bullet, such as was used in olden times for the inclosure of secret dispatches.

He carried this curiosity to his house, where, after considerable trouble, he succeeded in opening it, and found to his great surprise that it contained a message written in cypher upon paper attenuated to a high degree. Otherwise than that the paper was slightly discolored, not sufficiently, however, to obliterate the characters. Neither the bullet nor what it inclosed bore any evidence of its late surroundings or of the strange vicissitudes through which it might previously have gone. Several men of science have carefully inspected this relic of the past, and are as much at loss to decipher the message as they are to satisfactorily explain when and how the bullet came to be lodged in the side of the buck.