 |
| 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.
Interesting. Maybe someone came across the bullet years ago and figured it was just a useful bullet, to be used for hunting, etc. But three other things struck me about the story. One, people used silver bullets to hide secret messages? Two, another story in which people go about random chores carrying firearms, and three, the poor old deer - though he made through probably a long life avoiding predators and fatal accidents. No one can avoid old age, though, the poor fellow.
ReplyDeleteDuring the Civil War, hollow lead bullets were used to carry secret "micro-messages" written in code, so that part didn't really surprise me. How one came to be used to shoot that poor deer is a puzzler, though.
DeleteBut the hollow lead bullets weren’t ordinarily fired though, were they?
DeleteMy understanding is that the hollow lead bullets were simply somewhere to hide a secret message and that the “hollow bullet” would be mixed in with some normal lead bullets as part of the spy’s belongings, in the hope that anyone who stopped the spy probably wouldn’t inspect every single thing he/she carried. I would expect any hollow bullet that was fired would likely explode/shatter once it hit a solid target. The story doesn’t ring true to me - no specific names, location etc.
And we’ll never know what the coded message said! Oh my...
ReplyDelete