Defendant

In Atlantic City, N. J., Joseph Snyder, two, found himself forgotten. To attract someone's attention he tossed pebbles, large ones little ones at the shiny car of Charles Nash. Soon, in this way, he attracted the attention of Charles Nash who caused him to be arrested and taken to court, charged with malicious mischief. Here, a positive cynosure, Joseph Snyder burbled and gurgitated when the Magistrate Delger demanded that the prisoner be produced. "Where is he?" said the court, "I do not see the defendant." When the defendant, a sticky looking wad held in the arms of Mrs. Snyder, became apparent, Magistrate Delger was shocked. "Take him away!" he murmured.

O'Flaherty

In Vienna, Austria, a fortnight ago, a policeman strode up to one Michael O'Flaherty, tourist, and informed him that because he had dropped a tram car ticket on the street he was liable to pay a fine of 8 1/2 schillings ($1.25) for "littering."

Mr. O'Flaherty, willing to comply with the customs of a strange land, gave the policeman 8% schillings, received a receipt, and then vented his feelings by throwing the receipt upon the pavement.

Scandalized, the policeman exacted for this "second offense" a fine of 17 schillings, plus 35 schillings more for "insulting the police."

Package

In Bremen, Germany, one Paul de Bay donned a burly green coat, shiny boots, a broad leather belt, a two-edged sabre. Anyone, thought Paul de Bay surveying himself before a mirror, would mistake him for a policeman. Smiling, he sauntered into the street.

Soon he saw Irene Baierele, carrying a payroll package from bank to office. With protective gallantry he said to her: "Bow your head and follow me in silence." Arriving at police headquarters they went together to a private room. Here, still gallant, Herr de Bay relieved Fraulein Baierele of her package and vanished, while she waited his return. Later he was discovered in a gambling club, disposing of Fraulein Baierele's package in dishonest fashion. Genuine policemen arrested him, took him to court, removed him, silent, his head bowed, to jail; where for five years he must remain.

Cannon, Woman

In Manhattan, the Underwood photography service issued a picture of a monstrous cannon tilted skyward, ejecting from its muzzle a human figure. The cannon .was real, the figure a German woman who, at Berlin, allowed herself to be shot from the cannon into a net 40 metres distant, without injury.

Leper God

In Koilikuntla, India, the soft padding paws of leprosy touched the face of a betel-nut dealer, name unknown. As he sat by himself, as he fingered the decayed horror of his nose and mouth, there arose in his mind a hideous obsession. At last he gathered some companions about him. Mumbling with loose, torn lips, he made his thoughts clear to them. "I," said he, "am God."

Thieves, beggars, lunatics, gutter-rats, detesting a deity whose magnificence had seemed an insult added to the injury of their creation, were not averse to a more probable image of their maker. Thus the mad leper sat in Koili-kuntla while thugs prowled about the streets to procure him food and apparel. After two of these thugs robbed and battered a citizen, the police arrested them. Then, kindled with the desire to assert his divinity, surrounded by his riff-raff apostles, the mad leper went last week to storm the jail. Bullets, he said, would fall from him as softly as flowers. Native nolicemen lifted their rifles, pumped bullets toward him, killed seven devotees, then the leper-god himself. His other disciples, astonished, stared, furious at the death of an-immortal.

Dancer

In Manhattan, stenographers in the heights of the Trinity Building (21 stories) said one to another: "Huh, he acts crazy. Maybe he's a ghost, I betcha."

Soon the superintendent of the Trinity Building discovered Joseph Fodor, workman, dressed in a blue suit, jumping lippety-lip along the parapets that border the roof. Informed that his daring high kicks, his cool pirouettes, his shocking splits excited the office workers, Joseph Fodor stopped and made this statement: "It was great sport dancing on the edge of things. There can be nothing like it unless it is flying. I should like to fly some time. But I shall dance no more, at least not here."

Plasters

. . . And over her kidney Was a bird's-eye view of Sidney.

--OLD SONG

In Chicago, one William Glauber and one Frederick Knauff, friends for years, gave each other black eyes. Reason: Mr. Knauff had a cold. Mr. Glauber, promising a cure, stuck large porous plasters on Mr. Knauff's chest, back, abdomen. Mr. Knauff got well. Then Mr. Glauber peeled off the plasters, peeling off also Mr. Knauff's means of livelihood in a circus, to wit, a tattooed portrait of Abraham Lincoln (chest); assorted tattooed landscapes, ships, anchors, Uncle Sams (abdomen); nude females, South Sea Islanders, palms, boats (back).

Glasses

In Asta, Italy, one Giovanni Noverre made a wager. He then drank a glass of water, another five glasses,* another 14 glasses, another 23 glasses, then very slowly nine more, then seven more taken in gulps and sips; finally he raised the 60th glass poured it drop by drop down his gullet. After this glass, his wager won, Giovanni Noverre fell down and died.

* Roughly, the outside limit of a healthy person's capacity.