Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Edward Nelson, 11, was standing astride his bicycle when a “maddened bulldog” broke through a garage window, bounded toward the boy and seized his leg.

The dog would not release his grip. The boy screamed, and Mrs. O.S. Morris rushed out of her house and tugged on the collar of the dog. She was “of good physique, yet she found her strength puny” compared to that of the dog. She grabbed a rock and started bashing the dog’s head.

Then Hayden Bridwell, 19, raced to the scene and was able to pry the dog off of the boy, but the dog slipped out of its collar and attacked Bridwell. The dog attached itself to Bridwell’s arm, and he swung it “against the curb with force.” The dog refused to let go.

Finally, two men appeared and pounded the dog with rocks until it was stunned. An officer arrived on the scene and shot the dog.

Nelson and Bridwell’s wounds were bloody, but not believed to be serious.

From the divorce beat: Mae Smith told the court that her husband was a habitual drunkard who had once “jumped headfirst into a barrel of flour and immersed his head and shoulders.”

He was also once so drunk that he fell asleep in a bath tub, which he thought was a bed.

She said Herbert Smith even got drunk before their own wedding ceremony and had to use “breath perfume” (breath freshener) to mask it.