In One Ear: Around town

Published 6:00 am Thursday, July 31, 2025

Morsels from The Daily Morning Astorian, July 31, 1888:

• The summer encampment on Sand Island is closing down, and after a few days more, the dwellers there will be few.

Note: Fishing companies would sometimes build net drying racks and makeshift buildings on the island, just east of Cape Disappointment, to house the fishermen during fishing season. 

• A New York man writes offering lessons in Volapük. 

Note: Britannica describes Volapük as an “artificial language constructed in 1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a German cleric, and intended for use as an international second language.” Esperanto, constructed in 1887 by L.L. Zamenhof, only a bit more successful, replaced Volapük.

• The poor old hat and coat scarecrow is to be relegated to the things of the past. A mechanical scarecrow has been invented … (it) represents a man of “sportsmanlike” appearance, standing with gun in hand ready to fire at the first intruder … and only requires to be wound up once a day.

Note: No, honestly, it’s not a joke. An 1888 ad for the newly-patented device confirms it: “Maund & Millichamp’s Self-Acting Field Clock Gun, intended for soaring birds, rabbits, foxes and vermin … .” 

• The Great English Remedy. Murray’s specific. A guaranteed cure for all nervous diseases, such as weak memory, loss of brain power, hysteria, headache, pain in the back, nervous prostration, wakefulness, universal lassitude, impotency and general loss of power of the generative organs, in either sex, caused by indiscretion or overexertion, and which ultimately lead to premature old age, insanity and consumption (tuberculosis). 

Note: The actual ingredients were not available, but this concoction was actually made by the Murray Medicine Co. in Kansas City, Missouri. It was likely a mixture of vegetable compounds mixed with alcohol and one or more of the following: morphine, opium and/or cocaine.

• In the police court yesterday Wm. Tydd forfeited $10 on a charge of obscene language.

Note: A fine of $10 is about $338 now. The police department would be arresting people all day, and collecting lots of fines (and perhaps even property taxes could go down), if this infraction were in effect nowadays.