Yesteryear
100 years ago
The boatmen of Fair Haven are preparing for the oyster season. Several boatmen of that place make regular trips every fall to Raritan river and Newark bay for seed oysters, which are planted in the Shrewsbury river. The boatmen are now overhauling their boats, getting rigging in order and making preparations for the fall business. The work of shipping the seed oysters begins in September.
Probably very few persons who frequently use the expression "As mad as a hatter" have any idea as to what it means or why a hatter is necessarily any more subject to fits of anger than a plumber, a blacksmith or a carpenter. The expression is said to have come into use half a century ago, when the manufacture of hats was done wholly by hand. The most striking thing about the process was that of the beating up of the felt. The hatter first dipped the mass of wool and hair frequently into hot water; then, seizing a stick in each hand, he belabored the mass most vigorously, stopping now and then to get his breath, until the material was matted together in a rough sort of felt. The lively beating administered to the felt, as if the workman were actually insane, gave rise to the familiar simile.
The smallpox patients who have been in the Red Bank hospital will be discharged today. Tomorrow, the hospital will be fumigated and disinfected, the place will be set to rights and the hospital closed.
75 years ago
A full grown leopard from India broke loose from a cage at Oliver Holton’s Twin Brook zoo near Middletown Village last Thursday afternoon. No one saw the leopard escape. In some manner it worked loose two of the bars of its cage and got out of the opening thus made. A person unfamiliar with the ability of a leopard to squeeze itself through a small space would find it hard to believe that the animal got out of the cage through this hole.
The leopard was sent to Middletown from Bartell’s wild animal place at New York. It had arrived at New York from Singapore, India, several weeks previously. The report published in a number of papers that this leopard injured its keeper before it was shipped to Middletown is absolutely false, Mr. Holton states.
The leopard arrived at the Middletown Village railroad station only a short time before it made its escape. H. Otto Weigand, the station agent, got a good look at the animal before it was taken away. The leopard is about four feet long and two and a half feet high. It is covered with spots and it weighs about ninety pounds.
It’s not only the homeless and roving dogs which are dangerous. Many high priced dogs with fancy collars on their necks, whose owners allow them to run at large, are every bit as dangerous as the homeless curs that are all too common throughout the state. The fact that the dogs are registered and wear a fancy collar does not render them any less dangerous. The other day a Red Bank resident had to defend himself on his own property from a full grown police dog which rushed into his back yard and attacked him. The dog wore a collar and was apparently well kept. It was only by vigorously using an ax and a club that this resident was able to defend himself and to eventually drive the dog away.
Albert Maxson of Port Monmouth last Saturday made a haul of 25 bushels of weakfish, besides other fish. This is the best catch of food fish made in Raritan Bay in some time.