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Show '-,w"-"- - """vWVVVHVVVV'VVVVV. VVVllVVTi-'V-l-.lllV-.VVWVl4VVWVVVl,iJ ,VVT,WVVVVVVVV,V'V-MiT.- T-- HAND OF FATE THROWS FREAKISH SAFEGUARDS AROUND HUMAN LIFE fl j. "ERV zealous clergyman was argu- mg with :i mnu who professed to J bcotl at ChribUauny. Trying to drive JOme the potency of the Bible, the clergy-Ban clergy-Ban cited uu instnncc of the civil war, I A whicn the lif.- of a drummer boy' ' ras saved i.y a bullet striking a Bible le carried id an inide pocket. His mother iaad given him the Bible when he left tor Jlc war. j "Well," said the scoffer, till uncon-MKnced, uncon-MKnced, "and why did she give him the 51blc to read, did she not'.'" 'Tes," said the clergyman, all nn-Aispectiog. nn-Aispectiog. 5l"Wcll," said the otler. "and if he had Jlleco reading it he would hae been killed ") Be that as iL may, there are many in- j Jtances in tbe annals of the struggle be-J ?een the North and the South where men rere ?aed from death by bullets striking hllooks or buttons or leather cases which' lgcrc in or on their clothing. Surgeons ell many stories of more recent shootings fhere leaden slugs have been turned aside' y bits of metal or paper less bulky than he 'Spectacle case and manuscript which' tood bet wee u Theodore Roosevelt audi jlmotit certain death when he was shot in gjfil waukee. & There is the case of Henry Pritchard, (tiho was taken to a hospital in New York I '"itj a few weeks ago I'ritehurd wns eat-' fAlg in a restaurant in Thirty-fourth street I iear I"ir.st umuiuc, when a man, who hasj lOt been arrested or even identified, fouud slice of apple pie he had ordered not I 'lite to his liking WThc owner of the restaurant said that fas the best pie he had, whereupou the Kgricved patron of the restaurant jWnashcd it over mine host's head. The jwtier dodged behind a counter, and his IWrslwIn!" 1. (.floiiier harked through the -sor. From the strccl he fired a revolTer JSk the owner. The shut missed him ana iwruck d spoon which Pritchard held in h hdinl half wj ,0 Ins mouth. The bul-b. bul-b. kr:o. k.-d the soon from Pritchard'a ringers with siuli violence that It cut .-jniciii. and th meiui a carried by the rath 11 lug and Battened against the Han's chest. He wore a heavy overcoat, Bid the result was that by the time the Hmoou and the overcoat had slowed the iBiil'ei down i; merely made deep flesh y wound, and Pritchard spent four days in the hospital. Had it not becu for the spoon he would have becu killed, tbe ut geons said W bile the contents ot a mau's pockets often save his life, there is at the same time a danger that they may make his case even more daugerous than it would otherwise be. A prominent surgeon tells of a man who was hot iu the left breast, the bullet passing through an old memorandum memo-randum book iu hit, upper vest pocket. "The leaves of the book undoubtedly stopped the lorce of the projectile," he Kald, ' and had it not been for them it would have pierced the victim's heart. , As it was, the slug was de lected end made a long flesh wouud But Iters .vji the danger Tbe leaves of the mamorao dum book were soiled and lomewhc;! greasy. When the bullet pierced them ll earned with it bits of the piper. Those, very line indeed, entered ibe wound lu a certain extent Now , the very fact of the foreign substance in the wound would have made trouble, but the soiled condition condi-tion of the paper inud It worse, 'We were obliged to keep the wound open and to cleanse it of all those almost Infinitesimal bits of paper. They were ditbcult to lind, and several line s ojdi , cations were threateued which showed that there was still some of the foreign substume present It was only aiur a loug, bard light thut wc saved the man u life from the very ageut which bad iu turn saved his life from the bullet." A eurgeou who served in the Union army in the civil war tells of a man whose lifej was saved by the leather eor ol hi cap, a marvellously flimsy affair to stand be-tween be-tween a man aud death. During the battle bat-tle of the Wilderness ibis Burgeon saxi a man who stoil near him cmmpli backward back-ward as though shut dead. He rau to his' jside aud a comrade helped him carrj th'-I th'-I inf. 1 ntryiuau to the rear, fur they fouud' ihis heart was beating, though there was a ghastly wouud iu bis bead Examination revealed a miraculous: stati ol affairs, Tbc bullet bad evidently been t rav elling in a direct line for the soldier's forehead. It struck the heavy 'leather vizor of bis cap at such an angle I that even so penetrable a substance, in-j j stead of being penetrated deflected the. 1 slug, which tik so freakish a course that it entered the skin just over the mans forehead, was iu turn deflected by the hull, travelled through the scalp, cut hug a furrow until it passed over the crown ot" his head, then sped on in its course. Many surgeons have said that this case was (be most freakish of which they had eer heard The man recovered, aud, thruimhout his life the strip of hair which' grew in after the course of the bullet had healed was snow white. Had It nut been I for the vizor of the cap the slug would have struck the skuil at nearly n right angle and would have entered the soldier's brain. Steel stays have saved many a woman's! life Not long ago Mary (ieneasj was taken to Bellevue Hospital with n flesh would in the side, ana Dr. Drury discovered discov-ered that Lad it not been for a steel stay which deflet ted the bullet tbe wound would I have been faial, for the slug had been travelling toward a vital organ. In the War Museum on Coxernors I I aud arc many relies picked up on battle-lields battle-lields who li show by how na,row a martin mar-tin men have missed death. There are several muskets which show that a bullet bul-let struck the muzzle, heau on A dehV. -lion f a fraction of an inch In any direction di-rection would have spelled death for the holder of thw musket if he was aiming it at the time of contact, which is probable from the manner in which the bullet Mnirk There are seeral pairt of bullets bul-lets which met in the air aud beeanie mashed into one leaden mass o tierce' wns the contact. There is r chance that, some life whs saved by this collision; Ambulance sargeons tell of many cases' w' ere a bullet bus struck a man - cigar.! ette case a glancing blow and net even rn' much as pierced the lining of the pocket ' iu which the i.ase was carried Tbeii there ws tbc case of Thomas Nolan, a machinist, who was accidentally shot dunn; a quarrel in New York between be-tween gangsters while he wai on his way home. Nolan had in his o ki t a castling cast-ling w hich he was taking home to bore out I to make a toy cannon for his little boy. A .stray bullet struck this castiug. which ns in the side- pocket of Nolau's coat, and so violent was the impact that it kiioekrd Nolan down. I'ersous in the street ran to him, thinking him seriously hurt. As a matter of fact, the casting had been banged against his side so bard that be was bruised and slightly cut. This hurl was dressed by an ambulance sur geon, Mr. Charles Nammack, and Nolan went home. William Kennedy, who was at oue time n policeman In New ! ork city, has a club, ib dded in which is a bullet which wjs I intended to uu him Kennedy wns it- ' inched to the Twenty first precinct io the Ulnys w lieu the old gas house gaug spread terror caU of First avenue between Fourteenth and Twenty-third streets-i One uight Kennedy wa attacked by three men armed with club. He fought them off for some time and managed to blow his whistle for help. He knocked one of 1 he men down aud considered him out of the fight, but Just as he was bringing his owu club down for a tremendous blow on the bead of oue of his assailants, there was a report, and Kennedy's club flew from his fingers, leaving h'-fl hand stinging sting-ing with paiu Then he wrenched nis revolver from bis pocket aud bred at oue of tbe nitu. At that moment help came in the form of two policemen, who had heard Kennedy's whistle Kennedy himself was only slightly bruited. He found his club a dorcn yarns irom wnere it naa neon I knocked from his hand. At nrst it seemed to be undamaged, but presently the astounded as-tounded policemen discovered that the bullet had struck the very end of the club sijuarely and had penetrated part way toward the handle. Kennedy said that at the instant it was struck from his fingers it was about perpendicular to his body and he believed jusf on a level with his chest. The bullet which found a berth in the totujg locust wood probablj wa.s travelling straight for his luugs Metal pencil shells, spectacle case, buttons, but-tons, any number of xucb trifles bate saved men from death, according to Burgeons, Bur-geons, while others who have guarded against danger in every conceivable manner man-ner have been killed by quite as miraculous miracu-lous incidents which have been fatal instead in-stead of felh i:ous |