© 1998 David Minor / Eagles Byte


While I was poking around at the Grainger Homestead antique show last month, I heard someone call my name. I looked around. It turned out to be the New York Tribune for June 27th, 1902, looking rather tattered but anxious to talk. It asked me what was happening in 1998. Thinking about nuclear proliferation in Asia and special prosecutors, I told it, "You don't want to know." Then I, in turn, asked what was new with it. I got such an earful that I brought it home to tell me more. Here are the highlights.

England was beginning to relax again. King Edward VII had suffered an attack of acute appendicitis at a military review three days earlier. The Royal Physician Sir Frederick Treves was summoned to Buckingham and, as the king began flailing around and turning black in the face, Treves suddenly hesitated, not wanting to remove his coat in the presence of Queen Alexandra. Just wasn't done, you know. The Queen wondered about the hesitation for a moment, then the penny dropped, as they say, and she left the room. Sir Frederick went to work. The Trib reported that the king was recovering nicely, was now sitting up, eating solid food and having a cigar, and that the delayed coronation would probably be rescheduled for a date in the near future.

Back in the U. S. the House of Representatives had just approved a Senate bill calling for the purchase of the Panama Canal Company from the French for $40,000,000 and for the construction of a canal across the Isthmus. After a to-do about some missing documents was resolved, President Roosevelt would willingly find the prospect to be "Bully!" and the construction of the current canal would begin.

New York City went about its regular business. The John A. Roebling's Sons Company prepared to string the last wire of the four cables for the new Williamsburgh Bridge over the East River. Hammerstein's Paradise Roof Gardens advertised 20 Vaudeville Celebrities, presented in the shelter of a glass enclosure. If you had mail for Europe you had until 7 AM tomorrow to get it down to the Cunard Lines' steamship Umbria, scheduled to depart at 11 AM.

The New York Police Department saw a bit of unexpected action yesterday when 24 year-old smallpox patient John Fleming walked into the Kingsbridge station house. In true Keystone Kops fashion the patrolmen went flying out the door. Their commander Sergeant Lucas followed, holding the precinct's books and police blotter. His men called the doctors, who arranged to have the man sent to a sanitarium, inoculated the staff and fumigated the building. Meanwhile Sergeant Lucas calmly proceeded to carry on with business as usual, sitting under a tree in the yard.

OUTRO
For Classical ninety-one five, this is David Minor.


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