1909: BET YOU CAN'T TOP THIS!

(05/22/2026)

Can You Top This?? - From 1909 (03/12/2002) Transcribed by Norma Knotts Shaffer from microfilm of the Calhoun Chronicle dated 5/4/1909. You can't always tell, says an exchange, what will happen. For instance there is a story of a man who determined to commit suicide. He went to the store and bought a rope, can of oil, a box of matches, a dose of arsenic and a revolver. He went down to the river and pushed the boat from the shore and waded out to where a limb hung over, saturated his clothing with oil, lighted a match, set fire to his clothing, took the arsenic, put the revolver to his temple, pushed the boat from under him and pulled the trigger. But the bullet glanced and cut the rope above him, and he fell kerflop into the river. The water put out the fire, he got strangulated and coughed up the arsenic. At the next election he was candidate for legislature on the reform ticket.

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