ELECTION BETS IN AMERICA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2455, 3 April 1901, Page 63

ELECTION BETS IN AMERICA.

The variety of bets during the recent Presidential election and the ingenuity whicii has been expended in devising them are almost incredible. No eccentricity, no absurdity has been too extreme. Losers have carted winners for miles in wheelbarrows, whiskers have been cut in all conceivable styles,heads shaved ; stylish young men, dressed in their finest apparel, have worked a.s waiters and domestic servants, and have even dug ditches ; while several losers have had to submit to mock funerals and actual burial alive. Business men have impersonated tramps, acted as clo>wns, and strolled along crowded thoroughfares carrying negro babies, while a brass band dispensed music and called attention to the extraordinary spectacle. It is hard to determine to 'what this strange ebullition should be attributed, or why it reached such a climax last year. . . . The most gruesome and startling of all the 'bets occurred in Philadelphia, and MiGeorge R. Williams jvas the chief figure Mr Williams is a loyal Democrat and did yeoman's work for Bryan. Among those •whom he sought to convert was Henry Eudolph, a stalwart Republican, whose home is at the Falls of Schuylkill. His arguments, however, availed not, for Rudolph was loyal to his party, and could *cc n.o possibility of its candidate's defeat. As the election ' drew near the two men became more and more interested in the outcome, and finally, more fully to emphasise their faith in the success of their respective favourites, entered upon a novel wager. .Williams predicted the election of Bryan, while Rudolph bet on M'Kinley, and it was solemnly agreed that the loser should permit the winner to bury him alive, the loser to pay all costs of the funeral. Bryan wns defeated and Williams paid his wager in ftU. Early in the evening Williams called

at the rooms of the Wissahickon Republican Club, where he found all in readiness for his funeral. Crap 3 streamed from the door, while in the parlour Rudolph and a score or more of h:s Republican friends were grouped about a plain deal casket. Into this Williams vas placed, the hd put on, carefully screwed down, after which the pall-beareri lifted the casket to their shoulders and bore it to a dense grove on "Buckeye"' Hill, a short distance away. There the coffin, with its nearly smothered occupant, was carefully lowered into a grave, which had already been dug, and the Republicans, returned to the club-house, leaving Williams to hjs fate. Ifc was then that the Democrat proved what a lively corpse hs was. Exerting his strength to the utmost, he succeeded, after several trials, in forcing off the hd of the casket, and soon, scrambled from the giave, after which he hurriedly made bis way back to the club-house, where the entire party then sat down to an enjoyable lunch, the expenses of which were all paid by Williams. . . Most of the bets, though ridiculous, were harmless, but in several cases serious danger was incurred by the losers, and in one instance death will probably result. In spite of the cold, Isa-.e Blown, of Big Bend, Mercer County, Pa , attempted to swim across the Shenango River. He was almost drowned, and when rescued from his ice-bath developed pneumonia and is now hovering between life and death. At Bridgeton, New Jersey, Tucker Vanleer hopped on one foot across a trestle bridge, 30ft high, over the Cohansey River. A single misstep would have plunged him to certain death. He succeeded in making the dangerous journey in safety, but afterwards admitted that he would not lepeat the exploit for a thousand dollar?. Among some other unfortunates who suffered in consequence of the necessity of paying off freak bets may be briefly mentioned a Philadelphia broker, who had to impersonate a tramp and sleep all night in a public square ; Tim Johnson, a Chicago politician, who had to pay for all the liquor which Lew DocksLader, the wellknown minstrel, could drink in two weeks ; (j. N. Weingart, a Denver Democrat, who had to ride through the stieets of the city mounted on a burro and having his face covered with gold paint ; a Democratic drug clerk in Baltimore, who had to drink a, quart of cod-hver oil ; Michael T. Fitzgerald, a Boston barber, who must shave several of his customers free of charge for a whole year; Archie Evans, of Westbro, who put on women's clothing and pus-lied through the streets a baby-coach containing two negro children ; John P. Murray, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who walked through the Boston Chamber of Commerce barefooted ; a,nd Harry T. Cole, a 3151b fat man. of Loganstown, Pa., who was forced to walk 16 miles in four hotus or forfeit 25d01, the feat being accomnhsihcd just fom minutes ahead of time.