[78-L] fwd: 1906 film of a cable car ride

[Steven C. Barr]

From: "DanKj" <MLK402 at verizon.net>
> I have lists from 1900 through 1906, showing all the recorded deaths in 
> Buffalo for preceding years.  The cause-of-death
> leaders were dropping dead of heart disease, run over by a train (all 
> crossings were at grade, then), falling from a
> streetcar while it was moving (hopping on or off), falling from a train 
> while trying to hitch a ride, catching fire from a
> coal stove at home, and most hideously: children scalded to death by 
> cauldrons of boiling laundry water .
>
> Some of the descriptions are funny - a woman who died while a salesman was 
> "extolling the benefits of life insurance"  and
> the man who died "suddenly of alcoholism while seated at McKinny's 
> saloon".  I wasn't aware that alcoholism was a
> sudden-onset type of death!  Drowing while riding a bicycle was another 
> feat.
>
Chances are that the mystery drunk had a heart attack...which may well
have been due to his alcohol consumption...?! This being the (turn of the
[previous] century...the prevailing attitude was "Well, we always knew
old wotsisname was gonna drink himself to death" (I had a younger brother
who did EXACTLY that...!).

Steven C. Barr