For instance, a lady’s hat - full of feathers and other embellishments - was set on fire by a mysterious cigarette while she waited on the corner of Broad and Chestnut. A heroic gentleman noticed the smoke pouring off her noggin and extinguished the blaze with his hands.
Another front page story about a divorce case involving a wife who spoke to the “spiritual world” during séances she organized. Her love poetry to a plumber, was not hers, she told the judge. The spirits wrote it.
And there was a guy living near South Street who trapped live rats. Then he doused the rodents with kerosene, set they on fire and released them.
But the story we found most bizarre occurred on Pine Street near 18th. The story said two “prominent families” were locked in a legal battle over the death of a young girl’s kitten.
Mrs. William Hepburn told the Inquirer she was entertaining guests when she heard a commotion outside. Neighbors called the Women’s SPCA because there was a cat stranded in a tree in front of the Hepburn’s Pine Street house. The thoughtful neighbors and the humane society folks were holding a blanket and urging the cat to jump.
“All of a sudden, a man rushed out of an apartment house at 18th and Pine streets and broke into the crowd,” Mrs. Hepburn related. “He carried a gun in his hands and began to fire shots at the tree.
“The first thing I knew, the little white kitten dropped down into the blanket dead. It was the first time I knew it was my kitten. I was so sorry. I almost fainted.”
Actually, the kitten belonged to her 13-year-old daughter. Liza, whose photo was on page one. And the girl was heartbroken, said her mother. The Inquirer identified the Great White Hunter as “Henry Paxton, well- known retired Army officer.”
We’re guessing that Paxton was a Civil War veteran suffering PTSD. The Inquirer speculated that “the terrified cries of the kitten annoyed him” so the old soldier opened fire. He was charged with animal cruelty and hired a former district attorney as his defense lawyer.