Do you believe everything you read in the paper?

Whilst trawling through the pages of our Orcadian newspaper archive recently, I found a couple of interesting stories. In 1870, the paper did not just report news from Orkney but from all over the world.

Reported in the 5th March edition, these are both from the USA:

"A South Carolina paper declares that a young man who lost his wife last week married another while friends were making preparations for the funeral, and with his bride followed the remains sorrowfully to the grave"

Even Jeremy Kyle looks shocked at that story!









Then tragedy and a very cheeky comment:

"A young man at Muscatine, Iowa lately crawled into a boiler to clean it out, but the engineer, being ignorant of the fact, closed the door and fired up. The young man became uncomfortably warm, and in his horror discovered the boiler filling with water. His shrieks were unheard, but fortunately the engineer opened the door and the half-suffociated prisoner was released. A contemporary thinks it was shameful that the engineer should have spoiled so good a story by opening the door when he did"