Past Pages for Sunday, Aug. 20

150 Years Ago

Chung Loo, a native of Burmah (sic), who has been educated in this country, and is now delivering lectures, imparts the following information: “I notice the ladies of this country sometimes paint to improve their complexion. They do so with us, using for that purpose power made from a species of fragrant wood. Kissing is unknown with us as practiced in this country. Our language has no such word as kiss. The corresponding endearment in Burmah is to press the lips and nose to the cheek of the fair one and inhale the perfume. To ask for a kiss we say, ‘Give me a smell.” —EX

130 Years Ago...

A man named Vansickle came in from Sweetwater yesterday with some magnificent specimens of ore from a mine he owns in that section, it contains gold and silver, and Vansickle says it assays about $2,000 per ton. He will take his ore to Reno for reduction.

100 Years Ago

Official word from Macon, Ga., says that Federal Judge Emery Speer in the Southern district court handed down a decision holding the draft law constitutional. This was in the case of several men appealing when arrested for non-registration.

70 Years Ago

Judge Clark J. Guild, who during the latter part of July purchased his thirteenth Buick since 1918, indicated today that he has traveled at least 522,000 miles during that time while attending to various legal matters in Nevada.

50 Years Ago

The ghost of Mark Twain must have paled a little. What was this? A law outlawing horses? In Virginia City? There it was, the ordinance, published in Twain’s old Territorial Enterprise, and and effective immediately because county commissioners had declared an emergency. Horses hooves, were chipping up their streets, all 3.7 miles of them. That didn’t stop red-haired Gordon Barley Jr., 14, who doesn’t budge that easily. Every day he delivers 146 newspapers on horseback. “It’s a bunch of malarkey,” said Gordon. He had a referendum put up for vote if commissioners don’t repeal the law in 20 days.

30 Years Ago

The crowds were good, the weather great and the whistlers superb as the 10th “International Whistle-Off” competition opened with whistlers from around the world showing up.

Trent Dolan is the son of Bill Dolan, who wrote this column for the Nevada Appeal from 1947 until his death in 2006.