IRISH TIMES ODDITIES/ALAN FOSTER:LEGLESS EGG-DEALER HELPED THROUGH LIFE BY PONY: One of the most remarkable figures in this country, Mr John Power of Waterford, has just retired.
Although he travelled to all parts of Munster, he never walked; he engaged in numerous business deals but never handled a penny - for he is both legless and armless. Despite this handicap, Mr Power went into the egg business during his youth.
He procured a pony and cart and trained the animal to convey him throughout the thickest city traffic without reins or guidance beyond his spoken word. They never had an accident. When purchasing eggs in country districts, Mr Power would ask the vendor his price and, if a deal followed, the other would take the money from a bag which he carried in his cart. March 13th, 1933
COURT WITNESS WAS ON FIRE
WHILE A man was giving evidence at Penzance (Cornwall) County Court 13 yesterday, smoke was seen to be billowing from the top of his head. "Are you smoking?" asked the registrar, Mr Barrie Bennetts.
"No, sir," replied the man.
"Well then your head is on fire," commented the registrar.
The man found that his hair had caught fire from a piece of glass which had fallen from a lighted gas bracket just above the witness box. He quickly extinguished the fire and continued his evidence.. April 14th, 1950
BULL RUNS AMOK IN BELFAST, PURSUED AND CAPTURED BY MOTORIST
A BULL broke loose in the Shankill Road district of Belfast, and ran amok through the principal streets of the city. One of its pursuers secured a motor car, from which the animal was cleverly lassoed after a two-mile chase to the outskirts of the city.
The bull was then tethered to a tramway standard and subsequently removed in a van. August 5th, 1927
MARTIAN THROUGH GEORGIA!
SCIENTISTS IN Atlanta, Georgia, decided yesterday that a "man from outer space", said to have been found on a road near the city, was a hairless and tailless monkey. Two barbers and a butcher, who produced the body, claimed that similar creatures "running like men" took off in a red flying saucer which turned blue as it rose. The barbers said that their lorry struck and killed the creature at night.
Dr Herman Jones, chief of Georgia's crime laboratory, who performed the autopsy on "the man from Mars" said that the body was hairless because of a liberal application of hair remover and its tail had been cut off after death. The monkey had not been run over and he had a fracture on the back of the head. This finding may bring the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals into the case. July 10th, 1953
SHOTS FIRED AT IRISH AUCTIONEER, BULLET DIVERTED BY A WATCH
JOSEPH ALLEN, a well-known auctioneer from Cookstown, Co Tyrone, had a lucky escape from death last night. He owed his life to a gold watch in his pocket. He had called at his office, closing the street door behind him, and when coming down the stairs he was ordered to put his hands up. Two shots were fired, the second bullet striking the watch, piercing it and inflicting a slight wound on the abdomen. He closed up with the two men in the darkness of the stairs and succeeded in identifying one of them. One got clear away, but the other was caught. Mr Allen had a large sum of money on his person at the time. January 11th, 1932
MAN WHO TOOK CAR HAD SORE FEET
SENTENCED TO two months imprisonment in the Dublin District Court yesterday, for taking a motor car without the owner's consent, 21-year-old Joseph O'Brien, television erector, of St Fintan's Villas, Deansgrange, told the district justice: "It may seem absurd, but I had sore feet."
District Justice Reddin told him he was not entitled to take a car because he had tired feet. Guard M Burke, Kevin Street station, said that while on routine car inspection duty, he saw the defendant in a car stopped at traffic lights at Dolphin's Barn.
When asked to produce his licence, O'Brien said he would produce it later, but when asked to give the number of the car, he admitted he had taken it without consent. The owner of the car, Mrs Claire Legge, Rochestown Avenue, Dún Laoghaire, said she left the car inside the gate of her bungalow. The keys were in the pocket of the car. June 24th, 1960
Allen Foster's Irish Times Oddities are culled from the newspaper's archives. A collector of strange facts from old newspapers, he is a part-time farmer in Meath and author of Foster's Irish Oddities and Foster's Even Odder Irish Oddities, published by New Island in 2006 and 2007