Winchester Republican

DEATH CAUSED BY A SNAKE BITE.

A man by the name of Wm. A. Perrin, familiarly known as "Hardware" Perrin, formerly of Staunton, died at Stribling Springs on Sunday week, from the bite, or rather two or three bites, inflicted in quick succession, of an enraged rattlesnake! Perrin has been in the habit, for some time, of catching rattlesnakes and extracting their teeth, when, of course, he could handle and play with them without fear of danger. He usually had several in his boxes at the springs. We recollect very well he made the cold chills run over us at the Springs last Fall, as he exhibited a venomous she rattlesnake with a parcel of young ones of which she had been delivered after Perrin caught her. As we have said, poor Perrin seemed to have a singular mania for snakes—the most venomous kind of snakes—rattlesnakes. Accordingly, he devoted much of his time to the singular and hazardous business of rattlesnake catching and "taming," if such a thing as taming such venomous serpents could be effected. On Saturday week some friend or acquaintance of his sent him a rattlesnake from Monterey which he proceeded to handle and to deal with as he had with others before with impunity. But in putting it into a box, he enraged it some how or other, when it struck its fangs into one of his hands, and before he could secure and get rid of it, it renewed the attack and sunk its teeth twice more into his hand and wrist. Intelligent physicians were upon the spot when he was bitten and resorted to the means employed in such cases; but they all proved inefficient, and poor Perrin died in great agony next day about one o'clock, having lingered in excessive pain until death relieved him of his sufferings. He presented a shocking spectacle before and after death. The arm to which the bitten hand was attached turned black and his other arm assumed a yellowish, dark-spotted color. One of the remedies applied—ordinarily the surest and most efficient in such cases—was French Brandy; but this remedy had no effect whatever upon Perrin, as he had been in the habit of using stimulants to excess. The poison, from the inflamed condition of his system, passed through Perrin's veins like fire through dry stubble.

Perrin once worked at the saddler's business in Harrisonburg; and leaves, we understand, an interesting family, from which he has been separated since he went into the snake business.—Rockingham Register.