Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1877 — Optical Delusions. [ARTICLE]

Optical Delusions.

Years ago, when we went to school in a lit tle weather-beaten schoolhouse, what exciting contesis there used to be over the teaciier’s favorite exercise of having the scholars estimate with the eye, the size and weights of different objects in the room. He would hold up his cane, and have each one tell how long he thought it was, and it was a lucky child came within half a foot of the right length. He would measure an urchin, and then have the scholars try to reproduce the measure on the wall. He would mark off an inch, or a foot, or a yard, in some conspicuous place, and then se i how near anybody could come to chalking the same length on the blackboard. And it was astonishing how wide astray one would go. The f act is. our eyes deceive us ridiculously, even upon the commonest things. At first thought, which wo’d you say was the tallest, a three-year-old child or a floor barrpl? and could you believe that the same child is half as high as a six-footer? There is an

old saying that a two-year-old child is half as high as h© ever will be; and after a few experiments in measuring, one can easily believe it, but not before. Mlffiintown, Pa., has a cornet band composed of 13-year-old boys. Rev. McGhee, the wife poisoner of Illinois, has been let off with fourteen years in thejienitentiary. A son of the late Francis P. Blair, | jr., will graduate at West Point this year, ranking twelve in a class of sev- > enty-6even. Brigham Young might as well pre- ! pare to tramj). The idlers of the government want employment and gain. Utah offers both. Strange they can not see a man in London wearing a high-standing collar and a big diamond-pin without j saying, “There goes an American for- , Probably the reason Hayes postponed the extra session of Congress i from June to the loth of October, was from a consideration of the fact of Mr. Blaine’s liability to sunstroke duj ring the hot season. I Clara Morris does not pronounce | Boston language correctly, and all ! the Hub newspapers are saying; j “Good Ged! me cnawmiug creeehah, can’t you get the accent, somehow or j any whither?” j A telegram from San Jose, California, to the Sacramento Union, says I that a jury has broughtln a veidict i for $27,500 in a suit of breach of promise of marriage against Gen. Henry M. Nagle, formerly of Philadelphia. A negro named Tommy was hanged at Atlanta Georgia, ou Friday of week before last, for first outraging and then murdering a woman. On the scaffold he said; “I dread not death. Jesus is with me. Jesus has made imy yoke easy to bear. I will soon be ;at rest forever. I have notning more :to say.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer nervously remarks that if t. ese people turn out as well as they think they will, decent people, by and by, will be afraid to die ! A recent census of Altoona, Pa., shows a population of 16,954. an increase of 1,625 since the last census | in 1875. The Edgar Thompson steel works, in Allegheny county, Pa., have contracted to furnish 3,000 tens of steel rails for the Union Pacific railroad. The mother of Judge Milton, Kittaning, Pa., is 104 years old. Her hair which has been for a long time purely white, has been In the last two years gradually darkening, until now it is as black as ever. She is a great reader but does not U3e glasses, A Lancaster county, Pa., farmer who claimed to be too poor to take a newspaper, sold his wheat week be foie last for $1,30 per bushel, when the market price was over $2. The loss sustained by him in tftis single operation would have paid for a paper for 43 years.

A Blue Dress Cure.— A young man in Dubuque, lowa, went on a recent Saturday' to a country dance and did not return to his home uc til the church bells were ringing next morning. His father told him he must go to meeting, and lie went. Before the minister had finished the opening prayer the young reveler was sound asleep, and dreaming of the dance. An old lady who sat next to him touched his hand to arouse him, whereupon he seized her wrist and shouted: “All join hands and circle to the left.— Swing the girl with the blue dress. A Huge Snake Killed by a Toad. (Tuolumne Union-Democrat.) A party of trout-fishers camping near Lyons’ dam, a few days ago, wit nessed a very novel incident. A huge rattlesnakejwas attemptingto swallow a diminutive horned toad, and seemed likely to succeed if given sufficient time. The hind legs of the toad protruded from the saliva-flecked jaws of* the snake, and were occasionally agitated with a convulsive movement, as if the little animal was impatient of the delay in going down the reptile’s throat. Justus the legs were disappearing, the body of the snake, just bohind its head, began to swell. Its eyes began to bulge, aud its spirits i seemed troubled. The parties watch- I ing the process of mastication then became aware that the plucky little i toad had got tired fooling around in a rattlesnake’s jaws and wanted to get j out. The swelling continued and the snake squirmed until the four little horns which form the crest of the toad’s back burst through the scales of the snake. The snake floundered and wriggled in agony until he was ' dead, when the toad withdrew from the jayrs and quietly hopped away.