Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1878 — PEOPLE AND THINGS. [ARTICLE]

PEOPLE AND THINGS.

Laughter often smiles upon a pool of tears. Boston is going to have an elevated railroad. Corduroy is becoming very popular as a material for children’s clothing. Boston’s police force numbers 735 members, of whom Gil are patrolmen. The city of Manchester, England, manufactures and supplies gas to its own citizens. The silver product of this country is estimated at 600,000 to 700,000 ounces per week. A man has his hands full when he is five miles off shore and nothing but water to catch hold of. A Connecticut manufacturing company have received an order from South America for 5,000 plows. Every ten tinkles of the Moffet bellpunch in Virginia buy a Sunday-school book, says a Richmond paper. It was found, while exploring a Chinese jossliouse, that there was but one female Celestial in New York. The wool clip of Oregon, this year, is about 6,500,000 pounds, being about 1,500,000 pounds more than last year. “ My Grandfather’s Clock ” was written by Henry C. Work, nearly ten years ago, and attracted no attention at the time.

W. T. Thorne, who was in 1874 expelled from the North Carolina Legislature for denying the existence of God, is now a candidate for Congress. A Western editor thus kindly alludes to a contemporary: “He is young yet, but he can sit at his desk and brush cobwebs from the ceiling with his ears.” The Commissary General, in his report, favors making cheese an army ration, if it Jje of good quality, made to keep, and sold at a reasonable price. The Chinese have a law that- any military officer making his house a place of gambling shall be cashiered and forever debarred from holding public office. The cottonwood telegraph poles used on the line of the Southern Pacific road have sprouted, and give promise of supplying a continuous line of shade trees. Mrs. Medora E. White, of Cambridge, Mass., who recently sued Dr. Hiram Chase for SIO,OOO damages for malpractice in treatment at child-birth, recovers $4,917. The first installment of steel rails for the Arizona extension of the Southern Pacific railroad has been forwarded; tics are arriving at Yuma at the rate of 5,000 per day. The new law of compulsory education in Italy is working well, it is said. The passage of the law involved the building of 200 new school-houses, and the improvement of 20,000 old ones. Mr. Rhodes, a showman in Sheffield, Mass., stuck his finger into a box of rattlesnakes to stir them up, and was bitten. He swallowed a quart of whisky and two ounces of morphine, and recovered. A Portland, Ct., young woman was nearly choked to death, recently, while trying to swallow a chicken’s heart whole. It lodged in her gullet, and the efforts of two doctors were necessary in relieving her. Two miners named Peter Clilode and Joe A. Coff, engaged in St. Louis tunnel, Big Cottonwood, Utah, were carried by a snow-slide over a 500-foot precipice during a snow-storm, and received but a few bruises. Great patience and ingenuity have been displayed by Arlin Evans, of Horse Shoe Bend, Ala., who, though totally blind for many years, has just completed a gin house, cotton screw and the running gear of the gin, doing all the framing and laying of timbers unassisted.

Some negro boys organized a mock court in Baldwin, Ga., condemned a playfellow to death, and hanged him from a beam. They supposed he would tell them when to let him down, but he only kicked, and they took that for sport. He was choked to death. The Japanese boy who, as brother of the Tycoon, headed the embassy that came to this country eleven years ago, is now a student in Paris. He would now be the Tycoon had he not led a futile revolutionary movement, but he retains an income of $200,000 a year. Three tramps, who have lodged for several weeks in a barn at Burlington, Mass., were arrested the other day under a provision in the Riot act forbidding the assemblage of two or more men for unlawful purposes, convicted and sentenced to ninety days apiece in the State workhouse. A traveling fortress, an ironclad coach, is running on the Cheyenne and Black Hills stage path. It is made of thick boiler iron, with four port-holes, is bullet proof, carries two well-armed guards inside, and runs for the sole purpose of transporting bullion for the California quartz mills. The mulattoes who have been playing a musical burlesque in Hamlin’s Theater, Chicago, are warmly praised by the newspapers of that city. The singing of two sisters named Hyers is said to be remarkably fine, and the organization is soon to present the decided novelty of grand opera by colored artists. A new steam life-boat which is claimed to be unsinkable and uncapsizable, has been invented by Mr. Edmund Thompson, an Englishman, and is exciting much interest. She will be ready about the end of the month. It is proposed to test her by placing her at a dangerous point for service this winter. Nebraskans are using female bison, for breeding purposes with success. After the crossings the bison’s color and its chief characteristics disappear. The Boston Journal of Science says that the haunch will evidently disappear also. Half and quarter breeds of the female yield an abundant supply of rich milk.