Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1883 — She Made a Slight Mistake. [ARTICLE]

She Made a Slight Mistake.

Cabr and Bell fought on the public street in San Antonio, Texas, and Senator Houston stepped between .them to make peace. He was just in time to receive from Carr a blow on the neck, intended for Bell, and from Bell a thump in 'the eye, meant for Carr. The simultaneous blows were too much for the Senator, and he fell insensible. A statistical record of habitual drunkards is to be kept in Prussia. All city physicians are directed to present in future an exact account of the determined bibbers, by putting on the official reports a "P” opposite the names of the culprits. In this way, apparently, the drunkards will be under the paternal eyes of the Government, and may be led to redemption. An old Hudson river steamboat man is reported as having said that he believes a river boat can be built which can run at the rate of thirty miles an hour. He is not of the opinion that boats are like fiddles, In that the maker doesn’t know how valuable the result will be till it has been tested. “You can take the plan of a boat and figure out just what she will do before the keel is laid,” he said. The fastest Hudson river boat ever built makes about twenty-one mfles an hour. One of the Kansas Posmasters is more than pleased with the new official order. He says: “When the wife of the first or second-class Postmaster officially requests him to beat the carpet, or weed the onion bed, or whitewash the back fence, he can draw out and read Posmaster General Gresham’s order forbidding first or second-class Postmasters from absenting themselves from their offices. Then he can go out from the sheltering roof of his domicile .absorbed in the beautiful thought that ■*there is no cloud without a silver lining.”’ It is a wonderful fact that shipping, as old as civilization and once the great carrier of the world’s commerce, has been far outstripped in its capitalized value by the railroad, an institution but little more than 50 years old. The value of British shipping is $1,000,000,OOO; value of British railroads, $3,700,000,000; value of American railroads, $6,300,000,000. Great Britain herself, the queen of marine commerce* finds her railroad investment to treble that in shipping, while our railroad plant nearly doubles in value that of the mother country. F. P. Clark, of Conesus, N. Y., had a horse cured of stiff fore joints a couple of weeks ago in rather a novel way. His hired man was at work with the horse in a potato lot, and, as a hard hail-storm came up, he unhitched the animal, and with it made for the shelter of a big oak tree some rods distant. When ten or twelve feet from the tree the horse was knocked to his knees by a thunder-bolt, and the man was stunned and covered with dust and sawdust from the tree. He was also cut in the face and hurt on the body by the flying bark, but in no place seriously. The horse has not been stiff since. In Chatham, N. H., Mrs. Sally Walker, wife of the late Isaac Walker, of that town, went blueberrying upon “Dear Hill” with a party of ladies, and, while passing over a large ledge, she saw coiled up in the form of a large plate a huge rattlesnake. Procuring a stick she succeeded in killing it, and severed its head with a sharp stone. Considering that rattlesnake oil was very valuable for lameness, she was almost to her wits end how to procure it; but, as woman is never at a loss to carry out her purpose, this was not an exception. She disrobed herself of her garters, and tying one end around the headless snakeship’s neck and the other to the back part of her dress, she dragged it home three miles and carried two large pails of berries. The snake measured four feet long, and had seven rattles. Washington Post: Samuel G. Kirby, the cabinetmaker, and former undertaker, died yesterday morning. He was 84 years •of age, having been born in Maryland during the year of the last century. Mr. Kirby had several very marked characteristics, the most prominent being a perfect horror of tobacco. He was reputed the best furniture maker in the District, and furnished many of the official and other costly houses here before manufactories were established. Many singular instances of his aversion to tobacco are related. He would not tolerate a man about him who was either smoking or chewing, and had his place of business placarded with prohibitions against the use of tobacco. On one occasion, before the war, a wealthy Georgian had bought a very large bill of goods, but hesitated over a handsome center-table. He returned with his wife after dinner, hav-

ing decided to take it. But he had fit a cigar on leaving the hotel, and when he entered the store Mr. Kirby peremptorily ordered him out. On another occasion Mr. Kirby was driven to Brightwood with a gentleman, who, on starting back, lit cigar. Mr. Kirby announced his intention of walking back, and alighted without giving any explanation to his companion, who was unaware of his idiosyncracy. Birmingham, Ala., the Pittsburg of the South, now has a population of 11,348, against 4,036 in 1880. The assessed valuation of the property in the county has increased within the same period from $3,000,000 to $8,300,000. Three years ago there was but one furnace in the county, and the total out-put of pig-iron for the State was 79,000 tons. There now eight hot-blast coke furnaces in the county, five in Birmingham and the others close by, which wifi alone this year make not less than 350,*000 tons of iron. Jefferson county thus makes over 200 per cent, more iron than did the whole State two years ago. In coal-production it is even more remarkable. In 1880 Alabama produced 323,000 tons of coal. By the end of this year Jefferson county will have put out over 1,000,000 tons. This is an increase for the county of over 300 per cent, above the coal production of the State three years ago. The traditional “bull in a china shop” was surpassed in San Francisco by a cow in a bed-room. The building, says a local journal, is a neat two-story cottage, with the first floor but a few feet from the ground, and just inside the door a rather broad flight of stairs leads to the sleeping apartments above. About 2 o’clock in the afternoon a wildeyed cow sought refuge at the outside steps and open door, with the result of going to the top of the flight into a young lady’s bedroom. Here she chewed up seven kinds of face decorations and eight yards of pillow-sham edging within ten minutes and was rapidly knocking out an “awfully pretty” green worsted lamp-mat, when three officers invaded the pre-empted territory. “Moo, ” said the cow, as she finished the mat and calmly started on her third powder-puff. This done, she gracefully kicked over a washstand and sent a couple of towels to join the lamp-mat and powder-puff. Then the sergeant grabbed her by the tail, while the two deck hands walked away with a hawser down the stairway. For some minutes the intruder stood the strain, but the sergeant finally gave her tail a patent twist, that evoked another “Moo” and a move ment for the street. Then the towmen fled for their lives, leaving the Sergeant to be dragged down the stairs. Her bovine majesty, once in the street, said “Moo” again and fled for the western hills like a red meteor chased by a legion of imps, leaving her disconsolate captors and the owners of the house to repair damages as best they might.

She was a thin, narrow, dark-visaged woman with “specs” on, and she carried a package of tracklets and leaflets which she scattered broadcast among the sinners in the horse car on wh'ich she rode. When only one or two of the pamphlets were left a man got in. He was on his way to the depot, a countryman going home, evidently, He had a big watermelon which he disposed of tenderly on the seat next to him, and a glass flask with a rubber cork stuck boldly out of his coat pocket. “Heugh!” he panted, as he stuffed his fare into the box. “Hotter than harvestin’ up here ain’t it ?” Everybodly looked cold disapproval at him, as good, polite Christian people do when spoken to in a street car; all but the woman with the “tracks;”' She had fished one out and extended it to him. “Thankee,” he said, receiving it in a brown paw, “comic almanac, hey Y* “No, sir,” said the woman, firmly, in a high falsetto voice. “It’s to save your immortal soul. Touch not, taste not handle not the wine,” and siie pointed with a crooked fore finger to the glass flask protruding from his breast pocket. “Oh, I see,” said the man smiling good-humoredly on his sour-visaged vis-a vis; “but this bottle, ain’t for me, ma’am.” “Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink,” quoted the woman fiercely/ “He ain’t eggsactly my eyether,” said the man. “You see, it’s the new baby, and -wife calculates to fetch im up by hand, and this bottle’s for him, bless his pootsy tootsy. Here’s the riggin’ of it,” and diving into another pocket he fished out some indiar rubber tubing, etc. The woman didn’t wait to* finish her dissertation on temperance, but got out without asking the driver to stop.— Ex-, change.