Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1884 — A Dutch Fish Auction. [ARTICLE]

A Dutch Fish Auction.

Walter A. Young, a miner employed near Pittsburgh, who some months ago became totally blind, has returned to work, and, with the aid of a son of 14 years, manages to earn a living for the family. He fought at Balaklava in the English army. Capt. E. D. Ellsworth, son of Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth, who was shot in Alexandria while tearing down a rebel flag at the beginning of the war, still maintains in a pasture in Meclianicsville the horse that belonged to his son, which is now 33 years old. Ex-Mayor Shelley, of Kansas City, after a call on Gov. Cleveland, in Albany, wrote to the Kansas City Time*: “I heard it stated that when Cleveland was assessed $5,000 by the Democratic Committee on his nomination for Governor, he was compelled to borrow $2,000 of it. His entire worth is not to exceed $6,000 to $8,000.” L. Ritchel, of Bridgeport, Conn., has invented a poisonous air-bomb, which is charged with gases several times compressed and impregnated with poisonous vapors which will prove quickly fatal to any creatures breathing them. ’With one of them Saturday he killed twenty rats in an inclosure. The bomb exploding will charge a radius of 100 feet with silent death. An army bombarded with such bombs would have to retreat or be annihilated. Abraham Jones, who died last week in Oregon, had an Abrakamic faith in spiritualism and a good knowledge of geology, and the two combined made him worth $500,000 once. By his performances as a medium he got many followers, and, some of these being men of means, he persuaded them that a spirit had pointed out a prolific oil field. It was on such representations ■that the great Pleasantville, Pa., oil field first came to be developed, and Jones got $500,000 out of it, which he afterward lost in hazardous speculation on the Pacific coast.

A Massachusetts preacher has been compelled to resign because some of his parishioners, who suspected that his sermons were borrowed, proved such to be the case by carry ing certain books to church with them, and comparing the spoken with the printed discourses. To say nothing of the scruples a pa#tor should have against pursuing such a course of deception, it is strange that the reverened brethren do not consider that discovery is almost inevitable. Even in Massachusetts, which has so large an illiterate population, few congregations can be found in which no members are addicted to habits of reading. A medal has been struck in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of Methodism in this country, and is sold in duplicate by authority of the Bishops. The case opens like a book, and in the central portion, surrounded by velvet, the medal is so fixed that both its sides are exposed when the cover is opened. A pastor reports that he lately found a convert kneeling before it in adoration, using it for an idoL He has heard that such a perversion of the object is common among the negroes of the South, where the medals are held in awe as possessing supernatural qualities. A curious forgery of a lottery ticket was recently accomplished in Yucatan. Rosendo Otero, a Cuban tailor of 'Merida, was favored by the blind goddess of fortune with a half share in the capital premium of the railroad lottery. A sporting man learned the fact, and, making a fao simile of the other half of the tieket, took it to Otero, and on the strength of the supposed ticket bought several thousand dollars’ worth of goods and took the balance in cash. After the gambler left, Otero, supposing the ticket all right, had it cashed, and was arrested and imprisoned. The real criminal was overhauled, and Otero returned in liberty to his shears and ohalk.

Certain ingenious Parisians are experimenting with an apparatus for utilizing solar heat and using it in lieu of coal. To effect this the sun’s rays are concentrated by a reflector, which so moves as to keep the rays focused on a vertical boiler, which is thus heated, producing steam enough to drive a press. In a recent experiment the sunmade steam drove a large press, which struck off several thousand copies of a specimen newspaper. Parties interested in thus obtaining the cheapest attainable heat profess themselves as well satisfied with the first test, find are in high hopes of soon being able to generate steam without ooal or any other mundane fuel It appears that the men of Arizona, feeling that it is not good for man to be alone, have resolved to encourage fernmine immigration. A missionary is re-

ported to be East at present in order to secure marriageable young women for a celibate society of thirty-one members. and if he is successful the tide of winter travel will probably be turned West instead of South this winter. It is to be hoped that the experience of the young women immigrants will not be the same as that of an attractive young Eastern woman who returned from the West a 3hort time ago. “No,* I did not find a husband,” she said, shrugging her pretty shoulders. “The men go out to grow up with the country and make their fortunes, and when they contemplate marriage they have quite passed their first youth.” The existence of a cavern in the neighborhood of Beaver Hole, on Cheat River, West Virginia, has been known for years; but it was never explored until recently, when a party of men devoted a day to an examination of the cave. It proves to be a remarkable cavern, or rather a series of caverns, or there are five of them, one above the other. The lower one was explored a distance of a mile, and the upper one two m.les. There is a small stream in the lower one, but the upper one is comparatively dry. The rooms are large, aud have evidently been cleared of debris at some former period. In one evidence of a fire was found, and remnants of bones, which were brought out and will be sent to an antiquarian for identification. The cave is almost on the line of the new West Virginia Central Railroad, of which James G. Blame, Steve Elkins, W. H. Barnum, and Senator Gorman are stockholders and directors. Mr. Bancroft’s last revision of his history is now nearing completion, and, when spring comes, he expects to take a rest, for he is now 84 years of age. “He is as bright and cheerful as ever,” said a friend who had just come from spending an afternoon with him. “It is perfectly wonderful the health, and vigor, and elasticity, and even boyishness, that that man retains. He is as young in his feelings and habits as most men at half his age. Strong, healthful, cheerful in the extreme, full of talk upon topics of the day, it is hard to realize, except from his very white hair and beard, and the wonderful fund of information which he has accumulated in his long life, that you are talking to a man above fifty-five or six. He is looking forward with great glee to the end of his work of revision of the history. Ho says he is going to play then for the remainder of his life.”

Many of my readers have seen and heard of John Kelly, writes Joe Howard in the Boston Herald, but thousands know nothing of him beyond the general idea that he is a rough, brutal, forceful Irishman, who dominates the chief faction of the Democratic party in this city. Now, as a matter of fact, John Kelly isn’t an Irishman. He is neither brutal nor coarse, but, on the contrary, is about as mild-mannered and wellbehaved an American-born citizen as walks the streets of his native town, New York. I have known John Kelly a great many years, and have frequently been brought in violent contact with him, but 1 h%ve never known him to do a rude, an unmanly, an uncourteous act, and he is one of the few men in this country who have achieved what the psalmist regards a peculiar thing in life, having conquered his own tongue, which, according to the inspired writer, is better than' having captured a city. Mr. Kelly was on the other side of the street, bowling along at the rate of seven miles an hour, when I pointed him out to the boys. Every one said in different language, “Do you know him, and why can’t we speak to him?” I instantly crossed Broadway, and was greeted with characteristic cordiality, as were my young friends, each of whom I introduced by name to the grand sachem of Tammany Hall. As we conversed, the others looked on with unfeigned interest. Mr. Kelly is nearly six feet tall, and very heavy built. He probably weighs considerably over 200 pounds, and possibly 250. He has a square-built head, covered with thick, short cut hair. He wears his beard, which is inclined to carrotness, very close clipped.

A fish auction in Holland is one of the oddest things in the world. As soon as a boatman reaches port with a load of fish the fact is announced by the sounding of a gong. Those desiring to make purchases repair to the beach, where the fish are piled up in little heaps. The owner then proceeds to auction them off. Instead of letting the purchaser do the bidding, as is done in this country, he does it himself. He sings out a price at which he will sell the lot. If no one takes it he comes down by easy stages till within what the purchasers are willing to pay. —Troy Times. In the city of New York alone they drink between 10,000,000 and 15,000 x ,OOO gallons of excellent California and other native wines under the belief that they are imported from France, being duly accredited with a French label. The proportion of European wines imported, as against American wines produced, is about 5,000,000 gallons European against 35,000,000, the products of our own vineyards.— Chicago Herald.