Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1885 — To Copy from Common Ink. [ARTICLE]

To Copy from Common Ink.

A n»KTOENT lawyer of this city, says the Boston Budget, was, during the Presidential election, a pronounced Independent. At the Republican caucus in ins ward a few evenings since objections were made io his taking part in proceedings on account of his departure from the regular ticket. Upon returning home he remarked to his family that he was discarded because he was a “mugwump.” His attentive little daughter heard the conversation, and the next day said to several callers assembled in the parlor, “Papa was turned out of meeting last night because he was a chipmunk I”

Elizabeth, N. J., has found a more expeditious way of circumventing the citizen who tries to evade the taxgatherers than the old and slow method of levying on and selling his property. When the owner of blocks and tenements neglects to pay his taxes promptly, the occupants of his buildings are required to pay rents to the city instead of to their landlord until the original debt, with added costs, is squared up. This law has lately gone into operation, and as a consequence the revenues of Elizabeth are largely augmented, although the complaints of men accustomed to be delinquent are loud and not choice in phraseology.

The London bridge, •which the Fenians tried to blow up with dynamite the other day, was begun in 1824 and was finished in 1827, from designs of John Rennie, architect of Southwark and Waterloo bridges. The cost is estimated at between £1,500,000 and £2,500,000. It is built of granite in five arches, the center arch being 152 feet, the two next 140 feet, and the two shore arches 130 feet each in span. The bridge is 900 feet long and 54 feet wide. The lamp-posts are made from cannon taken in the Peninsular war. Over 100,000 persons pass over it ever day. Police constables are stationed in the middle of the roadway to prevent blocks. It is the handsomest bridge over the Thames.

Krupp, the famous gun-maker, employs 20,000 men. His whole establishment comprises the factories at Essen; three coal mines at Essen and Bochum; 547 iron mines in Germany; several iron mines in the north of Spain, in the environs of Bilboa; the blast furnaces; a range at Meppen, seventeen kilometers in length, for gunnery experiments; other smaller ranges; and four steamers for marine transport. The number of blast furnaces in use is eleven, of other furnaces, 1,542. There are 439 steam boilers, 82 steam-hammers, and 450 steam-engines of 185,000-horse power altogether. He is now manufacturing for the Italian Government a monster gun which will weigh 130 tons.

Chicago Current: Gen. Hazen has made a certain number of guesses as to the weather, and has been correct as to a certain percentage of those guesses: but he has also made many efforts to get himself disliked, and in every hundred efforts of this kind the percentage . has been enormous. His disinclination to prosecute Maj. Howgate made the Chief Signal Officer unpopular with the people, and his supercilious conduct toward his superiors in civil positions has at last drawn t>n him a fery > pointed rebuke from the Secretary of ' 'War in his recent report to the President, Secretary Lincoln takes especial pains to prove that, had Gen. Hazen’s suggestions received active consideration in 1883, another ship’s crew would have been lost in foolishly attempting the rescue of Lieut. Greely.

Statistics show that Connecticut hag at tlw present time more than 6,000 inhabitants over 80 years old, and of these there are 651 more than 90, and 120 over 100 years of age. This extraordinary longevity does not appear to be due to any particular way of living. Mrs. Nancy Coley, for example, who is Bet down at 105, has taken snuff from her youth up, and now considers it “her Only solace,” while Mrs. Elsie Chittendean, ft centenarian, has never taken medicine, nor been troubled by any physical disease, Mrs, Bridget Foley (103) is subject to no physical debility except rheumatism, and has indulged in moderate rations of strong drink very frequently. On her 103 d birthday she celebrated by leading off in a dance, but found the lively movements of a jig rather too much for her, William Hamilton, who died in July last at the mature age of 102, was an inveterate Bnroker for eighty years, and retained All bis faculties to'the last, A smokeless locomotive is on trial OS pne pf the Western railroads. It burns the poorest quality es bituminous ppal, and emits only a thin white column of Sfflpke from the smokestack, The latter, u a round pipe, and is placed ftt the rear of the boiler, near the instead of being w front, as in the ordinary locomotive, There is a double set of flues to ths boiler, »

small set underneath and larger ones on top. The gases pass through the lower flues to the front and then return by the upper flues to the stack. At the front there is a cylinder chamber, with smoke arch, into which the large particles of coal-dust fall, and another chamber at the end of the larger flues captures the lighter particles that have been carried that far. The device saves annoyance to passengers, avoids the danger of fire to adjacent buildings, and economizes in fuel.

Simultai.eously with a new political ora in America, says the Chicago Current, the new administration in Mexico comes into power. It is hardly proper to speak of Gen. Diaz as “coming into power,” for he has long been recognized as the one man upon whom Gonsales has relied for support. In fact, Diaz has seemed to use Gonzales as a convenient stop-gap while the four years were going by during which (the politicians of Mexico have agreed) an ex-President is to keep away from office in the City of Mexico. Gen. Diaz is a man of the people. He has had a wonderful career, and may be placed among the great men of the world. Through all the mists of prejudice, conservatism, patriotism, and misinformation which surround Mexican statesmen, Diaz has remained clear-sighted and hopeful for his country. He has seen in American aid a vision of progress instead of an omen of annexation. For this he has suffered much in popularity. The corruption of Gonzales has been charged to Diaz, and the church has turned bitterly against the administration. Therefore, Americans will in future be protected by Government, but will continue hateful to the people. Lerdo, late Chief Justice, another member of the governing syndicate, has forsaken his country and gone to New York City, which fact has not aided Diaz in placating the Bourbon element. But, with all the shortcomings of the commoners who rule our sister-republic, we may well be glad .that so great and withal so good a man as Diaz is now in the executive chair at Mexico City, and we might well wish his term were to last more than four years. No revolution is coming there, as sensational papers and correspondents claim. The biggest man is already at the head of affairs.

Before any statesman refuses to accept the portfolio of the State Department in the next administration, says the New York Sun, he should take care to study the histories of the Secretaries of State of the past. Washington’s Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, became President, and a great President he was. Jefferson’s Secretary of State, James Madison, became President; so did Madison’s Secretary of State, J ames Monroe. Monroe’s Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, became President. Mr. Adams’ Secretary of State, Henry Clay, never lived to be President, but he became the leader and candidate of a great party, and only just failed of election. But Martin Van Buren, Jackson’s Secretary of State, became President. Then James Buchanan, Secretary of State under James K. Polk, became President. Then, however, there comes a considerable break. In Mr. Lincoln’s Cabinet Mr. Seward presided over the State Department, as he did in the Cabinet of President Johnson. Mr. Seward had pretty strong Presidental aspirations, but was never nominated. Under Gen. Grant, the Hon. Hamilton Fish was Secretary of State for eight years, but he never got near the Presidential nomination. Then we come to the Hon. William Maxwell Evarts. He acted as Secretary of State in the Cabinet of R. B. Hayes. Of course he never became President and never will. But the gentleman who succeeded Mr. Evarts, who retired with the inauguration of President Garfield, was the Hon. James G. Blaine. He hasn’t been elected President yet, but he came frightfully near it—within 1,200 votes. And he still lives. All of which goes to throw supreme interest about the statesman who, it is to be hoped, will administer the State Department under President Cleveland. Who will he be, and will he ever be President ?

Any common black ink or writing fluid can be made into good copying ink by adding some sugar or other saccharine matter to it. To prepare, dissolve one ounce of lump sugar in one and one-half pints of writing fluid. Within five or six hours after writing letters or other documents with this ink they can be copied by pressure on damp unsized paper. If old writing be wet with a weak solution of sulphate of iron, to which a small portion of sugar sirup has been added, a faint reproduction can be taken with firm pressure on unsized paper, with the result of rendering the original much paler than before, as this process aim-' ply dissolves the original ink used and transfers it. To copy printin gjflMk dampen the surface with a weakM tion of acetate of iron and press offiHy paper of absorbent nature,—Wet’ Ocean. The late Baroness Lionel de Kothachild left by her will about W.OOO to vartoM cbarithi.