Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1885 — Growth of an Old World City. [ARTICLE]

Growth of an Old World City.

Lilao postal notes, which havejbeen turned out at the rate of about two million a month, and will be increased hereafter 40 per cent., are handled by thirty-five persons and are counted forty times.

Thebe is an incubating establishment in Albany, N. Y., which has turned out 4,000 chickens since October, when it began running. About 125 dozen eggs are used weekly. When the chickens arrive at a weight of one and a half pounds they are sent to market.

The Current: Kansas City’s trade grows rapidly. She is now doing a third more business than she did last year. The wholesale trade of Indianapolis increased $4,000,000 in 1884. Duluth has had a year bright with both hope and realization, the Northern Pacific Railroad having contributed greatly to the prosperity of the Zenith City.

Frederick Douglass was asked in Washington the other day when he expected to resign his position of Recorder of Deeds. “Oh,” he replied, “I shall wait until my resignation is asked for. ” "What will you do then ?” he was asked. *Oh, I shall retire on a competence,” he responded. “I have enough to keep the wolf from the door.” Douglass is believed to be worth $150,000.

To rid himself of a bore who was importuning him for an opinion on some passing subject, the late Henry Smith, of Albany, gave him some haphazard reply. Shortly afterward he was again approached by the individual, who said: “Mr. Smith, you have told me so and bo, and mo thing has come of it.” “What did I charge you for my advice ?” queried the counsel. “Nothing,” replied the client. “Ah, I see, my advice yas equal to my fee.”

David Dudley Field, a nephew of fifyrus W. Field and Stephen J. Field, died a few days ago at Phomix, A. T., under the assumed name of Donald McKenzie. He was implicated in the Boss Tweed affair, and family troubles caused him to leave his home in Westbrook, Me., some five or six years ago. As Phoenix young Field, whose last days were spent in poverty, was respected as an upright man.

The students of a Western theological seminary are reported to have discussed the question whether, in case of a prayer having been read from a printed slip, on a formal occasion, and there having been a typographical error entirely reversing the meaning of a passage, the petition was received by Providence as uttered or as originally written. The debaters spent a whole evening over the point, and then had a tie vote.

Bailwat superintendents as a class are as'intelligent men as live, says the Current. Those of America are as sincerely attached to the principles of liberty as is the humblest section hand. It is not probable, therefore, that a scheme of black-listing (by which the discharged employe of one Superintendent shall be ostracized by all) will ever be adopted by any great number of officers. The idea is repugnant to the present form of society, and would tend to break down industrial pursuits.

Foe several years past Stanley Day, a machinist employed in the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Bailroad shops at Holsterville, Pa., had been complaining of excessive pains in the stomach. Physicians’ prescriptions did him no good, and some time ago he was compelled to quit work, and since that he has been confined to the house. As a last resort he took a dose of warm medicine. Directly afterward he was relieved of twenty-five crabs of the water species and a milk snake thirteen inches in length. He is im- ’ proving rapidly, and the doctors are dismissing the crabs and the situation. Day says that about two years ago he drank from a well in the dark, and probably swallowed the crabs and snake then.

The old yellow postal notes, by an order about to be issued by the Postmaster General, will soon be a thing of the past. They have been a source of great annoyance and trouble. The paper on which they were printed was not safety paper, but a sort of water-proof material, from which eastile soap and water would remove the writing ink This permitted shrewd counterfeiters to “raise” them, which was done to some extent in the West. The discovery of several cases created much excitement last month, probably more than the facts warranted. Since May last the new notes, printed on lilac paper, have been in use by the order of the Postmaster General, at all the principal offices, and so more of the old yellow ones were put out. There have remained, however, about 2,000 offices which were using the old yellow notes

originally furnished them.— Ne to York Tribune. Ah Englishman residing in Paris has appealed to the law to support his claim for 20,000 francs damages for the loss of his hair. The gentleman, whose head is at the present moment described as perfectly bald, west to a hairdresser’s establishment some months ago to have his hair cut. A few days afterward he became conscious of an unpleasant irritation about the roots of his hair, which increased, and caused him so much annoyance that he consulted a doctor. The latter, after a careful examination, told his client that he had unquestionably caught a peculiar disease of a contagious nature, which circumstances appeared to indicate had been communicated by the brushes or comb used by the hairdresser. Frictions and powerful remedies were employed, but to no effect. The hair gradually fell off, and at the expiration of a couple of months after that unfortunate visit to the coiffeur’s the patient’s head has perfectly bald.

The Current: It is astonishing that the tax-payers, whose property is exposed to the cupidity of disaffected and indolent men, should often abandon to the liberality and public spirit of mere lads the business of guarding the whole fabric of society, and paying the full cost of that expensive vigil. The law in Michigan, for instance, is suoh that when the Governor calls out the militia the young men have to advance the money for both rations and transportation, and the home county is dunned for the bill at some subsequent time, payable, probably, in county orders. The selfishness of men finds few more striking examples than are afforded in the present status of the militia in States like Illinois and Michigan, where no one can deny the utility of armed organization in the interest both of property rights and of protection to unarmed men and women and children.

Michael Davitt has written a pathetic description of the liberation of a pet blackbird which had shared with him his prison life. For many months the feathered companion had relieved the tedium of his solitude, but he felt at last that he owed his little friend the right of liberty. He says: “It was a day which would fill one’s whole being with a yearning to be liberated—a day of sunshine, and warmth, and beauty, and the moment had arrived when ipy resolution to give freedom to my little feathered ‘chum’ could no longer be selfishly postponed. I opened his door with a trembling hand, when quick as a flash of lightning he rushed from the cage with a wild scream of delight, and in a moment was beyond the walls of the prison! The instinct of freedom was too powerful to be resisted, though I had indulged the fond hope that he would have remained with me. But he taught me the lesson which can never be unlearned by either country, prison, or bird—that nature will not be denied, and that liberty is more to be desired than fetters of gold.”

Justin S. Mobhill, of Vermont, is the oldest United States Senator, says a Washington correspondent. He will be 75 years of age next April. He has had as long continuous service in Congress as either Clay or Benton, and longer than any one at present in public life. He has been in Congress since 1855. He was a member of the House from that period until 1867. He has been in the Senate ever since. He has been recently re-elected for another Senatorial term. If he should live to the end of that term he would be 81 years old. This would give him a reeord es thirty-five years in Congress. This is a longer record of continuous service than any one has yet made in our history. There is no reason why he should not live to the end of his term and even longer. The Senator is in most excellent health, and looks fully as young to-day as many men in the Senate fifteen years younger than he. He appears to have a better lease of life than his colleague, who is nearly twenty years younger than he. A stranger would not think that there was much difference between the age* of the Vermont Senators.

It is not, we believe, generally known that Admiral Sir William Dowell, Com-mander-in-Chief of the English fleet on the China station, is the officer who, as Midshipman Dowell, first planted tha English flag on the Island of Hong "Kong forty-three years ago. It is almost impossible to believe that, in less than fifty years, a virtually desert island should have been converted into such a place as Hong Kong nafw is. The present Governor of the Colony, Sir George Bowen, in a speech which he made shortly after his arrival in China, drew attention to the remarkable fact that after London, Liverpool and Glasgow, the tonnage of the shipping which visits Victoria Harbor every year is larger than the figure for any other harbor in -her Majesty’s dominions. We hear a great deal of wonderful growth of cities and the development of resources in the New World, but we doubt whether the record of Hong Kong cau be surpassed anywheres Japan Mail.