Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1887 — CAPTAIN PAINE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CAPTAIN PAINE.

A Word About the Owner of the Fastest Yacht in the World. One of the most energetic and successful of yachtsmen of the present day is General C. J. Paine, owner of the yacht Volunteer, which beat the Scotch yacht Thistle at New York, not long ago, in the race for the America’s cup, which the English have in vain sought to secure for a number of years back. General Paine has been the owner of many fast sea-going yachts, the Mayflower, which won the race over the Galatea in the Marblehead and Cape Cod. course in 1886, being one of his recent

ones. Each succeeding vessel which isbuilt under General Paine’s supervision and order seems to be particularly constructed to beat the preceding one, and with such a result that there is no wonder than the America’s cup can be retained. here from season to season with apparent ease. As the Mayflower was superior to the Puritan so is the Volunteer to the Mayflower. General Paine is well known as one of the most intelligent of the members of the Eastern Yacht Club. He has been very successful in his experiments upon the schooner-yacht Halcyon, gradually improving her until he made of her one of the fastest of light weather yachts afloat. After these experiments he united with other yachtsmen in the building of the Puritan, and sailed on her for a season, which soon gave him the impression that she could be improved upon, and he immediately gave orders to George S. Hawley, of Boston, for the construction o£ the sloop Mayflower.

□Phil Armoub, of Chicago, has no -cigarette-smoking in his office. A legend to the effect that it will not be allowed is conspicuously posted over his cashier’s window, and when his two hundred c’erks walk in to draw their salaries they always remember to leave the pap Qr-wrapped offender at home. The destructive habits of rabbits are well known. In Australia they abound. When a servant enters a situation she requires a promise that at least one -day in the week she shall not be obliged to eat rabbits. In three years 18,000,000 of these rabbits were destroyed, and a bounty of $120,000 has been paid out for their destruction. The Augusta Chronicle says that the Hon. Simon Cameron is not the •oldest surviving United States Senator. It claims that honor for the Hon. John P. King of that city, who was born in Kentucky in 1799, entered the Senate •on appointment in 1830, and was elected to succeed himself in the following year, twenty-three years before Mr. Cameron entered the Senate. J. M. Bailey, once famous as the wit of the Danbury News, has faded from the humorous world and is now an actor in a daily repeated domestic tragedy. His wife is insane and demands his entire attention. He must dress her and arrange her hair and attend to all her wants. She is like a child, and he gives her all his affection, time, and attention. His devotion is described as something heroic. A lady living at Columbus, Ga., noticed that the dog kept barking as if something was wrong. Finally the dog came to her door and scratched upon it till she opened it. Then he ran under the house, indicating by his action that he desired her to follow him. The woman followed, and discovered a light under the house. She awoke the family, and an investigation showed that some one had placed a bundle of splinters on one of the sleepers. The fire was discovered just in time to save the residence. In Greene County, Georgia, two negroes had some trouble over a lot of walnuts. The one to whom the nuts belonged caught another stealing them, and took his ax and made him carry them back to where he got them,/ but the negro would not put them out -of his sack. So the owner sent his little boy to the house for his shotgun, and when the boy came in sight the negro who had stolen them threw his sack down and broke for the gun, and, after springing both hammers, turned the joke on the owner, who had to run to keep from getting shot. After he had run the owner off he went back and got the nuts and carried them home. Buffalonians are not noted for being very good liars, but the following tale related by one of them ought to startle even a Georgian. He says he was loitering about a country fair in England when a man approached him and said: “Are you working or will you stand?” “i’ll stand,” said the Buffalonian, as he waited developments. During the next fifteen minutes the stranger came to him three times and handed him money. At last he began to think that he had had enough of •“standing,” and he returned to the hotel. He had been doing “stool-pigeon” work for a gang of pickpockets, who had mistaken him for some one else. He made SSO by the operation. Eighty-eight men, who are called “rebels, belonging to a certain religious sect,” have been beheaded at one time in Chang Chou, China. The offense of this sect seems to be that they appear in the streets as venders of children’s toys, the chief of which are cash swords, daggers and dragons, each formed out of 180 of the cash coins, strung together in various shapes. They are said to have annoyed the people a great deal by cheating the -children, and to have caused much disturbance by higgling about prices, and a Chinese paper naively adds: “Since the above-mentioned cases have been so severely dealt with not one of them has been seen on the street The people highly appreciate the enforcement of stringent laws and prompt action. ” The British Medical Journal gives the following particulars of the height, weight, and dimensions, of Thomas

Longley of Dover, who is said to be the heaviest British subject in the world. Ar. Longley, who is a publican, is forty years of age, being born (of parent not above the normal size) in 1848. As a baby he was not considered large. His present weight is 40 stone, height 6 feet i inch, measurement of the waist 80 inches, size of leg 25 inches. He finds considerable difficulty in walking, and does not trust himself in a carriage for fear of breaking the springs. He is said to be very temperate both in eating and drinking, and has never suffered from any ill-health of a serious nature. New South Wales has sent to the Queen for her approval an act facilitating divorce, which equals the famous Connecticut laws. It provides that whenever husband and wife remain away from each other for three years without personal or written communication, either may get a divorce. Cruelty continued for two years is a legitimate ground against the husband, but not against the wife. A continual habit of drunkenness for two years is, however, a valid plea for either party to put against the otheT, provided it prevents the husband from providing for the wife or the wife performing her domestic duties. A man, apparently, may keep as drunk as he pleases, provided he gives his wife plenty of money. Queeb ideas of giving a dying Indian a good send-off are entertained by the dusky denizens of Indian Territory. Five minutes before Otter Belt, a Comanche chief, drew his last breath his friends held him up erect and rigged him out in his best war costume. Then they painted him red, set his war bonnet on his head, tied up his hair in beaver skins, and laid him down; just a minute later he died. Then his five wives took sharp butcherknives, slashed their faces with long, deep cuts, cut themselves in other places, and beat their bleeding bodies and pulled their hair. They also burned everything they had, tepees, furniture, and even most of the clothing they had on. A big crowd of bucks looked on and killed ten horses, including a favorite team of Fress Addington, on whose ranch Otter Belt lived. Ex-Senator Jones, of Florida, is undoubtedly dying of brain disease, says an Alabama paper. He was not a temperate man, but harmed himself more than anyone else. In mind as in physique he was robust and masculine. Rising from humble life and honorable toil at the carpenter’s bench, he became a great lawyer and noted United States Senator. His aberrations of mind were noticed some years ago, but did not become a public matter until he abandoned his seat in the “house of lords” at Washington and- camped out at Detroit. While Mr. Jones was presumed to be in pursuit of a Western heiress, we once asked a Senator what was really the matter with him. He said: “Jones is crazy on several subjects—on rel gion, on women, on liquor, and on the Constitution. It is a sad case.” This unfortunate man had a lovable, genial, almost boyish, temperament, allied to great strength of mind and body. He showed his metle by the progress made from the bottom of the ladder almost to the top. Tbe recent experiments with the dynamite gun at New York have demonstrated that they can place dynamite in destructive quantities a mile and a quarter off with considerable accuracy. It is probable that the range of the gun may be greatly increased. Also, the quantity of the explosive which may be fired at any charge may be made large enough to destroy any*vessel yet built. In addition to the gun, the projectile is now fitted with an electrical apparatus whereby the dynamite is positively exploded when any substance other than air is encountered during the flight of the shell. During the recent trials of this gun in New York harbor a vessel one and a half miles distant was completely destroyed by two or three shots from this gun. The delicacy of the exploding apparatus was well illustrated by one shell, which was exploded by merely striking a portion of the standing rigging of the vessel. It is evident that this method of warfare, should it prove as efficient as it now promises to be, will render harmless the most effective torpedo boat now constructed. There has been endless talk about the defenseless condition of the United States coast, but it is evident that a few of Lieut. Zalinski’s guns, scattered along the coast line, would nuke it rather warm for any foreign vessel which might visit us with hostile intent.