Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1890 — Page 4

glje gmotr oitt Sentinel RENSSELAER, INDIANA. I. W. McEWEN, - - - Pumam

The famous Physick Garden in ChelBea, England, who.-e preservation is now a matter of discussion, has 20,000 different herbs and plants. Japan is a remarkably productive country. Its area is less than California, while its cultivated land is only one-tenth of its acreage; yet its products support a population of eightyeight million. Th,f. newspapers are now trying to find the man who spent the most days in rebel prisons during the late war. So far as heaid from yet, E. W. Ware of Bangor, is ahead, he having suffered 600 days in Charleston, Columbia, Charlotte, Raleigh, Goldsboro and Greensboro prisons. Instead of increasing the weight of locomotives to secure better traction, efforts are being made to use the electric current, and experiment has demonstrated that the passage of a current through the driving-wheels increases the traction far beyond what additional weight accomplishes. If a teaspoon is placed in an empty glass, boiling hot water can be poured into it without breaking. A fork will not serve the purpose at all, as it is something in the shape of the spoon that concentrates the heat of the boiling water in itself. This is worth knowing by hot water drinkers, as the water is far more palatable in a glass than in a cup. The little English sparrows have learned a new dodge since electric lights replaced gas in New York City parks. When the current is turned off at dawn the bottoms of the globes are filled with hundreds of insects which have been attracted by the light and killed. The sparrows come around after the globe has cooled off, slide down the carbons and devour the insects. Prof. J. H. Lewis, of St. Paul, a noted archaeologist, has recently been making explorations around Jamestown, N. D. He has surveyed hundreds of earthworks and embankments ■which show an advanced knowledge of architecture, while the precision with which they are constructed shows great intelligence and care. Most of these mounds are filled with bones of people who lived ages ago and concerning whom history gives no clue. A will made by Frederick the Great in 1741, during the first Silesian war, is printed in the first volume of “The Wars of Frederick the Great,” just published in Germany. It reads as follows: “I am only King so long as I am free. If they kill me I wish my body to be burned in Roman fashion and my ashes to be inclosed in an urn at Rheinsburg. In this case Knobelsdorf [his architect] shall construct a monument for me like that of Horace of Tusculum.”

The wife of Senator Davis, of Minnesota, is able to make this extraordinary statement: “When ten years of age my aunt bought me a pattern, some navy-blue cloth and some black'velvet, and told me I must make myself a gown, which I did, greatly to her satisfaction and my own and the envy of my little playmates. From that time to the present day I have never paid one cent to a dress-maker or milliner, nor lias any one else done so for me. Every dress, hat and bonnet I wear is made and trimmed by my own hands.” It is not generally known that Prince Bismarck has an adopted son, now twenty years of age, and a Frenchman. One evening during the Franco-Prus-sian war when the Chancellor entered his sleeping apartments, outside of Paris, he found a baby boy asleep on his pillow. The mother had left a note saying that her husband had been hilled at Sedan, and that despair and want had forced her to give up her child. Bismarck sent the child by special nurse to Berlin, and subsequently had him educated, and he is now a model young man and devotedly attached to his benefactor. An Episcopal clergyman of Indiana tells this as a true story: Recently one of the prominent members of his parish died. After the funeral the widow found great comfort in telling her Deighbors about the many virtues of her late husband, even mentioning that he took greatest delight in playing •cards as an innocent pastime. She must have been thinking of him as he appeared in his “customary attitude,” for she said: “Jacob looked so well when they opened the coffin at the church. He had not changed one particle. There was, O, such a heavenly expression on his face. He looked just as if he held four kings.” When standing within a few yards of the gun’s muzzle at the time of discharge, a person would be amazingly astonished were he only able to see the shots as they go whizzing by. Experiments in instantaneous photography have proved to us that the shots not only spread out, comet-like, as they fly, but they string out to a much greater distance than they spread. Thus, with a cylinder gun, when the first shot of a charge reaches a target that is forty yards away, the last shot is lagging along ten yards behind. Even with the chokebore gun some of the shot will lag behind eight yards iu xorty. They are having a hard time out in ’Washington, Kan., over a meteor. It

fell on Miss Kelsey’s farm, and a hired man named January, who saw it fall, dug it out. He thought meteors a profitable crop, bought it from Miss Kelsey’s agent for $25 and sold it to the State university for S6OO. Miss Kelsev was away from home when the thing was sold, and now comes back and claims that her agent had no right to dispose of it. She proposes if necessary to bring suit for it on the ground that in Kansas meteors come properly under the general head of farm products, claiming it as her just and due meteor right, so to s peak. Why so many bald-headed men are bachelors is thus explained by a recent writer: “There is a great deal of capillary attraction in love. Girls adore a handsome suit of glossy hair; it is lovely. And when a lover comes to woo her with the top of his head shining like a greased pumpkin he is at a disadvantage. Just as the words that glow and thoughts that burn begin to awaken in her bosom a sympathetic thrill she may happen to notice two or three flies promenading over his phrenological organs, and all is over. Girls are so frivolous. She immediately becomes more interested in those flies than in all his lovely language. While he is pouring out his love and passion she is wondering how the flies manage to hold on to such a slippery surface.

People who are afraid of lightning may be consoled by the knowledge that there is a thousand times the danger in the sewer pipes that there is in the thunder clouds. The deaths by lightning are few indeed. Who of the readers of this paragraph ever lost a friend that way ? Who of them hasn’t lost a score of friends by the less brilliant and less noisy destruction that comes up out of the drains ? The trouble with the lightning, or the trouble that it gives the people, is in its indescribable suddenness and its absolute uncertainty. You know neither when it is coming nor where it is going; all you feel certain about is that some storms leave a number of catastrophes to mark their course. The caprice of the lightning defies the explanations of science, and there is no predicting beyond a few generalities. This much it does seem safe to repeat, even in the lively lightning season, that the increased use of electricity, with the multiplicity of wires, has tended to fewer fatal strokes of lightning in cities.

A Brooklyn manufacturer paid a bill without a murmur the other day simply on account of the way it was worded. His engineer found that the hot water pump would not work and sent for a machinist. The latter bjthered with it half a day and said it must come apart. This meant a stoppage of the factory for a long time. It was suggested that a neighboring engineer be sent for, as he was a sort of genius in the matter of machinery. He came, and after studying the pump a while he took a hammer and gave three sharp raps over the valve. “I reckon she’ll go now,” he quietly said, and, putting on the steam she did go. “The next day, says the manufacturer, “I received a bill from him for $25.50. The price amazed me, but when I had examined the items I drew a check at once. The bill read this way: ‘Messrs. Blank & Co., Dr. to John Smith. For fixing pump, 50 cents;for knowing how, $25.’ Had he charged me $25.50 for fixing the pump I should have considered it exorbitant. But 50 cents was reasonable, and I recognize the value of knowledge, so I paid and said nothing. ”

The Two Little Mittens.

He had snubbed his wife and scolded his children, and had gone off down to business in a frame of mind that made some friends, and all the dogs, go a block out of their way to avoid him, all because some trifling thing had gone wrong, and there was no one who had the courage to tell him he was acting like a brute. And then right in his way, spread out on the sidewalk, the two little thumbs curled up, lay a little wee pair of black mittens—baby mittens, with dimples and curves left in them. He looked quickly up the crowded walk and saw a slender woman hurrying along with a toddling girl baby by the hand, and he tried to overtake them and shouted, but they were lost in the crowd, and he took the two little mittens with him and laid them on his desk. They were so tiny that they looked almost as if they were, made for a doll, but no doll’s hands had left those creases, and it didn’t take an expert either to tell that it was the hand of a future woman that had made those little curves in the wrist and palm. “What have you there?” asked his business partner. He answered ’ briefly, “treasure trove,” and finally tucked one in each pocket of his vest. But not before he had noticed, however, that the ball of each dear little thumb was neatly darned, and that the line of life on the tiny wrist had worn through and had been covered with a network of patient mending. Half a dozen times a day, when he was alone, that man looked at the little mittens, then put them away and went on with his invoices and calculations. And when he went home at night he met his wife with a kiss, and romped with the boys, and at the supper table he took out the little fugitive things and they went the rounds. The boys laughed. His wife looked at him with shining eyes. “Yes, dear,” he said gently, “Nellie would have been large enough to wear them if she had lived. ” This was the secret. The little mittens had performed a mission, and will be kept as mascots. In Egypt lovers pledge their troth by touching thumbs. When, however, the girl touches her thumb to her nose and wiggles her fingers, the young fellow probably takes the hint and scoots.

THE SCIENCE OF COINS.

RELATION OF NUMISMATICS TO HISTORY AND EDUQATION.

American Colonial and Continental Colne.

on the reverse, in place of the words One Cent, there is a single star over the head of the eagle, about which twelve stars form a curve, reaching from wing to wing of the eagle. It is found in copper and silver; some specimens have the edge lettered: United States of America. Where the dies for these pieces were made is unknown. The token here described is supposed to be of American origin: On the obverse of the piece is a bust of Washington, with hair in queue, facing right. Legend: George Washington. Reverse: A liberty cap in center, with rays radiating from it, every third ray being longer than the rest and separated from 'each other; fifteen stars arranged in a circle. Legend: Success to the United States. This token is usually in brass, but rarely is it found in copper. There are two sizes of it, the one somewhat larger than the early United States quar-ter-dollar, and the smaller a shade less in size than the early United States dime piece. There are a few English tokens, struck on the other side for circulation in this

"GEORGIUS TRIUMPHIO” COPPER.

“PUGIO” CENT.

“KENTUCKY” CENT.

country, that are usually classed as “Colonials.” The Georgivs Triumpho copper piece has on ths obverse a head, laureated, facing right. Legend: Georgivs Triumpho. Reverse: A Goddess of Liberty, facing left, behind a frame of thirteen bars, with a fleur delis in each corner. An olive branch is held in her right hand, a staff of liberty in her left. Legend: Vox Populi. Date, 1783. The North American Token has a female figure, seated, facing left, with a harp, on the obverse. Legend: North American Token. Date, 1781. Reverse: A ship sailing toward the left. Legend: Commerce. The “Auctori Plebis” bears on the obverse a bust, laureated and draped, facing left. Legend: Auctori Plebis. Reverse: A woman, seated, with left arm resting on an anchor, the right on a globe, at her feet a lion. Legend: Indep. et Liber. Date, 1787. The Franklin Press piece obverse has an old-fashioned printing press and for legend, Sic Oritur Doctrina Surgetque Libertas. Date, 1794. Reverse: A legend, Payable at the Franklin Press, London, in five fines. The Kentucky Cent was a most popular token and is now often found, but always showing marks of continual circulation by its worn condition. The obverse exhibits a hand, holding an open scroll, on which is inscribed the words: “Our Cause Is Just,” and legend: “Unanimity Is the Strength of Society.” Reverse, a radiant pyramid, triangular in shape, of fifteen stars united by rings, each star having placed in it the initial of a State, Kentucky being on top. Two other Kentucky tokens, of beautiful execution, which do not appear to have been circulated, are sometimes brought over from England. They have both the same obverse, on which the device is a woman, personating Hope, bending before an anchor and presenting two children to a Goddess of Liberty, standing, with the cappfißteole at her side, her left arm about itrand her righthand and arm outstretched to welcome the little ones. Legend; British Settlement Kentucky. Date, 1796. Reverse (of No.l), Britannia with bowed head, holding an inverted spear; a fasces, broken sword, and scales of justice at her feet; before her is the liberty cap. Legend: Payable by P. P. Myddleton. The reverse of No. 3 has “Copper Company of Upper Canada,” in four straight lines, within a wreath-, and this surrounded by the legend,One Half Penny. Both of these pieces are found in copper with the first described (No. 1) reverse, and it is sometimes met with in silver. The Continental Currency Piece has thirteen rings linked together, each bearing the name of a State. On the obverse, legend, American Congress, on a label around the center. In the center are the words, We Are One, in three lines. Between the legend and Tings a cir-

HERE were a considerable number of coins, and tokens used as money, circulating through the colonies before and during the revolutionary period, and after that time. The “Washington Piece,” with stars over the eagle on the obverse resembled the large eagle ? cent of 1791, ex- . cepting that the Fdate is 1792, and

ENGLISH KENTUCKY TOKENS.

cle of rays are seen. Reverse, a sundial with the sun shining upon its left side. Legend, Continental Currency; date. 1776. is below. “Mind Your Business" is below the dial, and “Fugio” near the sun and under the word “Continental.” These pieces are as large as the U. S. silver dollar, and are usually stamped in tin, but a few are known in silver and brass. One variety has “currency” spelt withone “r.” and another, which is very rare, has “E. G. Fecit” at the base of the inner circle. The Fugio or Franklin Cents are among the most interesting and widely circulated of all the Colonial and Continental coins. They were the first metal pieces of money issued by authority of the United States. All bear the date 1787, and were manufactured in conformity with the following resolution of Congress, dated July 6. 1787: “Resofned, That the Board of Treasury direct the contractor for the copper coinage to stamp on each piece the following devices, viz: Thirteen circles linked together, a small circle in the middle, with the words ‘United States’ round it, and in the center the words ‘We Are One;’ on the other side of the same piece the following devices, viz: A dial with the hours expressed on the face of it: a meridian sun above, on one side of which is to be the word ‘Fugio,’ and on the other the year in figures ‘1787;’ below the dial the words ‘Mind Your Business? ” Great numbers of these pieces were coined, and yet are plentiful. Several dies were evidently made, and there are slight variations in each; in some cases the word “States” precedes the “United.” A quantity of impressions from a pair of the original dies were struck, some years ago, in silver and in an alloy of copper and zinc. There are also in existence a few coins and tokens of this period that differ more widely from those authorized by Congress, as per the foregoing resolution. One of these pieces has stars within the rings, others have the names of tfie States, on the rings, with the words “we are one” omitted, and “Amer-

CONTINENTAL CURRENCY,

ican Congress” taking the place of “United States.” Some of them have an eye in the center, and all of them rays between the motto and the rings. The obverse is without any lettering. One specimen is in brass, and five, of different patterns, in silver. They would all command high prices, especially those in silver, but such prizes, to collectors, seldom change hands. Prices, about, of coins and tokens mentioned above: Condition. Yeab. Piece. Fine. Fair. 1783. Link piece, silver SSO $25 1787. Sun-aial, link, silver 50 25 1796. Britannia, children, silver... 30 23 1776. Sun-dial, tin 10 5 1785. Kentucky, scroll, copper 3 1.50 1785. Kentucky, edged, scroll, copier 3.50 2 1796. Britan., child’n, settlements. 25 15 1787. Sun-dial, links, cent 50 .25 1795. Am. cent, chain 20 5 1793. “America,” chain 10 4 1793. Wreath 8 3 1793. Lettered edge 10 4 1793. Liberty cap 15 4 1794. Liberty cap 1.50 .25 1795. Lettered edge 3 .50 1795. Thin planchet 1.50 .25 1796. Thin planchet 2 .50 1796. Fillet head 2 .50 1797. Fillet head 1 .25 1798. Fillet head 50 .10 1799. Fillet head 25 5 A. M. Smith, Numismatist. Minneapolis, Minn.

What a Cigar Did.

Here is a story that is not altogether new, but some of you may find it so. It is told of a sea captain, who commanded a ship sailing from New York. On one occasion the ship caught fire, and the passengers and crew were compelled to take hurriedly to the boats. The captain remained perfectly cool throughout all the confusion and fright of the embarkation, and at last every one except himself was got safely into the boats. By the time he was ready to follow the passengers were almost wild with fear and excitement. Instead of hurrying down the ladder, the captain called out to the sailors to hold on a minute, and, taking a cigar from his pocket, coolly lighted it with a bit of burning shroud that had fallen from the rigging at his feet. Then he descended with deliberation and gave the order to push off. “How could you stop to light a cigar at such a moment?” he was asked afterward, when some of the passengers were talking over their escape. “Because,” he answered. “I saw that if I did not do something to divert the minds of those in the boat there was likely to be a panic, and overcrowded as it was, there was danger of its being upset. The act took but a moment, but it attracted the attention of everybody. You all forgot yourselves because you were thinking about my curious behavior, and we got off safely. —Philadelphia Times. Hoed* will kill as surely as bullets.

THE LITTLE FOLKS.

Uttle Jerry. ' “You won’t forget any of the places, will you. Jerry?” “No, father.” “And you won’t leave pint cans at any of the places where you’d ought to leave quarts ?” “No, sir.” “And remember what I told you about Miss Perkins. She’s to have an extra pint to day, and you’re to leave it in the basement. She leaves the door unlocked on purpose, ’cause she said she can’t bear milk after it’s froze; and it's so stinging cold this morning it’d be froze clear through ’fore it was taken in if it wasn’t put inside, Jerry?” “I’ll put it just where you say, father —in the basement.” “All right; that’s a good boy. I hate to send you out alone this way, Jerry, and I shan’t do it again soon. Drive careful, and get home soon as you can.” “Yes, I will,” replied Jerry, as he climbed into the milk wagon standing in his father’s barh-yard, and took the lines into his hands. It was just four o’clock in the morning of a cold winter day, and little Jerry Hawes was only ten years old. He was to drive two mile* to the city, alone, in the cold and darkness of a January morning. And, after reaching the city, he was to go rattling around over the stony streets, leaving milk at sixteen different places, and then drive home again, with the wind almost lifting him from the seat of the wagon, and the snow in his face. His father had a small dairy, and supplied sixteen families with milk. He carried it around himself, but on this particular morning he had to go to a distant city on an important errand, and must be off before daylight if he would reach home that night. He had tried in vain to get some one to deliver the milk to his customers that morning, and Jerry had himself proposed carrying it. “I know all the places,” he said, “for I’ve often gone with you in the sum-mer-time. I’m not a bit afraid, and I know I can deliver the milk as well as anybodv.”

He was a robust and courageous little fellow, but he did feel a little timid as he turned into the woods which hid his father’s house from view. And it was colder than he expected to find it. The lines felt like bands of ice in his hands, even through his thick mittens. His teeth chattered, and he put the lines between his knees while he swung his little arms around and clapped his hands together. Finally, Jerry tied the lines together and threw them over the dashboard, while he jumped out and ran along by the side of the horse and cart to rid himself of the numbness in his feet and legs. And so they entered the deserted streets of the city, Jerry and the cart and old Bally, the horse. There was no life nor stir in the city streets. All the houses were dark, but the street lamps were burning; and Jerry seemed to feel a sense of companionship and friendlinens in their twinkling lights. He came to the first place at which he was to leave milk, a tall, gloomy looking house. He climbed down from the cart and hurried through a dark, covered entrance-way to the rear of the house, put the two-quart can of milk down, and ran back to the cart, glad to be with it and old Bally again. So he went to the end of his route bravely and manfully. There was but one can left in the cart, and that was for Miss Perkins, an old lady who lived in a large and beautiful house at the end of a handsome street. Jerry remembered all his father had said about finding the basement door unlocked, and about putting the milk inside where it would not be frozen. He found the rear room unlocked, but dreaded to open it and step into the dark little entrance, at the end of which theie was a second door securely locked; but this little hallway was not so dark as Jerry expected to find it. The second door had in its upper half a sash, through which a bright light was streaming. Jerry stood on his tiptoes and peered through the glass, he hardly knew why for he was not one of your idly curious kind of boys. He had an instinctive feeling that something was wrong; and what he saw caused the little milkman to utter a low exclamation of wonder and affright—the whole basement seemed to be a mass of smoke and flames! He knew nothing about fire-alarm boxes. Indeed, he was so dazed and terrified for a moment that he did not seem to know anything at all! Then he ran wildly out into the yard and around the house, his shrill, childish voice piercing the frosty air with its cry of “Fire! fire! fire!” He ran up the broad front steps, and kicked and. hammered on the great oaken door, crying out wildly, “Fire, Miss Perkins! Oh, Miss Perkins! Y’our house is on fire! F-i-r-e 1 F-i-r-e!” Old Bally, shivering with drooping head at the gate, pricked up his ears and turned his head toward the house, while Jerry jumped up and down in his excitement, shrieking out the dreaded cry of “fire” with every breath. The front parlor windows reached to the floor of the wide piazza in front of them, and were made of a single sheet of glass. In his excitement and eagerness to arouse the inmates of the house, Jerry ran to one of these long windows and kicked in the glass with his stout boots. Then he crawled into the room, and into a great hall, just as some one came to the head of the stairs, lamp in hand. It was Miss Perkins herself, with a great scarlet blanket thrown around her. Jerry ran wildly up the stairs, shouting—“ Fire, ma’am! fire! The cellar is all on fire!” “Goodness mercy!” shrieked Miss Perkins, “I thought I smelled smoke. Give the alarm, somebody!” But Jerry’s shrill, childish voice had given the alarm, both within and without the house. Servants eame running down the stairs, the street was tilling with people, a policeman was trying to kick in the doors, a fire-en-gine came around the corner with a great rush and noise. “Old Bally will be scared out of his senses,” was Jerry's mental comment,

as he rushed out of the house, fast finding with smoke and flames. But some one had kindly led old*. Bally away, and hitched him to a., lamp-post up the street; and there Jerry found him, half an hour later, after hearing the fireman crying out—“lt’s all out now. We can save the-* house yet. ” And Jerry drove home, in the dawnof the new day, too excited to mind the cold. The short winter day was drawing to a close when Jerry came home from, school that night. He had walked more than a mile,, and burst into the house, crying out, “Whew! but it’s cold! I tell vow it’ll ” He stopped short when he saw a. strange lady sitting by the fireside, a. short, stout lady, with gray hair showing under her handsome bonnet. “Ah! this is the little boy I’ve been, waiting for, is it ?” she said, when Jerrycame in. “Come and shake hands with me, won’t you ? I’ve driven out. to tell you how grateful I am for what you did this morning. My house andi myself might have been burned, had it. not been for you. You are a very brave and good little boy, I am sure;. and I want to become better acquainted? with you.” My story would have to be twice as long as it is if I were to tell you of allt the good and pleasant and helpfull things that came into Jerry’s heretofore rather dreary life.through his “becoming acquainted” with Miss Marcia,. Perkins.— Exchange.

“POSTAL NOTES.”

BY W. R. DE BORD.

went into effect Julv, 1863. First fast-mail delivery, 1875. The first United States postal card,. May 12,1873. There are now 1,500,000* of them used every day. The United States Postoffice at Washington City was destroyed by fire December 13, 1836. Over one-half the letters which arecarried by the postal service of theworld are written and read by people whose native language is English. Six million letters were sent to the Dead Letter Office at Washington last year; 500,000 of them were nevercalled for at the postoffices to whicht they were addressed; 150,000 were sent in by hotel-keepers because their departing guests failed to leave their new addresses; 120,000 weje insufficiently prepaid; 400,000 were erroneously addressed, w hile 17,000 bore 1 no inscription whatever; 18,000 contained money, amounting to $35,000 inall, and 22,000 contained drafts,, checks, etc., amounting to $1,600,000. The smallest and simplest postofficein the world is in the Magellan Straits, where it has been established for years. It consists of a cask, which is chained to the rocks of the extremecape opposite Terra del Fuego. Each, passing ship sends a boat to take letters out and place others in it. The - postoffice is self-acting, therefore it is under the protection of the navies of all nations, and up to the present time there is not a single case to report in which any abuse of the privilege it, affords has taken place. Gentryville, Mo.

Cornfield Philosophy.

A hair is a very small thing; but one - golden strand in a biscuit has been known to wreck the happiness and* ruin the digestion of a loving pair. Man does not like baldheaded things, , except in the case of the butter. Never kick a man when he is down. He may get up some day, and besomewhat on the kick himself. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will - not depart from it,” said the wise man. Solomon was careful not to say that the child would not depart from the “good old way” while he was in the vigor and yum-yum period of youth. It is when he is in the “now-I’m-old-and-can’t” period that he will not depart from the “wicked but nice” ways • of earth. “Blessed are the poor in spirit," says the good book. The difficulty ■withthis is most people live as if they thought it said “Blessed are the poorspirited and, verily, they have very - poor spirits. Eccentricity is often an excuse to» cover up vulgarities. The eccentricman is, most generally, a hog.

Ieyond Her Recollection.

Judge—How old are you, madam ? Fair Witness—Twenty-three years,. Judge—Really; well, when were you; born ? ■ Fair Witness—l cannot quite remember now; it has been such a very long time ago. The man whois willing to “tasteand pee” for himself that the Lord is good,, will not long be left it the dark.

WryHE post- \ I r office was-’ V I vfirst estab'A lished in rfpßsj. England in, 1464. Envelopes k were first W used in 1839.. First postaße stamps, 1840. Firstoverland fast L mail be - tween San MF r anciscoand St. Lou— is took twen- ;- ■) ty - three- } days, 1858. The free--1 letter- carrier system,