Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 December 1890 — Page 4

ttyt ganger tflicSentinrl RENSSELAER, INDIANA, J. W. McEWEN, - - - PoBLEmn,

' A statistician estimates that the Humber of passengers carried each day on all the railroads in the world averages six and a half million. Sara BERNHARDR’has dresses enough to fill forty-eight large trunks. If Sara should get lost in them it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack to find her. A Michigan man to cure himself of the opium habit smoked cloves until he is a confirmed clove-smoker. There is but one downward step left for him to take and that is to contract the cigarette habit. In Paris the simplest form of embalmingcosts usually 800 francs, but should an autopsy have been performed or death occurring through other than natural causes, a much heavier sum •would be incurred, rising in some cases to as much as 5,000 francs. A gigantic pendulum has been suspended from the center of the second platform of the Eiffel Tower. It consists of a bronze wire 380 feet long, with a steel globe weighing about 198 pounds at the end. Its object is to exhibit the rotation of the earth by the Foucault method. A monument is to bs erected by the State of Minnesota to commemorate the battles and incidents of the Sioux Indian war of 1862, and especially as they relate to the town" of New Ulm. The burning of the town and the massacre of the whites are to be shown in two elaborate has reliefs. Copies of the “poems” of the Sweet Singer of Michigan are so scarce that one of them is worth its weight in gold. Why doesn't Ella Wheeler Wilcox buy up all her editions, publish her verses in one book, and sit down like a real-estate buyer to await the fortune that would be certain to come ? There is a growing tendency among chemists to regard the elements as varying arrangements produced at successive stages in the process of cooling—of one original form of atom. Evidence in favor of the hypothesis is claimed in the fact that some elements seem not to have formed in the sun, while yet more are absent from still hotter stars. A Frenchman has taken advantage of the big neckties which nien are wearing and has constructed a camera which fits perfectly into them. The pin forms the nozzle of the machine, and a tube runs down under the waistcoat and is buttoned just under the lower pocket. The camera can be exposed by this application and by pressing the tube an instantaneous photograph can be taken. A company has been formed under the supervision and control of the governpient for the irrigation of the steppes in South Russia. It proposes to dig canals and to lead water to lands belonging to the government, to various rural constituencies, and,to private persons. Several government engineers have been detailed for the services of the company, which will begin work in the Crimea. The national flag will be saved from ■ignoble uses hereafter. According to the new law passed by Congress, any person who shall use the national flag, ■either by printing, painting, or affixing •on it any advertisement for public display or private gain, will be held to be guilty of a misdemeanor, for which the the United States courts may mulct him SSO or send him to jail for a period of thirty days. The number of immigrants arriving in the United States during the nine months ending September 30, 1890, exclusive of those from the British North American Possessions and Mexico, and comprising about 99 per cent of the total immigration, as compared with the arrivals of the corresponding period of 1889, was (1889 ) 339,080 and (1890) 381,399—a gain of 42,319 in 1890. And still there is room for a few more good immigrants.

The authorities of the Government of Taurida, Russia, have issued an order that women bathing in free waters shall wear bathing suits. The women of Y&lteen protest against this order with an energy and unailimity worthy of a better cause; they are preparing a petition to the general government urging the repeal of the order and declaring that the curative powers of the water have no effect upon those that bathe in clothes. The official report that the new State of Washington has in six counties 213,000 acres of developed coal lands within a radius of forty miles of tidewater will do much towards determining the character of the State as a manufacturing center. It is by no Means probable that these figures repnaent a moiety of the coal-producing area of the State, and further encouraging developments in the near future may be anticipated. A sensational preacher died some yean ago, says the Rocky Mountain Jfews. Often in the excitement of his preaching he would work himself up to such a degree that he would occasion•lly shed tears, which had a great effect apon his congregation. After his death hia sermons were examined by Jhic executors, and it was frequently

■foundin some of his most exciting sermons that he had inclosed in brackets the words, “Cry here.”

If the waiters are in earnest in determination not to have their employers ■count in tips as a part of their wages, they can easily arrange the whole matter by making it a rule of their association that no member shall receive a fee. Of course when this is once understood the men are put upon a perfectly definite and satisfactory footing with their employers, and the public will not be likely to be incensed at the move. It might be considered, moreover, that the waiters, by refusing to receive gratuities, put themselves upon a self-respecting plane, and consequently one respected by others. It is idle for the waiters to to be treated like independent artisans while they extend a catch-penny hand to the tipgiver. Manifestly their only course is either to give up tips and be contented with a fixed and adequate wage, or keep on as they are. They are likely, however, to fail in an attempt to get both.

Strassburg’s Wonderful Clock.

Far through all the civilized world stretches the fame of Strassburg’s wonderful clock. This clock, which is the second one of its kind put up in Strassburg, was built in 1842, the first one, built in 1573, having fallen into decay. It stands in the south transept of Strassburg Cathedral, and is fifty feet in height by thirty in width. It contains some of the mechanism of the old clock, but is not an exact copy of it.

Tourists crowd the transept, in order to see the automaton procession, at the hour of noon. As the clock strikes twelve the cock flaps his wings and, with apparent effort, gives a feeble, hoarse (it must be confessed), ridiculous crow. Then the procession begins. The apostles are waiting at the door to the left of the upper platform, one by one they cross the stage, pause before the figure of Christ, bow' in a jerky fashion, receive the blessing of the uplifted hand, and pass out at the other side of the platform. The second effort of the cock takes place ere the procession is half over, the third when the last apostle has disappeared from view. The central figure on the lower platform holds the bells in balance. Automatic figures appear every fifteen minutes, and cross the stage to strike the hour. A youth is seen at the quarter, a man at the half-hour, while the figure of time with his scythe strikes the full hour.

The clock also tells the times and seasons of ecclesiastical events, sc far as they are associated with astro nomical phenomena, the phases of the moon, and the equation of time. There is also a celestial circle, or orrery, that shows the motions of the heavenly bodies.

Agriculture in Ancient China.

In 1100 B. G. the Prime Minister of the Emperor Wou-Weng, TcheouKung, constructed norias, or hydraulic machines of simple design and work-, ina, by which water was raised to a height to which it had never been carried before, apd made reservoirs and canals for irrigation. Water was conducted by means of machinery from the wells to the dry hilltops, and water provision was assured for times of drouth. Agriculture, in consevuence, flourished.

Other measures of Tcheou-Kung comprised the promulgation of laws respecting the boundaries of properties and the prevention of trespasses. The fields were divided into squares "called wells, from their resemblance to the Chinese character signifying a well, surrounded and furrowed by ditches so arranged that eight farmers, each tilling his own tract, united in cultivating (he ninth, interior tract, which belonged to the state, and the produce of which paid their rent. The system succeeded to a marvel. Each tenant was proprietor of about fifteen acres, the whole product of which belonged him, while the state was really proprietor of the whole, and had, as a landlord, the income of the ninth tract. Besides this, each farmer had some 3,350 square meters of ground for his farmyard and his mulberry trees. Thus he always enjoyed a surplus of provisions, of pork and poultry for food, and silk for clothing. No one at this time was richer or poorer than another, but a complete social equality existed, and every one, they say, was satisfied.—Gen. Tcheng Ki'Tong, in Popular Science.

Sad, Solemn Men.

The gentlemen who provide humanity with its last lodging require no cards to designate their calling or to indicate what they are ready to undertake for their defunct fellow-beings. It is written on their faces, in their deportment, on their habiliments—all over them. They are their own cards, as a w riter expresses it. If one were to meet an undertaker under the shadow of the pyramids or at Spitzbergen there could be no difficulty in recognizing him as a member of the funeral profession. Undertakers, as a rule, are moral, estimable men, but they certainly do differ in aspect and manners from the mass of mankind. There is an indescribable air about them, which, for lack of a better word, we must call posthumous. Constant intercourse with the bereaved makes their voices mournful; for your undertaker ever assimilates his tones to those of his afflicted customers, and he thereby ac quires a habit of talking as if he had lost all his friends. In like manner the “ ’havior of his visage” becomes w r oe-begone past all remedy. His very smiles are .only deadly-lively. Then there is a severe plainness about the cut of his black suit which, to say nothing of its melancholy hue, is a rebuke to worldly vanity and a solemn hint that fashion and frivolity are of small account when his duties are to be performed. Nevertheless, the craf*. is a highly respectable one. and we have not a word to say against it. ,

BIG HOGS AND CATTLE.

THE AMERICAN FAT STOCK SHOW AT CHICAGO. Splendid Specimens of Beef and Pork— One of the Finest Displays of the Stockman’s Barns and Fields Ever Beheld— Bovine Monsters A Thousand-Pound Porker.

(from Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, and other States. There were some extraordinary heavyweights among them. Col. C. M. Culbertson, of Newman, 111., exhibited a two-year-old steer that

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

tipped the beam at 2,145 pounds and one at 1,915 pounds. Adam Earle’s steer (Lafayette, Ind.) weighed 1,910, and one of Fowler & Bassett’s 1,870. Gudzell & Simpson owned a steer weighing 1,945 and George W. Henry one that pulled down 1,960; M. E. Jones & Bro.’s animal (Williamsville, Ill.) weighed 2,095. W. H. Rennick of Austerlitz, Ky., had three that weighed respectively 2,090, 2,020 and 1.98 u; M. L. Sweet of Grand Rapids, Mich., had one weighing 1,945, and B. Waddell of Marion, Ohio, a beauty drawing down the scales at 2,085. All were fine beasts, but they were Liliputians compared with the Shorthorn Jumbo, belonging to A. Sandusky, of Indianola. 111. He is a monster, and a handseme one, too. When he stepped on the scales they trembled, and it looked as if more props would have to be put under the platform. Jumbo is about 5 fee*- 10 inches in height, and weighs 2,850 pounds. He was light on this occasion, for he usually tips the

JUMBO.

scales at 3,000 pounds, but travel and loss of appetite had affected his avoirdupois. The beauty ,of the show was Progjresa, a three-year-old Aberdeen Angus cow belonging to Leslie Burwell, of 'Cottage Grove, Wis. She is entirely Hack and is exquisitely shaped. It may

A CHESTER WHITE EXHIBIT.

be news to those not educated in the points of cattle to know that the nearer the body of a cow approaches' a parallelogram the more perfect it is, and Progress is, in the language of her owner, “a parallelogramic cow.” Progress was bred by T. W. Harvey, of

PRIZE COW.

Turlington, Neb., and is by Black Knight, a celebrated bull, her mother being Old Progress, a distinguished Aberdeen angus matron. Mr. Harvey has refused SIO,OOO for Black Knight.

THE THOUSAND-POUND HOG.

Progress was bought by Leslie & Burwell when a calf for S4O(K and now weighs 1,950 pounds. ‘William Watson. one of the great authorities on

|HE finest display of the stockman’s fields and barns ever witnessed in the West was furnished by the American Fat Stock Association, at its recent exhibit in the Exposition Building at Chicago. There were fat steers

Aberdeen Angus cattle, who lately returned from Scotland, where he had been buying cattle for Mr. Harvey,

“AIN’T HE A DANDY?”

says that there is not a cow of any breed in the old country that can equal Progress. At Detroit and Peoria she took the sw’eepstakes prize for the best animal of any breed in the show'. She has never been beaten in the show ring. There w'ere other grand animals among the Herefords, shorthorns, Devons, Angus, Ayrshires, Galloways, and Holsteins. In Devons. Col. C. M. Culbertson, of Newman, 111., took the blue ribbon for the best steer, three years old and under four. With the red and white steer classes the tables were turned, B. Waddell getting first with Tom, Spot and Daisy; M. L. Sweet, having to content himself with seconds. Among the swine F. M. Strout, of McLean, Hl., secured the grand sw'eepstakes for the best barrow in the show with Nasby, a fine Berkshire, and, as was expected, Welch, the 1,000-pound hog belonging to E. J. Hollenbeck, was awarded the premium for the fattest and heaviest hog. Of the small Yorkshires, which may be called the pugs of the pig tribe, there was quite a display. They are neat-looking animals, but their facial expression is, to say the least of it.

THE JUDGES.

homely in'the extreme. A. F. Chapman <!C Co., of Sugar Grove, 111., were the largest exhibitors of this breed. There was a good display of sheep, Southdowns, Shropshires and Oxfords among the short-wooled and Cotswolds, Leicesters, Lincolns and Merinos of the long-wooled being represented. The poultry exhibit was a large one, and good judges pronounced it the finest display ever made. The dairy products constituted one of the most interesting features of the show.

The poultry show was a remarkably fine one, and all the different breeds were well represented. In Plymouth Rocks the display was immense, there being some half-dozen exhibitors with fine birds. There were some beautiful white Plymouth Rocks shown by F. M. Munger and the Eureka Poultry Company. The golden, silver and white Wyandottes made a good show, and there was a big exhibit of brown and white leghorns. The turkeys were a magnificent lot, the bronze class being very fine, while the white, black and slate colors were but little inferior.

THE LABOR WORLD.

Boston slate and metal roofers demand eight hours and $3.25. The San Francisco union will establish a co-operative shoe factory. The shearers of New South Wales and Queensland have gone on strike. Catasauqua, Pa., silk plush weavers have struck against a cut to 6| cents a yard. Great Western (England) Railroad hands received increases and shorter hours.

In Italy 200,000 people live in cellars. Many laborers there average only 25 cents a day. In 1888 the New York Maltsters’ Union men got sl6 a week for ten hours. The loss of a strike cut wages to $lO and sl2 and increased the day to fourteen hours. They are organizing". Mme. Tkatcheff declares that Russia’s factory operatives, male and female, sleep in the mills and cannot afford to buy leather shoes. Paper serves for stockings and shoes are of wood. Shocking immorality prevails. The Russian would rather do without his food than his weekly bath. The law allows children under 15 to work eight hours per day if they attend school three hours. Children can not be employed in thirty-six dangerous industries. Women weavers and spinners must not work at night. Where over 100 persons are employed medical attendance must be provided.

No Place for His Spectacles.

An Irish beggar woman was following a gentleman who had had the misfortune to lose his hose, and kept exclaiming: “Heaven preserve your honor’s eyesight.” The gentleman was at last annoyed at the importunity, and said: “Why do you wish mv eyesight to be preserved? Nothing ails my eyesight, nor is likely to.” “No, your honor,” said the . Irish woman, “but it will be a sad thing if it does, for you will have nothing to rest your spectacles upon.”

The discoveries made by Stanley show that the Nile is the longest river in the world, being at least 4.100 miles in length.

Learning by Observation.

Nowadays so many strange utensils find place on the fashionable dinnertable that it requires some skill to apply each to its rightful use. The inexperienced may well be excused feeling puzzled occasionally. A true story is told of a Congressman from an agricultural district who found himself, not long ago, at a dinner given by a Cabinet officer from his State. He discovered a miniature silver hay fork at the side of his plate, the likenesses of which he saw’ the other people use for their oysters. He did the same, and was so far all right, helping himself to salt with a very small gold spade provided for the purpose. It reminded him of the tool he had employed many a time to dig potatoes with, save for the metal. Of potatoes themselves, mashed, he was presently helped to a portion, and he found that his fellow guests utilized an instrument, the like of which he was also supplied with, to push the vegetable upon their forks. Subsequently he learned that the instrument was called a “pusher,” but at the time it seemed to him nothing more nor less than a diminutive hoe, in the exact shape of which it was undeniably constructed. But there was one utensil that made him extremely nervous, inasmuch as he could not imagine for what purpose it was intended, and he w r as carefully guarding himself against a possible faux pas. For course after course he watched his fellow guests to see when they would bring the curious tool into play. It was not, how ever, until the asparagus came on that he saw an eminent diplomat who sat opposite pick up the silver hay-rake from beside his plate and employ it to convey the vegetable to his mouth. “Well,” ejaculated the Congressman under his breath, “so that’s what the thing is for! But W'hy in blazes, if we’re goin’ into farming for the dinner-table, don’t we have a threshing machine to make beefsteak tender, and a mowing machine to clear off the crumbs ?”

Thinking Aloud.

It is said that Goldsmith could ndt conceal his thoughts, but blurted out what was uppermost in his mind. And this man, according to Forster, was the true author of the saying about speech being given to man to conceal his thoughts. He gave the lie every day to his own epigram. So accustomed was he to give utterance to every idea as it arose in his mind, that anybody familiar with him might with confidence have accused him of having said anything that he had really thought. Burke once saw him standing near a crowd of people who were staring and shouting at some foreign women in the windows of a fashionable hotel. Afterward Burke charged him with saying: “What stupid beasts the crowd must be for staring with such admiration at those painted Jezebels, while a man of my talent passes by unnoticed.” Goldsmith protested, but at length answered with great humility: “I do recollect that something of the kind passed through my mind, but I did not think that I had uttered it.” “Thinking with a pen” is very closely allied to thinking aloud. Lamartine was wont to scribble all over his proof-sheets; and De Quincey, to the great astonishment of the printers, covered some of his with diatribes against his liver, blue pill and other mundane matters. Lord Dudley was greatly addicted to the habit of favoring all near him with his thoughts. Once, having handed a royal lady into dinner, he was scarcely seated before he began to soliloquize aloud: “What bores these royalties are! Ought I to drink wine with her as I would with any other woman?” And in the same tone he continued: “May I have the honor of a glass of wine with your royal highness ?” Toward the end of dinner he asked her again. "With great pleasure, my lord,” she replied, smiling; “but I have had one glass with you already.” “And so she has!” was the rejoinder, perfectly audible to all.

A Policeman’s Fist Cowed Him.

The Buffalo policeman of whom this story is told is a big handsome fellow, with the brawn of a Hercules, and more grit than can be found in a plate of restaurant baked beans. A couple of nights ago he had arrested a desperate character, who was wanted for a serious crime. Having handcuffed him he w r as taking him to the station. They had reached one of the most lawless parts of the city when the prisoner said: “D n you. It’s good thing for you that you’ve got these ‘comealoDgs’ on me, or you’d never get me to the station—you or no other man.”

“I wouldn’t?” replied the officer. “It only takes a minute to take them off.” With that he pulled out the key, took off the bracelets, and put them in his pocket. “Will you come now?” said the officer, doubling up a fist like a Westphalia ham and advancing a step or so forward.

“Oh, if you are going to fight, I’ll come,” said the thoroughly cowed “crook.” The officer looked at him a moment with disgust, and then taking him by the collar led the meekest man in the States to the station like a delinquent schoolboy.

A Playful Rattlesnake.

John A. Theroux, of Sprague, Cal., recently built a playhouse for his children, and for weeks the children have been telling their parents that there was a big snake in their playhouse, saying that when they were playing the snake would come out and run around the plavhouse and then run away again. Finally Mr. Theroux’s little son James came running to his mother, crying: “Come to the playhouse and see if I don’t know what a snake is.”

Mrs. Theroux went to see if there was anything there, and was greatly astonished to see a big rattlesnake calmly sunning itself on the floor in the doorway. She picked up a big bowlder and smashed his snakeship. When Mr. Theroux came home he went out and found the snake dead, and cut off his rattles, of which there were seven.— Pittsburg Dispatch.

The Board of Health have control of the railways, because they do the heaviest carrion trade.

A Golden Chance.

M e had got through to Silver City by stage without adventure, and perhaps I had more reason than any other passenger to felicitate myself on thefact, as I was carrying sß'ooo in greenbacks for a friend who was going into business. The day after arriving, & strange man came to the office and asked if he could have a few minutes* private conversation. He looked like a prospector or silver finder, and I took him into the inner office, where he quietly sat down and began: “I am no hand to beat around the bush, but believe in coming straight to the point.” “Well?” “Well, you brought in SB,OOO with you yesterday.” “Suppose I did’” “I knew you were coming, and for three days I was posted to intercept you. I intended to hold up your stageand take everything.” “Why didn’t you do it?” That’s what I’m coming to. My infernal burro- stumbled with me at & bad place and pitehed me off, and for a whole day I hardly moved a rod. I’m so sore and lame now that I can scarcely get about. ” “Well?” The kernel of this thing is just here. You were my meat, fair and square. Them eight thousand was as good as in my own pocket. Owing to circumstances beyond my control, you pulled through. It was a stroke of luck. I lost my animal and both my revolvers, and am hurt besides. Are you honorable enough to give me a per cent, on that money to go into business again?” He wanted three per cent., but I finally got off with S3O, and he boughta revolver and some blankets with it, and went off and stopped a stage, and was shot through the head,— New York Sun.

He Broke Into Jail.

My father was Sheriff of a county in Indiana for a good many years, and the jail he first took charge of was a very humble affair. The jail properwas a one-story addition of stone about twenty feet square, and the two windows were defended by heavy outside blinds in place of bars. One night, returning home at a late hour, my father noticed a man working on the outside of one of the windows. He had piled up a lot of wood for a platform, and had broken into a blacksmith shop toget a. crowbar. Father kept back and let him work away, andl by and by he got the blind open and disappeared inside. There were no prisoners in the jail, and the blind was softly closed and fastened with a prop. When this had been done father went inside, opened the door of the corridor, and, there stood his man. He looked 1 around him in a dreamy way, but got it through his head at last, and then he queried: “This is the county jail, isn’t'it?” “It is.” “And I’ve been fool enough to>break into it?” “You have.” “That’s all. Lock me up till morning, and then let some jackass kick me to death!” The fun of it was that he turned out to be a robber, with a reward of S2OO on his head, and when he came to trial. he got a sentence of fifteen-years.— New York Sun.

What They Learned.

Few manufactured malapropos speeches are so droll as those which little children make without knowing it. The Pittsburgh Bulletin gives- the following: Mamma—Did my darling little Nellie hear the words of the w edding ceremony ? Nellie—Yes, I heard every word. Mamma —And what did the minister say? Nellie (glibly)—He said: “We have now entered the holy bands of padlock, and you twine are now’ one “fish.” The Hartford Post reports another, which, as the Irishman said, is “equally worse. ” A little girl, just old enough to enter the infant class at the Sunday school, was ambitious to repeat a• text of Scripture as the older ones did at the concert exercises. In order to humor her ambition and make it reasonably certain that she' would succeed, the mother selected the brief text, “It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day.” and taught her until she rehearsed it several times correctly. When the supreme moment arrived, Jhowever, the little orator electrified' her audience and mortified her mother by saying, “It is awful to do good on the Sabbath day.”

He Was a Thrifty Landlord.

An American was at an Edinburgh hotel for a month, and when the bill was presented noticed that he had been charged with a bottle of wine of a brand he had never used. Moreover,, he had no recollection of leaving ordered any article of the kind on thedate specified. He complained of the overcharge to the proprietor, whoblandly remarked: “Very well, sir, I’ll take it off. You see, the girl who got that bottle of wine from the cellar forgot to whom it had been served, so I charged it against every £uest in the house. All who didn’t have it will object, and the one who did will pay.” “Well, but aiea’t you afraid that someone who didn’t have it will pay, too?” asked the American. “No,” was thereply, “I’m afraid they won’t.” Thirteen guests paid for that bottle of wine.

Not French.

No word, possibly, is accepted ae more “French” by the generality of people than “chic.” To say that a person or an article is “chic” generally conveys the idea that he, she or it does the right thing in a Frenchy way; bub now “chic” is declared to be German, and not French. France has borrowed from the German “schick,” meaning aptness, fitness.

“Well,” remarked an Eastern man, as the train robber covered him with a revolver, “I’ve pawned all my possessions at various times, but this is the first time I have been obliged to put up my hands.”