Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1891 — LITTLE BOYS AND GIRLS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LITTLE BOYS AND GIRLS.

The Sultan of Turkey has attached to his bodyguard a soldier who is 110 years old. Queen Christiana of Spain, hears operas in her private room by means of the telephone. A Salt Lake City editor, who is blind, is to have his eyes replaced by those of a rabbit. Thebe is a bill now pending to abolish the last and only turnpike toll road in the State of Connecticut. A mode of making pepsin from the common pineapple, so strong that the essence of one pineapple will digest ten pounds of beef, has been discovered by a Detroit physician. Berlin gets her winter cauliflowers from Italy and Holland, new potatoes from Maita, beans from North Italy, pickles from Holland, onions from Buseia, Hungary, and Egypt. Gov. Nichols, of Louisiana, is minus a leg, an arm, and an eye, but is still accounted not only a good man, but one of the smartest Governors in the whole South. He complains less than some men who have only dropped an ear. A French paper warns the people of that country who may visit America that “many ferocious lions and hyenas have appeared near Fargo, and people walking out to see the Mammoth Cave should by all means go armed and prepared.” Among the assets of a traveling salesman who died in Cincinnati the other day were no less than seventeen different sorts of liver invigorators. He had taken only about half a bottle of each one. His death was caused by a liver trouble. There are still several tribes of Indians in Mexico which believe in witchcraft, and the other week a woman was killed because it was contended that she drove the sun over into the United States and filled up the space with rain. A Philadelphia surgeon says that by three strokes of the lancet he could paralyze the nerves acted on to make a man get mad, and thereafter any one could pull his nose, cuff his ears and spit on his boots and he would simply smile a soft, bland smile. Only about one factory out of seven in this country is properly fire-escaped or equipped with apparatus to quench an incipient conflagration. The rest of them simply take chances that nothing will happen, or if a fire occurs that the employes will get out some way.

Elmer Young, an Oswego man, felt funny the other morning, and he said to Mrs. White, who was going to the grocery, “Trot along after your coal oil, sissy.” She had him arrested, and the court decided that “sissy” was slander and gave her a verdict for SSO. A preacher at Kinderhook, N. Y. has been in the habit of saying “Gosh hang it!” and “By gum!” but his case has been investigated, and it has been decided that he must quit right off, and not even exclaim “Oh, sugar!” when he steps into a post-hole full of water. Only one letter out of every 750,000 properly stamped and posted fails to reach its destination by the first regular mail, and east of the Rocky Mountains only one letter in 1,550,000 is lost in transit and never heard of. These figures do not include stolen letters, of course. No matter what other astronomers declare, those of Switzerland persist that the sun is only 78,000,000 miles from the earth. They set that figure forty years ago, and stick to it in their school books and geographies. Fifteen million miles isn’t worth quarreling about, however. Anna Dickinson is in such poor health that she will never be heard in public again Her friends say she ought to have been married at the age of twenty; but, like many another woman, she wanted to be “independent,” and has never taken any real comfort in her life. A school is to be opened in New York to instruot people how to carry an umbrella so as to protect the toes and coat tails at the same time. One has only to keep his- eyes open on a rainy day to realize that only one person in twenty, man or woman, understands the “art.”| John Haven’s dog killed thirteen of William Black’s Kentucky sheep. William then killed John’s dog, and John shot to kill William, but only wounded him, and got himself on the road to State prison. It was long ago decided in Kentucky that no one had any moral right to keep sheep. Commander McCalla, of the navy, who was convicted of tyrannical aud cruel conduct toward his men, and suspended for three years, has seen two other commanders promoted over him in the-last year, and it is said that he is heartbroken. His case may teach others a good lesson. It has been finally settled in Scotland that after a single man and woman have kept company for fourteen years,

and have not denied to outsiders that they contemplated matrimony, that the man can be sued for breach of promise, and that no further proof shall be needed by the plaintiff. Some of the striking curiosities at the citric exhibition at Los Angeles were horse-cars apparently made of oranges; a clock tower twenty-four feet high, composed of oranges, lem-. ons, limes and raisins; a model of the San Gabriel Mission, made of small, fragrant Tangerine oranges. A whale sixtv-eight feet long, and dead from the thrusts of a sword-fish, floated ashore on the South Carolina coast the other day, and the two parties of negroes who discovered it fought for four hours as to which should take possession. Then some white men came along and gobbled the prize.

The trains passing Elberton, Ga., do not seem to be particularly noted for rapidity of motion. Not long ago, a young man having an important letter to mail, failed to reach the train on time. He thereupon saddled a grocer’s horse and sped after the train, overtook it in a short time, and mailed the letter. j • A Mrs. Williams, of Valley City, Dak., wagered that she could put the slips on five pillows while any man present at a church fair could encase one, and seven different men took her up and suffered defeat. No man can ever acquire the knack of holding a pillow in his teeth to work with both hands. London has been looking up the records, and finds that the winter of 1890-1 was the coldest, and accompanied with the most snow, of any winter since that of 1700. It has been quite a change for her, as there have been many days when the skidb were actually clear and the sun shone. “Ik I am ever killed,” said a Northern Michigander as he shouldered his gun the other day, “it will probably be by a falling tree. No gun has ever been made to kill me.” In climbing a fence ten rods further on he shot himself through the heart. The country gun will do it if given time. A man came out of prison in Spain recently who had been confined in a room 4x9 feet for thirty-eight years without once stepping foot outside or seeing the sun or sky. No one can tell what he was imprisoned for, or at least no one will, and no one knows by whose order he was turned loose.

An athlete named Cummings, at Milwaukee, has been betting and winning his bets that he could board any train passing a station without halting. He did it five or six times at suburban stations, but the other day he grabbed, missed, and now has only one leg left. The railroad will down any man in time. If a villager in Eussia petitions for privilege to keep a gun, and that gun shall accidentally go off within three or four years and wound somebody or something, the man who wrote the petition, the villager for whom it was written, the two men who Rigned it, and the official who forwarded it can all be fined or sent to prison. The wav to insure a quick and healthy growth of timber, according* to the Nebraska Farmer, is to mulch around the trees with straw, old hay, or trash of any kind. Such treatment will, it says, in the course of ten years secure a growth of timber from one tree greater than that of half a dozen of its kind left to their own resources. A Cincinnati chemist took a pound of ice gathered on a pond where the ice-cutters were at work to lay in a stock for families, and dissolved it to show that it contained epough germs of typhoid fever to pull down the strongest man in the State. The cutters didn’t stop, however, and the ice will come out this summer warranted strictly pure.

In 1889 there were in Ireland 1,363,781 milch cows, while in 1890 there were 1,400,426, being an increase of 36,645. The tendency of Irish butter makers is to adopt small, neat, and convenient packages, and to prepare butter with great care. The result of this is that Irish butter has rapidly gained favor in Great Britain, and is now largely in demand in districts that had ceased to order in the old forms and packages so long in use. Sheriff Kingery, of Adair County, lowa, lately had an unpleasant experience with a prisoner, whom he was conveying to jail. They were on a railroad train, and tfafe wide-awake prisoner asked that his handcuffs be removed, that he might sleep comfortably. The sheriff complied, and soon after fell asleep himself. When he awoke he was alone. It is supposed that the prisoner suddenly thought of important business elsewhere, and felt that it would be unwise to arouse the Sheriff from his rdsv slumbers. One of Hartford’s prominent ministers was pacing a hotel corridor not long ago, when a tract distributor approached him with this question, “Are you a Christian?” “I hope so,” replied the clergyman modestly. “Hope so? Don’t you know so ?” persisted his interlocutor. No response from the divine. “Well, now,” said the stranger, “if a man should strike you on the right cheek, would you turn to him the other also?” “No, I wouldn’t, if he had as much cheek as you have.” The interview v as not prolonged.

THIS IS THEIR DEPARTMENT OF THE PAPER. Quaint Sayings and Doings of Little One* Gathered and Printed Here for Other Little Folks to Bead. Here Comes an Old Woman from Barbary. Wo’re playing old woman from Barbary, Anna and Lizzie and Marjorie; And we’re having such fun as you never (fid see, With granny's old cap for a bonnet. Lizzie’s old woman and I am one child, And Anna’s the other, and we are so wild And saucy, our mother declares “we are sp’iled,” But I have my own doubts about It. Yet, in spite of her scoldings, wherever we go Ebe is telling how nicely we bake and we sew, To see if she cannot procure us a beau. For she’s tired of each good-for-naught daughter. They can sew, they can bake a lily-white cake, They can cook a good dinner. Oh! which

will you take? The youngest will brew you a lovely milk shake. And flavor It well with water. The other can play the piano and sing Till the windows all rattle, the rafters all ring, And dance the cachuca like everything. If you want a real beauty, just take her. “Here comes an old woman of Barbary, With daughters all rosy and fair to see.” And there ne'er were such daughters, I’m sure, as we, For we love her too well to forsake hor. —Free Press. There Is a Boy I Can Trust. We once visited a public school. At recess a little fellow came up and spoke to the teacher; as he turned to go down the platform, the master said; “That is a boy I can trust. He never failed me.” We followed him with our eye, and looked at him when he took his seat after recess. He had a fine, open, manly face. We thought a good deal about the master’s remark. What a character had that boy earned! He had already got what would be worth more to him than a fortune. It would be a passport into the best store in the city, and, what is better, into the confidence and respect of the whole community. We wonder if the boys know how soon they are rated by other people. Every boy in the neighborhood is known, and opinions are formed of him; he has a character either favorable or unfavorable. A boy of whom the master can say, "I can trust him; he never failed me,” will never want employment.— Our Dumb Animals.

UnseltWh. There are usually at least two ways of looking at a thing, and it is well now and then to change one’s point of view. Little Hans had just begun his school life, and his mother was ambitious to have him keep a high standing in his class. “Why, Hans,” she said, regretfully, at the end of his second week, “last week you gave me so much pleasure by getting to be at the head of your class, and now you are only number four, I see.” “Yes’m, I know,” admitted the little fellow, with great gravity; “but then,” he added, “some other boy’s mamma has the pleasure this week, so I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind so very much!” “You’re quite right, Hans,” said his mother, giving him an appreciative smile, “I don’t mind it at all —now!” A True Kitten Story. “Once on a time there were three little kittens that lived in a basket of sawdust.” Now that’s true, for Willie Hall found them there with his old black cat Topßv, when he went home from school, ile told me about them the next day. One was white, one black like Topsy, and the other one mouse-color —“pure maltese,” he called it. He named the white one Snowball, the black one Smut, and the other Beauty, because it was the prettiest of all. The next night, when he went home, only Beauty was left. He asked his mamma where the rest were, and she said perhaps they were dead, for young kittens died very suddenly sometimes. Willie said he heard the hired man laugh when his mother said that. I think it is horrid to laugh because kittens are dead, don’t you ? Topsy seemed to feel afraid Beauty wduld die, too; perhaps she- thought the basket of sawdust was an unhealthy place. She spent most of her time the next day carrying Beauty around in her mouth looking for a new home. Mrs. Hall found Beauty in her mending-basket Mice, and again among the flatirons in the sink-cubbard. Every time she put her back in the basket of sawdust, but Topsy wouldn’t let her stay there. Just after Willie got home from school at night his grandma came over to their house, lou know what a little, feeble old lady she is, and for all it is such a short way she was so tired she could hardly get up the steps, and sank down in a chair as soon as she got in. It is a large rocker, -with soft feather cushions, all covered with gray cloth. Mrs. Hall brought her some water an<^ fanned her, and Willie tried to find Beauty to show her, but couldn’t find her anywhere. When hiß grandma was rested she went back home.' and Mrs. Hall went along and carried the parasol over her, while Willie ran ahead to open the gate.

What do you think they found when they Went back home? There was poor little Beauty among the soft cushions of that chair, smothered to death! She was so near the color of the cushions that his grandma didn’t notice her, and had been sitting on her all the while. Willie said he cried. But he never, never should tell his grandma, for she is such a dear grandma, and it would hurt her feelings so. Wasn’t it kind in him ?—Household Magazine.

“THEY CAN SEW. THEY CAN BAKE.”