Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1891 — Page 4

Sljc gmocratfcgenttnri RENSSELAER. INDIANA. 1. W. McEVVEN, ... Ptnarank

Sangutnite, a new mineral, contains silver, arsenic and sulphur. A New York messenger boy ran away with SI,OOO the other day. Walpole was right Everybody has his price. Give a messenger boy enough and he will even run. Very few girls like to be called soft, but very few girls reach 20 without frankly confessing to themselves that Jhere was a time in their lives when that word just fitted them. What has become of the old-fash-ioned parent who. whenever his boy received a whipping at schcol, gave him another walloping at home to show that he did not approve of his badness? Two Japanese mining engineers are traveling among the coal mines in the West, studying American mining methods, which they desire to apply to the development of the coal deposits of Japan. The Japanese murderer of a restaurant keeper in Seattle. Wash., threw his sword into the bay. A vigorous search resulted in finding the weapon, which had marks showing it to be 260 years old. Dallas Hunter, the fat boy of Green County, Indiana, is dead. He was only 14 years old, but he w eighed 249 pounds, and he died in his sleep, practically smothered in his superabundance of adipose matter. An artist has been looking through the Boston cemeteries and finds to Lis surprise that there is no monument in any of the cemeteries there that is worth over $5,000. The Chadwick tomb cost about $25,000, but this is not classed with monuments. The Paris street extending from Neuilly to St. Denis is lined with tumbledown tenements that are said to shelter more vice and iniquity than can be found in any other spot in the world. The houses throng with criminals. The street is known as the “Route de la Revolte.”

The French Society of Men of Letters, which held its convention in Paris on April 6, has a pension fund of $300,000 for old and indigent members. Its whole property is worth between ssoo,ooo'and $609,000. Its annual expenditures are SIOO,OOO, or about $5,000 less than its receipts. The commander of the St. Petersburg police has issued an order that if a house owner is in arrears with his water taxes be is to be compelled by police measures to jay them. But the water supply is not to be cut off, in order that the tenants shall not suffer for the delinquency of the landlord. There is not a mile of railway in Brown “County, Indiana, nor within six miles of it. Nashville, the county seat, has 400 inhabitants and but one brick structure, the Court House. The jail is built of logs. The county has not sent any one to the penitentiary for several years, and there is not a saloon within its limits. An assessor at Bucktown, Ind., called at the house of an old woman whose furniture was valued at 50 cents. Under the law he had to fix the value at sl, which would make her tax a fraction over 1 cent. Before leaving he discovered that the old dame was the owner of six dogs, on which she was assessed sll. General Butler lives on a scale that most millionaires would regard as extravagant, keeping up establishments in Washington, Boston and Lowell. Despite the belief to the contrary, he is a remarkably generous man, and gives away more money than do many people who have reputations for philanthropy.

The expedition sent out by the Vienna Academy of Science to explore the Mediterranean found its greatest depth to be something over two ard one-quarter miles, between Molla and Cerigo. On the African coast, where the water is clearer, white metal plates could be seen at a depth of 144 feet. Sensitive plates were acted upon by the light at a depth of over 1,600 feet. Among the curious trust funds in the hands of the overseers of the poor of Boston is one the income of which is to be applied to the purchase of tea, ooffee, chocolate and sugar for ihe refreshment of those persons who, in the providence of God, are or shall be obliged to seek refuge in the almshouse after having lived respectably, but always giving preference to the pious poor. The latest fish story comes from Ocala, Fla., where the cook at a restaurant is alleged to have found a diamond ring in a fish’s stomach. The ring is of handsome design and contains seven small stones set in a circle, with one larger than the rest in the center. Inside the band on the lower side are engraved the letters S. E. L. The ring is a valuable one, probably worth from SIOO to $125. Medical specialists are numerous nowadays, but they were quite common in Egypt at least 450 years before the Christian era. Here is what Herodotus, the father of history, savs of the m: “The Egyptians have among them a great multitude of

physicians, But each man is a physician of one part of the body only, for one heaieth diseases of the eyes, and another diseases of the head, and a third diseases of the teeth.” Carbon is an element which assumes diverse forms; for instance plumbago, charcoal, and the diamond. Herr Schutzenbeigex has recently produced it in a novel by passing cyanogen through a porcelain tube heated to a cherry-red, and containing gas oarboa sprinkled with powdered cryolite. The carbon separates in a bulky mass of slender filaments, which can be compressed into a substance resembling graphite or plumbago. An Atchison, Kan., girl some time ago married a man she did not care for. The match was made by her parents, whom she told she would come back home to live in a month, anyway. She recently visited home for the first time in two years, and was so anxious to get back to her husband that she did not remain a week. It occasionally happens that the man makes a success of it who does not win a woman’s affections until after he has married her.

A St. Petersburg lady of fashion has invented an improvement in her turnout which, the local papers say, is likely to become popular with all ladies of rank. She has a mirror fastened to the girdle of her driver when she takes a drive. This enables her not only to see whether her headgear and dress are in perfect order, but even to notice the carriages and the people who are coming up behind her vehicle. Russia claims to possess the oldest soldier in the world in Col. Gritzenko, of Poltava, near Odessa, who on Feb. 7 celebrated his 117th birthday. Entering the service in 1789, over oae hundred years ago, be received from the hands of Empress Catherine, after the taking of Ismail, where he was serving under Suwaroff, the military gold medal. This bears the inscription : “For exceptional bravery at the a sault of Ismail, Dec. 11, 1789.” M. De Tocqueville, the celebrated French author, pays the following compliment to American women: “I do not hesitate to avow that, although the women of tire United States are confined within the narrow circle of domestic life and their situation is, in some respects, one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen women occupying a loftier position, and, if I were asked to what the sfligular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply, to the superiority of their women.” All Paris is laughing over the joke about an American inventor who is said to have patented a corset that is to bring about the reign of morality at once. If one of thesearticles is pressed by a lover’s arm it at once emits a shriek like the whistle of a railroad engine; and the inventor claims that he has already married three of his daughters, owing to the publicity thus thrust upon a backward lover. But the wits of Paris, carrying out the joke to its utmost, profess to fear that soon the parlors will become unbearable, owing to the simultaneous and continued whistling of the corsets.

A curious story was told on the streets by one John Sellers, representing himself as living in the Trinity bottoms about fourteen miles east of Ennis, writes an Ennis, Texas, correspondent. He said that a colored woman living along the river bank lost her 2-year-old child, a boy just able to walk, and search was made, but unsuccessfully, and the mother gave it up for lost. Further, that some fishermen while returning from an excursion found the baby, alive and well, perched on some driftwood, drifting placidly toward the Gulf, about twenty miles down the river; that it took the fishermen two days to discover the mother and restore the babe to its home.

Some wonderful, experiments in hypnotism were recently successfully given in the Coleman House, New York, by Prof. John E. Kennedy, before the' physicians attached to the Bellevue Hospital One man, while in the hypnotic state. Had a needle and" thread run through his tongue and cheek without feeling it; another had the flesh of his arm burned with a lighted cigar and experienced no pain. One subject drank four ounces of castor oil, thinking it was beer; and three subjects were made to believe themselves engaged in a yacht cruise, which closed with an imaginary ■wreck, the yachtsmen hujrriedly throwing off their shoes and diving head-first to the parlor floor to escape from the sinking vessel.

The truth of the germ theory of disease would seem to be demonstrated, at least with regard to some diseases, by the researches of Dr. Koch. In cases of a few diseases, notably splenic fever, there accumulates in the blood and tissues, but n.ore especially in the spleen, a peculiar kind of bacteria. Where animals are inoculated with fluid containing either the bacilla themselves or their spores, he has produced all the phenomena of splenic fever. From this hypothesis the now celebrated micrologist has deduced the fact that by inoculating people suffering with tubercular diseases with a lymph the bacteria of this particular disease—admitting such to be of bacterian origin— are destroyed effectually.

THE CHICAGO BOCKS.

WHERE SAILORS ANO RATS MOST DO CONGREGATE. Hardest Quarters to BeFound lu the Western Metoopo is—Queer Character* Encountered These—Tough Dives and Their Patrons.

ISTER, will you be real mad if I ask you one question?” A bare-footed, redheaded, bright-eyed little man, or large ,boy, it was not easy to determine which, thus accosted the writer at a boathouse under one of

the Chicago bridges, a few days since. “I sometimes ask questions myself, and can’t well object,” was the rqp]y. “If I bring two bushel baskets full of shavings to your house for your wife to kindle fires with, will you give me 10 cents to buy a fish-hook and strong line?” Had the proposition involve! the transfer of a controling Interest in all the Vanderbilt roads, it could not have been made with greater earnestness. •I have neither wife nor cookstove,

“IT’S A BARGAIN, MISTER."

but the printer or his devil may be able to use your goods, and I’ll advance you a dime ou thoir account, if you’ll to 1 me what you know about the Chicago docks, and show me around generally.” “It’s a bargain, Mister. I havn’t made the price of a snifter out of the shaving fake to-day and my hold needs ballast I’m the lad for you; I was born in a canal boat I know every turn in the creek, an’ every plank In the docks. I’m Billy the wharßrat. I am.” Thus escorted, the writer saw—and smelt—his fill of the docks and their appurtenances, and came away convinced that Butler had the forefathers of the denizens of the Chicago docks in mind when he wrote in Hudibras: Some rats of an amphibious nature, Are either of the earth or water. Probably not many know that the Chicago docks, like the old-time Whitefriars of London, contain, and for the most part conceal, a peculiar people of their own. who there earn and steal their livelihood. Unlike their first cousins, the tramps and bums, they sometimes work. Their principal occupation is that of stevedore, and in loading and unloading vessel's they often labor for twenty-four and thirty-six hours without cessation This is done only when thy? carrying trade is brisk or the vessel has a cargo awaiting her and time is valuable. In such cases the men are paid large wages, and can afford to loaf for a few days. Night work is a bonanza to the stevedore, who generally manages to conceal and carry away some articles of value. By a pre-arrangement, a small boat often comes alongside in the night, and receives goods of all descriptions dropped overboard by the confederate wharf rat whenever occasion permits. This is even done while the boat is In charge of a Government inspector, and, in spite of the greatest vigilance, the shortage from the bill of lading is generally considerable Vessels often discharge and receive their freight at different docks, and carry the stevedores with them, who frequently succeed in throwing overboard metals, pieces of machinery and other heavy articles, which they afterward fish out with grapp ing irons. “Where do the rats sleep?” the guide was asked. “Some snoozes under the bridge approaches, lots of ’em in sa.oons and eat-

“A SAILORS’ ROW.”

ing bouses on the docks; quite a number at cheap lodging houses and the Bethel, while, a few actually has homes. We don t pay hotel oills in the summer time, but the winter fetches us, and we have to look up a tenner every day for a berth in a lodging house. Cold weather drives us away from the creek and inak.-s regular bums of us ” “How abont the do -k saloons?" “They're generally pretty tough. They make most of their money out of the rats, and always stands in with ’efn. There’s where sailors are ‘done up.’ The rats catch onto ’em. steers ’em to a saloon, where they give up everything. They take em singly, so they can’t make out a case, if they try, which ain’t ofter. Some saloons has some pretty tough women in tow. as an inducement to fetch poor Jack in.” “Who are the patrons of the dock saloons?” “The rats for regu'ars. Nearly all they make or ‘find’ they drop so- drinks, and always on the wharf. A rat wouldn't drink above the sidewalk. Some saloons along the river co a good business with sailers. Grain-trimme s ain't bad customers. Railroad laborers out of work fancy rat saloons, and -you can bet

they're not afraW to go there. Onoe hl a while a welkbeeled lubber goes down the stairs at one of the bridges for a drink. He generally gets something ip it, as be didn't order, gets absent-mind-ed, and forgets to take his roll and watch away with Um.” “Do river men gamble?* “Poker’s all the go here, though most rats drink too much to play well. Nearly every saloon has a game, but they're never on the square. The boss always wins." “Is there much fighting along the docks?" “Lois of ft: and mighty ugly, sometimes. A rat don’t shoot; he strikes and cuts, and many a gash charged up to a innocent propeller by the oor’ner*s jury was put onto the floater with a knife in a rat saloon. Sometimes sailors as has been done up and kick, get ft that way. Generally the man as is fixed ain’t known away from here, and is a terror that lionest rats are glad to get rid of; so no tears is shed and no fuss made. I know a dozen as has downed their man. You see I get the inside facts.” “Don’t the police sometimes capture them?” “1 never hear on“t. The cops don’t care to come around here much, and vou don’t catch a rat going far from the rh er when lie can help it We know whore we’re safe. Why. in a rat saloon we’re as secure as a bank president in Canada. Most of ’em has trap doors behind the bar as connects with the creek, and a rat’il take to the water, dirty as it is, to shake a cop. Tve seen it done lots of times.” “Is there much stealing along the docks?” “Is there much to steal? that’s the point. Everything as can be took, goes. Why, in winter I’ve seen a vessel stripped of her ropes, anchor, bolts that coud be got out—everything a junk dealer will buy. A great many are in cahoots with land thieves, and exchange plunder with them. I know cellars along the river where goods are safe and can’t be reached except by going under the dock in a boat.” “How about burglaries, are they common?” “There’s a gang as works that fake regular. They often let some one else find the stuff, and get a reward; that’s why you don’t hear more of ’em. Sometimes they strikes South Water and other streets a block or two away, but generally they enter stores and warehouses direct from the river. They carry the plunder away in boats, and if seen and close pressed, dive and disappear—every rat can swim. The loss of a boat ain’t nothing, as they're easy to pick up. Some fellers here does a right handsome trade in boats. They sell ’em to boat builders, who alter and repaint ’em so that the owner wouldn't know 'em. I know a boat-builder here who sold the same boat to the same party three times—he was a land-lubber.” “Where do the rats < ome from?” “That s hars to tell. A good many, like me. has been canal-boat men. Lots has been sailors—a sailor out of a berth i aturally comes here, and often stays for good. Some come here because they’re ‘wanted’ elsewhere. We've got

TYPICAL DOCK ROUSTABOUTS.

two educated fellers what took to drink, and a do en reformed tramps and bums ’ (Jufte a number of people earn a liv. inf? at the pier along the Lake Front They make a good deal of money renting out fishing tackle and selling minnows for bait These they catch in small dip nets They buy fish from small boys and others, and sell them to impatient and unskillful fishermen, who are ashamed to return home empty-handed. At the Government pier dagos ha\e stands where they sell coffee, pies, cakes, sandwiches, tobacco, and sometimes whisky. In the olden time “bumboats" rc'gned supreme there, making night hideous. These have mostly been suppressed. though Black Jack Yattaw, the king of “bumboat” masters, still continues to defy the law, in spite of the fact that he is frequently arrested and heavily fined. Dwight Baldwin. Forms a 1 rust In Hlmtelf. Almost all the wrecks of vessels that go ashore or burn up or sink in collision along the Atlantic seaboard are bought by one man. He has mastered the secret of disposing of all the parts of such vessels to the be st advantage to himself. He has storehouses at various pointe for the keeping of tackle and tools, and has made himself as formidable as a modern trust. He cannot sell as readily as he buys, however. He must wait until tome one wants just the curious things he happens to have, and very often an engine or a pair of anchors or a set of masts lie long upon his hand j . I: an I she the Devil Cures the Grip. In front of a Japane-e store in Twenty-third street. New York, a little sand pot stuck full of tapers, or incense sticks, is displayed with a sign bearing these words: “Inoense—good for giip.” If that is so it begets a theory closely uniting disea«e-germs with evil spirits, because in China those same little sticks of punk, seasoned with ground sandal-wood, are said to keep evil spirits out of a room. You light a few and put them by your bedroom door with full confidence in the idea that no demons can disturb you or steal your soul over night. Four Trainpii anti 360 Catle Kll’erk A cattle train on the Santa Fe Railroad near Trinidad, Col., became unmanageable while going down grade, and sixteen cars went down a twentyfoot embankment. The cars were smashed into kindling wood, and 360 cattle were killed. The loss to the company is $25,0)0. Four tramps who •were stealing a rile were killed.

MONARCH OF MICHIGAN. ‘BheAlictity Musca' longe the King of Bar Many Finny Beautle*. The silvery lakes and rippling streams that dot and divide the surface of Michigan s lower peninsula have for a number of years possessed a charm for hundreds of sportsmen who find their greatest pleasure with rod and reel. These lakes (for all still bodies of spring water are dignified there by the name) may not have an area of more than three or four acres, or they may be 500 acres in extent; but, if you choose the right day, the right bait, the right tackle, and, in short, conform strictly to the praotioes of any of the old fishermen who. invariably dwell upon the bank, you can be reasonably sure of finding excellent sport in almost any of them. In nearly every stream, too. one or more varieties of game fish abound in numbers sufficient to reward the skillful fisherman; while in hundreds of little rivulets, from the Straits nearly

THE MUSCALLONGE.

to the southern boundary of the State, the beautiful speckled trout is found in the very perfection of development. Bass, pike and pickerel are the most abundant, however, in either lake or stream. Reckless slaughter with spear and neb did, for a time, threaten to exterminate the desirable fish from many of the walers; the effect is yet apparent, but efforts of scores of vigilant fish and game wardens to enfotce the State’s laws are bearing good fruits. But pike, pickerel and ’bass may sport in wanton play and chase the luckless minnow with immunity from danger fiom the sportsman who is out for the capture of Michigan’s monarch of fishes —the mighty muscallon ge. This fish cannot rival in weight the famous tarpon of the Southern waters; but in gamy qualities, compared to size, the tarpon “isn’t in it” Of fresh water the muscallonge is unquestionably the kirg. Fully developed, this fish reaches a length of eight feet, and individuals weighing fifty pounds are not infrequent. The average length of the species caught in Michigan, however, is about four feet, weighing thirty pounds. It seems to shun companionship of numbers of its own kind, and runs mostly in pairs. Like other members of the pike family, it preys upon smaller fishes, and its surpassing strength and size combine to make it one of the most resistless tyrants of fresh waters. It does not thrive in bodies of water wholly inclosed, but in the larger streams flowing into Lake Michigan, and in the lakes having outlets this fish attains even greater size than in the great lake itself. The hook is taken with a rush, and the reel must play, lively or your tackle is gone. With a leap that shows his full writhing and twisting form, the

“FAST.”

captured muscallonge leaves the water and shakes the sparkling drops from his spotted sides, only to plunge into the depths again and dart with lightning speed hither and thither—sometimes a straightaway course, and then again at right angles, eo sharply that you hear the line hiss as it sweeps after him. With 200 feet of line out. he will sometimes so quickly retrace his course that the unskillful fisherman will feel a tug from the direction directly opposite before he has fairly begun to reel in the slack. When this happens, it is generally good-by to the fish, for if the tackle does not break, nor the pole be surrendered, the hook will almost surely be torn out and the captive be again at liberty. When, however, skill and fortune combine the fisherman, after a couple of hours of the sharpest maneuvering of his life, finally lands his prize. And what a prize! Perhaps five feet long, weighing forty or forty-five pounds, the beauty lies, his dark-gray sides studded with brilliant darker spots, his perfect outlines revealed in ravishing distinctness, and "with “fight* still sticking out all over him, emphasized bv a vicious flirt of the tail or a snap of the needle-toothed jaws. A triumphant fight with one of these monarchs of fresh water denizens is an experience long to be remembered. Unpardonable. He—"l cannot hold you t» your promise of marriage until I have first confessed three terrible tragedies which have saddened my life.” She—(with "emotion) —“Go on.” He—“ The first occurred ata summer resort. I took a girl out in a boat, we got caught in a whirlpool, the boat upset, and in spite of my exertions to save her, she was drowned.” She—“ You were not to blame for that. Do not worry about it longer.” He—“ The second occurred in the winter. I was out skating with a young lady, vh n she suddenly di-ap-peared through an air-hole, and in an instant was beyond human aid.” She—“ That certainly was not your fault I will marry you, of course.” He —“The third also happened jn the vinter. I took a girl out sleighing and she froze to death.” She—•Begone!"— New York Weekly.

FOR OUR LITTLE FOLKS.

AOOCUMN OF PARTICULAR INTEREST TO THEM. What Ch ldren Have Dona. What They Are Doing, and What They Should Do to JVaas Their Childhood Days.

,The Way to Meeptown. BY SAM WATER FO6B. The town of Sleeptown is not far, In Tlmbuctoo or China, For ft’s right near by In BUnkton County, In the State of Drowsyllna; It’s just beyond the Thingumboo Hills, Not far from Nodville Center, But you must be drawn thro’ the Valley ot Yawn, Or the town you cannot enter. And this is the way, They say, they say, That baby goes to Sleoptown. Away he flies over Bylow Bridge, Through Lullaby Lane to wander, And on thro’ the groves of Moonshine Valley By the hills of Wayoffyonder; And then does the fairies' flying horse The sleepy baby take up— Until they enter at Jumpoff Center The Peekaboo Vale of Wakeup? And this Is the way, They say, they say. That baby conies from Sleeptown.

A Pretty Experiment. Bore through the cork of a widemouthed bottle a hole of such size as to allow the insertion of the neck of a. glass funnel, and make an air-tight-

joint with paraffin wax or a bit of common paraffin candle, melted down. There must be no air-holes between funnel and cork, or between cork and bottle. Half fill the bottle with water and drop into it two of the powders, a blue and a white one (bicarbonate of soda and tartaric acid), sold by chemists for the production of the familiar seidlitz draught. The liquid forthwith effervesces by reason of the liberation of the carbonic acid gas, and thus struggle to escape, as fast as it is generated, through the opening of the funneL But if you place in the funnel one or two balls of elder pith or cork the gas can escape only intermittently, one or other of the balls falling, by force of gravitation, into the lower part of the funnel and stopping the passage until the pressure of the carbonic acid gas in the bottle below becomes so strong as to lift it out of the way. Whenever this happens some of the gas escapes, the pressure diminishes and one of the balls again falls into the opening, The effect continues as long as the gas continues to be liberated, and if you have painted the balls in different colors their dance, as they rise and fall in the funnel, has a very pretty effect. By gumming one of your little balls to the center of a cigarette paper, cut out and colored to represent the wings of a butterfly, you may give the experiment cyjite an artistic character.

Boys Will I e Boys. Can any one explain why it is that every boy seems to have an inborn instinct that he belongs to the stronger sex, and indignantly resents being mistaken for a girl, long before his mamma thinks he is old enough for short hair and his first pantaloons ? When Roy was three years old, his uncle took him out for a walk, and the shrewd youngster chose a route toward a favorite candy shop a short distance from home, in which his uncle toon found himself awaiting Roy’s selection fcom the sweets temptingly displayed on the counters. A Itttle girl was also waiting to be served and, as Roy seemed slow in making his choice, the proprietor turned to the little miss, and asked her what she wanted. With a politeness which some of her elders might well imitate when shopping, she replied : “I’ll wait until the other little girl is waited upon.” Roy’s face flushed, and, climbing down from the<stool on which he was perched, he started on a run toward home Rushing into the house, he ran to his mother, and in tones of mingled grief and indignation, demanded: “Mamma, be I a boy or girl?” “Why, Roy! You’re a boy, of course. * “Well, then,” with a supreme expression of disgust, “what has I dot on petticoats for?” Roy was shortly after promoted to jackets and trousers; and the trial of being mistaken for a girl no longer troubled him.

Fabming by telephone is a new industry. The man who knows how oats, peas, beans and barley grow mav sit in his comfortable farm-house and read his weekly paper and do his farming by the “hello” arrangement. If the practice became general there would be no more candidates of the horny-handed order and the honest son of toil would be represented by the farmer’s hired man at the other end of the hello plan. It isn’t a bad idea by half. Out of 172,756 votes cast in Chicago, last year, 88,509, or more than one half, were given by naturalized Citizens-