Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1874 — ITEMS OF INTEREST. [ARTICLE]

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

A Vermont woman owns a shinglemill, and being the mother of eleven boys she iB turning out shingles which, for family use, discount the boot-jack by four. , ..ij, ‘ . ; Y** A Chinaman in Massachusetts who lost his cue by a scalp disease felt that he couldn’t count anything in this world, and committed suicide. Kerosene is retailing at ten cents per gallon in some of the Eastern cities. If rightly used a gallon would lay out twenty-one hired girls, which is less than half a cent a girl. Notwithstanding the notorious dimensions of the shoes worn by St. Louis womeh, a slanderous Louisville journal says those interesting creatures insist on calling themselves the down-trodden sex. A man had better have a millstone tied to his neck and be cast into the sea than to promise to marry a Texas girl and then refuse. The whole country turns out to hunt him, and he is generally left to grow up with a tree. James Hallow, of West Dudley, Mass., labored bard for thirty years to procure a “ home of his own.” Last month, after those many years of parsimony, he pufchased a farm, settled on it, and died twenty days thereafter. Those who have been in the, United States Senate chamber during a heavy shower remember that the noise made by the rain upon the roof was so great as to render the transaction of business almost impossible. This has now been remedied by the use of lath and plaster under the tin roof.

It was in a Massachusetts village that an old scissors-grinder, calling on a minister, made the usual query:Any scis-. sors to grind?” Receiving a.negative answer it was the minister’s turn, which he took, by asking; “ Are you prepared to die?” The question struck home. Gathering up his kit and scrambling for the door°he exclaimed, terror-stricken: “Oh, mercy! You ain’t a-going to kill me, are yon?” Old Prob. seems 4o have played a severe practical joke on the young grasshoppers in the West. The continued late warm weather hatched the grasshopper eggs, and the foolish young things commenced skipping about quite lively in anticipation of a pleasant summer campaign. In a few days the sharp frosts nipped the life out of them to a hopper, and they perished, untimely, silly victims of misplaced confidence. A New Bedford clergyman amazed his congregation the other Sunday by suddenly leaving his pulpit, trotting down the aisle, and striding off toward home. The choir sang, and r then there was an awkward, fidgety waiting. Soon the pastor shot into the church again, sopping perspiration from his forehead with his handkerchief, and read his sermon without explanation. He had forgotten his manuscript—that was all. A Clerk’s Joke.—One of the clerks in a Woodward avenue store yesterday’ raised a third-story window and balanced a straw man on the Mil 'ln such a position that people across the way were certain that some one was hanging to the casing for dear life. Ip one hour fifty people entered the store to say that some one was about to fall from the window, and most of, them passed out of the side door looking down-hearted in taking their leave. —Detroit Free Press.

A Justice of the Peace recently went with a young man in the country to the house of his intended, for the purpose of uniting the two as man and wife. It seems the bride-elect changedrher mind, and, instead of being married, heaped many imprecations Upon the head of her would-be husband, who, driven to desperation, seized her, and holding her by main force called upon the Justiee to proceed, who refused to do so. The scene is described as ludicrous in the extreme.—Magnolia (N. G.) Record.

Prison architecture has reached the acme of perfection at Due West, 8. C. They have a building there in which windows and doors are entirely dispensed with. The prisoners are hoisted outside by means of a rope and dropped in from the top. Once in it is evident that they must stay in a place so wonderfully deficient in egressive facilities. A captive may have kind friends outside willing to Aid him, but what friend can secretly bring a derrick and rope into the prison, and, if he could, how or by whom is it to be worked? Every man who is in the habit of getting drunk should read this touching, perhaps truthful, little story from the Detroit Free Press , and immediately reform: “Wednesday afternoon a halfdrunken man named Croy, living in Canada, was wandering arbund the Potomac, accompanied by a big dog and having lots of money. Yesterday morning he was found in an alley, sleeping a drunken sleep, and his dog was keeping watch over Urn, and would allow no one to come near until the man shook off his sleep. The dog had been stabbed twice with a knife, and there were two extra hats in the alley, showing that tlieres had come to rob the man and that the dog had fought them off.” The Salem (N. Y.) Press of a recent date says: “ There seems to be no end to accidents happening from the premature discharge of firearms. Not a week passes but we are called upon to record casualties of this character. The latest that has come to our knowledge occurred Tuesday. Lewis Bichardson, a young man residing in this village, undertook to shoot a cat, but the tables were reversed: the cst succeeded in shooting him. It happened in this wise: Richarflsofi took the cat in his arms and car-

ried it to a point near the railroad woodshed intending to shoot it. The pat proving fractious, he held it with one hand while he put the revolver between his knees and cocked it with the other hand. Just as he finished this part of hia task the cat’s tail caught in the hammer, and in attempting to free her tail pulled the trigger, and the contents of the revolver cut, her tail ip two and entered Richardson’s leg.” There was an adroit robbery of an express car at Delaware Station, a little hamlet on the Delaware, Lackawanna* Western Railroad. The train stopped at the station for supper, remaining thero fifteen minutes. The express messenger being hungry. Jocked the side, shut the door of the express car, locked it, and bolted off to supper. He forgot the door of his car on the other side of the platform. The robber remembered it, opened it In a few seconds, placed a tie against the car, and by main force slid the safe — a mere iron box weighing 218 pounds—to the track, closed the door, and*lugged his ponderous capture away. Coming to a high fence, he pulled down enough of it to admit the safe, and after dragging it fifty yards further pried it open. He made a hurried examination of its contents with a light, and secured SB,OOO in casb ?nd jewelry, leaving nearly four times that amount in greenbacks, done up in paper in such a manner that he could not discover what they were. The robbery and examination were completed so rapidly that the train had barely left the station when a resident of the village encountered a man running from the spot. A few minutes It.ter the safe had been discovered before the express messenger had missed it, and reflected upon his ostrich-like stupidity.