Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1876 — ITEMS OF INTEREST. [ARTICLE]

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

If you have fifty dollars in cash you can go to New York and start a savings bank. Four ex-Congressmen occupy menial positions in the service of the House, at Washington. “Guilty, with some doubts about his being the man that did it,” is a Pennsylvania verdict. Philadelphia hotel-keepers promise uot to charge more than five dollars a day at the Centennial. The worldly New York clergyman don’t put any vim into a marriage ceremony unless he sees the figures on a fiftydollar bill in> advance. The New York papers are agitating the community by discussing the question whether it is proper or not lor a gentleman to cross his legs in a street-car. Kate Field carries a revolver. Some daysome malicious person will load it, and 1 then she will have to put it in a pail of water .and run behind the door until the danger is over. Adirondack Murray says pleasure is the legitimate end of life provided it transgresses no law and injures no person. This code of morals is not generally accepted by the philosophers. The New York Herald says that 50 per cent, of the Christmas slippers did not fit, ’Twas ever thus in boyhood’s hour. Slippers never fitted them—perhaps because they were tried on improperly. A French doctor says all great criminals have been great smokers. We observe likewise that alt great criminals have been in the habit of sleeping at night and eating three meals a fay.—Rochester Democrat. The Lieutenant-Governor of Rhode Islahd should remember that there arc worse things than having a $6,000 horse die on short notice. It might have been a SIO,OOO colt and so he has made a saving ot $4,000. John Montgomery Sears, son of the late Joshua Sears, of Boston, came of age Christmas Day. He owns more than $4,000,000 of real estate in Boston, and is

worth many millions more in mortgages and bonds of various kinds, Chester Bardon, an Oregon murderer under sentence of death, has cheated the gallows by starving himself to death., Chester always was dishonest, and to outrage the law was his fovorite amusement. He doubtless died with a grin on his cou n to nance. As a specimen of deliberately sowing the wind with a dead certainty of reaping the whirlwind, the case of the small boy who intrudes upon his grown-up sister and her young man is especially notable. But the small boy always takes the chances. — Bt. Lou in Republican. ' Nbxt year will be a great year for this American nation. It is leap year, Presidential election year and the centennial anniversary of our independence, and for the purpose of giving us a rest during so much excitement there will be one extra Sunday, or fifty-three in all. Now this is why the sly lobster blushes so after being boiled : Tbe shell of the lobster is imbued with a black or bluishblack pigmfent, secreted by the true skin, which also gives out the calcareous matter after each molt, so that lime and pigment are blended together. This pigment becouies red (pale or intense) in water at the temperature of 212 degrees. One night last week one of our saloonkeepers heard a rattling in his cellar, and procuring a tight went down and discovered a rat caught by the tail in a clam shell. The rat, after being caught, attempted to enter his hole, but was stopped by the clam being too large to follow, and was found in that position by the saloonkeeper.—Orleans American. John Kitler, a private of Company “G,” Twentieth Infantry, committed suicide at Fort Ripley recently. Five minutes before he left the mess table, went into the squad-room, seated himself on a trunk, removed his shoe, and touched thp-trigger of a rifle with his right foot. The death was instantaneous, and brains and blood were scattered about the room.

A correspondent of the New York Farmers’ Club gives an instance in which a woman’s arm was swelled to an enormous size and painfully, inflamed. A poultice was made of stewed pumpkins, which was renewed every fifteen minutes, and in a short time produced a perfect cure. The fever drawn oat by the poultices made them extremely offensive as they were taken off. The Roman Catholics are building a grand fountain in Philadelphia to commemorate the Centennial. They will issue some time the present month a medal bearing on one side a picture of the fountain and the words: “ In Honor of the One Hundredth Anniversary of Independence,” tad the reverse bearing the official badge of the Catholic Total Abstinence Beneficial Union, with the words: “ 1776 —A Tribute to American Liberty—lß76.” Old Scrooge is dead. His name this time was George Stebbins, mid he lived in Springfield, Mass. He died in a fit on Christmas Day. Although worth several thousand dollars, he has been extremely miserly and penurious, living on bacon and crackers and other cheap diet. His house, which few persons besides himself have been permitted to enter, was found to be dirty, bare and dreary, containing only a few rickety chairs, some broken crockery, an old piano and a little com.

An old man in Baltimore, who has been a great favorite with children, gave three little girls some small cakes, a few nights ago, which he hail carried in his pocket. After eating the cakes the girls were taken very ill and one of them died before a physician arrived. The lives of the others were saved by the prompt use of emetics. On going to the old man’s room he was found dead in his bed. An examination of his pocket showed that he had carried matches with the cakes and the phosphorus had poisoned them. Six years ago Messrs. Woicott, Johnston & Co., of Freehold, N. J., sold to Lewis D. Mount, a farmer, a twenty-five-cent package of what they represented as seed that woiild produce excellent early turnips. The seed brought forth late turnips of such poor quality that Mr. Mount was compelled to feed them to his cattle. Mr. Mount sued for damages before a Justice of the Peace, and was granted a judgment of ninety-nine dollars damages. The plea of the defendants was that they had purchased theseed under the impression that it was first-class, and having paid the ordinary price no fraud was intended. . Appeals were taken to the Court of Common Pleas, and afterward to the Supreme Court, and then to the Court of Appeals, and these all affirmed theoriginal decision of the J ustice of the Peace. In the suit slo,ooodamages in legal expenses have been paid. Last night Mr. Middlerib, happy and beaming, went home with both arms full of Christmas bundles and his hands were so full he couldn’t open the front-door, but stood kicking it with his knees. Presently he heard his wife skipping along the hall to meet him, and Mr. Middlerib thought he would surprise her with a little touch of lover-like gallantry. The moment the door was opened he overwhelmed her with an avalanche ck bundles, threw his arms around her, and, despite her shrieks and struggles, kissed his neighbor’s wife, who had just run in on a little informal call and was on her way out when Mr. Middlerib met her. And! Mrs. Middlerib stood about halt-way down (he hall, petrified with amazement, both hands lifted and her eyes and mouth equally wide open. Mr. Middlerib feels grateful indeed that he does not have to work to-day, because he thinks it will require just fourteen hours’ straight talkingto convince Mrs. M. that he didn’t know nil the time who Uveas.—Burlington HawkEye.