Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 January 1903 — Our Man About Town [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Our Man About Town

Discourses on Many Subjects and Relates Sundry and Other Incidents.

TTAPPY New Year to everybody in XJ - Jasper oonnty is the best wish of the Journal. May increased prosperity bless every family throughout this vicinity and grant an increase of snooess. May the subscribers to this paper never have cause to feel sad that 1902 Is dead and 1903 is reigning in imperial splendor. We predict that great changes In wealth, scientific experiment, and educational praotioes will mark this cycle of 366 days. “Watch for the best, all good things will come to him who seeks them.” V t( A IN’T you worried about the trusts?” asked the nervous man. “No,” answered an easy-going oitizen who is reported to have voted the Prohibition ticket. “If they make trouble they’ll have to stand their share of it. I’ve done my duty. I wrote a card calling their attention to whither they are drifting, and asking them please not to do so, and now, if they persist, it’s their own fault. My conscience is clear.” /V youth living across the |river, who much desired to wear the matrimonial yoke, had not sufficient courage to “pop the question.” On recently informing his father of the difficulty he labored nnder the old gentleman passionately replied, “Why you great booby, how do you suppose I managed when I got married?” “Ob, yes,” said the bashful lover, “You married mother, bat I’ve got to marry a strange girl. *** TTOW many people have any idea why our almanac calendars are made up as they are—why, for instance, Bixty seconds make a minute? The explanation is that in ancient Babylon there existed a system of counting by sixties, the number having been chosen because no other number has so many divisors. The wise men of Babylon divided the sun’s daily journeys into twenty-four stages and subdivided each stage into sixty because in that way they were accustomed to count. A hundred years before Christ, Hipparchus, the Grecian philosopher, introduced the “sixty” system of reckoning into Europe, and 300 years later Ptolemy gave it his sanction in his system of astronomy. A

ITIHE every-day experience of merchants and clerks in Rensselaer will no doubt justify the retort in the following incident: The obliging clerk had taken down piece after piece of goods until he oould hardly see over the counter. “I don’t care to purchase today,” returned the shopper as she turned away; “I was looking for a friend.” “There is one more piece on the shelf madam,” said the clerk; “your friend may be behind that.” Some well-meaning ladies seem to think when they go into a store that the clerk’s chief end in life is to look pleasant and tear down goods whether any sale is made or not. V CJOMETIMES we hear politics dis-"-'oussed in Rensselaer groceries and barber shops after the manner of the following dialogue—the logic is just the same. Uude Silas—l tell ye, the credit business is what’s rainin’ the country, an’ the credit system is cabled by our not havin’ more’n |26 yer capita in circulation. Uncle Biram— How do you that out? Uncle Silas-Why, great cattle I It’s as plain aa daylight. There’s only 926 In circulation, and, consequently,when

a man’s used up his quota he’s got ter git credit and ran In debt, and as the amount in circulation doesn’t Increase fast, he’s got ter stay there. v AN exchange says there are still living some people who think they do not have to turn out to let others pass them when driving on tne public highways. About as mean a man as ever lived is the man who holds his team in the middle of a narrow road, drives slow and refuses to turn out to let some one who wishes to drive faster than he, get past him. The courts of several states have decided that a man has no right to obstruct a highway by slow driving or otherwise, and must, when practical, turn oat. If In refusing to turn out an accident ooours to a man attempting to get past, he (the obstruotor) is liable for damages.