Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 March 1882 — CURRENT TOPICS [ARTICLE]

CURRENT TOPICS

Vienna, Austria, is threatened with a total failure of its water supply. Large quantities of wheat are purchased at St. Louis, for export via New Orleans. _______ The recent coal oil tank fire at Oleon, N. Y., consumed 105,000 barrels of oil. _____ A scientific authority says that less than one-half of the world’s insane are confined in asylums. At a recent date about GOO persons had professed conversion at the Harrison revival meetings in Cinninati. The House of the Ohio Legislature has passed a°bill prohibiting the killing of quail in that State until 1885. Cotton buyers at Memphis have recently lost over half a million dollars by the decline in the price of that fitaple. A drove of 11,000 sheep recently reached Nebraska from Washington Territory. The journey occupied two years. ' " •* •-- • ——___ Rev. George O. Barnes, the anointing Kentucky revivalist, is credited with making 2,473 converts in Louisville in six weeks. Several Russian officers have started for Herzegovina, on leave of absence foi one year. The Eastern sky is once more streaked wi:h red. Atlanta, Georgia, boasts of a curiosity in the shape of a young woman who is pretty, industrious, and successfully working at the trade of a shoemaker.

The star-route cases on trial at Lincoln, Nebraska, collapsed under the ruling of the Judge that one of the men indicted could not be compelled to testify. Certain land owners in Florida and Texas have offered to donate land to Jewish refugees. This is a good scheme, and ought to be the beginning of important results. The New Jersey State Prison is “toney,” having among its occupants two bank Presidents, three bank Cashiers, and the ex-Comptroller and Treas--urer of the city of Elizabeth. It is said that 80,000 of Edison’s electric lamps are in use in foreign countries, and that he will soon be making them at the rate of 1,000 per day. They are used for lighting buildings, including the smallest rooms. A veddler entered the yard of a farmer’s residence, a fews days ago, near Summit, Miss., despite the warning of the farmer’s wife, and was horribly mangled to death by two vicious dogs. Washington gossip has it that President Arthur is paying marked attention's to Miss Ida Farrell, of Peoria, 111. Miss Farrell has a brother who is the brother-in-law of Colonel “Bob” Ingersoll. It is now stated that thirty editions of the Revised New Testament, aggregating 2,500,000 volumes, have been published and sold in this coirntry, and that the demand for it is still increasing. A Chicago firm, headed by Hon. Charles B. Farwell, has contracted to build the new State Capitol of Texas, receiving therefor a tract of laud in that State, larger than the State of Connecticut. The House Ways and Means Committee has reported favorably to the House the bill fixing the tenure of office of Internal Revenue Collectors at four years, affecting present incumbents by a release of official responsibility on June 18,1882. The Committee on Banking and Currency of the House of Congress has agreed to a bill making the trade dollar a legal tender until July 1, 1884, and providing for its recoiuage into standard dollars when received at the Treasury. MR. Gladstone seems to be in favor of local self-government in Ireland, and Scotland too, in so far as the same could be allowed without impairing the supremacy.of the central government, br endangering the integrity of the United Kingdom. The murderer, James Allison, who -was hanged at Indiana, Pennsylvania, the other day, refused all offers of religious service, and turned his back on his mother and Bisters who came to

kiss him good-bye. It was not difficult for such a brute to “die game.” .The capital of Connecticut has a candy war on its hands. A lady \Vho became intoxicated laid the blame to rock and rye candy, made by a local confectioner, whereupon the District Attorney has warned him to desist irom such manufacture or take out a liauor license. The mystery attending tLe death of Luke Ransom, in a Chicago suburb, is still creating excitement. Dr. Fitch offers SI,OOO reward, and tire Trustees of the village of Hiusdaie $5,000 reward for the arrest of the murderer. The doctors believe the case is one of murder. Most other people believe in the suicide theory. The New York Herald learns from a recent tire in that city that the truck and ladder service is utterly useless a* any extensive fires for the rescue of those who maybe in the upper stories of tall buildings, and whose means of escape by the stairways is cut off. It suggests means to throw and anchor a wire cable as in case of wrecked ships — a regular lifeline. Two united children, born in 1877 at Locona, Italy, were recently exhibited at Vienna. Each has a well formed head, perfect arms aud a separate thorax, with perfect viscera, but they unite at the sixth rib, and there is but one abdomen, and one right and left leg. Each has power over the corresponding leg only. Thus, Baptiste commands the right leg and Jacob the left. Each child has its own emotions, and one wfill laugh while the other cries.