Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 May 1882 — A New Thing. [ARTICLE]

A New Thing.

One of the • ver-recurring tasks of the church and Sunday school world is that of providing attractive musical, spectacular and dramatic entertainments for their anniversaries, festivals, fairs, and other meetings. Some of the milder ecclesiastical performances have become somewhat stale.. The oyster stew party is not always enlivening in December nor the strawberry festival in May. The magic lantern has already, exacted a large penalty from the eyes. The scriptural and patriotic tableaux have become very familiar. The dialogues in costume, though by no means like the actual stage, yet shock some uncompromising enemies of the footlights. Mrs. Jarleys’s wax works are very ancient, and jugglery too often breaks down. Even the returned missionary will not draw like the menagarie, and the comic recitationist is outdone by the clown of a travelling show. But of late a new church entertainment has been found, which has spread like wildfire. This is the broom drill. Performed by the prettiest young ladies in the congregation, clad in tight-fitting jackets or dress coats, and with jaunty short skirts, the whole arranged with a proper mixture ot decorum and coquetry, this spectacle has proved enormously alluring. The grab bag and the doll lottery are tame compared with this device, which is, indeed, far ahead of the religious dance of the Shakers as a spectacle. The mo)t hardened the-atre-going youth of the parish can be drawn to see the young ladies’ Bible class in costume and armed with brooms. There is even already a literature of the subject—a manual of the broom drill—like a base ball guide or a hand-book of billiards. The question whether the devil should have all the best tunes is superceded, for the time, by the inquiry whether British blondes should have a monopoly over Sunday schools of female warrior drills.

The safe in a macon office had a combination lock, and the numbers were known only to the two members of the firm; yet money was* stolen from it frequently, and the lock showed no signs of having been picked or forced. It was clear that the thief unlocked the safe in a regular way, and to solve the mystory a watch was kept one night. While all was dark the men heard somebody go to the safe, turp the knob, and open the door. They fired in that direction, and a yell proved that the culprit was hit. Then they lit the gas, and found that he was a negro bootblack, only 13, who had frequented the office. He had learned the combination, not by seeing the figures, for he could not tell one from another, but by watching and remembering the motions made by those who did the locking and unlocking. Several weeks of close observation had put him in practical possession of the secret, and then, by biding under a counter, and being often 1 in when the place was closed for the night, he experimented until sucessfull. Washington, D. C., May 15th, 1880 Gentlemen —Having been a sufferer for a long time from nervous prostration and general debility, I was advised to try Hop Bitters. I have taken one bottle and I have been rapidly getting better ever iflnce, and I tbink it thr, best medioine I ever used. I am now gaining strength and appetite, which was all gone, and I was in despair until I tried ytur Bitters. I am now well, able to go about and do my oyrn work. Before taking it I was completely prostrated. •

MRS. MARY STUART.

The settlers in Duck Valley, Nev., fear an attack from the Bannock Indians. Gold exports yesterday, SIOO,OOO. Nearly $2,000,009 is engaged for, today’s steamer. Vaccination is made compulsory at Atlanta, Georgia, under penalty of five hundred dollars fine" and thirty day’s imprisonment. v