Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1883 — Page 3

WASHINGTON NOTES.

'Thesub-committeewhich has charge •f the postoffice bill has retained the clause providing for a reduction of lettei* postage to two centsper half ounce. The Civil Service Commission will not business till July. The heads of -department? must finish their classification, under the law, within sixty days from the passage of the Pendleton bill. The Senate committee on commerce have ordered a favorable report to be made upon the shipping bill. An amendment was authorized giving the postmaster general authority to expend 81,500, 800 in paying for postal service on American steamers. An investigation of Dorsey’s account at bank shows that no such •heck as Rerdell swore had been given <to Congressman Belford for the sum of 82,000,in 1879, had ever been paid or charged to the Dorsey account A comparative statement furnished by the contract office of the Post Office Department shows that for Star Boule service awarded for 1883 there was a decrease in the cost of 825,572 over 1882 and a decrease in transportatin of 1,113,343 miles from 1882. The rate per mile paid in 1882 was 5Jq cents, while in 1883 it was 45.06 cents. Mrs. DeLong will soon give to the country, through thejpublishing house of Houghton & Co., what will doubtless prove a very interesting book, consisting ■of the ship and ice journals of her husband, his letters addressed to her from the Jeannette, and a biographical sketch •f the ill fated Arctic commander. Mr. Beltzhoover’s attack upon the signal service administration under Gen. Hagen. Wednesday, was made under corner of a motion to amend the Sundry Civil bill by striking out the clause authorizing the Secretary of War to detail for the signal corpse not to exceed eight commissioned officers, exclusive of lie o tenants of the signal corps authorized by the bilk The amendment failed. The Secretary of the Navy has reported to Congress a formidable list of casualties to the Navy, it being a list of fortythree vessels ‘whose names have been stricken from the navy list by recommendation of examining boards under authority of the act of Augnst 5, last It is recommended that four of these be retained lor various purposes, nine be broken up m tne stocks, and thirty-one be sold at public auction. This makes a heavy reduction in the apparent strength of the United States Navy. The request of the Commissioner of * Indian Affairs to be allowed to expend >1 384,000jm 2,680 Sioux families,the male members of whom were active sympathizers of Sitting Bull during his war against the whites, is liable tc give rise to a row. This money is a part of the appropriation which was withheld from the Indians because of the aid they gave Sitting Bull, but as they have been peaceable for several years the Indian Commissioner feels like encouraging them. The proposition is to give the Indians stores and farming supplies, which will abporb the amount named. The Indians are running short of fire-arms and scalping knives. Red Cloud, the Sioux Chief, was before the House A ppropr >ation Committee monday. He addressed the committee briefly, through an interpreter, and laid before it a letter written in the Sioux dialect, explaining his grievance. Translated, the letter reads as follows: *Law Chuws—l am an Indian. Look at me name is Bed Cloud. I have sense. The Govsomment, through General Crook, in 1874, took ' wrong+ifully 605 horses from me and mjr people. .1 have sense; so have my people. I represent nfcem. lam in debt. I have a large family. Secretary Teller asks me to take oows for my horses. If the Government gives me all the oows they have already promised I will have more than we can milk. lam a man of sense. I want money to pay my d.-bts. Law phiefs, pay me; not in oows; but cash. I am at peace. Let us nmain thus. “Bkd oix>ud.” ‘•Witness, Labamik."

The commission concluded that they ■would not have time to investigate the matter at present, and advised Bed Cloud to lay his claim before the next Congress. The House is expected to pay $96,000 for contesting elections to the forty-sev-nth Congress. An official of the National .Board of Health says the present floods will be fob lowed by a disastrous epidemic. Congressman Beltzhoover has announced a purpose to renew his attack on the Signal Service Bureau. He will amplify the charges previously made against General Hazen, bring in new specifications, and ask the appointment of an iartestigating committee. Secretary Lincoln is understood to tacitly approve of Mr. Beltzhoover’s crusade as the best way of getting at the root of the trouble. In the executive session of the Senate Monday, upon motion of Mr. Windom,the injunction of secrecy was removed relative to the commercial treaty between this government and Mexico, recently signed by the commissioners of the respective governments and now before the Senate for its action. The principal articles in the Mexican schedule to be admit - ted free into the United States are th following: Live animals for breeding

purposes, barley not pearl, beef, coffee, Esparto and other grasses and pulp for the manufacture of paper, henequal, sisal, hemp and other like substitutes for hemp, hides and skins, except sheepskins with the wool oh; Angora goat skins, raw Indian rubbe-, crude and milk of leather, old scrap, vegetables for dying, molasses, palm oil, quicksilver, sugar not above No. 16 Dutch standard in color, straw, unmanufactured tobacco, in leaf nnmanufacturedguid wood and timber of all kinds unmanufactured, including ship timber. The main items in the schedule of the United States articles to be admitted free of duty into Mexico are machinery of all sorts, classes and description for mining, agricultural and other purposes; agricultural implements, wagons, coaches and all aorta of vehicles that ar3 drawn by animals; tools that are composed of brass, iron, steel of wood or any combination of these malleables; all classes of rolling stock, from a passenger car to a steam engine, that are used upon railroads; petroleum crude and refined; barbed wire for fencing with all its fixtures, houses of wood or iron built ready to be put up, pumps for mines, irrigating and all other purposes for which pumps can be used, docks and many other articles extensively manufactured in this country, coal' of all kindsjdynamite, printing ink, precious metal's in bullion or in powder, legal money, of gold and silver of the United States, naptha, quicksilver, rags or doth for manufacture, paper, telegraph wire and wire of iron or steel for cording, from No. 26 and upward. Provision is made for the enactment by both governments of such laws as are deemed proper for carrying out the terms of the treaty in a manner to protect the revenues and prevent frauds. The ratification of the present convention will be exchanged at Washington within twdve months from date or earlier, if possible, and upon taking effect shall remain in force six years. Neither of the contracting parties will be prevented from making such changes in their import duties as their respective interests may require in granting to other nations the same rights in regard to one or more articles of named in the schedule, either by legislation or means of treaties with other governments But in case such changes are made, the the party effected by the same may denounce this convention even before the term specified, and the preseat convention will be terminated at the tod of six months from the day on which such notification may be made The treaty is signed by U. 8. Grant, W. 11. Trescott, M. Romero and E. Canedo.

A LITTLE SPICE.

Job never slopped over, but he boiled over once. The “fours of habit,” said )the gambler softly, as he dealt himself ell the aces in the pack. / Worth makes the man. [When Worth makes the dress he breaks /he man. A journal has been parted in New York called the Undertakers Assistant. Why not call it the Phyucian at once? A woman was offered 81,000 if sbf would remain silent for/two hours. A'* the end of fifteen minutes she asked: “Isn’t the time nearly up?” and thus lost A Pittsburg firm has Drought out a new masculine hat, which they have christened the “Jersey Lily J’ It wouldn’t be economy to invest in such a hat It is to easily “mashed.” Wife—Can’t you take me to the Blank restaurant some evening, my dear? > Husband —No, darling, it. is disreputable. Wife—Then, dear, why do you bring home its marked napkins in your pockets. “Should regular physicians consult with homeopathists?” is a conundrum occupying no little attention. By all means, that while they are consulting their patients may be restored to health. A young lady wrote to the Philadelphia News, inquiring: ‘ How can I avoid being addressed if I waU| out at night without a protector?” The experienced editor of that paper tartly Replied: “Wear an old shawl and carry a clothes basket”

A little boy went into the parlor where his sister was being courted, and said: “Brother Tom told me to ask you what was the date otyour last bus th, for he can’t find to-day’s paper, high or low, and he left it in your room just before supper. “Phew, times are hard! Now I have 30,000 francs a year, and it is all I can do to make bdth ends meet!” “Thirtythousand francs a year and hard up! Why Lhave barely a third of the sum and yet*— “Oh, I know, but then you have a wife ami family, and so you can get along.” / • A boojk, lately published in Paris, is entitled “/The New Guide of the Conversation in < Portuguese and English, * by Pedro says :/ “We expect, then, who the little book/(for the case what we wrote him, and/ for her typographical correction) thafimay be worth the aoception of the studious persons, and especially of the yor|th, at which we dedicate him particularJjy.” / Turkey is about to settle all the American claims for arms. 1

Living, be treads the maze below, And 100 king, beyond he saith, “Ah me! to penetrate and know The greatest of mysteries, Death." 11. Dead, he wanders the phantom-land. And viewing behind the strife w Of the world, he carries, "‘Ah to understand The g eatest of mysteries, Lifef’j

SHORTS.

An optical illusion—A glass eye. It is a cold day when ice cream gets left A pair of slippers—Orange and banana skins. The odor of narcissus is sickening to many people. - Edwin Forrest’s wardrobe and jewelry sold for A plumber always has an eye to the “main” chance, A bobtail car beats a flush when a fat man runs after it Nun’s veiling will be as popular as ever for summer wear. The scriptures are published in 250 languages or dialects. The king of Portugal receives a salary of 8140,000 a year. Beal estate in Macon has doubledin value within a year. Marshal Bazaine is to write a book on the Franco-Prussian war. Caught in the act —a stammering tragedian.—[N. Y. News. An Ohio man got 1,045 bushels of tomatoes off two acres, last year. One Jacqueminot rose can be made to scent a parlor for ten days. The funds for Westminster Abbey bravely suffer to keep it in repair. An Indian’s widow is expected to keep in mourning for twenty moons. An Alexandria constable has been fined 820 for cutting off a cat’s tail. To make a perfect base ball takes three years’ apprenticeship at least. , A steel hammer just made in Pittsburg will strike a 44,000 pounds blow. It is the cooper who has the staving time—He is always hooping it up. The clubs of London exceed eighty, and have aproperty aggregating 85,000,000. The Methodists expect to build 450 churches in the United States this year. A man in Goshen, N, Y., bets he can live three months on an hour’s sleep a day. Providence has a‘population of 116,755 having gained about 12,000 in three years. A correspondent says sparrows make “a good chicken pie!”—[Philadelphia S|ar. Howard Glyndon, the magazine poet, is Mrs. Edward Searing. She is totally deaf. General Grant is growing corpulent. He has gained twenty-one pounds this winter. Thousand of acres of public land in Texas are changing owners at fifty cents per aora The Cherokee Indians keep a representative at Washington at a salary of 84,000 a year. Sorrows are our best educators. A man may see farther through a tear than a telescope. The Hotels of St. Augustine, Fla., never before contained so many guests as they do now. Rhode Island’s mortality by consumption is only sixty per cent of that of Massachusetts. The certain way to be cheated is to fancy one’s self more cunning than others.— [Charron. The cost of the government in the eity of Paris is a little more than 850,000,1)00 annually. Marion is the largest county in Mississippi, and has 1,486 square miles; Clay is the smallest, 401 square miles.

Fann Notes.

It is said that in England a new use has been discovered for damsom pl ink Farmers are planting quite largely, lees for pies than for dies, it having been ascertained that a beautiful color can be obtained from the ripe fruit. The greater part of the soil of England has been under cultivation for a thousand years, and yet the land is richer and the crops more prolific than they were a thousand years ago. Why, then should so many" thousands of acres in many sections of this country have become so greatly deteriorated in productiveness in a comparatively few yean? Careless and unskilled culture must necessarilg be the answer. The housewife who is on the lookout for little ways to economise, will find it to her advantage; if she has seemless sheets which have been used for several years, to tear or cut them in ‘the center, and sew the outside edges together; laythe and stitch them with a machine Or they may be sewed over and over. Hem the raw edges. Sheets turned in this way will last for a long time. . Field mice may ruin a whole orchard in a single winter by gnawing the tender bark from the trunks of the fruit and other trees. The greatest destraction is done while the earth is covered with enow. At this time the mice burrow from tree to tree, and forage at their free will, under cover of the snow. So soon as the storm is over, the Alow should be

tmmped down around each tree, to shut off the mice. Rabbits may be kept from h® 4re Wame-uiag the bark with blood, or rubbing the bark with refuse meat ; la the New York'Tribune a resident of Oil Creek warns fruit growers against using petroleum on fruit trees’and shrubs. It kills all trees around where it is pumped, and a neighboring orchard that has been painted with it began to decline This applies to crude oil, but others claim that refined oil, as used in lamps is lees harmful It kills lice and destroys the eggs of insects if brushed on lightly in winter, but in summer must not be applied to the foliage exeept when largely diluted with water, which should be kept constantly stirred. Nature suggests in the natural and thick growth of a variety of grasses and weeds together that a mixture of vegetation may yield a larger quantity of vegetable produce from any given area than can be obtained from the growth of one species alone. Actual experiment has shown that a mixture of grasses is usually more productive than the cultivation of a single one. An acre of peas and oats grown to-gether will yield more than half an acre of each sown singly. A field seeded to timothy and clover produces nearly twice as much as when either is sown alone. A pasture sod composed of orchard grass, timothy, red clover, and Kentucky blue grass is in good grazing condition from early spring until autumn the decay of the earlier ripening species furnishing plant food for the species next •coming to maturity.

Cold Weather in Nevada.

Fife Lake Comet. “This weather doesn’t quite come up to two years ago, Bob, when the snow was seven feet deep, and trains were snowed in for four days. That was a hard winter.” “Hard winter! Wy, that was nothin* at all. Eight years ago the trains didn’t get through here for three months, and Uncle John Crayton had to pack all his provisions over from Traverse on snowshoes.” “Yes, that was pretty tough, but it wasn’t a marker to the winter Burt Howe stole Doc Morgan’s turkeys, and had them all dressed lefore Doc quit raffling. Don't you min i how the wind blew, too, and how it drifted? Nick Theirs logged two eighties that winter on section 13, and in the spring Will Bailey happened down that way looking for land, and got into them stumps. ‘Great bull-frog.’ The shortest stump in that lot was forty feet high. Will bought the stump land at fifty cents an acre, and made .&8,000 logging it over again next year.” “Oh, I know all about that. Such stories as that might do to tell in Florida, or in a warm part of Texas. But you don’t want to talk to ma a minute about Fife Lake Winters. W’y, boy, I was here ’fore you was bom. You never heerd of the winter of ’49?” “No; let ’er drive,” “Well, that was a windy year, and it was a little cold. Winter set ip the 12th of November with the damdest whirl wind you ever smelt of. Whaf do you s’pose I saw when I went down t' the lake next morning to take a swim?” “What was it?’’ “Well, the lake had froze thirty-four feet deep dunn* the night, un* right out in the middle that dumed cyclone had raise a chunk of water sixty feet high un’ it had frozen there stiff as a green Norway in February. The blamed thing was’bout a l.unlred feet ’cross the top, and tapered down to ’bout an in *h at the . bottom. The wind was blowiu* like an old settle’*, too." “Did she blow over, Bob?” “Nary a blow. Before the wind could heave ’er over one way it would whew I ‘round and >igh| ’er up again. And she krf-pt goin’ that way until the 4th of next June.” |

Puppies’ Bites.

St. Jamra Gawtte. The verdict of death from hydrophobia returned from an inquest held on the l»ody of Thomas Jenkins, a boy fourteen years of age, is a warning to persons who are in the habit of teasing puppies. The evidence showed that the deceased pointed at a retriever of three months old — now dogs of all kinds hate to be pointed : at—which thereupon snapped at him,and i caught his finger, the skin of which: was gtuzed. That was in September last, and on the 16 h iust the buy showed symptoms of hydrophobia, and died in St. Mary’s Hospital on Saturday last. It was staled in evidence that bites from puppie« were wu,be and more dangerous than «'ites from uld dogh—a fact, if it be a (ret, b' no meuUH generally known hs it should be. If puppies' bites and scratches are more dangerou’; they are certainly far more common, especially jf a graze of the skin can be called a bite, and it appears from this inquest that it is sufficient to induce hydrophobia. No man or boy is fit to have charge of or handle stock unless he is able to control himself u well as manage the animal entrusted to his care.

JAY GOULD.

Hi* Proposed Trip Arend the World--Hew* b Crest Mlllionßtreyaa TMlr-of Travel. New York Time*. Mr. Jay Gould will start on his tour around the world the middle of the ing summer, and will remain away two years. He was seated in his office at No. 71 Broadway one afternoon when information was sought as to the details of his coming trip. He received his caller pleasantly, and, when asked about his plans, he replied somewhat thoughtfully: “Ibis is such an uncertain world that it is rather difficult to make calculations in advance.” “Have you decided upon any definite time for your departure?” “If my yacht is finished in June I shall probably leave within a month afterward. My intention is to spend next winter in the Mediterranean.” “Are there many places of particular interest to you, Mr. Gould?” “Yes, many. I want to see the Mediterranean, Italy, Greece, Egypt, India and all the countries of ancient civilization.” “Have you any other places in View in particular?” “Yes, China and Japan. I think I shall go to Australia, too. I have been through England aud Scotland.” Mr. Gould said his second winter will be spent in India. “You seem to take a deep interest in antiquities, Mr. Gould?” “I do so; a great interest" There was a merry twinkle in Mr. Gould’s eye ai| is added: “I expect to see a great many countries where the people are not persecuted with railroads and telegraph lines, and are supremely happy.” “By what methods shall you travel inland?" “When I am in the lands of the ancients,"continued Mr. Gould,seriously, “I shall do as the ancients did. I shall use dromedaries, and elephants in their native countries. I expect to travel through India with a big pair of elephants.” “What will be the size and speed of your yacht? ’ “The length will be 230 feet, and the speed from sixty toe'ghty knots an hour. Ido not know what it will cost It is like furnishing a house. You never know what the expense will be. The yacht will take about twenty besides the crew. Whom the company will include has not l»eeu determined. My entire family will go.” “What effect do you suppose your leaving will have on the market? A panic and all sorts of things are predicted." “Not the slightest effect,” replied ,Mr. Gould quickly. “I have not been an active operator in stocks for two years. I am interested in certain corporations and am < ontent with those." “Shall you take any active interest in the market or business affairs while on 1 your trip?” “I do not propose to think of business while lam away. I have put these things in snug shape so that they will run along smoothly until my return.” “Is it ill-health, Mr. Gould, that induces you to go away?” “Oh, no; my health is g > d.” “Have yoa any idea of retiring permanently from Wall street?” * “I am going to try a little play. I did not have an opportunity when I was young, and I must do my playing La 1 er in life. If I like it I may keep it up. I am like the Scotchman who came to this country. He was asked where be was going, and he said to Vermont. The inI quiry was made as to wbal he was going to do there, an l he replied: “I am going to make maple Sugar there t >is spring, and if I find it profitable I am going to follow it up the year round.’ I have always been talking about retiring from active business life, but I have never been able to do it” “Mr. Gould, what impelled you to make a trip around the woild?*’ “Simply a detire for a play-spell which I have long been thinking of." 7 “And the reason you are to have a craft of your own, I suppose, is because you think that will be the pleasantest way of making the tour?" “Well, with my own yacht I can go whither I please, and as I please. For instance, If I want to stop at Cyprus to dig for antiquities, I can stay there a year if it takes that length of time to unearth something.”

“Wonder has been expressed that you do not take to fast horses, like Mr. Wm, H. Vanderbilt.” “Everyone has his special tastes, Mr. Vanderbilt has cultivated a love for fast horses because they give him pleasure and health. I, too, like a good horse,but I do not carry the liking to extremes. I find pleasure in other ways. I try to enjoy my business. I enjoy my home and my family the best of anything in the world. I think I have my share of the pleasant things of this world. I receive a great many kicks and cuffs, but they make the sweets the sweeter.” •Bb ■ The boldest faro players in Garson City, Nev., are women.