Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1883 — Page 3

THE RETORT. Old Birch, who taught the village school, Wedded rs maid of homspun habit; He was as stubborn ae a mule, And she as playful aa a rabbit. Poor Kate had scarce become a wife, Before her huabmd Bought to make her The pink of country, polished life, * And prim and formal as a Quaker. One day the tatorwent abroad. And simple Kate sadly missed him Whan he returned, behind her lord She slyly stole, and fondly kissed him. The husband’s anger rose, and red And white his face alternate grew; “Leas freedom, ma’am I” Kate sighed and said,/ “Oh dear! I didn’t know ’twas yen!”

PETER COOPER.

Incidents in the Life of the Great Philanthropist. We give below excerpts from the history of one of the great and good men of the country. We only regret that the review of a life so interesting is so disoonreqted, but we believe those who pattern after him will hardly lead an unprofitar He life: Peter Cooper was b<>rn in New York city, February 12,1791, and he was therefore in his ninety-third year at the time of his death. When he was bom the now great metropolis was but a little city of 27,000 inhabitants. The war of the revolution was of the near past, and Wash-

ington was still living. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr were both practicing law, and General Washington, as President of the United States, held his office in the old City Hall in Wall street. He remembered Washington’s funeral passing through New York, and hearing his mother speak of a cheval-de-frise erected at what is now Duane street to keep off the Indians.' He was in Albany when Commodore Perry passed through, after his famous victory on Lake Erie in the war of 1812, and remembered the triumphant arches erected in his honor. Soon afterward he made the trip from Albany to New York on Robert Fulton’s steamboat, the Clermont, then the “wonder of the age,” He had previously had business relations with Fulton, both being interested in a scheme of Mr. Cooper’s devising to propel ferryboats between New York and {Brooklyn by means of compressed air. When he was seventeen years of age he was apprenticed to a coachmaker for four years, receiving |25 a year. During this time he employed his evenings in an upper room in Broadway in study and in making experiments. It was then that his inventive genius was developed which led him into those pursuits in which he achieved so great success. The first practical result ot these experiments was the invention of a machine for mortising hubs. His employer was so much pleased with this that he offered to start him' in business; but young Cooper declined this because he preferred to rely on his own energies. He then went to Hempstead, L. L, where he was employed by a manufacturer of cloth-shearing machines at $1.50 a day. At the end of three years he had saved enough to buy the patenteight bf New York State and began manufacturing on his own account The first purchaser of a machine was Matthew Vassar,the founder of Vassar College,who also bought the right of a county. On returning hoyse about this time Peter Cooper found his father involved in financial difficulties, to extricate him from which he surrendered all of his hardearned savings.

In 1828 Mr. Cooper went to Baltimore and became identified with the origin of two great enterprises, which, more than all others have contributed to the growth of that city—Canton, and the Baltimore 4 Ohio railroad. He was induced by two persons to buy a third interest in 8,070 acres of land near the city; but he was deceived by them aud was obliged to pay for the whole. Instead of lamenting his misfortune he went out prospecting,found a bed of iron ore, and built furnaces and a rolling-mill. From these works sprang the great industries bf Canton. It was'at these works that the United States ironclad Monitor was plated.

The crowning work of his life is the great Cooper Institute, erected in New Tork at the junction of Third and Fourth avenues, between Seventh and Eight streets, covering the entire square, and costing, entire, about $2,000,000. This building is devoted, by a deed of trust, fwith all its seats, issues and profits, to the instruction and elevation of the working classes of the oity of New Tork. It schools of arts, science and letters, libraries, reading-rooms and cabinets and there re able professors and teachers employed at an expense of over $50,000 a year. Here men and women may perfect their knowledge in any department of practical science or art. As • work of beneyolence it is unsurpassed, and upon it the founder’s fame will ever endure. On the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, in 1881, he added SIOO,OOO to fuhdg of the institute. The readingroom and library are resorted to by about

1,500 readers. The evening schools are attended by 2,000 pupils, mostly by young mechanics, who study engineering, mining, metallury, analytic and synthetic chemistry, etc. He first conceived the idea of the Cooper institute when a member of Common Council, some fifty years ago. Hethen heard a gentleman describe the polytechnic school? in Paris and the eagerness evinced by the French youth to obtain instruction there, many of them living on crusts of bread day by day to obtain a coveted education. In an interview a short time since, in reply to the question "How did you get rich” he said: "In the first place, I learned three I learned to be a brewer, a ooaohmaker, and a machinest, all before I wqs twenty-one years old. I worked three years at SLSO a day; and saved enough out of that to get a start in 1 ife I was making machine?. to shear cloth Then I bought the patent right of the machine and made them for sale. That was before the war of 1812.’’ And then he was asked: "What general rule he had adopted in business. ’ "One was that I determined to give the world an equivalent in some form of use. ful labor for all that I consumed in it I went on and enlarged my business, all the while keeping out of debt I cannot recollect a time when I could not pay what lowed any day. I would not spend money before I earned it Another pile I had was to keep dear of banks. I never asked them for accomodation. I never got them to discount notes, because I did not wish to incur an obligation without a certainty of being able to pay it. In that way I managed to keep clear of panics. My rule was ‘pay as you go.’ Mr. Cooper was originally a Democrat, but abandoned that parqy at the beginning of the war. He was opposed to the financial policy of the Republican party, after the era of reconstruction, and was nominated for President by the Greenback party, in 1876. In religion he was a Unitarian. His wife died in 1869, and buttwoof his children—ex-Mayor Edward Cooper and Mrs. Abram 8. Hewtt Mr.' Cooper lived in plain and rather old-fashioned style, notwithstanding his great wealth. A love of show never affected him, and he was alwavs ready to receive with hearty hospitality all friends of humanity. One evening some unexpected visitors called on him. It happened when, as the old gentleman said, the servants were all out “However, ’he said, “my wife got tea and I set the table while the folks were in the parlor, and upon the whole it was one. of the happiest times we ever had.” The evening of his life was made beautiful by his genial nature, which never permittsd him to worry. He Icved mankind and knew, in return, that he was loved of many.

Early Marriages.

English Paper. Not only in the days of good Queen Bess and earlier, but very much later in our history,early marriages were allowed. To take an instance in the Georgian period, this entry is in “The Chronological Diary” appended to the Historical Register, VoL VL, for the year 1721, June 8: “Charles Powel, of Carmtithen, Esq., of about 11 Tears of Age, marry’d to a Daughter of Sir Thomas Powel,of Broadway, Bart, deceased, aged about 14.” The young lady’s only brother had died on March 21, preceding. Often did a guardian having control of a wealthy ward find it convenient not to delay the promotion of a marriage of the ward with one of his own kith and kin, though not always by any means was it considered necessary that there should exist between the couple the sentiments which induced Dickens’ ‘ young gentleman not 8 years old to run away with a fine young woman of 7.’’ * * * I may mention a similar instance which occurred nearly 130 years later than the marriage to -#hich H. refere in) a family which my mother now represents—viz.: the Shaws, of Ballytweedy, County Antrim. Henry Shaw (son of John Shaw,of Ballvtweedy, and grandson of Oapt Shaw, High Sheriff for County Antrim, 1693, who was attainted by King James’ Parliament) was married in the year 1721 to his cousin Mary (only child of Patrick Shaw, of Brittas, County Antrim) when neither of them was yet 16 years old;” and the old document from which l am quoting goes on to say that the father of this equally precocious bridegroom "continued to manage for the young couple, and had not long survived their coming of age.” Their eldest child was bom in 1723. Henry Shaw died in 1775, a year after the birth of his great-grandson, Thomas Potter, of Mount Potter, County Down. • * * An instance of early marriage even more curious than that mentioned by H. is the marriage of Elizabeth,daughter of Thomas, Lord Clifford, of Skipton Castle, in the fifteenth century, to Sir Robert Plupapton, of Plumpton Castle, the bride was 6 years of age and the bridegroom not much more. The« husband died three years after marriage, and the “widow** was united to hie brother William when she had gained the age of 12 years. Dodsworth preserved lor us the

document from which the abovAinforfifttion is given in. Whittaker’s History of Craven.

A Draped Looomotine.

Burlington Hawkeye. "To me,” the sad passenger said, "there is something inexpressibly mournful in a draped locomotive; and especially so, when it is draped in mourning for a dead engineer. The president of a railway company stands a long way from the enand when he dies'the engine mourns as we sorrow for s rich unde whom we never saw and who left us nothing. But the man who was a part of the engine’s life, who spurred her up the long, steep mountain grades, and coaxed her around dizzy curves, and sent her down the long, level stretches with the flight of an arrow, who knew how to humor all her caprices, and coaxed and petted and urged her through blinding storms and ray lees night, and blistering heat and stinging cold, until engine and engineer seemed to be body and soul of one existence—then, when this man at last gets his final orders and crosses the dark river alone, with only the fadeless target-lights of sure and eternal promise gleaming brightly on the other side; and-when there is a new man oh the right-hand side, and a new face looks out of the engineer’s window, then I think I can see profound and sincere sorrow in the panting spirit of power, standing in the station draped with fluttering sable emblems of its woe, waiting for the caressing touches of the dead hands that it will never feel again. And engineers tell me that for days and days the engine is fretful under the new hands; it is restless and moody, starts off nervously and impatiently sometimes, and then drops into a sullen gait and loses time; that no man can get so much out of an engi ie as its own engineer. “Do you remember only a year or two ago,” the jester said, “only last summer I believe it was, an engineer on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, running west from Chicago, died on his engine? Died right in his place running between Galesburg and Monmouth, and sat there with his hand on the lever, and his sightless eyes staring glassily down the track, unnoticed until the fireman looked up to see why he did not whistle for Monmouth station. And how many miles that train had thundered along with the dead engineer looking <>ut of the cab window into eternity, no one knew and no one knows.”

Farmers* Help.

Philadelphia Record. It is now a recognized fact that the successful cultivation of the soil is both a science and an art A high degree of scientific knowledge is not only requisite to determine the character of the crops that shall be raised on different qualities of land and to preserve the strength and fertility of the soil, but great skill is demanded in the art of planting, cultivating and securing the crops. Ignorant, unskilled labor is as unprofitable in farming as it is in the mechanical industries. The demand of skilled farm help is as great in some other sections of the country as it is in the Southern States. Experience has demonstrated that skilled farm help is not to be found among the majority of immigrants who come to this country. The working classes of foreigners, unless they belong to some of the mechanical industries, have no aptitude for. any special pursuit. For digging on the railroad, in the ditch or canal, or f<y street labor, where only physical strength and endurance are requisite, they do very well but when it comes to working on the farm they are incapable of any intelligent assistance. They first must learn by experience, and the details of farm labor are not to be acquired in a single year Yet this class of laborers, notwithstand-

ing, expect to receive the wages that are paid to experienced farm handr>. What i« wanted everywhere in this country are practical farmers. And there is no reason why there should be a scarcity of this class, any more than that there should be workmen in any mechanical branch. It has already been shown in these columns that the remuneration of this branch of labor is equitable as compared with other industries. The inducements are in every way as desirable. If farmers’ sons themselves would only understand this, the lack of skilled labor for the farm would in some degree be mitigrated. But let young men generally be taught to believe that labor on the farm is as honorable as any other employment and even more pleasant and desirable than the majority of industrial pursuits; that all the skill and knowledge they may acquire may be put to profitable use in the science aud art of agriculture, and that constantly they will receive an increased reward for their experience and industry, and the great scarcity Of sk’lled E elp for theform will soon cease to be felt A Jefferson County farmer found a lamb a few days ago,' that had been misst ing for two weeks, in a dry well, thirteen > from the surface. It had had nothing to eat in all that time.

[DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE. 0 days TMMadMMd wall! MmßmhiNd ail! The bitter, sweet, the heaey Ind tbs gall; Those garden rambles in the sileM sight, Those trees so shady and the moon so bright. That thick-sot alley by the arbor closed. That woodbine seat where we at last-reposed; And then the hopes that came and then were gone, Qui ok aa the donds beneath the moon past on,

CONDIMENTS.

Somebody says that "ballot girls are not go bad as they are painted." We kope not. They are painted frightfully. The sting of a bee is only 1-32 of an inch long. It is your imagination that makes it seem as long as a hoe-handle. Men who would not steal a mule will gladley take the chance of misappropriating an umbrella. They have uo use for a mule. We are always pleased to hear of a young man setting down, but it gives us far more pleasure to record the fact of his settling up. Dwo vosshoost enough, budt dree was tooblendty.” remarked Hans, when his girl asked him take her mother along with him to the dance. The good Queen’s knee is healing. Helped on by British prayers; But where is the Hibernian who Put soap upon the stairs? • An Ohio farmer who has barbed-wire fen ces all through his farm, says that he gets one-fourth more work out of his hired man than he used to when he furnished a top-rail to sit on. “Is the howling of a dog always followed by death?” asked a little gin of her father. “Not always, my dear; sometimes the man that shoots at the dog misses,” was the parent’s reply. Yes, my boy, there are 55,200,000 people in this country, and you are only one of them—just one. Think of that one in a while, when you get to wondering what would happen to the world if you should die.

“Is Miss Blank at home?” asked a fault-less-attired bore of the new girl. The girl took : rom her pocket a photograph, carefully scanned it, and after another look at the features of the visitor answered: “No, sor; she has gone to Europe." He left. At a recent divorce trial the wife was asked 8 question, to which she made the following reply: “When I was first married I was so jealous of my husband that I thought every woman I saw wanted him, and now I wonder how I ever could have been such a fool as to have wanted him myself.” Charlie Vere de Vere (sententiously):

“Geniuees, my dear Miss Marlborough, are men who just miss being fools, and fools are men who just miss being geniuses.” Miss Marlborough (awestruck): "What original things you say, Mr. Vere de Vere; I sometime think that you are almost a genius.” “Kitty, dear.” cried the lover, as he yearned hungrily over the back gate, "yon are the sum total of my heart’s calculation and though I hoped to gain by your addition, you set me at naught and leave me but to sign for—” Just here the old man solved his arithmetical harangue by footing him np the alley. “Amtthing new or. fresh this morning?” a reporter asked in a railroad office. “Yes.” replied the lone occupant of the apartment "What is it?*’asked the reporter, eagerly whipping out his note book. “That paint you are leaning against” That railway man is now in the hospital, and that reporter is in jail. Enthusiastic Professor of Physics, discussing the organic and inorganic liingdoms—“Now, if I a hould shut my eyes—so —and drop my head—so—and should not move, you would say I was a clod. But I move, I leap, I run; then what would you call me?” Voice from the rear—' “A clod hopper I” Class is dismissed,—Vassar Miscellany. A schoolmistress of Eureka, California, while on her way to school, was attacked by an infuriated steer. “She seized the animal by the horns and held him until help came.” The next day she saw a rat in the school room, when she hastily gathered her skirts about her, jumped upon* desk and yelled murder. A rat has no horns for a woman to grab hold of, The tide of immigration haa decreased very perceptibly. During the last year the falling off has been fully twenty-five per cent One-third of the immigrants come from Germany. England and Wales frunish one-seventh of the new-comers, whi’e only one in fifteen comes from faminestricken Ireland. The per cent, of decrease has been about the same for the different nationalities. The effect of the embargo upon Chinese immi has been to reduce tlie number of arrivals San Francisco mere than one-half.

How Girls Study.

Chi' I **® Tribune, Did you ever see two girls get together to study of an evening? I have, and it generally goes like this: “In 1673 Marquette discovered the Mississippi, in 1673 Marquette dis—. What did you say, Ide? You had ever so much ra her see the hair coiled than braided? -Yes, so had X Itsno much more stylish, and then it looks ffldssical, too; but how

do you like—O, dear! I never will learn this lesson! . ' In 1868 Lafayette discovered the Wisconsin, in 1868 Lafayette discovered the—well! what’s the matter with me,anyhow! In sixteen seventy-three Marquette discovered the Mississippi. I don't care if he did. I suppose the Mississippi would have got along just as well if Marquette had new looked at it. Now see here, Ide, is there anything about my looks that would give you to unders and that I know when Columbus founded Jatnestown, and how George Washington won the battle of Shiloh? Of course there isn’t. History’s a horrid study, anyhow. No use, either. Now, French is ever so much nicer. I can introduce French phrases very often, and one must know I have studied the language. What is the lesson to-morrow? 0, yes; conjugation of parler. Let’s see. How does it commence? Fe parle, tu parle, il par—il pa —il—well, il, then! "Conjugations don’t amount to anything. I know some phrases that are appropriate here and there, and in moat every locality; and how’s anybody going to know but what I have the subjugations all by heart? “Have I got my geometry? No, I am just going to study it. Thirty-ninth, is it not? "Letthetri-angleAßO, tri-angle AB —say, Ide, have you read about the Jersey Lily and Freddie? I think it is just too utterly nt, and Freddie is simply gorgeous. I’m completely crushed on him—“Oh, this theorem! "Let the triangle A BO be right-angled at B. On the side B 0 erect the square B D. On the side AB, the square AI. On the side—did I tell you Bister Oarraociola gave me a new piece to-day, a sonata? It :s really intense. The tones fairly stir my soul. lam never going to take anything >ut sonatas after this. I got another piece too. Its name is Etudee. Isn’t it funny? I asked Tom this noon what it means,and he says it is Greek for nothing. It is quite apropos, for there is really nothing to it—>the same thing over and oVer. “Where was I? O, yes, the side A 0, the square A E. Draw the line—come on, let’s go at our astronomy. Its on. ‘Are the planets inhabited?’ "Now, Ide, I think they are, and I have thought about it a great deal. I banged my hair again last night I wanted a Langtry bang just too bad for any use, but pa raved, and I had to give in. Yeo, I think they are inhabited. I should like to visit some of them, but you would not catch me living on Venus. Eight seasons! Just think how often we would have to have new outfits to keep up with the styles! “What! you are not going? lam so sorry, but I suppose you are tired. I am. It almost make me most i ick to study a whole evening like this. I think sister ought to give us a picture.” And they go to school the next morning and tell the other girls how awfully hard they have studied.

“Maybe So,”

Detroit Free Prase, After looking over the battle-field of Chanoellorsville I went back to the brick house for dinner. During my absence a little red-headed man had arrived, and he was introduced by the woman as her brother-in-law. As soon as I came in he began on me: "Vhas you under Sheneral Jhaokson in dis fight?” “No.” "I tell you dot vhas an awful fight, my frcndt Blood poured out shunt like it vhas raining. Maybe you vhas under General Lee, up der blank road?” ‘"No, I wasn’t” “Not under Lee? But dot Sheneral Lee vhas an awful fighter. Maybe you vhas mit Early, up at Fredericksburg?" “No." “So? Vhell, dot Early he vhas a splendid Sheneral, and he like to fight all der time. I feel sure you vhas mit Early. Maybe you vhas mit Hooker, eh?" “No." “Not mit Hooker down here? Den you vhas mit Sedgwick up der roadt?” “No.,’ “Vhell, by golly! Not mit Shackson nor Lee—not mit Hooker nor Sedgwick! Vhell! Vhell! Dot beats me all oafer!” Both of us fell to and began eating, and nothing futher was said until the meal was finished, and we had gone out to look at some old cannon wheels in the yard. Then my friend put his hand on my shoulder, lowered his voice, and said: “My friendt, if you vhas not mit Lee, nor Shackson, nor Hooker in dis fight maybeyouund me vhas in der same place?” “Maybe so. Where were you?” “In Canada!” he whispered. He called “good-by” after me as I rode away, but I wouldn’t have answered him for 8 hundred dollars. One lesson our American lad must learn before he succeeds, aud as he is&oeptionally sharp he generally does learn it when he finds be does not succeed without it That is steadiness of aim. Instability is onr national desert. /Wj