Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1883 — TO CORRESPONDENTS. [ARTICLE]

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

AB •MBBnaieattaM for thfa paper ehowld be ainan tasted lr the name of the aetbor; no* naomnrffr foe pobUeatfon, bet ae an evidence of good faith on the part W the Write onl; on one aide of tbs paper. Be hi airing namea and dates, to ham the letters and figures plain and distinct.

Thibtt-two new desks have been ordered by Mr. McPherson to provide for the additional number of statesmen who will sit in the House of the Fortyeighth Congress. The presbyteries of the Southern Presbyterian church have been requested by their assembly to express their opinion respecting the prohibition, in their confession of faith, of the marriage of a man with his deceased wife’s sister. As foetunes are considered nowadays, Peter Cooper was mot a very rich man. Four years ago he gave $1,000,000 apiece to Edward Cooper, his only son,. and A. S. Hewitt. He reserved for himself an income of-about SIOO,OOO, the most of which he gave away. Just after the failure of the Wiggins storm John Slocum, an Oregon Indian, pretended to die, and, after two days’ repose in a coffin, came to life, and claimed that during the absence of his spirit from the body it visited heaven, but was sent back by the Great Spirit. He is daily preaching to an immense concourse of Indians, and, among other things, stated that the Great Spirit told him Wiggins’ storm was a false prediction, and that his brethren must not be afraid.

The Federal Capitol at Washington cost about $12,000,000, but is regarded as one of the great buildings of the world. The work was well done at reasonable figures. The unfinished State Capitol at Albany, N. Y., has already cost $14,000,000, and $5,000,000 more has been called for. Tho total cost will probably be nearly or quite $25,000,000. The estimated cost, eight years ago, was $4,000,000. Architects and contractors are more enterprising and altogether more ''thrifty now than formerly. The story is that William Vanderbilt, not wanting to go to his son’s fancy ball as the Duke of Guise, or in any other guise, went in his ordinary dress. The attendant at the door was an “extra” for the occasion and knew not William H. In vain he pleaded that the orders not to allow any one in plain dress to enter could not apply to him. His son knew he would never wear toggeries and that he was the father of the man giving the ball. “Jeems” wouldn’t be persuaded, and the son had to come to the door to let the “old man” in. William Roods, a lad of 14, living near Saratoga, N. Y., undertook to explain to his brother of 6 how public executions are conducted. He tied a rope to a beam in a shop a little distance from his father’s house, and adjusted the other end around, his neck. The younger boy was unable to tell what next occurred, but not long afterward some of the elder members of the family found the amateur hangman suspended from the beam, dead. If the experiment had proved a trifle less sue. eessful, the youngster might have grown up to be as famous an .executioner as the eminent Englishman, Marwood.

Miss Emily Faithfull, the English philanthropist, who has been on a tour through this country, says as to the condition of American women: “I am satisfied that most Of them have a pretty good time of it, but there is much to be done for them yet. I found everywhere a lack of available work for them. There are many, very many, respectable women who want work a little above drudgery and cannot get it. Much has been done for women who have the requisite training and taste by procuring for them employment in decorative lines. The best efforts on behalf of women are in the direction of educational progress, for it is mental culture that must make women independent. Without disparagement of- those who are promoting the cause of woman suffrage, I must say that, in my opinion, their energies would be better directed toward helping women to independence by giv ing them employment.” The antics of a ghost in a Philadelphia house have been the means of disclosing some interesting facts in regard to the condition of deceased bummers. A circle of spiritualists met in the room favored by the foreign visitor, and, after invoking his presence, the medium announced to the crowd of unbelievers in the next apartment that he had found out all about the matter. The spirit who had caused the disturbance was at that moment lying on the bed in a state of intoxication, having entered

the other world in that condition twenty years before. “When a man dies in a state of intoxication, * said the medium, “he remains so until by communication with friends on earth he recovers.* The intemperate spook on the bed, it was further stated, had never sobered up, and had not yet found out that .he was dead, hence his noisy visits to his old boarding-place. Whether the deceased had never been able to find any of his old friends, or whether the smell of their breath had rendered it impossible for him to brace up. in twenty years, + he medium did not state. This unsettled point is an important one, and should be investigated by seekers after truth. The class in Greek at Adelbert (Ohio) College has not appeared in recitation for several days on account of differences between the class and the professor who was putting a lesson upon the blackboard when another professdr’s daughter, one of the pupils, raised a pair of opera-glasses and leveled them upon him. The professor, greatly annoyed, asked her to remain after school, when he requested her not to repeat the performance. The next day the young lady did the same thing. Then he addressed her in public: “I asked you last night to refrain from using those glasses on me.” She answered: “I know it.” “Then,” said he, “please put them up.” She refused, and the professor remarked: “That leaves me two alternatives; please leave the room.” The young lady refused, and asked what was the other alternative. The professor simply said: “This class is dismissed and will not be heard again until this young concluded to obey the rules. ” The young lady claimed that she had authority Jrom the President to use the glasses, but the professor refused to accept the excuse, asserting that he was the one to be obeyed. The young lady pleads weak eyes. A medical student is not a nice person to have about the house, especially if he be an enthusiast in his profession. Fingers, ears and other fragments of the human frame are likely to drop from his pocket when he draws his handkerchief, and he is given to talking “shop,” in a way not agreeable to sensitive stomachs. A Jersey City student, in the ardor of study, surreptitiously brought to his boarding-house the entire remains of a woman, and placed them in a barrel bn a roof* outside of his window. When he got time he intended to prepare the “subject” and mount her skeleton—not the duplexelliptic—upon wires, but meanwhile he could not refrain from looking at his treasure every now and then. A woman next door —of course there was a woman in the'case beside the one in the barrel —watched his strange actions, and in his absence crawled over on the roof and investigated the mystery. Much excitement was raised, the body vps taken to the morgue, and policemen were hunting the student to arrest him for foul murder, when he walked in and demanded the “stiff,” which he had bought and paid for. The woman next door will always be sure that she scented a crime, and the young M. D. has been requested to hunt another board-ing-liouse, for sanitary reasons.