Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1883 — There Was Something Wrong. [ARTICLE]

There Was Something Wrong.

There are 5,257 tons of silver coin in the Treasury Vaults in Washington, valued at $114,969,197. An Alabama editor proposes an amendment to the Constitution making the Senatorial twelve years, increasing the salary to SIO,OOO a year, and making Senators ineligible to the Presidency. It is not generally known that Prince Bismarck is a timber merchant iij a large way, and a distiller in a still larger. At Varzin he has recently had a new distillery built, steam engines put up at an enormous cost, and the result is that over 90,000 liters of German eau-de-vie are turned out monthly. A Nevada man who has been mining in Mexico for two years has -returned home some hundreds of dollars poorer than when he left. He says he would have done well enough down in that country, but about once a month they were after Him for subscriptions. The men who called for the subscriptions came with shotguns. A Sunday paper at Washington claims to know that the face of Guiteau is in a jar of alcohol and his skeleton in a case in the Army Medical Museum, with the initial “B” written in indelible ink upon each separate bone for identification, and that the flesh was ere mated in the building after it had been stripped from the skeleton Nov. 22, 1882. The horticulturists of California lament a scarcity of Chinese labor, and exclaim, “What shall we do?” Go to work yourselves. A white man who works for wages on a California farm is expected to have his own blankets, sleepin the barn, and get his meals on a tin plate at the rear kitchen door. When works slacks up, he unavoidably become a tramp. And yet California is trying to attract white immigration. The Engineering states that a vessel constructed of paper was recently launched at St. Petersburg. She is driven by steam. Her dimensions are: Length, 25 feet; greatest width, 5 feet, with only a few inches draught of water. The recent trial of paper for railway material, the above journal adds, has led to its present employment. For many years paper boats, however, have been made and used in this country. A scheme is reported to be on foot, in the Chilian army, having for its object the conquest of the Sandwich Islands. Several hundred American and European adventurers are said to be organizing for that purpose. King Kalakaua is very unpopular among his for-eign-born subjects, who pay most of his taxes, and his little army of four or five hundred men is not worth speaking of. It wohld be a trivial exploit to dethrone him. In twenty-two years, ending with 1882, Massachusetts had 107 murder trials and 16 hangings; in thirty years, ending with 1880, Connecticut had 97 murder trials and 7 hangings; in four years, ending with 1877, New York city had 185 homicides and 4 executions. It would, perhaps, be a good idea for the States, in order to secure a consistant enforcement of their criminal laws, to so change them as to provide yiaAeaiKpenalty for jae#, person who shall, in cold blood, have committed twenty-five murders.

A competent authority estimates that new railroads will be built in the chief countries of the world during the next few years, at the rate of 18,000 miles per annum, exclusive of railroad extensions in Asia, Australasia, and the United States. India has in view a large expansion of her railway system; in Java, the roads are being annually extended; 1,220 miles of additional road will be built in Japan;a line from Constantinople to Bagdad, 1,488 miles in length, has been projected, and lines are being surveyed in Turkestan and Persia.

How tender is the heart of Mormon polygamists. At the recent Salt Lake City Conference, H. J. Grant expressed his supreme contempt for any man who would put away a superfluous wife in order to oblige the United States-Con-gress. He said: “When a man marries a wife, and neglects the. woman, and breaks her heart, he should be punished. I have seen many faithful women struggling Mong for* ten or fifteen ye«rs, aiid suffering neglect. The desire of my heart is to keep the commands of the Lqjd.” Mr. Grant has married often. / Attracted by the piteous howls of a dog, a Brandenburg (Prussia) peasant found a huge eagle on the back of a watchdog. The peasant ran to fetch a farm bailiff. When the two came the bird was hopping' round, badly dis-

abled. A shot dispatched him. The dog was found dead—torn to pieces. The eagle was black, with white shoulders, and was was is called an imperial eagle. On his left foot a gold ring, on which were cut the letters, still quite visible, “H. Ks. o. k.,” underneath which was the word “Eperjes,* and on the other side the date, 10, 9, 1827.” Eperjes is a town in upper Hungary, not very far from the northern' Carpathians.

They are beginning to marry here how “in the English style,? says the New York World. A niece of ex-See-retary Hamilton Fish was married on Thursday to a Mr. Roosevelt, in the St, John’s Episcopal church, Elizabeth, N. J. The ceremony was modeled after the English fashion entirely., The bride entered the church at noon, leaning on her father’s arm. She wore a $50,000 necklace, the gift of the groom. Her hands were ungloved, and she carried the family prayer-book. She was met at the altar by the groom. The aisles bf the church were strewn with autumn leaves. After .riKeL.Aereihpny was performed the couple knelt and Bishop. Tuttle, of Utah, pronounced a blessing upom them. This is understood to be the correct thing in marriage now.

A year or so ago a member of the Spanish Diplomatic service married a young lady of great beauty. Shortly after his marriage he was somewhat surprised to receive notice that he had been appointed to a high position in Cuba, and that he was expected to undertake his new duties without delay. The time was so short that he was obliged to leave his wife behind, and accordingly prepared to start at once. He hade farewell to his family and left his house, but instead of leaving Madrid be managed to miss the train and returned home somewhat late in the evening. On arriving he was surprised to find Duke de L. in possession, but of course took care not to express astonishment. Suddenly he rose and said he was going to see his wife, from which the Duke, in great perturbation, strove to dissuade him. The next evening the inquisitive Spaniard was found stabbed to death in his own room. An apology for an inquiry was held. Verdict, suicide.

The London Times is supporting the project for a memorial to the inventor of illuminating gas, William Murdock. It is related of him that when he was making his experiments with fish-skins to.be used by brewers as a substitute for isinglass, he went to London and took expensive lodgings at the West End. Absorbed in his new discovery, he used to go out with a basket, which he brought home full of fish; then he would flay the fish on his drawing-room table and hang the skins to dry on velvet sofas and silk curtains. When his landlady caught him at work there was a scene ; and Murdock, much to the surprise of his simple mind, was ignominiously ejected, after being made to pay damages. The Murdock Memorial Committee, which is to be formed under Sir William Siemen’s auspices, will endeavor to collect funds for erecting a statute on the Thames Embankment, and also purchasing Murdock’s house at Handsworth, which it is proposed to convert into a gas museum, with a library and reading-rooms, for the workingmen of Birmingham.

What is known as “standard time” is likely to be adopted on the entire railroad system of the country. The managers of 60,000 miles have already agreed to it, and .thexe have., tically no negative votes against the proposition. The whole country will be divided into five divisions—the Intercolonial, 60 degrees west from Greenwich; the eastern, 75 degrees west from Greenwich; the Central, 90 degrees west from Greenwich; the Mountain, 105 degrees west from Greenwich, and the Pacific, 120 degrees west from Greenwich. Each division, it will be observed, is fifteen degrees apart, which makes just one hour in time. At present there are fifty different standards of time in use on the various roads in the country, which causes much annoyance and trouble. By the new arrangement there will be but five standards, each one hour apart, which will greatly simplify matters. The adoption of standard time does not necessarily mean she change of the clock dial from twelve hours to twenty-four. It is thought that suggestion will meet with little favor.

“This example isn’t right/*, is what the Free Press says a Detroit schoolboy said to his teacher, as he exhibited his arithmetic. “Why so?” ‘ “Why it figures the interest on S4OO at 6 per cent.” ' “Well, isn’t that right?” “No, ma’am. Pa always figures on 13 per there are twenty-four days over he calls it a month! I guess it is a misprint.” At Port Jervis, |ie whp has a fancy for it, may, at low watex, > stand on a rock in the river with one foot in New York, the other in Pennsylvania, and touch with his hajjd New Jersey.