Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1884 — The Line at a Dog and Boy. [ARTICLE]

The Line at a Dog and Boy.

A sect is said to liavei been discovered in Rostov, South Russia, who poison children with narcotics. It was founded by a woman who murdered her children in order to relieve them from earthly suffering and prooure for them celestial*'happiness. The Sunday-school, as we now know it, is little over 100 years old. Yet how it has grown | How mighty is the tree > and how wide-spread are the branches! According to a recent and carefully prepared estimate, the number of children and Teachers in the Christian Sun. x. day-scliools throughout the world is 15,000,000. , ~~ -- Philaeelphia Call: A politician whose name has been prominently mentioned in connection with the Presidency was recently asked: “Are you a candidate?” “No,” was the prompt response. “Thank you,” replied the questioner. “I am a delegate to the Chicago Convention, and I do not believe in wasting time voting for men who will not accept the nomination. Good jnora ” “Ah, stop a moment,” said tho prominent politician. “Er—ah —perhaps we might discuss the matter a little further. Will you—er —join me ! in a glass of something ? * Three Scotchman—Dr. Watson, Mr. John Maclaren, and Mr. Robert Mackenzie—were walking over the Reichs bridge, which spans the Danube at Vienna, at a hight df seventy feet, recently, when the two younger men teased Dr. Watson, saying, that his ceurage would fail him had he to jump from the bridge into the river. All at once Dr. Watson mounted the parapet, and, before his friends could hinder him, jumped into the river, which ran at seventy feet below. Despite the coldness of the water and the current f Dr. Watson swam to the shore, where he was taken into custody by the police. Mon cure D. Conway, who, after twenty years’ residence abroad, is coming from London to Washington to live, says to a correspondent of the New York World: “A man with brains, ideas, and ability for effective work can do more real good by using his talents in the UnitetJ States than he can accomplish anywhere else. The Americans can be influenced in favor of right changes. They are disposed to know what they are shown is right. They have no prejudices in favor of existing wrong systems. They are the salt of the modern world. It is almost impossible for any person who well knows America and the Americans to be contented with life anywhere outside of the United States.” ■ ; . ' Western doctors say that some of their medical colleges are so greatly in want of students that the so-called preliminary examinations are a farce. It seems that last autumn a young man, after paying his advance fees to a medical institution, desired to attend another college, and requested that his monkey be returned. This being refused, tho youth determined to display great ignorance at the preliminary examination, and, out of the twenty-five questions put to him, answered but three correctly. Certain of his rejection, he called upon the Dean next day for his, money. He wa3 informed, however, with great affability, that his examination had been entirely satisfactory. The college cashed the claim only pfter a lawsuit threatened. 0

If there was one thing in this country needed more than another it was a qonscratching chicken, and at no season of the year is the necessity for that kind of a chicken so much felt as in the spring when the suburban resident is engaged in laying out his Bxlo vegetable garden. How long the inventive faculty of the American citizen has been engaged in the evolution of a chicken that is guaranteed not to scratch nobody knows. The want was one of those long-felt ones. A Mr. Howard, of Long Island, is the owner of the chicken, and the peculiarity of its construction consists in having one leg shorter than the other. This abbreviation of one leg not only curtails the power of the chicken to scratch, it absolutely prevents it. It only remains now to devise an incubator that will turn out whole broods of this style of chicken. Those who supposed that no good thing could come out of Long Island were mistaken. Oakland (Cal.J Tribune: Gov Stoneman has pardoned a young convict in the State prison who is a son of a distinguished, but deceased ex-Gov-ernor of the State frtSln which the son came several years ago. The father ’ has been dead a few years, bpt the mother is still living and has been begging her qpn to return, unconscious of his incarceration in the penitentiary. He was to proud to allow the family name to be' disgraced and was convicted under a fictitious name, and man-

aged to keep his mother in ignorance of his trouble. When in San Francisco he fell into the hands of designing viL lains, older that himself, and, while dissipated, was led into the commission of the crime. He was ' bnt a boy, and it was regarded as bad* policy to ruin his life by further imprisonment when he had bitterly repented his course anti was anxious to return to his home and lead the life his mother expected him to. '

The Blair educational bill passed by the U. S. Senate appropriates $77,009,000 to be distributed through the various States a. cling to thfe illiteracy, the ability of persons above the age of 10 yehrs to write being made the standard of distribution, and the last census the means of arriving at the estimate. According to this authority there were 6,239,958 persons above the age of 10 years in the country in the year 1880 unable to write. This would distribute the $77,000,000 as follows: Alabama 45,201,000 Missouri «1,49f t 00( Arizona...,,.. 60,000 Nebraska 132,000 Arkansas 2,424,000 Nevada.. 48,000 California.... 604,000 N. Hampshire 160,0 0 Colorado. 120,000 New Jersey... 630,000 Connecticut.. 1 310,000 New Mexico.. 680,0pC Dak0ta....;... ' 50,0J0 New York 2,625,000 Delaware..,.. 252,000 N. Carolina... 5,566,000 Florida. 960.000 Ohio ÜB&fflK G oreia 6,240,000 Orepon 85,000 Illinois. 1,740,000 Pennsylvania. 2,736,000 Indiana....... 1,320,000 Rhode Island. 297,000 lowa 560,000 8. Carolina... 2,428,000 KauFas 479,000 Tennessee.... 4,950,000 Kentucky 4,189,000 Texas 3,800,0 0 Louisiana..... 3,320,000 Utah. 100,000 Maine 264,C00 Vermont 190,000 Maryland 1,680,000 Virginia...... 6,100,D0C Mnssachnsetts 1,114,000 Wash. Ter.... 40,000 Michigan. 764,090 W. Virginia.. 1,000,000 Minnesota 400,009 Wisconsin... 660,000 Missieippi 4,500,000

Chicago Current: The latest French records of crime reveal the suggestive fact that crime has increased in the direct ratio of intelligence, the illiterate classes furnishing five criminals; those who can read furnishing six and the beneficiaries of the higher grade of instruction furnishing fifteen crimnals in an equal number of persons. These figures have been carefully compiled. What i 3 true of France is true in a less degree of England, Germany and our country, where education is widely diffused. The crimes of the highly educated are not so often in the line of murder; the tendency is to robbery under the euphemism of “embezzlement,” “violation of trust,” “short,” etc.; although the intelligent operator is as guilty as any illiterate highway robber or midnight burglar. Unfortunately for the promulgators of the dogma that education purges a country of crime, our own beloved country has vastly increased her criminal lists with the increase oi educational facilities. Of the forty thousand convicts in our penitentiaries, between 60 and 70" per cent, of them can read or write. The story of the boy who took the broken wheelborrow home and asked that it be mended, as his father wanted to borrow it again, is generally supposed to be a fiction, invented to impress upon dull intellects the sublime impudence of some people who borrow. But as sure as truth is stranger than fiction here we have an instance of it that goes the wheelborrow story several points better. A Chicago man, McFarland by name, having a little job of painting, as many people have at this season of the year, borrowed a stepladder from his neighbor, Jnmes Burns. While he was using it the step-ladder gave way and McFarland fell, breaking one of his ribs. Instead of being grateful for the loan of the ladder he brings suit against Burns, charging him with causing the accident by lending an unreliable article, and placing the damage done to his rib at $2,500. This suit, if it proceeds, ought to put the whole question of borrowing on a better understood ground. If Burns kept that kind of a ladder on purpose to lend during house-cleaning time is he legally responsible for limbs broken on it? Will the plea that ha wanted to keep on the right side of a disagreeable neighbor with a penchant for borrowing stand law, or will he have to lie about it. and adopt the didn’t-know-it-was-loaded line of defense in order to escape legal responsibility. In short, is a man bound to keep the beqt there is in the market for lending purposes or else shut up his bowels of compassion against the people who have nothing but what they borrow ?

A well-dressed boy occupied a corner ■eat in a Fourth avenue street car. Beside him sat a wide-awakb Skye terrior. The car contained other passengers and was moving slowly up center street The conductor was a brisk man with a ,mild blue eye. “Hello 1” said he, when he got a glimpse of the boy and the dog. “You get out of this.” “What for ?” said the boy. , “’Cause we don’t allow no dogs in these cars.” The boy was disinclined to be separated from his dog, and consequently left this conveyance- A passenger, who had frequently seen women accompanied by dogs riding in the Fourth avenue cars, casually remarked that it seemed unfair to enforce the dog rule against the male and not against the female sex. “ Well,” said the conductor, “my orders are to draw the line at a dog and a boy.”— New York Times. * . r "