Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1885 — Keeping Down Expenses. [ARTICLE]

Keeping Down Expenses.

A jury in Port Worth, Texas, has given a brakeman who had his head crashed while coupling oars, $15,000 damages. The road thus heavily assessed is the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio. . Victor Noir, whose tragic death is well remembered, was a man of little or no education. Shortly before his murder he sent a challenge to Paul de Casaagnao for having written articles attacking Republicanism in France. On reading the letter the imperial duelist laughed heartily. It was full of ignorant blunders, especially bad spelling. He replied as follows: “Sir: You have challenged me without any plausible reason. Therefore I have the choice of weapons. I choose orthography. Consider yourself a dead man. Paul de Cassagnac.” Some men don’t know when they are well off. This is particularly true of John T. Norris, of Loveland, Ohio. He was arrested for wrecking a passenger train at that place, but was discharged for want of evidence. This did not satisfy John, and he wrote to the authorities threatening arrest for false imprisonment. The result must have been surprising, for the officers came forthwith and rearrested him. His letter compared with a memorandum book picked up at the scene of the crime, showed the chirography to be the same. Mr. Norris is not as aggressive as he was. Mr. Fawcett, the late universally regretted Postmaster General of England, though deprived of sight, always had a crowd of short-sighted members around him in the House, to whom he would tell the names of those who were speaking, as he knew all the members by their voices, even those who rarely took part in debate. When answering a question, too, he would quote from official documents as freely as though he was reading them. Mr. Shaw Lefevre, who succeeds him in the office, is a son of Sir John Lefevre, and a nephew of Lord Eversley, who was for so many years the popular Speaker of the House of Commons, and who, at the age of 91, retains his freshness unbroken by gout and years of toil. When Gen. Sherman visited the Atlanta Cotton Exposition he passed through a small town in North Georgia which, when he last saw it, was a small forest of chimneys. The population of the town came to the depot to see the old warrior, who stood on the rear platform of his oar shaking hands while the train stood still. One man in the crowd sang out: “Hello, GinerT; you ain’t iorgofc us, has you?” “Not quite, my friend; I was here about twenty years ago. But what have you done with all you - chimneys?” “O, there standin’ yet. We have just built new homes around ’em.” The General laughed heartily at this. He said afterward it was one of the best evidences he had seen of the rebuilding up of the South. Mare Twain had a funny experience in Albany lately, entirely unpremeditated by the humorist: In making a tour of the capitol he with his party, entered the Adjutant General’s office to pay respects to that official. The Adjutant General being away for the moment, the party chatted cheerfully, and *' Mark Twain, with his usual ease, set down carelessly on one of the Adjutant General’s tables. In a few minutes a dozen clerks and deputies of the departments rushed in and vehemently demanded what was wanted. None of the visitors could understand the intrusion, until it was discovered that Mark Twain had planted himself squarely on a long row of electric buttoms, and thus set ringing as many call-bells.

"George Gould,” said a gentleman, "is one of the nicest young men in the •world. Of course he has not had much chance yet, for he is about 25 and does not look over 20, but his father is pushing him ahead, and when the old man is dead the boy will make the name a better one than it is now. He has already put him into several Boards of Directors, and even now he often, sits at the head of the, table os Vice-Presi-dent of the Western Union, and calls to order and presides over a, board in which Bussell Sage and Sidney Dillon sit as directors. He is careful of himself, avoids bad company,and is perhaps better fitted to tak e charge of his father’s millions than many another son of a father with less than a tenth of Gould’s wealth to leavei Mr. S. Hi Decker, "the armless doorkeeper” of the house, has in his possession a "handkerchief” of very unusual value. Shortly after Jackson’s nullification proclamation, some of his admirers, desiring to preserve it in peculiar form, caused ,it to be printed on large silk handkerchiefs. There were seventeen of these in number. One es these seventeen Mr. Decker has, having received it from a friend who, although he prized it very highly, saw fit to indicate his regard for this armless defender of his country by transfecting it to his possession. It' is a

very large sized hankerchief, printed closely in black ink, and, although it is more than half a century sjnoe it was .printed, it is as clear and sharply defined as th<)h®tH?;B[id" , ftdßhe from the press but yesterday. “I don’t know,* said Mr. Decker answer to a question, “whether any of the other sixteen copies are still in existence, but I do know that I have been offered SSO for this one, and could get much more if I would sell it.” 1 Prof. EastmaSPs widow has made it all right with the community. She is the Poughkeepsie lady of some fifty summers who created a sensation last week by marrying a youth of 22, who was a pupil in a business college of which she is the proprietor. Mrs. Eastman, now Mrs. Gaines, explains to the world, through her intimate friends that the college, which she inherited from the departed Eastman, has been a source of great trouble to her, and that she needed a man to help her maintain her rights. Mr. Gaines to be about such a man. as she wanted, she married him. It was a business transaction; they knew what they were doing-, and regard the matter entirely as their own affair. Considered in the light of a business partnership, arranged by a business woman oonnected with a business college, no impertinent outsider has a right to criticise. This is an advanced age, and when lovely woman insists upon entering a business it is the custom to grant her the privilege. Mr. and Mrs. Gaines are eccused. A pretty and pathetio scene might have been witnessed in a New York court, last week. A lad arrested for stealing a violin was being arraigned for trial when a pretty young lady bounded across the room and clasped him in her arms, both bursting into tears. They kissed and embraced each other fervently, the tableau bringing tears to the eyes of even the judge. Turning to him, she said: “Judge, lam this young man’s sister. We are two orphans. Mother is dead, and for all the good he is to us, father might as well be, dead, too. That boy there is my only care in the world, and he is a good boy, too. If he yielded to temptation it wasn’t because he is wicked or weak, but because necessity drove him to it. He’s not a thief, and never can become one unless you make it impossible' for him to be an honest man by putting the brand of Cain on his life. Release him and you’ll have a sister’s guaranty that he will repay your leniency by leading an honorable career.” The eloquent pleading secured the boy’s release, and both went away rejoicing. San Francisco Chronicle: The whaling bark Alaska, which arrived in this port a'few days ago from the Arctic Ocean, brings a strange story of the narrow esoape from death of six of her crew. The first officer, George Johnson, stated the circumstances to a Chronicle reporter as follows: "On the 16th of last October, when the ves sel was forty-six miles south of Alaska, an object was seen in the distance whose proportions and shape indicated it to be a monster sea-lion. A boat was immediately lowered and placed in charge of First Officer Johnson and five of the crew, named Andy Nelson, William Wilson, Antone Niago, George Marsfield, and Hans Stuten. As the distance was being decreased between the boat and the huge animal, they became convinced that it was the famed sea-serpent. When they came within a few hundred yards the monster made a dash for the boat, striking out its immense tail against the craft. Several of the occupants were precipitated into the water, and were rescued with difficulty. A harpoon and lance were fired into the body of the beast, and it disappeared beneath the surface. Half an hour later ii reappeared, floating on the water, dead. It was secured with ropes and towed to the vessel and hoisted on the deck. There the capture was seen to be a villainous-looking

thing. Its head closely resembled that of an alligator, while the body resembled that of a lizard. It measured thirty-three feet in length, the tail being nine feet long.” The tail was cut off and staffed and brought to this city, and is now on exhibition in a waterfront saloon. If the monster had succeeded in striking the boat with the full length of its tail, Johnson thinks it would have been knocked into atoms and the occupants drowned.

I heard a young man telling how he managed to keep his living expenses down to close figure, without having to practice any self-deniaL You see, I take my meals down street. I have bought two meal tickets, one at a firstclass restaurant, and the other at a cheap place. When my appetite is good, or I want to take anybody to dinner with me, I go to the best place, but when I don’t feel particularly sharkish I go down to the other restaurant and give my order there. In that way I keep up about a comfortable average living. That cheap meal ticket also comes handy when I don’t feel very flush, and have to begin cutting down expenses. Another way in which I find it useful is in relieving the hunger of my impecunious friends. When they get so hard up they can’t afford a square meal and come around to me for relief, I display my magnanimity bv handing them my meal ticket and telling them to go and eat their fill. Bnt its always the cheap ticket, though they suppose they are living as well as their benefactor, and Sh% ver down their blessings according.” Paul Pioneer Press.