Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1885 — A Queer Genoese Fashion. [ARTICLE]

A Queer Genoese Fashion.

The chief of the Swiss Federal Trareau of statistics estimates that m the year 2000 the United States will tocntain a papulation of 600,000,000. Think of waiting for the election returns in those days. We feel real sorry for our posterity. General Grant is filling two volumes with his history of the war. After they are finisljgd he will write another bodk giving his political experiences from the surrender of Appomattox to the present time. It is said that this last book will be one of the most interesting books historically that has yet been given to the country, os it will cover an inside view of Andrew Johnson’s administration, of which very little is known. Within four years past, in Tazewell, Russell, and Washington counties, Virginia, 1,600 men and 3,000 horses have been engaged in the walnut lumber trade, bringing into these counties $1,600,000. One walnut tree realized S6OO. Five hundred men are engaged in getting cut oak staves, which are shipped to Norfolk for Europe and Sbuth America. The walnut is being exhausted, but other valuable woods are abundant. A poplar tree in White’s valley measures twenty-nine feet in circumference.

Mb. Rb&kin has begun a fresh crusade against Philistinism in English society. He thinks that the ideal of young people now is to marry as soon as possible, and live in the most fashion-; able part of the largest town their incomes will allow. And he finds that huge plate-glass windows, “patent everythings going of themselves everywhere,” together with the intellectual environment of “a few bad prints, a few dirty and foolish books, and a quantity of photographs of the people they know,” take the place, in their minds, of a just conception of the “real honor of human life and beauty of the visible world.” Old people: Rev. James Marshall aged 76 years, and Mrs. Mary Moore) , aged SI years, were the happy couple recently united in the bonds of matrimony at Franklin, Tennessee. Walter Pease, of Enfield, Connecticut, is a gentleman who voted for Madison and every Democratic candidate for the Presidency since. Mrs. Nancy Coley, aged 106, is a remarkable woman living near Easton, Connecticut, Her first husband died in 1864 and the following year she married again. Mrs. Bridget Farley, of Stratford, Conneticut, is 104 years old, but she recently went to the city in her carriage and “shopped in a manner thart made the ladies of the city extremely envious. Correspondent New York Star: I am told by one who is intimate with the President-elect, that, though abstemious as a rule, he can take his horn of whisky with any man in America and "never ripple a hair on his eyebrows.” On his visits to New York, Buffalo, Elmira, Newark, and Brooklyn, he always responded to °an invitation to drink, and took whatever was going—gin, rum, whisky, brandy, or beer—and stood up to his poison like a veteran trooper. Confusion of drinks killed Sir Lucius O’Trigger, but it has no more effect upon his Excellency than water on a duck’s back. His appearance denotes a man of powerful physique, with a strong and level head that is proof against the stimulants that so demoralize less vital organizations.

Fob some time stove manufacturers and dealers have seen mica grow scarcer and scarcer, and have heard the steady complaints of stove owners and stove dealers about its rapidly increasing price. There has never been a very liberal supply of mica “in the world, what there was coming from the Rocky Mountains and the South. Last month a mica mine was discovered near Tallulah, Georgia, which is pronounced by an expert and successful mica miner to be 1 the Richest mine he ever saw in any section. The mine contains blocks that will square one foot, and the vein is adjudged to be inexhaustible. Should it so prove, it will be of immense value to people in every station in life, as well as a bonanza to the fortunate owner. Mica has come to be one of the absolute necessities of American economy. A coiutKßPOHDKicr in Remsen, N. X, sends the details of a remarkable combat v itnessed near Bordwelltown. The report says William Williams, who is employed in the tannery at Bordwelltown, while on his way to work about 6 a/ tn., saw a bnge gray owl and a fullgrown skunk engaged in a life-and-death struggle. Williams did not disturb the contestants, bnt on reaching the tannery he informed his fellowworkmen of the fact As they oonld scarcely credit the story, one of their number was sent out to verify it The man had no difficulty in finding the spot where the struggle had taken place, bnt the contest was over when he arrived, and the -victor, the owl, having tore away the fore part of his enemy's body, was feasting on the still quivering remains. As the man ap-

preached, the owl loft its victim bud fiercely assailed the new intruder. In its last battle! the bird did not fare so Well, and was speedily'disabled and captured. ■ ’ ■— ■ 1 ' - ~7 —rr~ The Albany Evening Journal describes an exciting 6oene at a church fair, in that city the other evening. A small pig had been brought in in a box and set aside on exhibition. The little porker, unused to the confinerdent and the novelty of its surroundings, escaped from the box when the attention of the people happened to be engaged elsewhere, and ran squealing about the room. No pen can depict the consternation of the ladies at the escapade. Female shrieks and disordered drapery filled the air, and the ground-and-lofty tumbling indulged in by the fair ones in their efforts to reach tables, chairs, and other places out of the reach of the ferocious animal would have put professional acrobats to the blush. At last a general chase was instituted, and the pig's liberty was terminated by his oapture and return to his box.

Prof. John T. Smith, a prcminen Republican of New Albany,lndiana, was astonished a few days ago by receiving notice of his appointment to a $1,500 clerkship in the War Department. To a correspondent he said: “This is as much a mystery to me as to you. I never asked for the appointment. I suppose, though, it came under the civil-service rules. Several mouths ago I was requested to prepare a paper on civil-service reform, and in order to write it intelligently 1 made some inquiries in reference to the examinations. I found I could get no information upon the subject outside and determined to get it inside. I saw a notice in the papers one day that the commissioners wonld hold a session in Louisville a certain day. I applied for examination solely for the purpose of getting data for my article, which I subsequently wrote. Some time after the examination I received notice from the commission at ti ashington of my percentage, and that I had been entered upon the list for an appointment. I thought and heard no more of it, considering it a mere formal notice, until the notice of my appointment in the War Office came. It is doubtful if I accept, as my business here is of such a nature that Ido not see how I oan leave it with out a sacrifice.”

Chicago "Current: The effects of the great railway war may be seen in the last three twenty-one-day tables ol the New York Indicator. There has been a steady decline in stocks since the outbreak, and millions upon million of water have evaporated. Nothing but Elevated stock has withstood the process. When the [robbers made these evaporated millions by watering the stock, they-Bpent the money in wild extravagance. Villard’B mansion is 1 represented as being as artistic as was his rascality. When he retired to Germany for the sake of educating his son and rostoring his shattered nerves, he took with him a wondrous collection of Northern Pacific bric-a-brac.' Now,oh the disappearance of the millions which the plutocrats once wrote down on paper, the directors naturally turn to the brakeman, and say: “Heavens! man, do you suppose we can pay you the wages we did v when we were making twice as much money ?” Certainly they can. They never gave the brakeman more than would keep him alive. These ■wise men of Gotham have been at war. They knew what war was. Let them remember Camden, Liberty Street in Pittsburgh, the Sixteenth street viaduct in Chicago, the yards at East St Louis, and the scenes on each side the bridge at Omaha.

We soon pas b an immense house which was once a palace, but is now used for other purposes. Looking up, r we see that one of the great windows in the second story is open, and a lady is setting at it She is dressed in very bright though somewhat old-fashioned, attire. Flowers and vines cluster inside the window, and there is a hanging cage with a bird. As we stop and look at her, the lady does not move, and in a few minutes we peroeive that the lady, the qpen shutter, the Bash, the flowers, and the cage are all painted on the wall in a space where you would naturally expect to find a window. This used to be a favorite way of decorating houses in Italy, and in Genoa we shall frequently see these painted windows, tome with one person looking out, some with two, and some with none. The lady at the window has Bat and looked out the window for hundreds of years. Under her window, into the great entrance of the palace, med to pass nobles and princes. Now there are shops in the lower part of the palace, and. you can have your shoes mended by n cobbler in the court-yard. —Frank R Stockton, in St. Nicholas.