Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1885 — An Annoying Hat. [ARTICLE]

An Annoying Hat.

Some time ago a compassionate German nobleman bought the favorite old horse of the Emperor William, Sadova, and kept it in comfort till its death, a short time ago. Now the skin has been well tanned and dressed, and is preserved as an ornament and relic, in the nobleman’s country seat.

Clara Belle says the ’ majority of ballet-girls have not the limbs of a Venus of Milo by any means. The work they are obliged to go through develops certain muscles until the lines of beauty are entirely lost. The feet grow to enormous dimensions, and when they walk they are as awkward as cows on the ice?

At Bremsier the Emperor and Empress of Russia did not sleep in the splendid State apartments prepared for them, but occupied a spare room connected with that of the Grand Duke George. At home they follow the practice of often changing their rooms, so that none but their personal attendants know where they sleep. A new hobby-horse has been devised for boys. It consists of the model of a horse mounted on a tricycle. It is driven by means of the’forward wheel, as in the case of an ordinary tricycle, the steering handle appearing above the horse’s neck the bridle should be held. Motion is given to the horse’s legs by cranks connoted with the wheels.

It is possible to keep the cobra harmless under music for a considerable time. It is related by a naturalist who closely studied the habits of animals in India, that he one day spent an hour painting a cobra, which was kept dancing the whole time upon a tabfe." He frequently handled it, and examined its spots, and the spectacles on the head. He was surprised afterward to find that the fangs had been left in.

It is just a hundred years since the famous Gen. Oglethorpe, founder of Georgia, died at Cranham Hall, near Upminster, Essex, and was buried in the church there, within a stone’s throw of his house. The old manor house no longer exists, but a handsome farmhouse stands on the site. Gen. Oglethorpe lived to be 88. He had fought under Prince Eugene, and yet might have dandled Sir Moses Montefiore on his knee. »■'"*

During the month of August enormous "swarms of ants passed over the town of Solothurn, in Switzerland. They came from the Jura Mquntains, and formed a cloud, consisting of seventy-five perpendicular columns, in which the ants circled around in spiral form. The storm lasted ft>r twenty minutes, the height of the cloud being upwards of ninety feet. Millions of them fell to the ground, however, without making any visible change in the phenomenon.

American school-books are not desired in Argentine. A New York firm sent text-books into the country, according to contract, but neither the histories nor the geographies were accepted. It was found that they represented the condition, of the country as it was twenty-five years ago and alluded to it as the “Argentine Confederation.” The use of the term was a mortal insult to the people, since it was decided by civil war that Argentine is not a confederation of States, but a nation.

A Naugatuck farmer, finding his field raided, watched night after night for the melon thief, but was unable to catch him, and decided he must come barefooted, so he took several sharp scythes and placed them so that a person walking about would be likely to find them without much effort. The next morning one of his neighbors, a young man who had previously been in robust health, called the doctor to attend him for rheumatism, and was confined to his bed for a long time, but the depredations on the melon patch were not continued.

Miss Mary Murfree, “Charles Egbert Craddock,” is described as a yonng woman who is anything but in-teresting-looking or attractive. She is short and painfully crippled, square and angular. A brown skin, very red lips, small white teeth, and black,snapping eyes; her hair brown and worn in curls about the forehead, surmounted by a braid, make her look countrified.. The mouth is large and the teeth perfect. When she speaks the mouth stretches to a surprising degree, and the teeth shine in a set smile, the eyes snap, the heavy eyebrows lift, and intelligence illuminates the face. Then only is she at alj interesting. She is a magnificent pianist,_ Withal, she is modest and retiring, and never talks shop. *

On a farm at Pottstown, Pa., rabbits girdled a lot of young apple-trees some years ago. In two cases of choice fruit the owner undertook to save the trees. The young shoots which usually spring up from below the “girdle” were allowed to grow long enough to reach the sound bark above th® “girdlje,” and then inserted under the bark, after the manner of inoculating trees, and se-

curely tied. They grew and nourished' the main stem of the tree above, and now, after some years, the trees rest entirely upon their inserted supports and are as vigorous as any in th A, orchard. One of these trees has five of these “legs,” which have now by growth been almost consolidated. The othjer tree has seven, all entirely distinct as yet, but growing closer. The old stem below r the insertion is dead and decayed in the one tree, and in the other it is entirely gone, and they look as if standing upon stools.

What may be done by a community in the way of tree-planting in an arid district, has been exemplified at Jamestown, in South Australia Five years ago the corporation commenced the planting of a previously treeless region, with timber. Up to that date the place must have been as undesirable a town to live in as could be found. In summer there was nothing to mitigate the blinding glare of the sun, or the intolerable radiation of the heat from the fissured surface of the hard-baked earth. The hot winds swept across the wide expanse of scorching country, bringing with them clouds of all-pene-trating dust. In the winter there were no natural means of breaking the force, or diminishing the inclemency of the gales which came howling down from the north. But the corporation has changed all that. It has planted over 20,500 trees of various kinds, and the once glaring and dusty streets are protected, shaded, and ornamented with several beautiful varieties of gums, now in flower, and standing twenty-five feet to thirty feet high, and these, after having been twice lopped during the five years since they were first planted. But gums are not the only trees, for they are relieved by hundreds •of pines, catalpas, tamarix, ficus, willows, cypress, olive (doing splendidly), acacia lophantha, and a lot of others.

The Texas Court of Appeals has recently disposed of a novel suit against a telegraph company. A sheep-raiser went to the office of the company to send a message to his ranch. The operator handed him a blank, whereupon the Texan, remarking that he knew "nothing of the business” and had never written “a message in his life,” asked'the operator to write it. He dictated this: “Meet me with two horses and Shep.” “Shep” was the name of his dog. The operator 1 wrote, "Meet me with two horses and sheep.” He showed it to the sender, who, evidently being as little familiar with spelling as he was with writing, pronounced it satisfactory. When the Texan reached the specified place he was met, much to his . surprise, by his men with a drove of 2,500 sheep. The sheep had been driven a long distance through the wintry weather. Many of them had died, and others had suffered seriously from exposure. The owner sued the company for damages, and won his case in the lower courts. The Court of Appeals holds that the company is not liable for the consequences of the errOr in the dispatch. It says that in writing the message at the request of the sender the operator acted as the agent of the sender and not of the company. “True, he was the agent of the company to receive and forward messages, but not to write them for others.”

.jQub old favorite, Christine Nilsson, has been writing in defence of the heavy payments made to singers in modern times. The sums thus paid have often attracted notice and a great deal of envy on the part of those who forget that it is only the first in the profession to whom money-making comes easy, and that hard work for little pay is the lot of almost all the rest. If few get much, a great many get little enough. When Gabrielle visited Russia in 1768, and Catherine 11. wished to engage her services, she asked 5,000 ducats as salary. "Far too much,” said the Empress, amazed. “Why this is more than I pay my Field Marshals.” “Then let your Field Marshall ” sing for you,” replied Gabrielle. Five hundred dollars a night was paid about 1775 to Agujari for singing two songs during her engagement at the Pantheon concerts in London; it was an immense figure in those days. When Catalina first came to London in 1806, she .bargained for SIO,OOO for singing at the King’s Theater in the Haymarket, for the season, which lasted from September 15, 1806, to August 1, 1807, together with SSOO to pay her traveling expenses, and one clear benefit. But she in receiving much more than that The total amount got by her from the theatre in 1807, including benefits, was $25,000, and her total profits with concerts was about $86,000. Alboni had SIO,OOO and Sontag $30,000 for a season at the Opera in London. Here Patti had $5,000 for each night

Kosciusko Murphy's finances are not in a flourishing condition. He, however, managed to scrape together money enough to buy a ticket for the circus. While he was looking at the performance a man right behind him said: ■ , '“Your shabby old hat Annoys me very much; I can’t see the performances.” " ' ■ “Shake,” said Murphy, turning around and extending his hand, “I thought I was the only riian who was annoyed by the shabbiness of that hat, but it seems that I’ve got a fellow-suf-ferer.’’--Taras Sifting*.