Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1888 — MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. [ARTICLE]

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES.

A tract of land containing 1,000,000 acres in Aroostook county, Me., has been sold for $1,000,000. The deed recorded contains 25,000 words. -I—“Didn’t I see you with your arm around a girl’s waist the other night?” “Yes, I was making haste to reach her heart by the belt line.' ’ " Bernard and Joseph Molloy, at Consett, England; sucked the emds of fresh hemlock twigs a few days ago and died in a short time. The doctors decided that hemlock was poison at this season. ' The “Champion Frog-eater” of Basle, France, recently wagOfed five francs and a quart of brandy that he could swallow three dozen live frogs at a sitting. He won, but was immediately seised with horrible internal pains, and nearly died before he could swallow chemicals enough to get the frogs out of him. When they were ejected fifteen of them were dead, but the rest were still alive. Probably the oldest pupil in any educational institution in this country is Crazy Head, once chief of the Crows, now a scholar at the Indian school at Carlisle, Pa. He is over 60 years old,and was once a brave warrior and an able ruler. He is very anxious to learn the customs of civilization, and has been receiving instruction in blacksmithing. In the winter he will tackle his A B C’s. Gaspadin Ashinoff has, at his own expense, conquered twenty miles of territory on the east coast of Africa along the Indian Ocean, and has named it Moscow and set up there an independent government, of which he is the head. He keeps an army of 1,000 men, 130 of them Russians and the rest Abyssinians, and after a hard fight has secured from the native king from whom he seized the territory a treaty recognizing him as a sovereign. The inhabitants of the Oule-Aroun district of Algeria recently discovered a treasure of half a million francs concealed rh a fissure in a rock. They quietly divided it up among themselves and said nothing about it, but the authorities noticed that many theretofore povertystricken Arabs were investing in camels and other valuable property, and started an investigation. Now the officials ’are at their wits’ end to get the treasure away from the natives. South London is to have a new under ground railroad. It is being built sixty feet under ground. Passengers are to reach it by hydraulic elevators to carry fifty persons at once. The tunnel is being driven by the use of a steel shield slightly larger than the iron rings of which the tunnel is to be constructed, the steel shield has a knife edge, and is driven forward at the rate of fifteen feet a day by hydraulic rams worked by hand. ■ ■ The second highest officer of the Knights of Labor, General Secretary Litchman, has had to resign his office On account of politics, and has been engaged as a stump speaker of the Repub- ■ lican party, for the Presidential campaign. Mr. Powderly, the first officer of the order, has always belonged to the Democratic party, by which he was elected to the office of Mayor of Scranton some years ago. He has never supported any of the Labor parties of Pennsylvania, or any of the Labor candidates for President. He is a protectionist. John Robinson of Norwich, Conn.,had a horror of being buried alive, and so he left directions as to the manner of his burial after he should have seemed to have died. His body was to be . kept three days before being placed in the vault; then the coffin lid -was to - be removed, and the vault so closed that a person could readily get out. A, hammer wasto be placed near his right hand, and a lamp was to burn in the sepulchre for three days and three nights. Mr. Robinson apparently died not long ago and these directions were faithfully carried out; and as he has qot been heard from since, he is believed to be undoubtedly dead. No more dramatic scene can be imagined than that witnessed in Newark,:N. J., the other evening. A madman held his wife by the heels hanging by a thirdstOry window, and the woman, head downward and expecting to be dropped tp death everyinstant, clung desperatgly to an infant in her arms and filled the air with shrieks. Some men entered the house, ihd by instantaneous understanding two of them crept softly behind the lunatic and seized the woman’s feet, while others struck down and secured the man. The woman was then carefully drawn back, still holding her infant, and both lives were saved. But it is feared that the shock has unsettled the poor woman’s reason. A farmer near Orlando, Fla., saw in the sand the trail of what he thought was very big snake. He followed it,and after ten minutes trailing came upon the largest serpent he had ever seen. It was engaged in swallowing a rabbit, and the farmer waited and watched the operation. After the rabbit had disappeared he walked forward to get a good shot at the monster, which, according to his story, at once reared up its head as high as a good sized man and “began racing back and forth before him, drawing nearer each time, hissing and darting out its tongue.” The farmer shot and broke the snake’s back, and another shot killed it. It was a “coach-whip” snake, of the boa constrictor family, and measured sixteen feet and two inchep in length and was four inches wide acroes the head. \