Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1888 — SOME ODD THINGS. [ARTICLE]

SOME ODD THINGS.

The tanning of boa constrictor skins forms a branch of industry in Hamburg, N.J. They are made into pocket-books principally. The wife of a Wall street banker has invented a machine for. making wire rope, the patent of which she has sold to a San Frunciscn firm for >25.000 cash and a royalty. The way she came to hit upon this was from a device she used to twist her worsted. An ingenious inventor has devised a new screw—half nail and half screw; two blows of the hammer, two turns of the screw-driver, and it is in. Its holding poweY in white pine is said to be 332 pounds, against 298 pounds, the holding power of the present screw. About a month ago Dave Jennings, living near Five Forks. Maoison county, Ga., lost his wife. On the first Sunday morning in October the woman’s funeral sermon was preached and in the evening of the same day Dave was married to another woman. The reference to a whisky flask as a pocket pistol may now have some foundation in faet. Some of the down-town liquor stores have recently put on sale glass whisky holders made in size and shape like an ordinary revolver and closed by a screw cap at the muzzle. They are hollow clear down to the butt, and hold nearly a half-pint. A new use has been found for photography. A day or so since a row occurred in New York in which one of the oombatants was badly bruised. He had his wounds photographed before they should have time to heal, and when the ease came up he waff on hand to show the extent of his injuries at the time they were actually received. Erastus Sourwine, a miller of Republic, was caught on a shafting making 2CO revolutions per minute and whirled around until every stitch of clothing except his shoes and a celluloid collar was torn off his body and then dropped on his head. His body was drawn through a space 11x15 inches, yet he was not injured beyond severe bruises. A raft of piles destined for Boston has been built at Norfolk, Va. It is in six sections, strongly bound together, and the piles in each section are securely fastehed with wires. The whole raft will be 660 feet long, with 23 feet beam, and a draught of 7 feet, so that it may go through the canals from Norfolk to New York, whence it will be towed to Boston by sea. The London police records show that “gangs” flourish there as they do in New York. The Marley bone gang, the Fitzroy Place gang, the Monkey Parade gang, the Black gang, the Newcut gang, the Prince Arthur gang, the Gang of Roughs, the Jovial Thirty-two are some of the most important, each one having its own stampnig ground. The Monkey Parade gang infests Whitechapel. A New Orleans lady sent half a dozen designs to one of the big cotton print mills at Fall River fqr approval, and some weeks later they were sent back to her as refused. Shortly afterward she saw the identical design on some calico just received in New Orleans from the mill, and wrote an indignant letter to the mill owners demanding an explanation. In return she received a handsome check for her w r ork. The Plymouth monument is nearly lompUtedandwill.probably.bafiniahetL by the end of this months The statues and panels have just been finished at the Hallowell Granite works. There are two statues—“Freedom’ and “Law.” The formelr is fifteen and one-half feet high, and represents a young man of muscular frame seated. A Roman helmet is on his head, he wears a coat of mail, and a lion skin is thrown over his shoulder. Resting on the right arm is a shorts word, in the left hand are links*bf a broken chain, of which part is held fast beneath the left foot. “Law” is also a huge seated figure. It is covered with a mantle and the left band grasps a book. The panels for the monument are four in number, and are t k.., cut in relief from marble slabs. They represent “The Departure,” “The Signing of the Contract,”' T ‘The Landing,” and “The Signing of the Treaty with Massassoit.”