Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1889 — MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. [ARTICLE]

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES.

Some Maryland people think they have solved the problem of an auto-j malic railway, fer the transportation of the jawffto- express matter and light freight generally. It is to be operated by electricity, powerful dynamos being placed at Stations 25 miles apart, and a very high rate of speed is said to be possible. The system works very, . well on an experimental basis, but may fail when tried on a commefiSal scale, in spite of the enthusiasm of experts, including Edison, who declares it to be the greatest conception'since the telegraph. Mr. Grant A jaen propounds in the Forum a new view of “Woman’s Place in Nature.” “Themales,” he says, “are the race, they are merely the sex tokl off to recruit and produce it. All that is distinctively human is man; the field, the ship, the mine, the workshop; all frhftt is truly woman is merely reproductive; the home, the nursery, the school room.” “This very necessity for telling off at leagt a considerable number of the women forthe arduous duties of human maternity, prevents ttie-possibility of woman as such ever being really in any deep sense the race. It is human to till, to build, to navigate, to manufacture; and these are the functions that fall upon man.” “The male have built up human civilisation and have made the great functionally acquired gains in human faculty, while the females have acted as mere passive transmitters of these male aconisitions.” Well, this is news, and we cheerfully hand Mr. Allen over to the punishment which his temerity and heterodoxy are sure to receive. .

Secretary Blaine is suffering from a severe attack of rheumatism. He and Bismarck have at least one thing in com mon. The Chinese Minister at Washington has - a great admiration for American women. He says they are the most beautiful in the world. “Coflee Pot,” a well known character who peddled lunches around the New York newspaper offices, is dying in that city. He is worth $250,00i). Mrs. Cleveland may now be seen at nearly all the principal mimical events. During the concert she sits calmly and listens with quiet interest. The Csarof Russia recently celebrated his forty-fifth birthday. This is a remarkable fact, when the record of the plotß against his life is looked at. Senator Ingalls will spend the summer in fishing, hunting, reading, smoking and talking to his Kansas constituents. His fences are said to be somewhat in need of repair of late. A gold medal to commemorate the jubilee of phonography is to be presented to Isaac Pitman at a dinner in London. The medal, which weighs about two and three-quarter ounces, contains an excellent portrait of the venerable inventor of phonography. A SIOO,OOO mill for the manufacture of sugar, salt and paper, is now being bnilt at Arkalon, Kan. For three months it will make/Sugar from sorghum, then work up the cane chips into paper, and the rest of the time turn out bushels and boshelß of salt.

There will be exhibited at the Texas Spring Palace, which is to oe built at Fort Worth, a gigantic map of the Lone Star State. The women of Texas are making the map on canvas, and the name of each of the 264 counties will be “worked with some beautiful product made in the county.” One county, Tom Qreen, is larger than the States of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined. Wm. D. Howells ha® grown very fond of New York. He says that at first he was unable to do any literary work there, as the noise and bustle distracted his attention. He has ndw grown used to these features of metropolitan life and feels a new inspiration from the varied types of humanity which the city displays. He is desirous of writing a novel which will take in all kinds of characters to be fonnd in New York. His idea is based upon Balzac’s “comedie humane,” and, like Balzac, Howells will probably be obliged to make a large number of stories to illustrate his design. “Women nowadays can’t make the coffee our mothers used to make,’ Hjsmythe remarked to his friend Plvjonesz, who was breakfasting with him. “My father used to say that a cup of coffee such as my mother made for him was all the breakfast he wanted for a hard day’s work.” “Yes,” said Mrs. HJamythe. “and yonr father died »t the * age of 57. I’d give all I’m worth if I could find the recipe for that coffee.’ And she sighed deeply as the conversation went ashore with a hollow sound. Secretary Blaine’s present attack of lumbago is the first he has had to eadure since he left Earope. Before he left thia country he suffered a great deal from rheumatism in the back, but he has been free from that affliction for many months. There is only one mode of treatment which, gives him relief. He goes to bed, perspires freely, drinks hot gin and sleeps as much as possible. It generally takes him about two days to fully recover when the attack has been a sharp cm.