Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1889 — Untitled [ARTICLE]

Alphonse Dapdst fa thinking of making- a visit to this country * this summer. A® jural Nslson said" that he owed his success to being always fifteen minutes ahead of time. The man who picks up the trains at Queen Victoria's “drawing-rooms” is Sir" Spencer Ponsonby-Faul. He has been manipulating trains for- nearly forty-nine years and has become benl and worn in the service. • We don’t want any ‘God bless ye's, 1 , '•said Dr. Talmage at a meeting in Brooklyn to raise money for the Johnstown survivors; we want cash. Some of the meanest men I ever knew have been prodigal of ‘God bless ye’a”' In Paris the saccharine or Bugar made from coal has been unanimously condemned by the medical profession, because it seriously troubles digestion. In consequence of their recommendation a law has been enacted profiibiting the use of coal sugar as an article of food. The usual medical complaint against ire water is heard at the beginning of the warm season, but most people seem to prefer living comfortably for a leas average duration of life than living without the use of ice a longer period. It is curious to notice the extent to which ice water has been adopted abroad. In Matagorda county, Texas, are a number of negroes who are natives of Africa. They were pirated and brought here from Guinea during the brief period of the republic. They preserve many of the strange customs of savagery, use their own language among themselves and retain ail the superstitions of fetichism. *

In one of the public schools of Atlanta, G»., they have a novel method of punishing' boys who use bad language. When any of the young men are caught faying anything profane they are made rinse their mouths with water which has been left standing in a quassia cup. The water is exceedingly bitter nnd makes a lasting impression on the boys. Peter Tijexler, of Catawissa Talley, Ohio, noted a peculiar flavor in his tea, and Mrs. Trexler on lifting the kettle lid found within a beautiful trout boiled to 'death. Mr. Trexler had kept it for years in the spring to purify the water. Usually his wife got water from the spring in a bucket but being hurried this time she lowered the teakettle, clapped the lid on without looking into it, aud set it boiling merrily on the wood fire, anl the trout wa3 in the pot 1 1 ■" ■ ■ - The Esguimaux of the Hudson’s Straights are in the habit of making offerings of various articles to spirits, and scraps of food, powder and shot tobacco and the like are to be found on the graves of their dead. But they are anxious to concilliate all the known supernatural powers as well as the unknown, and, therefore, they made similar offerings to the beacon in the shape of a man recently erected in that region. When two cannons, undoubtedly left upon the shore by some early explorers, were stood on end. bullets, shot and a lot of other rubbish fell out, which the natives explained had been put there-as “an offering to the spirits.” Mrs. Reuben Frost, of Johnson county, Louisiana, has two genuine madstones that were given her years ago by her father, the famous huntsman, Lord Price. Their power of extracting the poison of rabid dogs has never been tested, though they will b’ loaned to any applicant. Mrs. Pros! says her father killed in his lifetime upward of five hundred deer and found only three madstones, two of which he gave her when a girl. She further states that her father told her that a hunter could tell as soon as a deer was killed whether or not its stomach ‘contained the magic stone, as in every instance where the stone is the hair ol the animal slAin turned the reverse from its natural position when cold is do&th.

Is the Parnell commission court the other day a youth was engaged in making some sketches for an illustrated paper and behind him stood a burly gentleman, who might have been taken for a county magistrate. The latter watched the young artist for awhile and then, touching him on the shoulder, ventured to observe that this and that and the other points of the sketch "were not ex ictly what they should be. .The artist simply replied by inquiring: “What do you know about it?” The gentleman persisted in kindly and persuasive criticism- At length the youth, .convinced that, after all. the criticism was Just—indeed, the gentleman had himself taken the drawing-block and made the necessary alternations with his own hand—remarked. “Well, you Ido seei mto know something about it, certainly,” adding: “Are you on any .paper?” “No,” answered the gentlemao, “I am not on any paper, but 1 do -a bit of painting now and then. My yams Is John Millais.”