Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1889 — WINGED MISSILES. [ARTICLE]

WINGED MISSILES.

There are 40,000 Chinese in San Francisco. An Australian landlord owns 4,000,004 acres. < The wheat crop in England is above average. London imports 1,000,000 eggs annnaHy from Rnssia. 1 ” The wheat crop of France is estimated at about 300,000,000 bushels. This will leave a considerable surplus for export The war in Hayti has come to a close by the abdication of Legitime, who took refuge on board a French gunboat Hyppolite entered Port Au Prince the same day, A professor in the California State University is said to have discovered a method of tanning leather that makes it impervious to water and so pliable as to be almost indestructible. Mormon elders are being driven out of Marion county, Ala, where they have made many converts. Two of the elders were flogged by White Caps recently, and were then ordered to leave under penalty of death. “In making bread boxes,” it is said, “three workers can do the work of thirteen boxmakers by old methods.” ’Tis well; but isn’t there danger of flooding the market? The ten workers thrown out of work can hardly have much use for bread boxes. A Jaw bone has been unearthed recently at the Wauchula, Fla., phosphate beds. It measures IS inches in length and about seven in width. It is supposed that it belonged to one of the prehistoric politicians, which it is fair to presume once inhabited this country. . The postoffice department is considering the question of increasing the standing reward of STJO for each capture of highwaymen who rob mails. That sum is deemed utterly inadequate to induce men to under-, take sqph dangerous service, as the captors must bear all incidental expenses. A combination of eastern capitalists has been formed to purchase all the coal property along the Monongahela River and control the river coal business. It has been decided that it will require $13,000,000 to settle the deal. Including the stock the sellers are willing to take. According to the Shen Pao, the grateful rains which have at last fallen at Peking were the result of the bringing thither of a famous Iron tablet. Certain high ministers of state were appointed to offer incense and prayers to it night and day, and after a while the long hoped for rain began. There is now in forbidden circulation on the continent a book containing the letters of the Crown Prince Rudolph and Marie Vetsera, the cause and companion of his death. From these it is seen that Rudolph was so much in love with the girl that he offered to renounce all his titles and dignlties for the sake of marrying her. Saratoga now has a beautiful Pompeiian house, an exact reproduction of the residence of a wealthy Pompeiian at the epoch of the eruption of Vesuvius in the year 79. Paris also has one in the Avenue Montaigne, built by the Prince Napoleon, where he and his friends used to gather in Pompeiian dress, and where translations of ancient plays were often produced by actors in the

antique costumes. A few days ago two Arabs were found at* Castle garden, one of them named Ben Josef and the other Mohammed Abdel Hirmir, who had come here to seek employment as camel-drivers. The penniless Arabs were in despair when told that there was no such industry as camel-driving in New York, and that they were unwelcomed guests in the land of the star-spangled banner. The collector gave orders that they should ba sent back. The report that a “two-ton man-eating shark” had been caught at Santa Cruz, Cal. leads an old fisherman to write to a San Francisco newspaper that the shark was hot a man-eater, but a basking or ground shark. The man-eater seldom weighs over 1,500 pounds; but the ground shark often weighs as much as fifteen tons, so the old fisherman says, and sometimes its liver weighs two tons. They are the slowest fish that swim the seas. “No one,” writes the fisherman, “need have any fear of them or anything else that carries a liver that weighs one-sixth of its body.” A man at Covington, Pa, who is fattening a twentypound snapping turtle, was aroused early a few mornings ago by a scuffle in his yard. Repairing there, he found the turtle hanging to the nose of a ,300-pound bear. Bruin was near the fence, endeavoring to get over, but his efforts were interfered with by the turtle. Eventually the bear reached the next yard, but the man followed and shot him dead. The turtle all the time retained bis hold, and refused to let go until the dead beast’s nose was cut off. Then it crawled away, carrying the piece of flesh in its mouth. The folk lore of Southern Russia can be partly imagined from a case which came ’before a judge of Odessa. A man applied for a writ to compel his daughter to leave the house because when she saluted her parents she did not bow to them. He would withdraw bis application if she would ask pardon and make the regular obeisance. The girl agreed. She asked pardon, but when she bowed the father cried: “Lower. Down with your bead; down below the girdle!” She replied: “I won’t bend as low as that, notif I have to leave the house.” The judge thereupon ordered her to leave, but she gave in finally and bowed her bead to the girdle. Professor B. T. Galloway, chief of tbs section of vegetable pathology, Department of Agriculture, has recently succeeded, as the result of practical experiments, in producing a remedy for the disease called pear leaf blight and apple mildew, which annually causes great destruction to those trees. As a result of practical experiments be feels justified in recommending it to tim farmers and fruit growers as both efficacious and economical. Tbs oAnsiaia nf tha antblinAtinn a£ A ■—- j niBVB vb wsßxs wpintvwßSVu "■ fungicide, with an appliance by which 50,000 plants were sprayed in a day and a half at a cost, not including labor, of M. 75 for each application, five* being required to secure good results. One of the laziest men in the country is John Curtis, who is serving a three years’ sentence in the state prison at Salem, Oregon. Curtis worked in tho foundry, and about three months ago took off bis boots, on the plea that they hurt him, and then burned his foot so severely that he was laid up. When the burn was healing he put vinegar on it and aggravated it to prevent its getting well. The prison physician threatened him, and managed to cure the wound. Curtis was set at work again. He worked four days, and then with a hatchet cut off his left hand. It took two blows. One cut through the fleshy part of the hand, the other clean through the wrist joint He coni* »scu that he did it to avoid work.