Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1895 — The Lovely Duchess Mattie. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Lovely Duchess Mattie.

. “Tub memory of the just Is blessed; but the name of the wicked n - ■ 1 There is talk of a free bridge at St. Louis, but the Globe-Democrat expresses a lack of confidence in the scheme, and states that the city does not so much need a free bridge as a fair bridge. --L. : It is a fact, but not generally known, that several Southern States 'have pensioned their- Con federatesoldiers who suffer from various disabilities. Georgia is now said to be spend i ngi-'tiOO,OIK) per annum inth is _®asL_arid-“Gan afford it,” the State's finances being in a very prosperous condition. The Ameer of Afghani:.t.-n is announced as a possible vis:' >r to the United States some time during the year. The Ameer is a typical despot of the far East and wields the destinies of 5,5(10,000 people. The benighted potentate will doubtless be surprised at the “sights.” but he lost the opportunity of bis life by his failure to come, to the World’s Fair while liis dark-skinned brothren were, rusticating on the Midway. American artisans are not good enough for John Jacob Astor, of New York. LHe has recently com-■pleted..>-a--mansion in ,<hat city, and has had al! of the interior fittings, wainscoating, window frames—the entire walls of many rooms —built to measure in Paris from the most costly woods by the most skillful French mechanics. These fittings have been detained in boiid at New York for some time because of a dispute over the amount of duties on the same.

The Liberals in England are said to be just holding on “by the skin of their teeth,” so to speak. The Gladstone majority of forty in Parliament has dwindled to twelve and has been even less in some test votes- The amusing part of the situation is that reports state Mr. Gladstone is recuperating so fast-by his prolonged, rest that the Liberals are counting on him for most efficient aid in the next campaign. The g. d m. does really seen 1 . 1 to have stopped the “corroding tooth of time,” so far as its ravages on his own person is concern ed. Art development in the United States is achieving some triumphs that are a trifling startling and. as many good people will con tend. de - moralizing. The most liberal patrons of genius in this” line in pur day appear to be tobacco and cigarette manufacturers. The time seems to be near at hand when an industrious user of the weed in any form will be able to decorate his house with some of the choicest artistic re prod uc t ion s~bf the, ah—form divine, gotten up regardless of expense and in a style that would beyond the reach of ordinary pocketbooks a few years ago. Steve Brodie? the famous bridge jumper and “bowery actor,” recently advertised for the “homeliest man in New York” to appear as a supe in a play entitled “On the Bowery." Sixty “beauties" applied for the job. Below are profile portraits of the men accepted —the generous Steve concluding to provide for two of the unfortunates instead of one:

An Associated Press dispatch, Feb. 25, says that the Ferris wheel has finally been located on the North Side at Chicago and that a great amusement (building will be built around it. The last report previous to this stated . that the wheel had already been shipped to New York and that the process of resetting the same had commenced under the auspices of a joint sttjpk company. We would like to see this matter definitely settled before next September, as we contemplate a tour in search of the greatest revolver on ' earth and do not care to-chasc down all the wild rumors the reporters can set afloat. Where is the wheel at, anyway? , It is not especially a credit to the American people that a surging mass of snobbish fools gathered in the street in front of the Gould

' 1 mansion in New York,- one evening rceently/becausc a report had griny forth that Count de Caste Dane and Miss Anna ’Gould,-who were marriee March 4. were to appear on the steps in_ recognition of the popular in torestin —the - thpn—approach ing in the United States, but unfortu nately we have a large percentagi of people wito-^wid--metaphorically “tear their shirts” in an -effort t< see arid do homage to any clianci specimen of the genus who may come our way. The Japanese are “too quick” to catch on to modern progress. Tin city of Osaka. Japan, will socn have .a firs t cl ass watc Ivfacto ry i n opera 7 tion, fitted out with the most ap proved Amoricap machinery tindoi the superintendency of an American citizen. This is a blow at one of our great industries that may in ‘time prove disastrous, because of the remarkable ingenuity of the Japs and their ability to wort for Chinese wages. They: can - flood ..the markets of the world with watches at ruinous figures, to the exclusion of the American product. This is a branch of commerce in -which America has had no real com pet-itor since watches were first extensively made by machinery. The National Woman's Council. rp-c-(',nt-!v iii sossioir at Washington. was made the occasion for many pleasant social events. Mrs. Ruche Foster Avery gave a dinner to Miss Susan B. Anthony on her seventyfifth birthday. The table decorations were remarkable for elegance. At the close of the dinner Mrs. Foster made a brief address in whicl. she presented to the noted suffrage leader an annuity of SBO9 per year during life, in order that Miss Anthony may no longer feel a necessity for working for her daily bread. Miss Anthony was much affected. She simply said: “Girls, 1 don’t know what to say: I can’t say anything,” in a broken voice that was more touching than words.

, Tiie South African gold mines have . been absorbing vast sums, collected I from the apparently inexhaustible . coffers of European and English capitalists, for some years. Until i quite recently the boom in this class i of securities has been unchecked by ! disaster or adverse influence, the ; credulous investor ever lendin<z a willing ear to the promise of a vast return for small investments. The , field has been well worked by astute manipulators, and Irigh and lowhavc suffered from their enterprising ae-tivit-v! Some of the most careful Paris financiers have looked askance at the South African gold mines from the first, although it is concede:: that they do exist, and that gold b even now being obtained in largely increasing quantities. The' <rrcai trouble now appears tp be. that tlu mines have been over capitalized. The original projectors-have in a large measure “realized” all that,, they saw in the mines and have loTt the stockholders to “hold the sack,’ very much-after the-style of sonn of Western “boom” cities. From the best figures obtainable it is mated that the total value of whal are known as the Witwatersrand shares on the market Jan. 1, 1895, ' was £55.350,009. About half that sum ' represented dividend paying shares. I All the companies together paid in I all £1.500,000 in dividends,'or about i 3 per cent, on th<? vast capital ini "vested. Strange as it. may appear, : in the face of this very. unsatislac- ; tory-showing, these Witwatersraiid ; shares continue to he in . good demandon the Paris Bourse, lint, En- ' glish Capitalists are weakening and in many-quarters a great crash" ic anticipated.

New York Commercial Advertiser. The Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, who was once upon a time —and only a few years ago. —lovely Mattie Mitchell, of Oregon, and this city, is said to be one of the most charming hostesses and one of the most brilliantly clever women in suntiv France. Of' the truth of this assertion people Svho have the.average opinion of the clover French women may have doubts, but of ihe Duehess’p beauty there is only one opinion. She is remembered in Nev.' York as a lovely girl with a perfect litrure, superb snowy shoulders, which she always draped with chis sons, gauzes, and tulles in oil shoulder fashion which showed T“ the best advantage the very classical contour of the loVely shoulders. Miss Mitchell alsp had regulap features, bronze goldJiair, a complexion of dazzling pink and white, and lovely eyes like afluamarlpe jewels of a haunting shade of biuo grav. No wonder that Paris imagines Senate • Mitchell’s daughter as clever iq every way as she is pretty. The late Charles Gayarre, the historian, of Louisiana, left an unpub lishetl essay on “The Octoroons iff Louisiana” and the manuscript of u long novel translated from the Spanish of. Quevedo. These papers are to be edited by Miss Grace King, who has become the owner.