Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1879 — Page 4

NEWSLETS

'lt is thought that Congress will not adjourn until about the first’ of July. IT is said that valuable silver mines have been discovered in Northern Wisconsin. FORTY thousand iron workers are on a strike at Pittsburg, Pa., wasting one hundred thousand dollars a day. HEAVY frosts about the 6th and 7th inst., damaged the growing crops in the Northwestern and New England States very seriously. THE enormous cost of the war in Afghanistan is shown in the loss of forty thousand camels, belonging to the British transport service. The Indian Bureau at Washington has received information that Sitting Bull is on the American side of the boundary line, with 800 lodges of his people. WASHINGTON gossip says that many Congressmen spend their time playing poker, and that several big games have recently occurred at one of the principle hotels. LATER development in the Vermont poisoned-brook horror, show that the children died of diplftheria, superinduced by the pools of stagnant water under and about the school house. The World’s Fair for 1893 is to be held in New York city. This has been definitely settled by the recent organized action of some of the leading men of wealth and enterprise of that city.

AN excursion train on a narrow | gauge railroad in Utah, was blown | from the track the other day. A brakeman was killed and the conductor slightly wounded, but none of the passengers were hurt. THE average salary of Methodist ministers in fourteen Southern conferences is said to be $572, and the average amount paid $438. In Northern conferences the average is $7OO, and the deficiency in payments about 12 per cent. THERE is a prospect that the European silk crop will be a failure, and that large supplies of the article will have to be drawn from China and Japan. In this event, there will be an increased demand for silver, and the price of it is stiffening. The condition of British troops in South Africa is most discouraging. The least move entails enormous expense; the mortality is frightful, and as now situated but little defense could be made against the Zulus should they open an attack. THE trades unions of the various, cities of this country have definitely decided to devote the next Fourth of July to a grand demonstration for the eight-hour-a-day movement. The report that there is to be a general labor strike at that time or any other time this Summer is denied. It is said C. W. Field has made $4,000 000, and Samuel Tilden is said to have made $2,000,000 on the elevated railroads in New York city. The two roads have combined in a new company, and the big stockholders are charged with swallowing up the little ones. LORD FALMOUTH, , the most successful turfman of Europe l , has one three-year-old filly, the Wheel of Fortune, that has already won for him $79,450 in stakes alone. Mr. Falmouth never

bets, he simply takes the stake, and in this way secured in 1878. $200,000: in 1877, $175,000, and the indications are that 1879 will be a good year for stakes. As Mrs. Honora Lacy was driving from Wilmington, Delaware, to her home in Chester county, Pennsylvania, the other-day, the contents of the carriage—cotton and straw—were ignited by a match, and instantly the whole interior of the vehicle was in a blaze. The horse was frightened and ran was and before it was stopped Mrs. Lacy was literally roasted alive. THE new y elected Judge of the Court of Appeals in Kentucky is charged with grave offenses, and the bar are calling upon him to purge himse f. He has not yet taken his seat, or answered the charges. THE bold scoundrels who robbed a messenger of the Illinois Central Railway of a package of nearly SI0,000, on a public street in Chicago, on Saturday afternoon, while he was en route from the railway office to a bank, have been arrested, and a portion of the money recovered. There are three of them, and they are well-known professional thieves. THE number of persons who arrived at the port of New York from foreign countries during May was 21,567, of whom 18,100 were classed as immigrants. During the corresponding period of 1878 the total number of passengers arrived at the port was 15,271, of whom 12,213 were immigrants. During the year ending May 31, 1879, the arrivals were as follows: Immigrants, 92,801; other passengers, 42,378. During the previous year, 71,091 immigrants and 30,355 other passengers. The increase is noteworthy. A State convention of the colored

people is to be held at Terre Haute, on the 6th of August, the purpose of which will be to perfect arrangements for securing to the colored citizens of Indiana better recognition in the paneling of juries and selections of county, township and municipal officers, and to cause several old-time barbarons laws now upon the State statutes to be eliminated, especially in the marriage code. Another important subject to be discussed will be to devise some method to induce colonies of the colored people, now fleeing from the South, to locate in this State. AT Portsmouth, Va., quite recently, the Mayor caused the arrest of nine colored men and women, at the instigation of several of their white neighbors, and preferred charges of larceny against them. In punishment for this alleged crime the Mayor ordered each one of the accused to receive thirtynine lashes at the whipping-post, and the sentence was carried out. . ‘

CASHMERE, where the famine is prevailing so severely, is one of the northern native Indian States, indirectly under British rule, the Maharajan being required to furnish a contingent troops when called upon by the Viceroy of India. The Indian government has organized relief measures, as in the Bombay and Madras Presidencies during the last few years of famine, where $40,000,000 were expended on public works, designed to give the natives employment. Cashmere has an area of 79,784 square miles, and a population of 1,600,000. The cholera is prevailing there and in Northern India generally, and the suffering will doubtless be very great.

SUIT has been commenced in the Owen Circuit Court by Judge John C. Robinson and wife, against the Indianapolis and Vincennes Railway Company, to enjoin the said company from sounding its locomotive whistles, according to the new statute, alleging that the same is a nuisance to the plaintiffs and the property-holders of the town of Spencer. The chief question is one of constitutional law—whether or not the Legislature has the power to require of a corporation the performance of an act in the transaction of its business which is not necessary to the public safety, to the damage of the public in general, or in, other words, has it the power to enact a law the enforcement of which creates a public nuisance?

THE Iowa Supreme Court has decided that the innocent giver of a promissory note to a lightning-rod man, a patentright agent, or other traveling swindler, such not having afterwards-been raised to a larger amount by such swindler, is note liable for more than the amount of the original and bona tide contract. This reverses the ruling of the district courts of that State, and has the effect of protecting many farmers and others who have of late years been victimized by sharpers, who have taken their notes for small amounts, which, by filling blanks, were fraudulently increased to larger sums and disposed of to local banks. The Supreme Court has done a simple act of justice by thus stepping in between the swindlers and their victims.

More than $1,000,000 is now being spent in Peoria, Ill., in the erection of manufacturing establishments, and upwards of another million in building business blocks and private residences. THE question of whether the government can release United States legaltender notes in time of peace will soon be decided in the United States Supreme Court. The present test case is founded on a genuine transaction between Mr. J. B. Chittenden and Gen. Butler. The plaintiff in this test case refused to receive certain United States notes which had been redeemed subsequent to Jan. 1,1879, and reissued and kept in circulation, under, and in persuance of, the act of Congress entitled “An act to forbid the further retirement of United States legal-tender notes.” Judge Blatchford, of New York, gave judgment Saturday for the defendant, and dismissed the complaint. An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court. The-decision will be of great interest and importance.

A Paris correspondent says that thus far the shipments of live meat to France have been in comparison to those of England, rather limited, but with the hostile prejudice .existing against America on the tariff question done away, with this trade would be come hardly second to the prepared meat importations. Even as it is, it is constantly increasing. Up to this time the French meat has been carried from New York by French steamers, but owing to the fact that but part of the vessel can be devoted to shipment, as unusual appliances are necesry for the transportation, the conveniences for shipment have been very limited. The meat, however, has given great satisfaction, the French giving it a preference over all the others except English mutton. Since the beginning of the trade, in November, 1867, Paris has consumed 5,000.000 pounds of imported American meat. The importation of meats, fresh and salted, reached 30,000,000 francs in 1877 and 52,000,000 francs in 1878. The total values of food imported into France during the three last months of the years were 533,000,00 of francs' worth in 1875, 671,000,000 worth in 1876, 727, 000,000 worth in 1877, and in 1878, 1,049,000,000 worth. In beasts on the hoof imported during the last three months of the year: 75,000,000 francs’ worth in 1875, 107,000.000 worth in 1876, 131,000,000 worth in 1877 and 188,000,000 worth In 1878. The average yearly importation of salted meat into France from 186 T to to 1876 was 6,507,278 francs. The average importation between 1857 and 1866 was 1,470,575 francs, and between 1847 and 1856 it was 2,622,430 franes. One of the stones f >rming the steps .of the new court house at a Grange weighs 11,000 pounds.

STAT ITEMS.

THE Trees Greys, a military company at Anderson, has disbanded. BUTTER has been selling in Wabash, recently, at six cents per pound. A SIXTEEN YEAR old girl in Decatur county, weighs 325 pounds, and is still thriving. A YOUNG man was killed in La Grange county, the ol her day. by falling from a swing. A THIEF mean enough to rob a church contribution box, pollutes the at Vincennes. AN Irishman named James Martin, died at Rushville, a few days ago, at the age of 104 years. A WARSAW walkest named Wm. Grim, is winning fame and money in Ohio pedestrian contents. H. S. POWELL killed seven rattle

snakes in Henry county last week, the largest of which carried ten rattles. IT is said that Barnum’s show will be in La Porte a week while the Temperance camp meeting is in session. KOSCIUSKO COUNTY was represented in the late war in forty-three regiments, and one independent cavalry company. An eel was caught in Eel river, near Columbia City, the other day, that was four feet three inches in length, and weighed 71/2 pounds. THE fine residence of W. C. Taylor, near Larwill, was struck by lightning a few days ago, and burned to the ground. The Presbyterian Church at Plymouth has adopted the hour of six o’clock for evening service, during the summer. A recent discussion of the matter shows that the publication of legal notices in ready-print papers is perfectly lawful and valid.

John Roche, of Huntington, is the owner of 2.660 acres of land in that county, of which 1,600 acres are fenced in, and 900 acres are under cultivation. One of Warren Tate’s attorneys has stated that he knows of $35,000 expended by his client in defending the indictment for the murder of William Love. AUGUST JAMMENROTH, a Fort Wyyne lad aged 12, was pushed into the river by some young companions, and, being unable to swim, was drowned. GOSPORT wears the ribbon on the biggest fish of the season. A fisherman took a cat-fish from the river in that vicinity, a few days ago, that weighed 61 1/2. pounds.

A TRAIN of 1,200 empty freight cars passed over the L. S. & M. B. road a few days ago. The train was ten miles in length, being the longest ever hauled on any railroad in the world. The Kokomo stave and heading factory has suspended operations on account of the financial embarrassments of its operators. The city of Kokomo has $5,000 invested, as bonus money, in the factory. REV. GEORGE WASHINGTON VES SELS, pastor of the Rensselaer M. E. church, took offense at a negro lad a few days ago and struck him over the head with a glass pitcher. The negro rallied, and seizing a club knocked the minister down.

A DENTIST of Indianapolis, two weeks ago while experiment in tooth-graft-ing, inserted in each of the combs of two healthy roosters a human bicuspid tooth. Since that time the teeth have become firmly imbedded in the combs, and look as if they had grown there. The chickens take kindly to the graft, and look as if they were of a new strain. WILLIAM JAMES committed suicide near Etna Green, a few days ago, by cutting his throat with a razor. Mr. James was sixty years of age, but one of the most powerful men in his county, there being but one taller man, and possesssing immense strength corresponding to his herculean build. The undertaker had to furnish a coffin seven feet in length. A PATENT hay fork swindler recently called on Mr. John Barrows, a Steuben county farmer, and expressed a very earnest desire to appoint him as an agent. John reads his county paper; he knew what the agency meant, and taking down his doublebarreled shot gun he told the hay fork swindler that he would give him five minutes to get beyond the boundaries of his (John’s) farm. The swindler got, and had three minutes to spare. IN making the big ditch to drain the prairie west of Fort Wayne, a channel will have to be cut through solid rock for a distance of three miles, to the width of twenty-five feet at the bottom and six feet deep with a slope of one foot to one. The length of the ditch is a trifle over twenty-two miles and the collaterals are fifteen miles more, making a total length of over thirtyseven miles. It will take text months to complete the work, which is to be commenced at once.

Richmond Telegram: The conductor of a Pan-handle freight sent in telegram last Thursday night, announcing that his train had been captured near New Madison by about twenty tramps, who had complete control. Accordingly the depot yard was lined with police to gather them in on the arrival of the train, but they had been just smart enough to jump before getting here. Several cars had been broken open and their contents desordered, but there was no telling what they had taken or whether they had taken anything or not. ISRAEL HOGELAND, of Indianapolis, comes to the front with another surprising invention. It consists of an adjustable die or dies attached to the ordinary tile mill, through which clay is to be forced out in the shape of coffins of any size and length from the same dies. An outside earthen box is to be made to hold the casket. They are to be burned as other pottery, and finished up to suit the trade, Japanned or finished similar to slate metals. The coffins are to be hermetically sealed, and will be made as cheaply as wooden ones. The patents are granted, and he machinery being fitted to go on with the work.

ODDS AND ENDS

AN ancient mound resembling the Aztec mounds of the Mississippi valley has been discovered in Japan. RATTLESNAKE oil sells in New York for $1 an ounce. It is said to be an excellent ointment for the cure of rheumatism. CHEERFULNESS, says a newspaper moralist, is just as natural to the heart of a man in strong health as color to his cheek. A FARM known as Lammermoor, in Essex county, Va., that before the war was valued at $10,000, was sold the other day for $850.

THE metalic casing destined to protect the subterranean cable which is being laid down between Cologne and Metz weighs 60,000 tons. MR. CAIRD, the agricultural statistician, estimates the capital of English landlords at $1,000,000,000, and of English tenants at $2,000,000,000. COLONEL KING, a Texas cattle man, has a fence seventy-five miles long, inclosing about 337 square miles, on which range 110,000 beasts. ACCORDING to Dr. Dean, of Siam, there is in a temple there an idol in human form 117 feet in length, clad in gold from head to foot. ENGLISH capitalists have projected three different railway lines, aggregating 850 miles in length, into the interior of Africa, from points on the east coast.

THE Princess Louise, not liking the paint prepared for some woodwork of er residence at Ottawa, mixed it over with her own hands until she got the tint she wanted. It is seriously asserted by an English physician, as a result of his professional experience, that every healthy person may, with entire safety, make a trial of total abstinence. A LTRIAnow going on in St. Petersburg has led to the disclosure that poor people arrested for not paying their taxes are liable to be beaten with rods steeped in salt water. THE recent fires in the woods on Long Island have bewildered the birds, and in the night time great numbers have flown against the lights of passing vessels and been killed. OF the Cardinals recently created by Pope Leo XIII, the Cardinal Zjgliara is the youngest man now wearing the purple. He is the son of a poor sailor, and is but forty-five years old.

New Hampshire’s manufactures last year amounted to over $96,000,000, among them being $30,588,500 worth of cotton goods, $11,709,000 of boots and shoes, and $9,222,000 of woolens. At the close of the present fiscal year there will be a deficit of nearly $2,250,000 in the revenues of Pennsylvania. That is, the revenues will lack so much of paying State expenses. Revivalist Mitchell sells his portraits to his Tennessee converts, for $1 including a verse of scripture appropriate to the particular case of the purchaser, written on the back of the card. In two of the largest Connecticut manufactories, two of the most successful in the State, the mill-owners have provided books, papers and general reading matter and reading-rooms for their help. The Presbytery of Cork has asked the Irish Presbyterian Assembly that is “the use of instrumental music is warranted by the Scriptures, the Assembly shall take action to prevent continued interference with the scriptural liberty of congregations in the service of praise. At a recent demonstration in Rome against the spread of Protestantism in the Eternal City there was a great exhibition of relics at St. Peter’s, including the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the large piece of the True Cross, a foot long piece of wood, black with age or burning, preserved in a glass jar. An elderly gentleman finds himself at a masked ball set upon by three lively dominos, who finally ask of him: “Oh, is it true you are sixty years old?’’ “Whoever told you so, ladies, told you a no-such-thing,” cries the old gentleman, gallantly. “I’m twenty yea old for each of you—that’s what I am.” | The ice mountain below the American Fall at Niagara has been lessened but little by the hot weather, and still looms up some seventy feet in the air. It is yet quite an effort to climb to the summit, and last week two foolhardy youug ladies, fearing to trust their shoes on the ice, deliberately took off their shoes and stockings and scaled the mountain in their bare feet.

The pastor of the African Methodist Church at Middletown, Conn., visited the museum and menagerie part of a ent show, and was pained to see members of his church going in to see the circus performance. On the following Sunday he refused the communion to these offenders, and all but four persons in the congregation were found to be disqualified. In Ireland there is a scarcity of ministers to such an extent as to prevent the disgraceful crowding of candidates to secure vacant pulpits, which is such a prominent feature of American ministerial work. The demand being somewhat greater than the supply, the ministers can dictate their own terms. Sometimes it happens that one man has three or four church calls. The Belfast Witness regards this state of affairs as ominous for the future of the church.

A novel and interesting wedding took place recently in the court room at Franklin, Ohio. Mr. Ed. Wilson and Mrs. Hettie Danforth were the happy couple. Just ten minutes before Mrs. Danforth was granted a divorce from her husband, Charles Danforth. As soon as the divorce was granted Mr. Wilson stepped forward, took Mrs. Danforth's arm, and the presiding Judge, at their request, made them husband and wife.

The Duke of Medina Coeli, the chief peer and grandee of Spain, has met a sad and early death. He was out with his young wife in the mountains, and accidentally stumbling over his gun, received the contents of both barrels in his body. He lived only three days after. Although only twenty-eight years old, he had been twice married, and his widow, the daughter of the Marquis Torrecilla, is only nineteen. His first wife was the daughter of the Duchess Alba and the niece of the Empress Eugenie.

ANECDOTES OF GENERAL SHIELDS

A Brave and Successful Dash Into the City of Mexico.

Before the capture of the City of Mexico an English boy, arrested as a, spy, asked private audience of General Shields, and told him that a Mexican desperado had sought his sister’s hand, and being refused had threatened vengeance. To accomplish his evil purposes he had obtained from Santa Anna the control of that part of the city in which the boy’s father, mother and two sisters lived; had hired a gang of villians who were to plunder the house, keep the booty and deliver the girls to the tender mercies of this Mexican scoundrel. Properly disguised the boy had entered the American ranks to beseech assistance of General Shields. The emergency was a rare one. It was certain that the Commander-in-Chief of the Army would not authorize a rescue. To abandon the girls to their

fate was foreign to the nature- of Shields. He took a sudden resolve, called for volunteers, selected 400 men and entered the beleaguered city unperceived: The ladies were rescued, the alarm was given by the bewildered Mexicans, and the daring band was obliged to cut their way through a host of enemies. They reached the ramparts in safety and returned to the camp with the rescued ones. By that time, however, both armies were alarmed, and a scene of bustle and confusion ensued. General Scott flew in to a terrible rage when he heard the story, that threatened all the penalties of a court-martial on the culprit (Shields) for such gross disobedience of orders. The young ladies succeeded in pacifying the choleric, old hero, and Shields entered the city with him after its capture completely reinstated in his favor. In 1839 James Shields was elected Auditor of the State of Illinois. While he occupied this important office he was involved in an “affair of honor” with a Springfield lawyer—no less a personage than Abraham Lincoln. At this time “James Shields, Auditor,” was the pride of the young democracy and was considered a dashing fellow by all, the ladies included. In the

summer of 1842 the Springfield Journal contained some letters from the “Lost Townships,” by a contributor whose nom du plume was “Aunt Becca,” which held up the gallant young Auditor as “a ball-room dandy, floatin' about on the earth without heft or substance, just like a lot of cat fur where cats had been fightin’.” These letters caused intense excitement in the town. Nobody knew or guessed their authorship. Shields swore it would be coffee and pistols for two if he should find out who had been lampooning him so unmercifully. Thereupon “Aunt Becca” wrote another letter, which made the furnace of his seven times hotter than before, in which she made a very humble apology and offered to let him squeese her hand for satisfaction, adding: “If this should not answer there is one thing more I would do rather than get a lickin’. I have all along expected to die a widow; but, as Mr. Shields is rather good looking than otherwise, I must say I don’t care if we compromise the matter by—really, Mr. Printer, I can’t help blushin’ —but I—it must come out—I—but widowed modesty—well, if I must, I must—wouldn’t he —maybe sorter let the old grudge drap if I was to consent to—be—his wife? I know he is a fightin’ man and would rather fight than eat: but isn’t marryin’ better than fightin’ though it does sometimes run into it? And I don’t think, upon the whole, I’d be sich a bad match, neither; I am not over sixty and am just four feet three in my bare feet and not much more round the girth; and for color, I wouldn’t turn my back for nary a girl in the Lost Townships. But after all, maybe I’m countin’ my chickens before they’re hatched an’ dreamin’ of matrimonial bliss when the only alternative reserved for me may be a lickin’. Jeff tells me the way these fire-eaters do is to give the challenged party the choice of weapons,—which, being the case, I tell you in confidence that I never fight withs anything but broomsticks or hot water, or a shovelful of coals or some such things; the former of which, being somewhat like a shillelah, may not be so very objectionable to him. I will give him choice, however, in one thing, and that is whether, when we fight, I will wear breeches or he petticoats, for I presume this change is sufficient to place us on equality.” Of course some one had to shoulder the responsibility of these letters after such a shot. The real author was none other than Miss Mary Todd, afterward the wife of Abraham Lincoln, to whom she was engaged, and who was in honor bound to assume, for belligerent purposes, the responsibility of her sharp pen thrusts. Mr. Lincoln accepted the situation. Not long after the two men with their seconds were on their way to the field of honor. But the affair was fixed up without any fighting, and thus ended in a fizzle the LincolnShields duel of the Lost Townships.

From Sin Into Society Through the Church London Truth.

A fair sinner who has had the misfortune to be brought up in heresy can take a shorter cut into society. I once observed the course of a non-orthodox Magdalen in Paris, who got to the top of the ladder: She was an American, and the wife of a clerk at Washington from whom she separated without being divorced. Paris appeared to her a meet field for her energies and talents, and to Paris she came. She was small, sparkling, and an amusing chatterbox. Her manners were eccentric, and her transitions from mad gayety to tearful sentiment rapid and bewildering. She gave, in a maison meublee where she had rooms, card parties, at which she managed to win a great deal of money. A chamberlain of the empress attended them. This attractive niece of Uncle Sam, who was unique in her genre, fascinated the courtier, and she tormented him to obtain for her invitations to the Monday evening parties at the Tuilries and to Compiegne. Having ascertained that the police had been taking notes about her, he was embarrassed. But in revolving in his mind how to please her without getting into a scrape himself, he asked if she thought she could wear gracefully the mask of devotion. The clever little woman jumped at the idea, and it started a train of projects in her fertile brain, one more brilliant than the other. Ere the courtier had taken leave it was agreed that this charmer was to attend the Advent sermons of the Abbe Bauer, at that time the coqueluche of Bonapartist layhood, to affect contrition, to demand a private interview, and after she had expressed doubts as to the saving graces of Protestantism, to crave for admission into the Catholic church. The part traced out was admirably acted. Mere recantation did not suffice for the zeal of the fair catechumen. She insisted on being baptised, which enabled her to appear at the front of St. Thomas in a white christening robe, in which she looked really angelic, and with, for sponsors, a lady of the De Merode family, and a princess connected with the house of Savoy. Eventually this “smart" woman was

found out. She was for upward of six years a fountain through which official honors flowed. The curious thing was that she could hardly speak French, and that with her imperfect knowledge of this tongue she conducted to a successful issue divers political intrigues in which she was engaged by financia companies.

Wonders of Venus.

Many who admire the beautiful star which now adorns the Western sky until more than three hours after the commencement of twilight may not be aware that its splendor is derived from the sun; that in it, like on the earth, night curtains the landscape, morning dawns, and seasons in quick succession come and go. Lofty mountains show that forces similar to those which upheaved the Alps and lifted the sum-

mits of the Andes above the regions of eternal snow have ridged its surface and covered it with hills and vales. Variable spots prove that clouds float n its atmosphere, and gleams of light, which dart across its sky, afford evidence that in it lightning seams the sky and the thunder’s roll reverberates through the valleys. But three hundred mills less in diameter than the earth and revolving on its axis in nearly the same time, Venus makes thirteen revolutions around the sun, while the former makes eight. As the inclination of the planet to the plane of its orbit is at lout fifty-four degrees, its torrid zone is double that extent, or 108 degrees, and its polar circles fifty-four degrees from the poles. It therefore has two frigid and a torrid, but no temperate zone. Since the sun must arrive at the equator and depart from it to the distance of fifty-four degrees twice in each of its years, there must be two summers land two winters annually in the torrid zones and a winter and a summer in each of the frigid.

Venus becomes the morning star after its superior conjunction, when it appears, through the telescope, cres-cent-shaped, like the new moon. The orbits of this planet and of Mercury are within the orbit of the earth, and consequently they are never seen in oppo-’ sition to the sun; that is, in the east when the sun is in the west, or in the west and the sun in the east. At its inferior conjunction Venus is nearer to the earth than any other planet except the moon, and sometimes when approaching the greatest distance, when it seems to recede from the sun, casts a shadow and is visible in the full light of day. If at the period when it is nearest to the earth, the enlightened part were fully turned toward the latter, this planet would appear twenty times as brilliant as it now does, and almost vie with the moon in dissipatng the darknes of night. Being situated at about one-third less distance from the sun than the earth, Venus receives more light from that luminary than is received by tiie former planet, and seems not to require the aid of a moon. Nevertheless, several astronomers have affirmed that they had noticed such a body, and have even gone so far as to calculate the orbit of the supposed satellite, but their observations have not been verified. The transits of Venus, or its passage between the earth and sun, when it appears as a round dark spot moving slowly across the solar disc, have been made to assist in determining the distance of the earth from thficentral luminary. The last transit occurred in December, 1874, and the next will take place in December, 1882. As this can be viewed in the United States, it will awaken a greater interest than the transit which Rittenhouse and others observed more than a century ago. But four transits of Venus have been observed, and after 1872 121 1/2 years will elapse before the alternately morning and evening star will pursue its seeming pathway across the Surface of the great orb of day.—[Philadelphia Times.

Woman’s Lying Lives.

A writer in the London World says: When an entire life is one organized falsehood, what material moment can there be in a few untruths more or less? These living embodiments of mendacity are less rare than might be imagined. It is not that they are exceptionally given to the vice of falsehood in details. Their distinguished peculiarity is that events have placed them in a position which makes their whole existence a lie. Who does not know the lady wedded to the man whom, in her fonder moments, she vainly imagined was her choice? Possession is the grave of illusion, and the lover who was all that was noble and chivarous stands revealed as the mean-spirited, commonplace and generally contemptable husband. Before the treacle-moon is over, the bride sees the bridegroom of her heart in his true colors —an empty-headed, pretentious, dull impostor. Yet this was years ago, and so far as the world is allowed to know anything of the matter, the middleaged father of her children is to be the matron all that the youthful lover was. The casual spectator sees in the gentleman what, as a matter of fact, his wife sees him too. Nevertheless, the casual spectator is given to understand that he is the sovereign lord of her bosom, gifted with all the attributes which make humanity great and good. She is not merely loyal to him—she worships him. He is at once her husband and her oracle. She never wearies of quoting his dullest platitudes as pearls of wit and wisdom, yet all the time she is well aware at heart that he is what the world in general takes him to be. Who shall blame her, any more than the habitual drunkard, who, as a last desperate resource, takes the pledge. The two cases are exactly parallel The lady knows that total abstinence from criticism is the only guarantee o toleration, just as the alcoholized sot perceives that if he is ever to be sober he must forget the tastes of stimulants. The discipline is severe at first, but the habit comes at last, and the lady who has attained to it well knows that any ralapse into an attitude bf impartial observance would be fatal.

The Coal Oil Fires.

Philadelphia, Pa., June 14.—The fire at Point Breeze smoldered all night, but is under control this morning, though the ship Hudson is still burning in the river. The loss by yesterday’s fire is about $100,000, of which $50,000 will fall upon Warder, Frew & Co., and a like amount upon the Atlantic Storage Company, although the entire loss falls eventually on the Standard Oil Company. The loss by both fires will approximate half a million of dollars.

A Troublesome Party.

Cincinnati, June 16.—a Chattanooga special says the latest intelligence from the escaped prisoners is that the Sheriffs posse had Thomas Scott and two others surrounded in a thicket nine miles from town. Reinforcements have been sent, and the combined forces will close in on the fugitives. The excitement continues high, with good prospects of a hemp matinee in Scott's case. Scott has weapons and will give the Sheriff' trouble.

CONDIMENTS.

A skunk by an odder name, Schmells yoost the same. The oldest base burner—a mother’s slipper. Lawyer’s motto—“Be truthful and multiply and replevin the earth. “But I will not linger on this point.” as the preacher said when he sat down on the carpet tack. There are few men who cannot tell a long lost shortcake by the strawberry marks left on it The contemplative doctor strolls through the cemetery and sees his patients on a monument. A college graduate is making $40 a day at the new mining town of Leadville He charges $1 for a shave. An amateur singer frightened a pair of canary birds to death. It was a case of killing two birds with one’s tone. The Zulu chiefs have innumerable wives, and when a season of peace is wanted, they rush off to war with the British. A reporter, in describing a railway disaster, says: “This unlooked-for accident came upon the community urn a wares.”

It is said that when Hayes was a boy and played cards behind the haystack, that instead of saying euchre he would always yell “veto.” The best natured man will get a trifle mad when his wife tells him that she made ulsters for the boys out of his last winter’s ear-muffs. Sin always begins with pleasure and ends with bitterness. It is like a colt which the little boy said was very tame in front and very wild behind. “Do you ever go to meeting?" asked a minister of a blue grass Kentuckian. “Certainly, sir, twice a year; spring meeting and fall meeting, sir,” The man who “launched on the sea of matrimony” took passage on a court ship. We hope he won't find it a hardship before the voyage is over. Never use slang. It may not always apply. Listen as A comes into B’s room. Says B: “How do you like my new shoes?” A— “Oh, they’re immense!"

At Pilatka, Fla., wheelbarrows and baby carriages, according to law. may not be trundled along a sidewalk, and yet somebody said the South was behind the age. One of the most perfect beauties of nature is to see seven feet ten inches of man hooked for life to a speckled faced blonde who can walk under a five feet. mark. But then they all do it. A husband’s farewell: “Dear Sal, the doctor tells me that our baby’s tooth won’t be through for three weeks yet; till then, good bye; you always said you loved it better than I did." When a rosy-looking girl backs up to a stranger at a country dance and asks him to whack that mosquito which is gnawing her between the shoulders, it is no time to read up on Chesterfield. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, and the earth below and the heaven rbove, but it never sewed a gray patch in the seat of your husband’s black trousers. That isn’t love. That’s revenge. “What’s de time o’ day, ole woman?” said a colored countryman to Aunt Milly, trying to poke fun at the brass chain that held her front door-key around her neck. “Look at de townclock, chile. Dat’s built for po’ folks.” A little dog in a front yard will make more noise than a whole menagerie—particularly when a fellow is trying to slip out of the front door without making any noise, and the old folks happen to sleep right over the front stoop. “Mother, what is an angel?” “An angel! Well an angel is a thing that flies.” “But, mother, why does papa cell toy governess an angel?” “Well,” exclaimed the mother, after a moment’s pause, she’s going to fly immediately.” Little billy was told: “Never ask for anything at the table. Little boys should wait until they are served.” The other day, after reflecting seriously a minute or two, he asked: “Mamma, when little boys starve to death do they go to heaven.” When you see a woman going toward the river with a good-sized poll in her hand, and a wrinkle across her nose, needn’t think she’s going fishing. Not much; she’s got a boy down that way who promised her with tears in his eyes, that he wouldn’t go in swimming. A -man coming out of a Texas newspaper office with one eye gouged out. his nose spread all over his face, and one of his ears chewed off, replied to a policeman who interviewed him: ‘‘I didn’t like an article that ’peared in the paper last week, an’ I went in to see the man that writ it, an’he war there!” A scientist tells us that a comet would require 867,000,000 years to pass from the regions of terrestrial visibility to the limits of the sphere of the sun’s attraction, and just as long to return. Considering that it takes a boy about half that long to perform an errand for his mother, there is nothing remarkable in the scientist’s statement.

Delmonnico Entrees and Croquettes.

Mr. Delmonico, talking about entrees, says that Americans ought to copy “the French methods of utilizing small bits of meats and fowls, and of recooking all kinds of cold joints and pieces of cooked meat which remain, day by day, from every dinner in almost every family.” The success of such dishes depends mainly on the sauce, which is best made from broth. The following is his recipe for a favorite sauce : “Take an ounce of ham or bacon, cut it up in small pieces and fry in hot fat. Add an onion and carrot, cut up, thicken with flour, then add a pint or quart of broth, according to quantity desired, season with pepper and salt, and any spice or herb that is relished (better though without the spices), and let simmer for an hour, skim carefully and strain. A wine glass of any wine may be added, if liked.”

Cold roast or broiled beef or mutton may be cut up into small squares, fried brown in butter, and then gently stewed in the sauce above described. Mr. Delmonico describes coquettes as the attractive French subject for American hash, and tells how to make them: “Veal, mutton, lamb, sweet-breads, almost any of the lighter meats, besides cold chicken and turkey, can be most deliciously turned into croquettes. Chop the meat very fine. Chop an onion, fry it in an ounce of butter, add a tablespoonful of flour. Stir well, and then add the chopped meat and a little broth, salt, pepper, little nutmeg. Stir for two or three mi - utes, then add the yolks of two egg . and turn the whole mixture into a dish to cool. When cold mix well together again. Divide up into parts for the croquette, roll into the desired shape in bread crumbs. Dip in beaten egg, then into bread crumbs again, and fry crisp, a bright golden color. Any of these croquettes may be served plain or with tomato sauce or garniture of vegetables.”