Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1879 — REMINGTON POT-POURRI. [ARTICLE]

REMINGTON POT-POURRI.

[From our special correspondent.] Tom Ralph puts in his day’s work in Traugh's eg* cellar and his evenings with Wright Williams learning telegraphy. As usual, this week finds Barney Patton with a new clerk in his livery stable. The initials of this one’s name are S. B. Haver. The big trade of the town is now divided between wagons in which to gather, and lumber to build cribs in which to store the bounteous corn crop, A new use has been discovered by one of our physicians for blue mass. He mixes it with a “hydraulic” syringe (if you kno.w what that is) to draw a blister. , The irrepressible Willet is after a license to retail damnation, this week again, and as a matter of course, the better class of Remington’s citizens are after him with hot blocks. F. R. Donnelly is going to housekeeping in Michigan City, his wife and household goods having gone this week. I don’t know whether Tom is going to marry or b&ch at the old home. On Tuesday night a barn and five horses were burned, on the farm formerly occupied by Levi Hawkins, about four miles southeast of town. A sixth horse received fatal injuries. Cause unknown. It is often remarked of certain persons that “they have no manners.” How could they be expected to possess such qualifications when they are lacking in sense. A certain amount of brain is necessary, to be able to distinguish between good manners and selfish pomposity and beorishness.

That fearf'il and terrible scourge, scarlet fever with which Remington, a short time giuco was afflicted, having abated, diptlieria has taken Its place. It was thought advisable to close the schools for this week. Hence, the youngsters are all tearing around doing, unwittingly perhaps, their level best to get the disease. Hoosiers are proud, and justly so, of the Indiana free school system. The privilege is enjoyed by all, poor as well as rich, of getting such an education as, at least will fit them for transacting any ordinary business and maintaining a respectable position in society. But there is one drawback to this and one which the laboring class can illy endure. Almost every term and sometimes two or three times daring the term of school there must, by order of the teachers or trustees, be a change in text books. Now this may be well enough for the rich, who can make the change without trouble, but for the man who has only his daily labor to depend upon, four or five dollars for books each winter is a big thing. Is there any necessity for this frequent change beyond the percentage paid b} publishers and dealers to teachers or trustees? Do the scholars learn any faster or get better information than from the books they have been using? I have kuown in the Remington schools, two or three changes in grammar being made in one winter term, ending

with the same one started with.

GATES.