Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1869 — CURRENT ITERS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITERS.

The Empress of Austria recently lay, for two days, in a trance. Tuk American colony in Dresden now numbers 400 families. Mrs. JoeJefvbrson recently presented her husband with a little “ Rip." Henrv Ward Beecher announces that he will not lecture during the coming season. Saxe is going to California with a new lecture, entitled “ French Folks at Home.” A women’s suffrage convention has been called to meet at St. Lonis, Mo., on the oth of October. M. M. Ballou and Moses A. Dow, both publishers of story papers, have built magnificent hotels out of the profits. The mother-in-law of General Rosecrans died in Mexico on the 17th ult., and was buried in the American cemetery, at the capital. A lady in St. Louis has promised a gentleman that if she does not marry some one else within nine months she will accept him. Bishop Lins has been sentenced, in an Austrian civil court, to three months’ imprisonment, for uttering doctrines subversive of public order. - A Western writer says if as much attention was paid to improving corn as is’ given to grapes, 100,000,000 bushels might be added to the annual crop. The Bail!/ Rappel and Reveil, the two Radical papers of Paris, have been merged into one, and are now called “ La Reforme Politique ft Boeiale. n There is a lady in Sutton, N. Y., who was married at 12 years of age, who is the mother of sixteen children, weighs 210 pounds, and is “ fair, fat and forty/’ The latest new State scheme is to separate the two western tiers of counties from Arkansas, join them to the Indian Territory and form a new Sflße with the capital at Fort Smith. The trial shipment of strawberries from Centraiia, 11l . this season was 497,875 pounds. About 3.000 bushels were retained by the producers for home use. Swamps containing much vegetable matter and lying generally level, with a good outlet for drainage, and-water above them for flowage, are usually selected for cranberry culture.

The principal gamblers at Monaco are Russians and Americans. Among the latter are several ladies, who may be seen, morning and evening, at the rouge et noir tables. At the Berlin Lunatic Asylum are four unfortunate men who believe themselves to be Andrew Johnson, ex President of the United States. None of them speak a word of English. Tiik leader of the rioters during the recent terrible outbreak at St. Etienne, in Prance, was a woman, the widow of a workingman who had been killed by the police a few weeks before. An abandoned city with fine buildings, evidences of high agricultural prosperity and extensive facilities for mining, has been found on the northern bordor of the State of Sonora. - The food given to the political prisoners arrested during the late riots In Paris, consisted of a small plate of thin broth and a thin slice of bread daily. Several of these prisoners were Americans. At Manitowoc, Wis., a few days ago, Mrs. Gilbert W. Burnett had been makiog soft soap, and left a cup of lye on the floor. Her little boy swallowed a mouthful of it, and died the next day. A correspondent of the Montgomery, Ala, Mail asserts that the cotton crop of 1869 will be one-third less than that of 1888. He gives reasons for this belief, discussing the question at length.

Ok .the European sovereigns, King William, of Prussia, is the best marksman. King Victor Emanuel and Napoleon the Third are said never to have hit an animal while out on a hunting excursion. AT the Camp of Chalons, the Prince Imperial fell the other day from his horn, in the presence of the whole army. The Emperor, who was halting at his son’s side, seemed seriously annoyed at the accident. The value of Canadian cattle exported into the United States during the first three months of 1869, was $236,862 nearly double the value of those exported during the same period of 1868. The St. Paul (Minn.) Dispatch says: “ We will send to any address, without a stamp for return postage, the art of making money. To save trouble, we will state It right here—lt is advertising.” During the three months ending June 30, 7,542 arrests weremade in Chicago, of which 6,891 were males, and 1,151 females/ 1,974 married, and 5,568 «nfie The amount of lines collected reached $47,876. The convicts in the Connecticut State Prison, at Wethersfield, were furnished

with a strawberry feast the other day by a Rhode Islander, who once had the misfortune to occupy a cell in that liwtiini': on. Tub gradnal disappearance of a strip of land about 20 by 100 feet, and covered with trees, etc., near Fort Wayne, Ind., is causiog considerable comment. There is supposed to be an underground river or l»ke, causing Its slow wasting away. A. Write, of Crafts bury, Vermont, while recently cutting a hemlock tree, found embedded In It a four-ounce bottle of French glass. The tree was nearlv all sound, and the bottle must have been there nearly half a century. - Tub towns of Wallingford and Shrewsbury 1 ; Vt., are much excited over the discovery of a valuable “ lead moontain ” within their territory. Some of the rock has been blasted out and specimens sent to New York, Boston ana Washington for examination. Some men were loading baled hay npon a Lake Superior propeller, at Detroit, a few days ago, when they were startled by a terrible hissing, which came from a bale partially burst open, and a badly pressed blacK snake, lour feet long, wriggled out. The temperance people of New Hampshire have decided to hold a State Convention the coming fall, and will advocate the putting up of separate city, town aud county tickets. It is quite probable that they will nominate an independent candidate for Governor. A colored woman, near Charleston, S. C., was bitten by a rattlesnake a few days ago, while picking berries, and the poison was so effective that death almost immediately ensued. Mortification spread so rapidly that it was necessary to bury her on the spot. General Jobl A Battle, of Tennessee, recently recovered a plain gold watch which had been taken from the dead body of his son on the battle-field of Shiloh. It was returned by a Federal officer who recognized the family name engraved thereon. There are one hundred and thirty compositors employed to set the types of the London lime*, sixty by day and seventy at night: while eleven foremen and assistants direct their movements. Twen-ty-four persons are required to read proofs, and three are employed merely to “pall” the proofs. The hack drivers of Springfield, Mass., are laughing at a bridegroom, at a recent fashionable wedding in that city, who drew from his plethoric pnrse the sum of ten cents as a bonus to the hackdriver that carried him and his and their trunks from the church a good half mile to the depot. About a month ago at Grand Rapids, a young man named Wicker, a carpenter, stepped on a nail, which ran through tile side of hislbot and made a painful wound; but this seemed in a fair way to get well, when he was taken with lock-jaw and died. A shocking case of destitution has recently been discovered on Staten Island. A German, named Jacob Ultrieh, with his family, consisting of a wife and six children, became located in a cellar in Clifton eight or ten days before, no one knows how. One child had died of starvation, and two others were in a dangerous Condition A young man who could not dance attended an excursion party to Glymont, below Washington, on the Potomac, and because his sweetheart could dance, and would, leaving him to his own poor amusement, he hang himself upon a tree, but was cut down. Then he tried the river, but, having been watched, he was saved again. A new alloy, forming a beautiful white metal, very hard and capable of taking a brilliant polish, is obtained by melting together about seventy parts of copper, twenty of nickel, five ana a half of zinc and four and a half of cadmium. This alloy has been recently made in Paris for the manufacture of spoons and forks, which resemble articles of silver. When the King of Prussia was, the other day, at Hanover, he lifted np a very pretty little girl, evidently the daughter of aristocratic parents. He asked the child, “What is your name?” “Myname is Annie,” said the little girl, who, after a moment’s hesitation, added: “ I like yon, big King; but father and mother don’t.” The King kissed her, and shrugged his shoulders, with a melancholy smile.