Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1869 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

There are 131,000 acres of coffee planted in Ceylon. Nowadays Is the name of a Womans’ Rights paper in London. W inchbnden, Mass., made 432,000 strawberry boxes last winter. An entire Jury of Smiths was recently impaneled in Sheffield, England. The State of California offers extensive bounties for silk worm culture. Upwards of 27,000,000 people have visited London Crystal Palace, since its opening, in 1854. Mount Whitney, in California, 15,000 feet high, is said to be the highest peak in the United States. The area of the unsnrveyed lands of the United States is fifteen times greater than the whole area of France. There are now in Russia 360 printing offices, 413 bookstores, 286 lithographic establishments, and 221 circulating libraries. The railways of France, which run at low rates, under restricted tariffs, have for the last six years averaged dividends of 11 per cent The Pittsburgh Mutual Protection Society have Instituted more suits againet car drivers, liquor sellers, etc., for violation of the Sunday law. The proprietors of the Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, opened a large ball room, fitted up lust inside its mouth, on the 15th inst„ with a grand ball. Daniel Kinsley, of Auburn, Maine, 83 years old, has a pair of boats 35 years old, which he still wears on festal occasions, and are sound in every particular. It is stated that the Great Eastern, on her return to England from the present expedition, will immediately be sent out to India to lays cable between Bombay and Suez.

In Melbourne, the works of Artemus Ward, Orpheus C. Keer, Mark Twain and Leland’s ballads of Hans Breittmann have been printed and become as popular as in America. In Philadelphia use of sponges, saturated with water, as fixtures upon the heads of draught horses, is ne&rlv universal. The passenger railroad companies generally have adopted the idea. Madame Anna Bishop is on her return from Australia to England, having made a complete tour of the civilized, half-civil-ized and barbarous world, and given concerts in every country under the sun. Two rival senoritas at Puebla had a quarrel at a church door, and a duel was agreed upon. They drew lots, the winner having the privilege of one good stab at the other with a dagger. The loser died on the spot. A bot, while angling in the canal at Cincinnati, a few days since, got what he thought a very promising bite. He can-, tiously drew In his line, when he found on the hook a small tin box, which he opened and found to contain S3O in silver, S4O in greenbacks, and two gold rings, worth about $lO each. , The locksmith who picked the lock on the outer door of the vault of the Ocean Bank, New York, has repeated the feat, the lock having been set this time as it was on the night of the robbery. He was at the work about four hours, and after ho had finished said that he would open the lock at any other combination in half an hour. Tea New York Timet is said to have received, since Mr. Raymond’s death, an avalanche of propositions from would-be editor*. They are classified as follows: Persona willing to be managers, 6,869; financial editors, 6,670; leader-writers, 666; theatrical critics, 8.076; reporter, 1; night editors, 0; errand boys, 0. , A raw weeks ago an elegantly d rawed lady drove up to the house of a gentleman at Enghien, near Paris, and presmiting herself as the Queen of Spain, intimated keg desire to rent the house. Her manner was that of an insane person, and it turnod out that it was the widow ot the late Emperor MaximllUan, who had temporarily •scaped from her attendants.

The Red Bank (N. J.) Standard rejoices orer the discovery of a bed of young oysters along and below the railroad bridge at that place, of an extent inch aa has not been known at that place for years “ Oystermen and citizens have worked for the past week to such good effect that over 3,000 bushels have been transported from the native ‘ reel' to grow ana fatten on various oyster beds in the river.” ' The total number of Poles who are now in exile or in the mines, in consequence of the last insurrection, is 140,000, among whom six are bishops, three prelates, ana two hundred and eighteen priests; thirtyseven clergymen have either perished in the field or been executed by order of a eourt martial; and about two hundred more have been sentenced to Imprisonment forvarious periods. A correspondent of a Paris journal, who has been admitted to an interview with Garibaldi, gives a most distressing account of his appearance: “ The General’s features appeared contracted, his body emaciated, and he was lying on a sofa suffering horribly from an attack of chronic rheumatism. The ex-Oiotator, bent like the Tower of Pisa, is but a shadow of the past, and with difficulty one recognizes in the trembling and delicate old man the fierce Republican of former days. A correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger writes that a relative, a youth, who had been afflicted with epilepsy for the period of three years, or from the age of 14 to 17, was completely cured by the administration of bromide of potassium, in increasing doses up to a certain quantity. The attacks-became gradually fewer, and in about two years ceased entirely. It is asserted that not the slightest Symptoms of a convulsion has appeared in the patient for over three years. During the year ending June 30, there entered the United States through Michigan, by way of the Canadas, 85,656 immigrants, 18,956 male and 16,000 female. Canada furnished the largest number, 12,203 j Norway the next, 11,718, and of the rest Germany sent 4,716, Ireland, 1,931, Belgium, 1,851, England, 1,337, Denmark, 878 and Scotland 822. An overwhelming preponderance of the men, 17,280, are farmers and laborers. The Engineer, of London, publishes the following curious statistics of the weekly produce of the various manufactories in Birmingham: 14,000,000 of steel pens, 6,000 iron bedsteads, 7,000 guns, 800,000,000 of machine screws, 100,000,000 of buttons, 1,000 saddles, 5,000,000 of copper and bronze coins, 20,000 balls, 40,000 pounds weight of papier mache work, £30,000 worth of jewelry, 20,000,000 of feet in length of wire, 40,000 pounds weight of needles, 20,000 pounds of hairpins, 18,750,000 of hooks and eyes, 10,000 dozen fire irons, 3,500 pairs of bellows, 150 sewing machines, &c. The fact that a case of cholera has been discovered in the city should be received with firmness. People who are careful of their health—who have no bad habits of eating and drinking, and who do not deprive themselves of necessary sleep, or uanecessarily expose themselves to atmospherical dangers, may repose in quiet so tar as the cholera is concerned. It attacks mostly those who have rendered themselves liable by their own imprudence. Persons who indulge freely in whisky had better sign the pledge. It is among their ranks that cholera finds its fattest feasts. —JV. T. Express.

There is “ shoddy ” in glass as well aa in woolen fabrics. Consumersofkerosene are sometimes almost discouraged, so frequently do chimneys break, without any apparent cause, rendering the cost of chimneys about equal to that of oiL Cheapness being tbe order of the day, a a great many manufacturers make Chimneys from silicate of lime instead of lead. The initiated may tell the different qualities of glass by ringing them; the vibrations of the lead glass have a clear, ringing, bell-like sound, possessing the requisite strength to withstand expansion and contraction, as well as the general pressure of use, and will outlast half a dozen of the lime glass chimney s Exchange. A young lad at Lake Station, Miss., bad a large kite presented to him, about six leet by four iu size, which be attempted to fly the other day just as the wind was increasing and a storm was threatening. The wind drew the kite so heavily as to drag the boy along also. To prevent losing his favorite, he wound the cord around his body. At last the wind bore the kite and boy upward, until the young kite flyer caught in the top of a tree, and was suspended seventy-five feet above the ground. A flood of rain came on, slackening the line, abating the wind, and allowing the little sufferer to be rescued. He was found to be unconscious, and so bruised and marred as to be scarcely recognized, but was restored the same evening and is now doing well. The Detroit Free Prut says that about six weeks'ago a barber, named William Brewster, ot Chatham, Ontario, was called to shave a man whose death was occasioned by lung fever, and the inatrament was afterward laid by, to be used no more asaraxor. But, being one morning without a knife, and desiring to sharpen his pencil, Brewster used the razor for the purpose, and during the operation out a slight gash in the left fore-finger. In an hour or two the member commenced aching, and continued to grow worse and worse until the whole hand and.arm were fearfully swollen, and the flesh, in spots, assumed a mottled appearance. Having doctored for four weeks without success, among the physicians at Chatham, Brewster came to Detroit to seek relief. He had lost the entire use-of the arm, and it had swollen to four times its natural size, the flesh emitting a bad smell