Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1869 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

Dickens’ readings bring him £B,OOO a winter. There are thirty-five Americans in the French penitentiary. The Oregon wheat crop will prove larger in yield than was expected. Quincy, 111., has a population of about 36,000. Her directory contains 7,881 names. The Government stamps on the will of the late John A. Roebling amount to |637. A gold crown coin of the time of Cromwell recently brought $27 at a sale of rare coins in England. Ten men assembled recently in a hotel in California who count up among them seventy-three million dollars. The Russian Minister of War lately tried to commit suicide because his only daughter had eloped with a French actor. Jeff. Davis attended an agricultural fair in Glasgow. He was driven through th® ground* by the Marquis of Tw'tcadale. The North German merchant fleet numbers 6,057 vessels, with an aggregate tonnage of 316,374 tons. Boston expended |1,329,287 on her schools during the past year. Among the item® was one of <14,000 to furnish books to indigent children.. . • They say, in Berlin, that King William Is < alwayfi under the influence of strong doses of morphine when he appears on parade, or on other public occasions. A Spaniard, w’ho recently won 300,000 francs at Spa, has since been kept under lock and key by his wife, who is determined not to give him an opportunity to spend his money. A young man of sixteen, the son of a Cincinnati lawyer, is writing a tragedy founded-on the subject of the St. Bartholomew massacre. It will be brought out in Cincinnati next winter. Ida Lewis has accepted an invitation to attend a series of memorial exercises to be held in October under the direction of the Pennsylvania Seamen’s Friend Society in. Philadelphia. . ..- ; . ' The New York Jribune doubts the truth of the confcsiion of John Bowen in the matter of the Carr’s Rock tragedy, lielieVing it to be concocted by tt wild desire for notoriety. ■ ’ < The Howard University at Washington has been presented with a copy of Bunyan’s “Pilgrims’ Progress” complete, printed in the Chinese language. It was brought from China by a negro sailor. It is said to be a common ptacticc in Paris to hire poor people to attend, fashionable churches so that the preachers may say tliat they always have crowded houses. Two or three sous pay Tor a worshipper. The famous old Waterloo drummer boy at the Hotel des Invalides in Paris, died there on the 27th of July. He lost both his feet at Waterloo by a spent cannon ball, and lived for over fifty years at the Hotel des Invalides.

Mr. Edes, the editor of the Dover (Me.) Obtencr, is eighty years old, has never seen a train orcars, and but two steamboats, one of them being Fulton’s original, the other a little pleasure boat on the Sebec Lake. The fat men had a clam bake at Norwalk. Conn., a few days ago. One hundred and twenty-six fat men were present, weighing in the aggregate 27,948 pounds. The most of them were prominent merchants from New York city. A prominent minister, who went to Greenwich, Ct, lately,to makes pulpit exchange with a brother minister, was, by some blunder, arrested at the station, under suspicion of being implicated in the robbery of a grocery store some ten miles distaiiL The parents of a Hebrew maiden of the Rhine having withheld their permission to her marrying a young Christian, she drowned lietaelf and her lover blew hie brains out. This tragedy occurred near Caub, a picturesque locality well known to tourists.

The Perry Monument Association proposes a grand meeting at Put-in-Bay, on the 10th of September, the anniversary of the battle of Lake Erie, tha primary object of which is to raise additional funds for the monument. One of the survivors of the battle will deliver an oration. An English firm is manufacturing for the Russian government a huge steam hammer, which will weigh in ail about one thousand tons. The hammer head alone weighs forty-two tons, and the anvil block five hundred tons. The hammer, which is believed to be the heaviest in the world, is to be used in forgihg’Bteei guns. The owners of the Baden gaming establishments spend great s*ms in advertising their hells, by having inserted m the papers wonderful accounts of how large sums are won. One can hardly take up a German paper without reading how this duke or that baron has broke the bank by his lucky gains. A Saratoga jeweler recently sold a diamond ring for ♦11,500. The weight of the magnificent jewel is 10W carats, and Lis tttia to be the largest diamond now In the United States. flak, Jr., of Erie Railroad June, ownsjhe.next largest. The pur-

chaser is a gentleman residing inNew York. ■' /.,>«,■ ..♦> f .STAfffinps sh<*w that the proportion df debt hi arilOng the ae compared with the total tnnnfcer-of daathS, is gfeaier in New York thaw dm. any efty in Great Brfhifti, if W'doew not -surpass that of lany city In Christendom. Bmlair, damp Apartments,’ Improper diet, ajnd.over crowdlng, are'the cbiof cauadsirf -this excessive mortality.q v l»» L ; A. steamer ' , Montevideo;' tibtflh America, .H£F aWVcd in Kqrianff With pipeteeh five ofto WnbAatd, theftrat sJHw ment under the eXpMinierff df’riitffilHmr English markets Witt/fresh Beef frotf’lhe Plata country.' A’jrtbatnefighbw building at-Loildon tyr flic trade cxclnslvriy.whleh will stflelua few ttafr otheni win EuscTpicnry ohj&.riijfrbddi jn praneb is taking the,,place of human watchful Hess.. ,Cfa many" there lire contrivances prhpre tfie. parsing oTa'train is Automatically anpouripetj to neighboring stations. The cafs pasS’ oVer connecting tyires and the frail,' records itself before and hphlnd, so that iW’ progress and appearance are", alikeirfdlcnted.'* "•< Mbs. Sabar E.ToW'pr- of Newburyport, Mass., is a phfiatilnropist. Recently, m passing over the Essex-Me rrirtiack bridge, She discovered a hole in one of the floor planks in a very dangerpus locality. Early the next morning she was seen on the bridge with a piece trf tflaulc of sufficient dimensions to repair th?.dangerous spot, Which she had carried from’her residence, about a mile, and nailed the same securely

A miner in Pennsylvania recently met with a horrible death. Hb Wils coming out of the mine when he gat canght between one of the ore cars and the drift. At the time of thfi accident he had scVeral picks on his shoulder, the points of which were driven info his back until stopped by Jhe handlek He lingered 1 Iff the most excruciatihg agony-for-tfivb IreuH, when death came to his relief , ■ Landisburg, Penn., boasts of a woman whois the methei- of thirteen children, fend goes into the-field, partially arrayqd in male jttire, and, swings the scythe with all the ease, grace and efficiency df any farmer. About the; eleven th houn she repairs to her domicih] prepares the frugal meal for self and, family, and after the repast, with rake in hand,’ does duty for the remainder of the dpy. u At Norwalk, Ct.,.during a recent storm, a servant girl was stung l>y a bee on the forehead, in the midst of the heaviest lightning, and, imagining that she was struck by an electric shock, ran home in fright anti Itnste, caught tsp a bottle of croton oil and rubbed its coptents over her face. The effect Was remarkable. When the family got home, her face was swollen so that hardly one feature was distinguishable from another. A Charleston paper says that in the upper part of South Carolina there is a young ex-Confederate soldier whose leg was amputated during tie was hear the ■ thigh. After amputation tfao wound rapidly healed, and.he was sent home. About a year afterward A fleshy protuberance was seen to grow oiit of the flesh, which, in the -course of a few months, took the shape of a foot, and Since that time It has been growing finely, until now.the man has a perfectly pqw foot and leg growing from his thigh. A young lady, of "New York City, a few days ago, saved the life ot, « gentleman who fell upon the railway track in a fit, near Orange, N. J., by rolling him off the rails. She came so near being run oyer herself iby the engine that a portion of her dress was cut from the waist. ’ The train was stopped, and the. passengers loudly cheered the heroic action. /The young lady persistently reflised to give her name when some New York merchants mentioned their desire of presenting her with a testimonial. The Supreme Court of California has rendered an important derision in support of the real rights of woman. A wife was driven from her home by her husband, and had no means of support. She brought suit to compel him to set aside out of his property acquired since their marriage a sufficient amount to sustain her and her child. Under the old English J»w, such an action would not lie, but a majority of the court decided in fevor bf the wife, holding that adherence to the English law, in this or similar cases, would be a reproach to civilization.