Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1869 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

A man in Portland, Me., has made a fortune with a handcart. Five cities in Franco will erect monuments to Lamartine. Amono Humboldt’s papers there were found, after hie death, over four thousand begging letters. Tns Roman Catholics are proparing to erect one or more free chapels in New York city for Ihe colored residents. Bonner says that Dexter shall not race, but that lie will give SIOO,OOO for a horse who can do better than he has done. Sixty persons hare committed suicide at Homburg in the last fire years on account of ruinous losses at the gambling hell 3. A letter addressed “E 8, lowhel Neir Boston, lmnited Stabs merricay medel sex 70,” has reached it destination. Mr. Lorrii.i.ard, of tho yacht Meteor, has issued a challenge for an ocean race, to take place this autumn or next spring—the stake's to be $4,000. A Boston chemist advertises thus: “ The gentleman who left 1U» stomach for axalysis will please call and get it, together with the results.” The population of the city of Rochester, N. Y., is 08,308, according to a recent census taken by order of Hie Common Council. Once around your clinched fist over the knuckle joints is just the length of your loot. So says a female clerk who sells stockings. The English papers express themselves much gratified at the manner in which the defeat of the Harvard crew was received in this country. Chief Justice Chase, it is reported, lias recently invested $33,000 in a tract of land of forty acres and a handsome residence just outside of Washington. The annual reports of the National Grand Lodge of Odd Fellows show that 44,000 persons were initiated last year, making a total membership of 200,(100.

A little girl in Laporte, Ind., recently purchased a copy of Webster’s unabridged pictorial dictionary, costing sl3, with 340 five cent nicklea which she had hoarded up for the purpose. Champion, of Wolfeborough, Me., bet on the Harvards His champions lost, so their Champion had to wheel a barrow load of potatoes to Farmington. He may be called the Champion wheelbarrowist. The rising generation of Pigville, a suburb of Hartford, have lately been discovered fastening cats together with fishhooks, and allowing them to fight till one or the other was literally torn to pieces. A TELEGRAM from Portland, Oregon, to the San Francisco papers, a short time since, reported that the Chinese there were loading a bark for Hong Kong “with a miscellaneous cargo of old scrap iron, boxes of dead Celestials, broken glass, flour, and other produce.” * .Thomas Fillebrown has been a clerk in the Navy Department In Washington for the last fifty-one years; and a strange fact it is, that for the last thirty years he has never been to the Capitol except once, when he accompanied hi* brother to wit ness the last inauguration of President Lincoln. A letter to a Canadian paper says: “An amusing incident at London last night, after the balL While Prince Arthur was going to his carriage, a Yankee abstracted a handkerchief from the Prince’B pocket, and thrust his own into the' Prince’s hand. The Prince struggled for possession for a minute, hut our American cousin carried off the royal handkerchief as a prize.” A convict was recently released at Cayenne, that had passed there twenty-five years. When he returned to France he spent a great deal of money, which- attracted the .attention of the police. He was arrested, and It was found that he had found the money of tho hian whom he had murdered a quarter of a century ago, in the same place where he had buried it at that time.

An old man, in Crawford county, Pa., called “ Crazy, Odell,” has fpr twenty years, with necessary intervals for sleeping and eating, walked In Milne and storm, from MeadvilTe to Penn Line, a distance of twenty miles. No matter how hard It rains, snows or blows, he continues Hs in' cessant tramp. The okl man Imagines himself to be the Duke of Wellington, and is always marching to the battle held of Waterloo. . .1: At Philadelphia, on July 13, Georgiana McCready, aged 13 years, was bitten by a rabid doe, which was owhed by a man named Helmth. >A few weeks ago she showed symptoms of hydrophobia. A physician was called in, but she grew gradually worse, until the night of the 33a ult., when the paroxysms were so violent that her parents administered poison in order to end her sufferings. Helhnrth was arrested. TV | . , I The Rev. Wm,Jl.Mjburn* the “blind preacher," has recently returned to New York, after sixteen months’ residence abroad, whither he wept ior the purpose of submitting to an operation for sight, by the eminent Gracffe, of Berlin. . Tho experiment was pot a success. Mr. MRburn, during his absence, has prepared two new lectures—” What a Blmd‘ Man Saw in Paris,” and a .“ Blind Man’s Experience id Search of Sight*’—which he proposes to deliver dnring the coming lecture season. The Trustees of the Avondale relief fund have adopted a plan for the distribution of the funds that reach them. *The plan of distribution for the first year Isas follows: Each widow to lie paid the sum of S3OO in equal monthly payments. Each male orphan child under 14 years, and each femalp orphan child under 16 years, shall be paid for the same period SIOO, in the same manner. Children over the ages mentioned will be jfeid in fullA sum not exceeding SBOO. Five thousand dollars was voted to meet special cases not embraced in the foregoing. These provisions are made for aid and relief till the Jst day of October, 1870, and will absorb all but $4,000. The remainder of the fund is to be carefully invested in good securities, that can be converted into cash when required, and to Constitute a permanent fund, divisible upo# the following cases: One-third to constitute a Widow’s Fund, and the remaining fWo-thirds an Orphans Fund. Prom these fends widows and or- ■ phans are to receive quarterly payments uutH the whole is exhausted In Parts, lately, a gentleman living in the Faubouqr ftfcwmera Committed suieido by stabbing hhnaelf with , His wife, hearing lnm fell; Jumped out of bed, and on discovering what had happened, culled for help.' A. servant appeared, but when he saw the ! dagger planted in thebody he refused to remove it or to try to staunch the blood: but fied

terror-stricken and aroused the ooaderge. Tlie latter took fright too, and declared that the body must not be touched until tho arrival of the polios, otherwise they would all be accused of murder together. The unfortunate wife meanwhile had fainted. After a time two sergents-de-ville arrived, and without stopping to see whether there was any remnant or lift In the lifeless body, declared that not a finger mast be laid upon it, bat that it mpst remain exactly wheTe it lay, with tbi? Bagger in it, until the commissalre arrived. At length this, representative of authority made his appearance, just one hoar and a half after the catastropheso that; even had the unhappy man been still alive when his wife first called for help, which is not at all improbable, he had time to die fifty times over in the interval-