Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1870 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

Backgammon—A lady’s waterfall. Street cars are now run In Sacramento, Cal. • The value of coffee annually consumed is estimated to be $125,000,0C0. Dying for Love-Coloring your mustache to please a woman. Two new women’s journals have recently been started in Holland. A statistician estimates the number of dogs in this country at 6,000,000. It is reported that Gen. Sheridan will return home sotae time in December. Tew thousand New York workingmen went out on a picnic the other day. John Simmons, who lately died at Boston, left his two daughters an annual income of |25,000. The Boston public baths during the month of August were patronized to the number of 436,985 persona The Massachusetts State military camp, at Concord, contains tents for 6,000 men—the entire military force of the Btate. There are over fifty miles of ditches fbr irrigating purposes within a space of five miles square, around Los Angeles, California Helena, Montana, papers, of a recent date, speaks of a gold brick cast in that city, weighing 2,283 ounces, valued at $41,859. A lazy farmer in lowa, it is said, recently built a bar over and around his stack, in order to save the trouble of moviag the hay. A horse weighing 1,2C0 pounds fell over a precipice 'forty feet nigh, near Janesville, Wia, striking upon solid rock, and suffered no Jin jury, not even the breaking of a bone. The estate in New York of the late Admiral Farragut'conaiats of real property, valued at $200,000, all of which he devises to his wife and son. His war trophies are bequeathed to his son. Eliza R. Arrowsmith, 104 years old, now living at Somerset, N. J., is the oldest pensioner in the country, and gets S6OO a year. Her husband was a commissary in the revolution. Seen from the high altitudes reached by baloons, the blue of the firmament becomes an intense black, and the stars glitter in a background of perfect jet. The Janesville, Wis., Gazette says that the flies are so plentiful and troublesome, that some of their best sleepers are obliged to keep awake during divine service. Mrs. Elizabeth Fifbr, of Groton, N. Y., who is 108 years old recently took her first car ride, and thinks the car is ahead of the wagon.

In a private letter te a friend, Hen. Alexander H. Stephens says he is slowly recovering his health, and is busily engaged writing a school history ot the United States. Jonathan Tobey, famous for his many lawsuits, died in New Bedford, Mass., a few days sgo, at the age of 84 years. U is said that fjr the last fifty years of his life he had & case at every term of court A lucky laborer named Murray, while engaged in excavating upon the site of the old Fountain Hotel, Baltimore, a few days since, came upon a tin box, which was found to contain 3,000 gold coins. Mbs. Catharine Muller, a divorced lady, has recovered f 5,000 damages from Matthew Hayes, a wealthy bachelor of Dnbuque, lows, for breach of promise of marriage. The case was tried in Bachanan county. Yonra Hopbiul : “T-het t,” Teacher : “Well?" No answer. Teacher (encouragingly) : “T'h-a-t spells what ?" Young Hopeful (briskly): “Ohl does it? I thought it spelt that" Teacher collapses. The number of persons who visited the five different watering places in this country the past summer is computed at about one million. Of these, a very large proportion was from New York. James Reilly, who made SIOO,OOO te a substitute broker in the war, spent It straightway and has followed the calling of a New York street loafer for the last two years, went to bed in the gutter the other night and died there before morning. A man named Young, who la 103 years old, gave a banquet to his relatives a few days since, at Honeoye. village, N. Y. He was surrounded by four generations, and was the happiest person present. He has lived upon ms own farm for seventytwo years. * An Albany oamsei askea one of her fellow-bearders, a stylish dry goods clerk, at the breakfast table, l" Why Is your moustache like my back bjurf*' He blushlngly gave it up, when the Unswe# caused him to blush still more: “ Because it’s all down ! n “ Mias A. P. Ladd, of Augusta, Main#, has been appointed by Gov. Chamberlain a Justice ol the reace, which entitles her to administer oaths, solemnise marriages, and to do other public business, for which no woman fp. New England has before bech qualified. John Bcholly, of St Clafe, Schuylkill county, Pa., wu killed last winter by as

(accident caused by the narrowness of a mountain road, it being, paly fourteen Instead of thirty-three feet in width, as required by law. Hi* wife brought suit against theoount]k*nd has lately received a verdict of $5Jm). It having been stated that sparrows will hunt mosquitoes as Well as worms, a chap in Jersey procured a couple, put them in his bedroom, and told them to hunt. He was somewhat disgusted When he . returned to his room to find that the mosquitoes had swallowed the sparroWi, instead of the vice verm. ft is said that a man who was staying at a fashionable hotel woke up one morning and couldn’t find his pillow any where. Just as he was about giving op the search he put his hand to hfs head, and found that the pillow had got jammed into his ear. The regulation allowance at a hotel is one feather for a pillow, and two for a bolster. A faithful wife at Cleveland, learning that her husband had been looked up far drunkenness, took her babe to the court-room and demanded his release. When the magistrate refused to accede to her request, she placed the Httle innocent at the door of her husband’s cell, and strode out of the prison with a majestic step. A Minnesota paper says that during a recent thunder storm the lightning struck the ground near Red Wing, boring a hole about eight inches in diameter, End so deep that a twenty-foot pole failed to reach the bottom. Such ttonas. would be invaluable in the oil regions. , It is said that the compositors’ cases lit the mission printing houses in China have each over six thousand compartments for the reception of the numerous letter* of the Chinese alphabet. The cases are built ia the form of an amphitheatre, and the compositor stands in the middle. Every letter he sets he selects from the six thousand. A countryman was standing on one of the Wharves the other day, watching the .progress of hoisting an anchor of a schooner which was getting under weigh, and as he saw the huge iron rise from the water to the “Yo, heave, 01" of the sailors, he remarked: “You may heave ■high and heave low, but you will never get that crooked thing through that little Sole. I know better.”

An odd legal decision was recorded in Jersey City the other day. On a recent Sunday, Capt Rvnders, the well-known politician, was driving a ! ten thousand dollar horse over a bridge within the city limits, when the planking gave way, ana the horse was fatally injured. Rynders sued the city, but Judge Beale decided that he could not obtain damages because no one has a legal right to drive a hone in Jersey City on Sundays. Prorablt the most wonderful specimen of glass work in the world is to be seen in the glam room of the Conservatory of Arts and Trades, at Paris. It is the figure of a lion, life-size, represented in the act of stifling a ssrnent. Tht beautiful hair and bristling mane—everything about it-ia made offW It cost its author, M. Lambourg, thirty years’ labor, and was oouptenous at the Universal Exhibition of 1855. The line of conduct chosen by a young man during the fixe years from fifteen to twenty will, in almost every instance, determine his character for life. As he is then cartful or careless, prudent or imprudent, industrious or indolent, truthful or dissimulating, intelligent or ignorant, temperate or dissolute, so will he be m after years, and it needs no prophet ,to cast his horoscope or calculate his chance in life. While the gnat fire is still sorting, the public are contrasting the showy buildings burned with such fireproof edifices as the Tribune Block and the beautiful building on La Salle street, owned by the Republic Life Insurance Co. The managers of these two institutions have wisely secured homes ft* their burinms safe against the destroyer, which fitly represent their own permanence and Stability -the Tribune in ftirntahiag intelligence, and the Republic Life protection for the families of the West. Let the buatams men follow their example.— Omeago Tribune, Sept. 6. ’