Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1871 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

The Coal-Ring—The fireside circle. Best Climate fob a Toi*eb—'The Temperate Zone. Hum Monet—The price of a family cradle. The militia of Pennsylvania number 13,000 men. Habbisiiubo, Pa., contains 085 mere females than males. The policies of the Washington are liberal as to travel. Vibginia has half a million members es the Order of Good Templars. A Slow Match—'The marriage of a couple after thirteen years’ courtship. The Mutual Life of Chicago makes all its policies non-forfeitable. A “ Histobt of Tobacco” is announced. It should be illustrated with fine cuts. The city of Boston paid $21,285 during the last year for bathing 1,397,914 men, women and boys. Why do girls kiss each other and men do not! .Because girls have nothing better to kiss and men have. The sagacious A. Ward once said he thought it rather improved a comic paper to print a joke now and then. The man who is too poor to hire his boots blacked, and too much of a gentleman to black them himself, wears dirty boots. In Norfolk the indolents proposed to organize a lazy club, but failed on account of the party being too lazy to sign their names to the constitution. The State Inspector reports 628,979 barrels of salt inspected in Michigan last year—being an increase of nearly 70,000 barrels on the product of the previous year. A lady, aged 61, in England, finding herself on the wrong railroad train, leaped from it when it was running at a speed of forty miles an hour, and escaped without any injury. Dobb, the portrait painter, says that everything should be in character. For instance, search warrants should be printed on “ tracing paper,” and wedding notices on “ fool’s cap.” A man in Essex, Mass., refused to have the pegs of a new pair of shoes he wiis buying for his boy rasped off, because in that case the boy would run all over town, and the shoes wouldn’t last him three weeks. The Superior Court in Cincinnati decides that a wife has a vested right in her husband’s society and companionship, and can maintain an action for damages against any person who tempts him to stay from home. Cincinnati has a divorce case, the parties in which aggregate 130 years in age; and the plaintitt complains of cruel treatment, and that she had to fish for a living while her husband was drinking whisky out of a Britannia teapot. The doctors are not all agreed about the use of the sewing machine being injurious to health. An eminent French authority denies that any evil effects have been experienced by women operating, machines, within the range of his observation, which is extensive. “ Have you ground all the tools right, as I told you?” said a carpenter to a rather queer lad whom he had taken for an apprentice. “ All but a hand saw, sir,” replied the lad; “ I could not get all the gaps out of that.” It was once observed to Lord Chesterfield, in the course of conversation, that man is »the only creature endowed with the power of laughter. “ True,” said the carl, “ and you may add, perhaps, that he is the only creature who deserves to be laughed at.” Kabl, aged five years, has a brother a few weeks old. Nelly,*a little girl of nine years, meeting him, asked if he was not glad to have a little brother to play with. With a shrug of his shoulders, Master Karl replied, “ Play with! He can’t wash his own face.” A Roman father, of Bridgeport, Conn., had his son arrested the other day for robbing him of some small change'* and the penalty adjudged by the court was a fine of sl7 ana costs, which, as the culprit was a minor, came out of the pocket of the plaintiff, whose reverence for the majesty of the law has undergone a trifling modification. • A Philadelphia judge has picked up somewhere the absurd idea that witnesses are not criminals. He rebuked a lawyer for badgering one in a late case, and laid down the astounding proposition that a witness should be treated in the same manner as any gentleman would treat a visitor to his house. The lawyers talk of having him impeached or sent to a lunatic asylum. The other day the front door of the New York Tribune office had to be closed for some purpose. So Mr. Greeley wrote on a piece of paper, “ Entrance on Spruce street,” and sent it down to the man who does the painting of the bulletins, to be copied. The man studied over Greeley's tracks all the forenoon, and finally, in despair, wrote “Editors on a spree!” and posted it up. A little four-year old had been intently V.atbhing tiitf jJKC?!? of eorn-pop^, on a stormy day in the beginning,of winter. Happening to turn to the window, she observed for the first time the falling snow. Amazed and delighted, she ran to her father and exclaimed. “Oh, papa, do look at the funny rain; it’s all popped_out white!’’ Some diamond merchants write to the London Daily News to observe that the public needn’t imagine that it is going to get these stones cheap and good because of the discoveries at the Cape. They declare that there are no good judges there, and that a most exaggerated estimate of the value of the stones is the consequence. A parcel consigned, valued at $2,5tX), was found to be worth less than S4OO. A besident of the St Lawrence county (N. Y.) jail has discovered a new use for soap. Having thoroughly soaked his right arm in soft soap, he was able to thrust It' through bars that would scarcely have admitted an infant’s, and then unlocked the <kx>r, when,*by the connivance of friends oiitslde, he’made good his escape. A fellow stopped at a hotel at Pike’s Peak, and on settling his bill the landlord charged him $7 a day for five days. “Didn’t you make a mistake said the fellow. •‘No,” said the landlord. “You did." retorted the wiryGooking fellow, “you thought you got all the money I had, but

you were mistaken. I have a puree full la another pocket." Rev. T. K. Bef.cher, of Elmira, said something unpleasant about EL B. Smith, Congressman elect from that district. Smith remarked to him that those statements were conspicuously inexact Beecher exclaimed, “Do you want to get up a quarrel with thtr Beecher family r’ " No. sir,” said Smith, “ but I want to know if you intend to get up a fight with the Smith family ♦” And peace was restored between the two great division* of the human family. “ Young A croon.’’—Yes, Agassiz dott o recommend authors to eat fish, because the phosphorus in it makes biaina. So our you are correct, but I cannot help you to a decision about the amount you need to eat —at least, not with certainty. If the specimen composition you send us is about your fair usual average, I should judge that perhaps acoupleof whales would be all you would want at present. Not thd largest kind, but simply good middling-dzed whales.— Mark Twain, James Fisk, Jr., -explains what be meant by “gone where the woodbine twincth“ You see I was before that learned and dignified body, the Committee on Banking and Currency, and when Garfield asked me where the money got by Corbin went could not make a vulgar reply and say up a spout, hut observing, while peddling through New England, that every spout of house or cottage had a woodbine twining about it, I said naturally enough, Where the the woodbine twineth. That is all. It seems the Congressional cheesewaxes did not understand my delicacy BBT my delicate allusion.” Phofessob Smith, of Baltimore, in a recent communication on the gutriect oi hydrophobia, says that, as the virus or poison which propagates the fetal malady exists in the saliva of the rabid animal, a mere scratch on the hand or face is more dangerous than if a deep incision had been made by the teeth, as in the latter case the flow of blood would be likely to assist Tn carrying off the poison. The Professor advises that the wound or wounds be instantly washed again and again with soap and water, to prevent the possibility of any poison adhering. Caustic potash should then be applied for about a quarter of a minute, and then be followed by a poultice of bread and milk, the latter to be continued for two days. An important decision was recently rendered by Judge McKenna, one of the Circuit Judges of the United States Supreme Court, in which the New Jersey Mutual Life Insurance Company were defendants. The company had refused to pay a policy of SIO,OOO upon the life of a man who had committed policy being held by the assignee. The decision was adverse to the company. Nearly all the evidence adduced was on the point of insanity, it being attempted to prove that the insured party was not in hiß right mind, and that-’ his death was the result of insanity. The court decided that the man was insane—that the insanity was a disease, and that his death being directly the result of such disease, the holder of the policy was as much entitled to recover the amount of the policy as if the death had occurred from any other kind of disease. The following story is told of the early days of Wyoming Territory: In the barroom of a way-side tavern, where the stage stopped to change horses, and where teamsters tarried to drink, a few rough customers' sat one afternoon beside tbe stove. Enter a mountain ruffian, venomously drunk, who fetched out his revolver and commenced practising with it at various objects behind the bar and on the walls. While this was going on, the cries of an os-teamster to his approaching cattle were heard, and soon the driver appeared within the door. Stalking up to the bar he called for a glass of liquor; but, as he raised it to his dirty lips, the tumbler was shattered by a well-aimed shot from the practising man’s revolver. Without a word the bulllvliacker put his hand behind his back, produced his pistol, levelled it at the ruffian’s head, and remarked, as the body dropped to the floor, “That scoundrel would have hurt somebody pretty soon. He then filled another glass and drank the contents, strode out as deliberately as he had come in, and with a “Woa, haw, there!” started his oxen up the road.