Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1871 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

Ilian Traikiko-Haughty culture. Tint best thing to take before breakfast —Another nap ItU a somewhat curious fact that a compactor take* most e't when hardest at work. „ Johh BrLt.nsos rays: *lt strains a man’s philosophy the wust kind to .Ist)' when he get* beat." The Charter of the Washington Life secures all llie proflu to the insured. More than this cannot be done. A duck ken man was recently drowned In a gutter in Syracuse. The water was but six inches deep, and he was frozen fast. - • *Thk assets of the Mutual Life of Chicago, are of the most solid character—cash, government securities, real estate securities. The prudent President of a Boston haak hHH earned paragraphic Immortality byWefully turning np the bottom of his vest while at his desk, to keep it from wearing out. An English court has decided .that the Bible and the Union Jack may properly be Included among a traveler * personal baggage for which the railways are re sponsible. It is said that Mr. Greeley is so addicted, to agriculture that whenever he is asked a question be invariably says “hay” before he answers to any great extent. “A manwho’d maliciously set fire to a barn," said good old Elder Poyson, “ and bum up a stable frill of horses and cows, ought to be kitked to death by a jackass, and I’d like to be the one to do it” An ambitious citizen of Rome, Ga, endeavored to eat three quarts of ovsters recently. A local paper says: “It was a way US had of signing an engagement to slumber in the valley. “ Have you 1 Blasted Hopes ?’ ” asked a lady of a green librarian, whose facq was much swollen by a toothache. “No, ma’atn,” he replied, “ but I have a blasted toothache.” A new signal light for railway trains has been invented. It consists of a lantern which revolves when the train is in motion, displaying a red light if going forward, anil a green light if backing. A Norridoewock (Me.) deacon recently coughed up a head of herds-grass which had lain on his lungs for over thir-ty-six years. It still retained its original shape, but had grown as hard as a stone. The London Saturday Review anticipates legislation on children’s parties, on the ground that “if it is injurious to the health of a boy to send him up a chimney, it is obviously equally so to expose him to the consequences of late hoots and hot rooms" A small boy in New York arranged a bridge of bricks at a muddy crossing, and then, after passengers had availed themselves of the dry crossing, civilly requested “ a penny for his walk,” which was almost invariably given him That boy may yet own a railway. A little negro boy at the South has just been equipped with a new suit of clothes—the first he ever had on in his life. Next morning he appeared with one leg of his trowsers ripped up from shoe to waistband. On being asked how it happened, he answered: “ Please, ma’am, I wanted to hew it flop.” TnE following certificate was lately presented to the St. Louis Historical Society: “ I eartify that I gave permistion to Benjamin Gardner to satcl on a pies of vacant land cold Little Purrary, on the Missury, some time in December, 1802. Given under my hand this 23d Day of Febury, 1806. Daniel Boone.” A man living in Columbia, Pa, and owning the house he lives in, lately refused to bury his father, who died "suddenly, but turned the body over to the Coroner to be buried as a pauper, signing his name to a paper which read: “ I hereby refuse to take charge of the corpse of my father or pay for its burial.” Bome little girls in Salem, Mass., held a fiiiron Washington’s birthday for the benefit of one of the pupils in their Sunday School, a sick little girl, daughter of a dead soldier. They obtained $l2O, and it is uncertain which was the happiest, they who gave or she who received the amount. John Camp and his wife, who lived in Grant County, Wisconsin, determined to emigrate, and, having,no conveyance, set out for Sioux City on foot. They left Grant County on the first day of February, and reached Sioux City on the evening of February 25, having walked 450 miles, and suffered greatly from weariness, cold and hunger. The Bible of the Phillips family, buried with Mra Phillips at North Easton, Mass., was lately taken from her grave to settle, by its genealogical record, the question of heirship to a large deposit made by a man named Phillips in a New York bank more than sixty years ago. The letters were so far erased, however, as to be illegible, and the book was returned to its dust. The Warsaw New Yorker tells a little story at its own expense. Recently it advertised fer a copy of its own issue of July 7, to complete a file, and an appreciative lady who had carefully preserved her papers, reminded the publisher that he had a patriotic or lazy spasto that week, and skipped one issue because of the 4th of July, a circumstance which had entirely escaped his memory. “IVk been a thinking,” said Little Frobj, * about this bere woman suffrage business. S’posing,” said he, “that—a—now—Olive Logan, fr instance, should be made President of this great and glorious country, bequeathed to us by noble sires, and all that, she’d be President Logan, wouldn’t she?" We bowed “Well, now, s’posing she was to marry, say, a man by the name of—of—Perkins, f’r instance, would she be President Logan or President Perkins ?’’

Rev. J. H. K. was, several years since, pastor of a Methodist Episcopal Church m Western New York. During his sermon, on a hot summer’s Sunday morning, Brother Austen, one of the official members of the church, fell fast asleep. Mr. K. suddenly paused and called out; “ Brother Austen, will you please open the window there a little? Physicians say it is very unhealthy to sleep in a close room." The brother was awakened, and complied. The fortune bequeathed by Mr. Brassey the railway builder, is, probably, the London Observer says, the largest which ever passed the Court of., Probate in London—for the very few estates which exceed his in value are usually transferred by settlement This fortune is believed to exceed seven millions sterling, the personalty alone having been sworn under six and a half millions. With the possible exception of the Rothschild family, this wm the largest amount of money ever accuffiutated by one man In Europe by industry and enterprise. 3 A milkman to Bangor, Maine, boasts of his horse and dog. He procures part of his milk about half a mile from his house! and every evening, he says, he harnesses his horse into the milk wagon, puts in the cans, and throws the reins over the dasher His laige Newfoundland dog then gravely steps in, and the horse, under the direction of the canine driver alone, proceeds to the place where the milk is procured, and stops. The dog announces their arrival, the cans are filled, the dog resumes his scat in the vehicle, and the horse carefully turns and trots home. The gentlemen mentioned in the following anecdote might have served as an original for Dickens 1 Mr, Winkle » <* Once

when Mr. Buxton wn« staying with Mr. Coke, at Holkliam, a well known Professor was also one of the visitors. The venerable historian had never had a gun in hi* hand, but on this occasion Mr. Coke persuaded liirn to accompany the shooting parly; wo* taken to place him at the corner of the covert, where it was thought the other sportsmen would be out of Tilf reach. When the rest of the company ciine up to the spot where he was standing, Mr. Coke said to him : * Well, what sport? You have bees firing pretty often?’ ‘Hush,’ said the Professor, ‘there it goes again ;’ and ho was Just raising the gun to his shoulder when a man walked very quietly from the bushes about seventy yards in front of him. It was one of the bentm who had been sent to stop the peasants, and bis leather gaiters, dimly seen through the bushes, Imd been mistaken for a hare by Hie Professor, who, much surprised at its tenacity of life, had been firjng at it whenever he he saw it move. ‘ But,’ said Mr. Buxton, ‘ the man had nover discovnrcd that the Professor was shooting athim.’ ”