Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1871 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

Used I'p.—The lightning-rod. New Way to Settle Old Debts. — Pay them. : The Best Policy.—A policy in the Mutual Life of Chicago. A Grate Noise.—The one you make putting on the coals. The greatest nutmeg ever known met with a grater. At. lust accounts poor Mrs. Partington was complaining of chill-brains. Paiiodo'x. — 'l’iie greatest bores are always persons of the smallest calibre. The stockholders in the Washington only receive the interest their own money earns. An afflicted mother living in Dresden has lost i.i the war live sons arid six sons-in-law. * A Tennesseean uses as a cane a cabbage stalk cut by his lather while a soldier of 1812, in Florida, Is' people would be comparatively safe from kerosene lamp explosions they should, fill their lamps l>y tbjy-light. When base bull clubs arc victorious, of what mountain range should they remind you ?—Appe-nines. Bismark’s second son, who was so severely wounded in the early part of the War, will remain a cripple for life. At.Peterborough, A. JL, at a recent birth,-the'great grand mother of the child acted as head nurse. The grandmother was also present. At Pembroke, Mass., Mrs. Robert Parker and .Mrs. N- G. Randall have been elected overseers-of the i»or, -and Mijs. Sarah J. Brown one of the school committee. "XMAKIivSt.. Louis has been guilty of one of the most utterly reckless acts on record. He has defiantly thrown temptation in the way of his heirs by insuring his lite for $400,0.0. ■ “It is forty years, my old friend John, since we were boys together.” “Is it?— well, don’t speak so loud, there’s that young widow in the next room.” An old peddler, who has traveled'over New Hampshire for thirty years past, last winter, for the first time, kept his cart upon wheels never putting it on runners for a single day. A boy in Detroit has killed sixty-seven of his neighbors’ cats to get money to buy his mother a set of false teeth, lie has made a quiet neighborhood where once was a howling wilderness. Professor D. D. Smith, at the late annual commencement of the Philadelphia Mtental College, t-DOod tlmt nrtifuvial t/.<th were in use among the ancient Romans before the time of Augustus.

A rooi! woman in Savannah, Ga., lately put over the grave of a loved son a slate ('n which was written his name and age, with a pane of glass on the top of it, which was stolen by some candidate for the penitentiary or gallows. In Troy, N. Y„ a number of professional burglars were recently sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, whilst a poor outcast wltostole some food to prevent s'arvation was at the same time sentenced to five years. 'As the workmen were tearing down an old wall in Heading, Pa., the other <Jay, which had been built thirty-seven years ago, they found a lemon imbedded in the mortar which had been there for that period of time. ‘‘tin am mar class, stand up and recite, j Tom, parse ‘ girls.’” ‘‘Girls is a particular noun, of the lovely gender, lively person, double number, kissing mood, in the immediate tense, and in the expectation case to matrimony, according to general rule.” A Knoxville, lowa, physician was called, oup day recently, to attend an infant whose mother had dislocated its, shoulder by lifting it up suddenly by one arm. The doctor rent irkel that this was the fourth case of that kind which he had met in his practice. The Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia, has declared her readiness to devote two-thirds of her whole income during the years I*7l and 1*72 to the relief of widows and orphans Of German soldiers killed during the war with France. - From statistics gathered from reliable sources, it appears that the loss, of cattle, from foot and mouth disease and lung disease, in England, in the last thirty years, is 5,549,780, the value of which, at a moderate estimate, is put down at $418,084,270. Col. Burr Porter, of Newark, N. J., who was killid in one of the battles in France, had taken his place'at the head of his command, drawn his sword, and was urging his men t(> the fatal charge, saying, “I will show you how we fight in America !” when lie was hit by a bullet. TriAT full occupation for the mind, without overtaxing it, is a good preventive of suicide, has long been held by investigators. In corroboration of this is the fact now stated that only five Suicides were committed in Paris-during the seige—an unparalleled falling off of self-murder in _ that city. At a recent woman suffrage meeting in New York, on,e of the female speakers proposed that the thirty-five.thousaud old maids in New England should go West and buy farms. This proposition was commented upon and the opinion given that, if they should, there would be fifty thousand nun after them. A FEW days since, a couple of brakemen on the Fitchburg (Mass.) Eailcpad, were talking on the subject of eggs, when one bet his watch against that of the other and five dollars, that he would eat two dozen eggs within five minutes. The bet was taken and the eggs brought on. In less than five minutes he ate the twenty-four, adding that ‘‘for one dollar more” he would eat the shells. . An eccentric man in Massachusetts has made and published his will. lie gives his body after his death to Professor Agassiz and Dr. Oliver Wehdell Holmes, to be placed in the museum at Cambridge, but directs that two dnun-heads shall be made of his skin, on which “ Yankee Doodle” shall be beaten at the base of Bunker

Hill Monument, annually, xt funrlae on the 17th of June. A few dxy» since a Waterbury (Conn.) lawyer returned to the railroad ticket agent at that place one dollar, overpaid him in making change. For a moment the agent stood speechless ; then, as the tears poured down his checks, lie grasped him by the hand and exclaimed : “ Please stand still one moment, sir, ami lotiiuc look at you—and a lawyer, too!” Mr. Qitrk, of Nashua, lowa, is the owner of an old sow. One night the sow went into the stable, where a span of three-year-old colts were hitched. The sow commenced biting the colts’ legs. The colts did not relish that kind of treats ment. kicked up amuss about it, and finally drove the sow out of the stable. The bloodthirsty old porcine then went into another stall where there was a splendid grey mare. The hog caught her by the ham, managed to bring her to the floor, and succeeded in killing her, tearing out her entrails. About the first of February, a little sqn, nearly two years old, of C. F. Johnson, of Lamartine, M is., was attacked with a -soreness and swelling of tin- throat; his voice became hoarse, his tonsils were enlarged and the parents attributed the child’s ailment to a cold or influenza. The symptoms continued unabated for nearly four weeks, when the mother discovered some foreign substance lodged in her child’s nose. On being extracted it was found to be a kernel of corn in a partial state of decay, from which was growing a stalk or blade one inch in length, green and vigorous. Since the removal of the growing corn the child has been rapidly returning to his usual state of health. At a populous" manufacturing town there was an inhabitant who held a good position as a fishmonger, and, being partial to theatricals, was very kind, and gave assistance to the manger of the Theatre Royal; being anxious to make his debut, it was at last arranged that he should play Polonius for the manager’s benefit, that gentleman himself playing Hamlet. The house was crammed, and the play proceeded until it came to the lines, “Do you know me,—ray lord?” “Excellent well! you are a fishmonger!” when the maternal parent of Polonius (being in front and thinking the line was a personal insult to her son) rose and said; “ Well, sir, if he is a fishmonger, he lias been very kind to you, and you've no right to expose him in pul die,”: The Boston Journal says: “The observations taken on Mount Washinton during the past winter have established one important fact, that the periods of intense cold are felt at the high altitude from twelve to twenty-four hours sooner than they are in tho country below. Careful observations are made at Hanover, N. 11., to be 'compared with those on the mountain, and others are made at points nearer Mount Washington, at Gorham, ..Whitefield, Lunenberg, Vt., etc., either in connection with the expedition or for the Smithsonian Institute at Washington. A comparison of all the observations will probably disclose other metcrological facts than the one referred to above. A t the time the great tornado which recently visited East St. Louis, 111., was driving along in its destructive fury, Mr. 11. C. Turner was hunting in the Woods near Venice, 111. A tree was blown across him, and for three days, without food or drink, he lay in an immovable position. All attempts to extricate himself from his perilous position were of no avail, ancTMr. Turner, finally discouraged by fruitless endeavors, gave himself up as one to be numbered among the dead. After three days, however, he was relieved by a farmer named Haggerty, wjio fortunately happened to be passing that way. Tie was convoyed to East St. Louis, and put in charge of the city authorities. J. J. Barton, who signs himself “defunct publisher of the Hew Era," at Carbondale, 111., presents his ex-patrons with a portrait exhibiting his present sadly attenuated .proportions, and says : “I want you to liquidate! I’ve not had a square meal, a drink of good whisky, nor a chew , oi Alecmittobacco for so long a time that I | have forgotten how they taste. I have | 1 boarded round’ so long that my acquaintances have shook me. The storekeepers j smile in my face when I ask trust for a j peck of potatoes or a, pound of codfish. | .My wife is growing cross, and jaws me ! fearfully. My children are crying for j bread. I have made up my mind that I | Cin’t stand this sort of thing any longer, i Money I must have. If you do not shell j; out by the Ist of April, I’m blasted if I | don’t sue you—that’s all.”