Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1871 — CURBENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURBENT ITEMS.

New Mewsic— Kittens. What sport is like girls gossip—DearsUl How to Keep Cool—Go to Greenland, and stay there. The editor of the London Spectator declares that no toil fatigues like reading manuscript. The divorce average in Cincinnati last year was just one a day—36s decrees Having been granted in all. Thb census returns of Great Britain show that the surplus of female population in on the increase. The number of bathers at the public bathing houses in Boston during the month of June was 293,809. A. F. Willmarth, Vice-President of the Home, of New York, is a policyholder, stock holder and director of the Washington Life. If you know anything that will make a brother's heart glad, run quick and tel) it; but if it is something that will cause a sigh, bottle it up. No man with a dependent family is free from reproach if he fails to insure.—Lord Lindhubst. Insure in the Mutual Life, of Chicago. Locomotive No. 8, of the New Jersey Railroad Company, is said to be the fastest locomotive in the U nited States, having made eighty-nine miles in one hour. A young lady hearing that cashmere sacques were very much worn, said she was glad she was in the fashion, for hers had two or three holes in it. Summer Fashions.—Large checks arc in demand for summer toilets. A check for $3,000, presented to Miss Gunnybags by her father, has been much admired. A “ Cardiff ” pigmy, three feet long, was dug up in Ottumwa, lowa, the other day. Medical men have pronounced it a petrified human body—headless, armless, and legless. Three hundred and seventy eight Roman coins and urns have recently been dug up in Luxemburg. They belong to the reigns of Vespasian, Dbmitian, Nero, Trajan, and their successors. An official report, published at St. Petersburg, gives the number of horses in Russia as 19,226,667 or about one to eaei three inhabitants. In 357 towns and villages in the country, 1,071 horse fairs nr ■ held each year, at which over 300,000 horses are sold at an average price of £9 each. A Brooklyn physician prescribed hydrate of chloral for a young lady; and wrote the prescription “ Chlor. Hydr." The druggist interpreted his hog-latin to mean "Moridium hydrargyri —corrosive sublimate—and the young lady died the death of a bed-bug. Now which of the two guilty parlies should be hanged, the sawbones or the pillmangler? If it were not asking too much, we should ask for both. —Louisville Ledger.

A Down-Easter lately came to New York, and took lodgings at one of the high houses. Telling the waiter he wished to be called In the morning for the boat, both of them proceeded on their winding way upward, till, having arrived at the eighth flight of stairs, Jonathan caught the arm of his guide, aud accosted him thus, “ Look here stranger, if you intend to call me at six o’clock in the morning, you might as well do i t now, as 'twill be that time afore I can get down again.’ ’ The Burlington Free Press says that Woodstock, Vt., elected, at its last March meeting, a Highway Surveyor, who can neither read nor write. When he asks a man for he presents the tax book, and requests him to find his name and .the amount; and, if the man pays his tax, he crosses it out himself, and, when a receipt is desired by the party paying, the Surveyor has to get some one to write it, and on this he makes “his X mark,” and has it witnessed. A curious accident happened in San Francisco the other day. A young man was in the act of getting on a train, when his left arm, which he outstretched to help himself up on the platform, fell powerless to his side, i On examination it was found that his arm was really broken without any inordinate strein, and without external violence. His arm had not been broken before, and the accident may be put down as one of the curiosities of science, as no explainable reason can be given for it. . Oarpets, Dust and. Disease.— Home and Health says : “ An atmosphere impregnated with the dust which has b en gathered in carpets and remained there for a considerable length of time, is positively unhealthy. The dust, after being stagnan t for some time, especially in warm weather, presents myriads of animalculm To prevent the evil, the carpets should be cleaned often. The dust should be thoroughly removed every month. The trouble of taking up, shaking and replacing will be amply repaid, first, in tho matter of health, and, secondly, in preserving the carpet. We advise the good housewives —there are many —to make a note of this. The Hartford lawyers are puzzled over a singular legal case which has just arisen there. A man who died lately, leaving a handsome property and a childless widow, but with a prospect for the future, left also a will, duly executed, in which it was provided that if the expected child should prove to be a boy, two-thirds of the property should go to him and one-third to the widowed mother. If, however, the child proved to be a girl, only one third of the estate was to go to her, and the two thirds to the mother. But the widow has become the mother of twins, and, what greatly heightens the perplexity of the case, the twins are a boy and a girl, and the lawyers are in a quandary to know what they shall do about it. F. C. Varley, the famous electrician of the Atlantic Cable Company, revives the Old theory of earthquakes being due to the subterranean lightning. He supports this theory by observations before, and a few minutes after the earthquake of the 17th of March, when he noted powerful positive electrical currents rushing toward England through the two Anglo-American telegraph cables,'Whiuh were broken near Trinity Bay, Newfoundland. The French Atlantic cable was disturbed at the same time, and so were many, of the English land liqes, but the only observations us to the direction of the current were those made by Mr. Varley iu the broken AngloAmerican telegraph cables. He thinks that as the center of the earth is approached a layer of hot dried rock may be found, which is au insulator, while the Tr^-iu Ot maHB l° wer down is a conductor. If tnis conjecture be true, and there is plausibility in it, then the woild itself is an enormous Leyden jar, which re quires charging to a very moderate degree to be equal W the production of terrific explosive effects.