Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1871 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

Thk hair of a six-year old girl In Detroit is turning gray. A good gauge by which to measure a man’s character is his language. TnK guns captured from the Paris insurgents foot up 403,691; cannon, 2,107. Thk Quoquinnapssakessosanagog Home Is the name under which a New Hampshire tavern struggles. Thb Washington Life Insurance Com* pany is increasing more than two thou sand dollars per day, above all losses and expenses.' A Massachusetts boy cut off his young sister’s golden curls while she slept to get money with which to go to the races. D. G. Croly, managing editor of the New York World, says: “My wife is the ablest associate I ever had in journalism.” How strange that my wife and mother should oppose life insurance ( Death comes I A husband and a father falls ! then poverty comes. Insure in the Mutual life, of Chicago. Anthony Moore, of Collinsville, Conn., is the father of nine stalwart boys, whom he wants to match in a baso ball contest with any picked nine of brothers in the State. > One of the White Mountains has been named Hoffman, in compliment to the Governor of New York State. It is “ituated between Mount Madison and Mount Clay. Mrs. JupiTH Rust, who died recently at New Ipswick, N. H., was married in 1799, and slept on the same bedstead from the night of her marriage to the day ot her death. A Memphis man would never take a “ dare,” and when a belle challenged him to marry her, he made her his wife inside of twenty minutes. In twenty days they were happily divorced. Prof. Hithcock and his exploring party came upon a hitherto unknown htk<tn the White Mountains the other day, which is as pure as crystal, and has an altitude of 8,787 feet above the level of the sea. A youno woman in Connecticut recently, when sick, mortgaged her body to her physician for dissection in case of death, as compensation for professional attendance upon her. And then maliciously she got well. The house in Auburn, Me., in which two old ladies were brutally murdered a few years ago, by a negro, rents, with five acres of land, tor $lO a year, and it is difficult to get a tenant at that low rate. The following advertisement appears in the London Timet: “To clergymen— For sale in one lot, 300 MSS., and 100 litho. sermons, most of them preached by the author at Streatley, between 1839 and 1860. only £5. Address," etc. Dr Wm. G. Breck has recovered $lO,001) damages from the Connecticut River Railroad Company for injuries received by a collision at Northampton, in June, 1870. The Doctor brought suit for $40,000. In Washington City, during a storm, a young lady was struck by lightning and rendered speechless. Several physicians have called, but they have failed to relieve her to any extent. She writes that she suffer! no pain whatever, but cannot speak a word. During the year ending June 30, 1871 the Post Office Department established 2,407 new offices, an<) discontinued 854 offices, making a net Increase in nnm her of offices created during the year of 1,555. On the 3oth of June last there were 30,045 offices in the United States. The lion. H. L. Goodwin, of Connecticut, is a phenomenon of legislative honesty, whose example is too refreshing to pass unnoticed. He was elected to the Connecticut Legislature, but did not take his seat till late, and when pay day came he refused to take compensation for the time he was absent Rev. Peter Cartwright is eightyseven years of age, and has been an itinerant minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church for sixty-seven years. He now writes that he is too feeble to answer his letters, or to lecture, or dedicate churches during the hot weather. Mr. Seward Baid at Constantinople, at an entertainment given him by the Sultan, that he had “ completed nearly two-thirds of a voyage around the globe, and he had not as yet found a people who were not friends of the United States; and he had yet to find in the rest of his journey the people or government which is hostile, if there be one.” u , f The New York Sun says.- “It hah been generally supposed that Peter 3. Sweeney was unmarried. It appears, however, that he was married several years ago, and that he is a man of family. It has been known among his intimate friends; but the fact , only came publicly to light upon a deed being placed on record signed by him and his wife.” \ A couple of children at Delhi, Ibws; were lost the other evening, and there was much hunting done bv the community. Late at night a kind hearted neighbor stepped in to comfort the distracted moth er, and suggested that the bedroom of the children be looked into. To that apartment they went, and there were the children in their little bed, fast asleep. The church bell was wrung td call the hunters home. The Devenport, lowa, printers seized a circus and menagerie the other day for not pa* ing its bills, and now each editor is the happy owner of a Swineouphalus, or Giasticutus, or a Hippopotatiemise, or an Alaskan Sea Lion. When subscribers rage and a man comes in and wants to know “ who wrote that article,” the editor unchains his menagerie, and the insnlted fellow has a sudden call to “ see a man ” elsewhere. . It is an Interesting fact that u Tad ” Lincoln—whose recent death at the early age of eighteen caused universal regret among his large circle of friends—when but eight years old, of his own accord, signed a pledge of total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors and tobacco. To this pledge he unflinchingly adhered, refusing all proffers of wine, even at public dinners, auswering politely but firmly, “ I am pledged td total abstinence.” A Syracuse man chopped down a giant hickory tree, over seventy-five high, and bearing the ding marks of sixty years. -His surprise may be imagined on finding under this tr*e an old brick cistern, in perfect shape and in a splendid state of preservation. Indeed, so strongly were the brick and mortar cemented, that picks and crowbars had to booted to dig them out. How long ago and by whom was this cistern built t Who made the brick, and where were they made; A cargo ot ten elephants, fresh from

their native jungles in Ceylon, recently landed In New York city. During the long passage of abont four months they got along well, after the first seasickness , was over. They used 26,000 gallons of water on the passage, and ate np 125 bales of hay, averaging 275 pounds per day, which food was in addition to two bushels of gram and paddy, the last rolled np in the form of little balls or cakes, and fed to them from the hands of their Singhalese keepers. Every individual onboard would occasionally give them a sea biscuit, which was esteemed by the elephants to be a great luxurv. The largest elephant weighed 2,000 pounds. The lowa Pres » tells the following: “While lowa City was frill of human nature, a young couple went down Clinton street hand in hand, aud somewhat excited the mirth of lookers-on. The young fellow heard the jeers, and, turning to the crowd, said, ‘Dog-on’t, d’ye think we’re ashamed t Not mnchi’ and he seized his 1 company ’ by the neck, and then and there proceeded to kiss her with a report that sounded like tjie popping of a torpedo, or the withdrawal of a mule’s hoof from the mire. The young lady evidently liked this public osculatory evidence of his feelings, and they passed on to * the show.’ ” The Lawrence (Mass.) Eagle a few days ago appeared with the following paragraph at the head of its editorial page.- “The editor of this paper has gone into the country on his annnal vacation, and has left us In charge editorial. He is for Loring, first, last, and all the time, and, if a betting man, would go his bottom dollar that Lorlng would be the next Governor of Massachusetts. Now, we have no Instructions, except to furnish ‘sufficient copy,’ leaving all else to our judgment, consequently for the next two weeks we shall.’ shout out’ for Butler. When Mr. W. returns, his mild inquiry will probably be, ‘ Why is this thus?’” Horrible !—ln New York a man recently made a wager that he could run a closed urnbri Ua down his th/oat to the handle. No sooner had he accomplished this feat than the base wretch with whom he made the bet Seized the umbrella by the handle, and opened it all the way, clinching it on the catch. He then fled. Of course all efforts to close the umbrella and remove it have been utterly useless, and the poor sufferer walks about with his person distended in a manner that is inexpressibly painful. These practical jokes are very wrong. Just for the sake of a moment’s amusement, this man is obliged m m try that umbrella with him to his grafe. The Des Moines (Iowa) Register says : “ About three months ago little Willie Parrish, aged four years, son of Mr. Parrish who lives at the foot of Ninth street, got a silver quarter of a dollar stack in nls throat, and his parents thought he had swallowed it. He has, however, lately been complaining a good deal abont a pain in his throat, ana yesterday Drs. Grimes and Ullrich, upon being called in to see him, fonnd that the silver piece still remained in his throat They at once adopted measures to get it out, and were successful. We saw the piece shortly after they had taken it out; it was blackened up and pretty well worn. The wonder Is how it remained in his throat so long—nearly three months—without being discovered.” One evening as I was sitting beside Hetty, and had worked myself np to the point of popping the question, sez I, ‘Hetty, if a feller was to ask you to many him, what would you say ?” Then she laughed, and sez she, “That would depend on who asked me.” Then, sez I, it was Ned Willis ?” Sez she, “I’d tell Ned Willis, but not you.” That kinder staggered me, but I was too ’cute to lose the opportunity, and so sez I agen, “Suppose it was me ?” And then you ought to see her pout up her lip. Sez she, “I don’t take no supposes.” Well, now, you see, there was nothing for me to do but to touch the trigger and let the gun go off. So bang it went. Sez I, “Lori, Hetty, it’s me ! Won’t yon say yes ?” And then there was such a hullabaloo in my head I don’t know zactly what tuk place, but I •hought I heard a “Yes” whispered somewhere oat of the skrimmage. Noble Sentiments. — Ha vane the pralw ot “smiling mom,” And ‘-hailed the rising snn ; “How avreet,” he wrote, “to riae at dawn I” (He never rose till one.) Of we-ded love, too, would he slug. And calm domestic 1 fe ; “Marriage,’ he wrote, “1- a holy thing.” (He used to beat his wife.) Beauty be praise-t all else above. And much preferred to gold A youthful mi don’t lasting love. (Uls wife was rich and old.) He wrote, “The noblest use of wealth la to assl-t the many. An doing others good by stealth.” (He never gave a penny.) He wrote, “I hold that man a sot, I And sunk In moral torpor. Who bonorrth bis parents not." (dis mother uled a pauper.) “Against the drurkar ’• wlc.ed wayr, Until my latest breath. A sad reproving voice I’ll raise.” (Be drank himself to death.) An article on the famine in Perris, in the New York Herald , has the following: “ The writer was in India in 1868, and witnessed some of the horfors oi the terrible famine which prevailed in Ajmere, and which, according to official statistics, caused two millions of deaths. No right on earth can be pictured more terrible than & crowd of miserable creatures frenzied by bUDger. Spectral forma stretch forth long, thin arms, with the elbow joint standing out In bold relief, like a huge ball, and the hands Bpreading like the roots of a tree, and demand in shrill accents the means of life. And such eyes and faces as glare at yonl Years hence they hannt you in dreams like some hideous picture of a madhouse, or a battlefield, or an execution. And if you have courage to calmly examine in all their minutiae these revolting forms of misery, the most callous heart may well torn sick with disgust, which is strangely mingled with terror. In many cases the victim of starvation takes a peculiar form ot fever—the famine twer. His body breaks out In ulcers from head to foot, and his blood burns in the tortures of a living fire. Better far the quick though repulsive horrors oi the plague than the prolonged torments that hang in the wake of a great famine." , ; . . ’ —There is a colored woman preaching in South Carolina who during the last five years has raised money sufflaent to buila two large churches and establish three Sunday Schools. The local papers state that she is an eloquent speaker. —To drain land in level place*, rink a well down to the first porous straw*. The water from the upper soil will flow readily Into the well, especially if drain pipes or tiles be laid in that direction. *.. v ►tlwßrtSP