Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1871 — How Crude Rubber is Collected. [ARTICLE]

How Crude Rubber is Collected.

Some of tho details in tho cases of the 101 suicides for tho year 1870 (nearly two pur week), recorded in the Bureau of Vital Statistics,- aud hitherto unpublished, are interesting; 70 of these were* males and Z2“femaTes,'and'oT'TKatnumber 27 chose death by hanging, 21 by shooting, and 11 by drowning; !) cut or stabbed themselves, 7 jumped from dizzy heights, 25 took poiqpn, aqd 1 placed himself before a locomotive. It appears that the Germans during the year have been the most prone to take tljeir own lives, having furnished 40, or nearly oue lialf <*P"oHie number. Hanging seems to have been the favorite form of suicide, there being 17, a plurality over all other methods adopted by them to “ shuille oil the mortal coil." Of the 46 Germans who chose other methods than hanging, 11 put an end to existence by shooting, seven used violent and active drugs to poison themselves, three leaped froth windows, three cut their throats, one stabbed and another killed himself with a hatchet, and three by drowning. Jfative Americans and thelrish are the next upon tho roll of those “ rashly importunate, weary of breath." There arc 10 cases of each nationality. Six of the Americans , slumbered into death by swallowing narcotic poison, five shot themselves, two took Paris green, two cut their throats, and one liaueed himself. Of the Irish, six took poison, four handed and two shot themselves, two leaped from windows, one drowned himself and one cut his throat Of seven English suicides, four took poison, one hanged himself, ono leaped from a roof, and one drowned himself. There were three French suicides, of which one hanged himself, one cut his throat, and one leaped from the root The remaining thirteen of the total number, and scattered through various nationalities, ended their lives by all the different plans; above specified, except one, who threw himself before a locomotive. It is interesting to note that the Germans preferred the most violent deaths, even in the choice of poisons, such as Paris green, strychnine, etc., tho most active and deadly.

Grkytown, Nicaragua, ig'tho principal port for the export of India rubber on the coast. It is collected by parties of Indians, Caribs, or half cast Crooles, seldom by Europeans, to whom tho dealers, who are also storekeepers, advance the necessary outfit of food, clothing, and apparatus for collecting rubber, on condition of receiving the whojp of the rubber collected at a certain rate. The lubber hunters are termed Uleros (Ule being the Creole term for rubber).' A party of Uleros, after a final debauch at Greytown, having expended all their remaining cash, generally make a start in a canoo for one of the rivers or streams which abound on the coast, and having fixed on a convenient StKtt fpr a camp, commence operations. The experienced rubber hunter marks out all the trees in the neighborhood. The rubber tree is the CastiUoa tlanicn, which grows to a great size, being on an average about four feet in diameter, and from twenty to thirty feet to the first spring of the branches. From all the trees in the almost impenetrable jungle hang numerous trailing parasites, lianes, etc., from these, and especially the tough vines, are made rude ladders, which are suspended close to the trunk’s of the trees s-lected, which are now Blashcd by machetes in diagonal cuts from right to left, so as to meet in the middle and central channels, which lead into iron gutters driven in below, and these again into the wooden pails. The pails are soon full of the white milk, and are emptied into larger tin pans. The milk is ~ 110x1 pressed through a sieve, and subsequently coagulated by a judicious applies■u ol jljj® Juice of a Bejuca (an Apoeyna t) vine. The cotg U ] a tcd mass is then pressed by hand, ana finally rolled out on a board with a wooden roller. The rubber has now assumed the cake, nearly two feet In diameter and ' »b«uUa quater of an inch thick, DfwiTlch they are termed Uleros; these cakes are hung over tlx* side poles and frame-work which support* the rancho, which is erected in the woods and allowed to dry for about a fortnight’ when they arc ready to be packed for del'very to the dealer.