Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1873 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

The greatest army'contraotor—peace. Tb» episodic has got among the cats in Boon rille, Ind. Would a collection of "Adam’s apples’* be anatomical or pomologicall "Where shall I settle?" writesayoung iMh." Settle at the office.— fW Contributor'» Saturday Ntpht. Tint St. Louis Knights Of St. Patrick arc to erect a 125,000 monument to Daniel O’Connell. Th* latest sensation in Motint Pleasant, lowa, is the milkman going about the streets with S heated stove in his wagon. •Mk Juniper says he doesn’t like to commit himself to a "picked-up dinner,” unless he knows where it was “picked-up* from. Darwin's health has been very poor of late. Ail the baboons in the Central Park, New York, are also in poor health. The Mexican Congress is not opposed to railroads, but railroads must promise not to compete with mules in carrying freights. Why is a henpecked husband like an opera hat? Because he’s very big when he’s out, but immediately shuts up when he gets home. > A literary gentleman, who believes in a quiet life, is looking for a dentist to whom he may intrust the duty of ei-’ trading the organ-grinders of the city. Ik Colorado, when a lady wears dirmond jewelry to any extent, she is alluded to by the local gusher «s being well “salted.” Themis one pleasant reflection on going to bed in Titusville after h poor supper. The chance* are that the hotel will burn up before breakfast. The Peoria ReTiem judges from the amount of bad poetry that is sent to it that an impression is abroad that it has offered a prise for the worst poem on autumn. ' The happy pair at an Allegan tin wed* ( ding were the recipients of a multitude of such useful articles as tin corsets, tin bustles, tin overcoats, tin bonnets, tin oyershoes, etc., etc. The Legislature of Vermont has, in imitation of that of Minnesota, passed an act punishing by fine any pointing of firearms at a person in play, adding an imprisonment of two y<ars when any injury results from the foliy. . ' A little girl was one day reading the history of England with her governess, and coming to the statement that Henry I. never laughed after the death of his son, she looked up and said: ‘‘What did he do when he was tickled?” When a- Cincinnati editor gets up an item of news, even by accident, the proprietors present him with a magnificent residence. Cincinnati editors all live in rented houses.—S?. Louis Globe. The editor of a Southem paper wants to know “jf the man who sent him a challenge to fight a duel means business,” or whether “his buzzard soul laughs at the ghastly joke.” In speaking of the local debating society, a paper says: “Our village debating clubs are in full blast, and questions that have engrossed the intellectual functions of sages ever since the flood are being decided at the rate hf two a week.” A Pittsburgh paper wants a real printer’s monument erected to Horace Greeley, to be cast from worn-out type, which newspaper offices from all over the country car. contribute, and be mounted on a granite base. The old song has been changed to suit the season:

' Mother, may I go out to skate?”’ “ Yes,my dearest daughter; But come back home at half-past eight, And don't go into the water.” According to the Greenville Sentinel and Reporter, girl’s cunning little brother substituted an infantile feline for the confectionery in her lover’s overcoat pocket. The young man’s hand is about well, but his larcerated feelings are yet troublesome. Judge Smith, after he was seventy, married a wife considerably his junior. One day, soon after the ceremony, he was riding with her, and on coming to a hill, she bantered him with the remark: “Judge, my father always used to walk up hill.” “So did my first wife, 2 ’ replied the Judge. An absent-minded gentleman, writing a letter at the breakfast table, dipped his pen his coffee and continued his letter. Noticing his mistake, he put a lump of sugar in the ink, and then finding bis second blunder, pouted the contents of the ink-stank into the coffee pot to set it right. ’ ■

That was a good, though rather a severe pun, which was made by a student in one of our theological seminaries (and he was not one of the brightest of his class, either) when he asked, “ Why is Professor the greatest revivalist of the age?" and; on all “giving it up,” said, “Because at the close of every sermon there is a * Great Awakening.’ ” A wag went to the station at one of the railroads, one evening, and, finding the best car full, said in a loud voice: “Why, this car isn't going.” Of course this cauged a general stampede, and the wag took the best seat. -In the midst of the indgnation the wag was asked: “Why did you gay this car wasn’t going ?” “Well, it was’t then,” said the wag, “ but it is now,” A boy named William Adams pleaded guilty to the charge of stealing a watch in the Court of Oyer and Terminer and, though the complainant said the boy had previously had repeated opportunities of stealing from him and he thought perhaps he only meant to play a trick, Judge Ingraham sent him for one year to the penitentiary, remarking that the frequency of crime among boys required, a a warning —A'. -Z. Herald. A Louisiana aunt of the late Horace Greeley relates that, some years ago her distinguished nephew came to deliver the address at her county fair, and,.to enable the boys and all farm hands to. listen to his agricultural learning, went into the corn-field, hung his coat to a crab-apple tree, and stripped busks so vigorously that the job was worked off in good time for all to partake of his pastoral succulence. .

In a show-case in one of the west-side avenue* in New York is to be seen the following announcement, affixed to what is commonly called a “switch” by artists who educate the outside of ladies’ heads: This solid mass of real hair, weighing one pound, and fifty two inches long, was cut from the head of a young lady sixteen years old. Price $125.” The ap pendage referred to is black, and of the texture, of a horse's tail. > ■ - An eminent Scotch divine happened to dine with the leanned lawyers of the Edinburg bar. He appropriated to himself a large dish of cresses, upon which he fed voraciously. Erskine, wisbingtoadmonish him for his discourtesy, remarked, “Doctor, you remind me of the great Nebuchadnezzar in his degradation.’! Just as the last conclusion was calling forth a lively titter, the reverend vegetable eater turned the laugh with the quick retort: “Ay, do I remind ye of Nebuchadnezzar? Doubtless because I am eating among the brutes.” It has been decided in England that a bankrupt may not refuse to answer questions whidh are put to him touching his estates and effects, even when such questions tend to criminate him. Buch a rule might possibly be imitated to good advantage everywhere, though it has been thecustom to treat bankrupts in this

country with the s&ffie immunity in this fegard as if they were arraigned as crim inals. But the English seem t‘d have gone too far in the other direction, as it has been riffieffily held that such au examination may be introduced as evidence in any criminal suit that may follow; and a man has been actually convicted in a criminal prosecution by bis own testimony given previously In bankrupt proceedings.