Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1873 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

California lias abolished the three days of grace. Postal cards have Jast been introduced Into Prance. A druggist at Afton, lowa, lias been sued for SIO,OOO damages by a married woman, for selling liquor to her husband. The young ladles of Vassar College have formed an “anti-falling in-love-be* fore you-are-ciut of-school" club. all Us crocodiles within t.wo years if* the viceroy of Egypt will come down with SIOO,OOO. Buzz saw item.—Henry Btonaicer, of Palestine, Tex. In his life he was lovely, andjn liis death he was divided. Seventy. five of the business men of Mendota, 111., have subscribed $25 each to pay the expenses of prospecting for coal in that vicinity. The right of a street car conductor to eject a small-pox patient from his car is to be contested in the Boston courts. A “homespun’’ association is-being organized at Dea Moines, lowa, the mem- - bers of which are pledged to wear no goods not made in that city. New Jersey expects to hang two men in April, one in May, and three in June, besides supplying the usual quantity of champagne. The Pennm/hamian, at Oil City, has suspended because the edttor and his wife couldn’t agree about bis employing female -compositors. - - , The Polk County, lowa, Agricultural Society this year offers a premium for the best preserved man and woman seventy years of age; also, for the largest living family. Vanderbilt says that the traffic between the cities of New York and Boston is so constantly Rowing that a new route is needed every ten yeqfs. A Carrollton (Ivy.) dentist sent a dollar to the editor of the Democrat, ashing that a false notice of his death be corrected. The correction was made.' The Board of Supervisors of Greene County, lowa, have allowed John Gray, an enterprising farmer, $1,600 deduction from the valuation of his property for taxes, for planting twelve acres of fruit trees, -'— : A large number of tax-payers of Jersey City, N. J., recently held a meeting and resolved not to pay any more taxes to the State UDtil the law exempting railroads from taxation is repealed. 0 The proprietors of the Legal Tender mine, at Clancy, Montana, have struck a vein twenty-seven inches wide, averaging $2,800 per ton. This is the greatest striko-ever make in the Territory. The ore is galena, with sulphate, ruby John Mishi er, of Harrison, Delaware County, Ind., 84 years old, claims to be the champion hunter of the State. lie say? he has killed in his time 410 deer; 52 bears and 25 wolves, lie has lived in Harrison for the last twenty-tive years. Commodore Vanderbilt has purchased the southwest corner of Third avenue and Forty-second street, New York, for SIOO,OOO, and intends to erect a large marble building, to be known as the Grand Central Bank. The most remarkable chime of bells in this country is on the chapel of Notre Dame University, near South Bend, Ind. It consists of twenty-four bells, the largest weighing 14,000 lbs., ranging through two octaves. It may be heard in its deep reverberations for twenty miles away. One of the foundries at Peekskill, N. Y., has a “salamander,” as it is termed—a furnace in which the molten iron has been permitted to grow cold, and as not even August weather will thaw it out, it has got to be removed by drilling, which will cost $50,000. . Fourteen deaths have occurred recently in the vicinity of Naples, Scott County, 111., by cerebro spinal meningitis., The disease was rapidly increasing, and the people of the neighborhood were becoming greatly alarmed at its disastrous spread. Millerism is reviving in Vermont. The world, it is there affirmed by some, is coming to an eud toward the close of the present year.—Others think that the catastrophe will occur during the present winter. There are a good many meetings, and there is a good deal of preaching and excitement. A proposition was seriously made in the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention the other day, that the punishment of fraud at elections be “banging by the -neck until dead, without the benefit of clergymen, of executive clemency or any other benefit whatever.” There is in New York a professional “face maker,” who sits as a-model for the artist who manufactures grotesque masks for carnival times. The flexibility of bis features is said to be so wonderful that, if necessary, be could elude the recognition of the smartest detectives. The new code of California establishes such complete equality in the marriage state, and so does away with the old notion that a man and bis wife are one flesh, that the two can contract with and sue each other the same as if they had never been married. The marriage of minors changes the status from minors to adults. Cars are being built for mail trains between New York and Chicago, to consi.-t of three cars and one locomotive. No stoppages are to be made except for coal and water, and the trains are expected to make the distance between the two cities in twenty-four hours, running about forty miles an bonr. - -

Mr. George Le Barre, of Pennsylvania, is held up by the New York Herald as the oldest man in America. His years number 115, he'was too old for the war of 1812, and he shook hands with Washington. In addition to this, he has habitually used whisky and tobacco for a century. ’’ General Dix is so pestered with applicants for office that he has this notice posted upon every window and door of the Executive Chamber and his dwelling: “If any office seeker presents himself here during the next four hours, ‘shoot him on the spot!’ ” In this manner, a little quiet is obtained, and an opportunity had to attend to State affairs.

Some genius has come to the relief of the poor bnt ambitious amateurs who want to kill somebody, and has Invented a pocket pistol which sells for $l5O. Of the six murders committed in New York, in one week, three were performed with that economical but effective weapon. Nothing like bringing luxuries within the reach of the Common people.-'’ An Athol (Mass.) man, lopg resident in California, is about to bring a courtship of twenty,-five years to a happy termination. Ten years ago he started homeward for the same laudable purpose, but was waylaid and robbed of his all. 1$ went back to the golden State, gained another fortune, and this time has readied home safely.

It 1b reported that a chest Containing SBO,OOO in specie has been dug up at Cape May, the same being the long-sought-after treasure captured by Capt. Kidd, as he sailed, and burned to protect it from his pursuers. The chest bears that ancient and rather frisky mariner’s name branded on it; but the story has no trademark to authenticate itself Withal. The highest rate for telegraphic dispatches from any two points in the United States, is how $2.50 for ten words, instead of $5, as formerly. This regulation mainly applies to dispatches between the Atlantic and Pacific cities. The rates be ; tween Western-Cities and California have been reduced, but not in the same proportion. The abolition of the franking privilege makes lively times for Public Printer Clapp. The whole force of his office is now working eleven hours daily, instead of eight as heretofore, to get out public documents, the printing of which has been ordered, so that they can be on which the franking privilege ceases to exist. As the eightchour law is in force in the office, the hands get for their additional work three-eighths extra pay. The Belfast (Me.) Age is responsible for the remarkable statement that Mr. L. M_ Poor, of Searsmont, on taking some eggs from a lien’s nest recently, observed a slight protuberance at the end of one, but thought' nothing of it till he heard the shell snap." Upon looking he saw a singular substance oozing out. which proved to be a fully developed serpent, seven inches long, which had apparently been coiled up in the end of the egg. It was nearly the color of the white of the egg, and exhibited some signs of life when it first came out. * Bill's^ are pending.in Several of the State Legislatures which are designed to put an end to the business of dead-head-ing on the railroads. Some of these go so far as to make it a criminal offense for a State officer or member, of yue Legislature to accept a free pass over any railroad. The legislators-of Maine,-however, look at the subject from another-point of view, and instead of punishing deadheads, propose to provide for their better protection, by making the companies more surely responsible in case of injury. The cheapest way of getting a thor : ough ablption and a new suit of ciothoiL of which we have heard, is that adopted San Irishman, in tne town of Peabody, iss. lie buried a man that had died of-small-pox, and then went prowling about among the drinking saloons of the town without so much as changiug his clothes. The authorities bad him hunted up, stripped of his raiment, bathed and fumigated and furnished with an eutireTiew suit. Tliis treatment suited him well enough. There are now in circulation two sets of counterfeit five dollar United States notes. The first of these bogus greenbacks is poorly engraved on tolerably good paper, and purports to be No. 9,813. The statue of .“America,” on the left hand side of the note, is faintly and badly executed, as is also the medallion portrait in the lower right hand corner. The line engraving on the back is indistinct, and the curved lines weak and wavering. The second counterfeit Is badly printed on wretched paper, is numbered 31,720, - and the engraving is exceedingly coarse and scratchy. . &=—