Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1873 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

The tunnel under the city of Baltimore, built at a cost of $8,000,000, will be completed about the first of July. Miss Alice Fargo has been appointed Assistant Lighthouse-keeper at Dunkirk, New \ ork. , J, A Mr. Robinson, from Minnesota, aged 188, passed through Milwaukee, Wis., the other day, to visit a young son in Illinois, aged 98. The father of Fralich, hanged at Syracuse the other day, occupied a window where he could get a gooa view of the execution. i , The complete file of the Charleston (S, C.) Courier, for seventy years, was bought by C. A. Spofford for $2,250, for the Congressional library. A mas was lined $5 and costs, at Dunleith, 111., for cutting ofi a colt's car with a jack-knife, and perpetrating other cruelties on the helpless animal. The heirs of one Peter Gleason have established their claim to $4,000,000 worth of real estate ip the city of Trenton, N. J., which had mostly been leased for long terms by another party, who came into fraudulent possession of it Among new colors are ainon, a greenish yellow; alligator, a purplish blue; corbeau, crow color; ecorce; lichen, a grayish Hue; suede; paon, peacock color; apricot; nicolo; blanc. etperle; blanc et argent; Plane et or, and blanc et bleu. The salt well near Leavenworth, Crawford County, Ind., which is 1,065 feet deep, and has, for several years, yielded paying brine, has suddenly ceased to be salty, but is pouring forth coal oil in strange abundance. Intending visitors to the great Austrian exposition will do well to look to their vaccination marks as well as to their letters of credit, the deaths from small-pox in Vienna, at last accounts, averaging sixty a week. Fifteen hundred singing birds of different varieties, imported from Germany by a society organized for that purpose, •vyere turned loose in the suburbs of Cincinnati recently. The object is to domesticate them in this country if possible. While tearing down an outbuilding at the Yarboro House in Raleigh, N.C., a colored waiter found a package of money containing some $20,000 in old State banknotes, some Confederate bonds, SSOO in gold and-silver, and two watches. There is no clue as to when they were placed there or by whom. When fuel is burned jn an open fireplace, at least seven-eighths of the actual or potential heat passes up the chimney unused. About one-half is carried off with the smoke, one-fourth with the current which flows in between the mantelpiece and the fire, and the remaining loss is represented by the unburned carbonaceous matter in the smoke. A woman in Reading, Pa., used to buy peachss when they were sixty Cents a quarter of a peck; when her husband remonstrated with her for her extravagance, she would burst into tears, and say she ''jvas not extravagant, because when slie those peaches"she intended to put untif i&J"i>t!hef£er tor and kee P them ,^ m adel,yi woman wanten „ V]*?™ which to seyate her money, some 80 -* > * that ingenious article of feminine apparel v ao i4 as a bustle. Unfortunately another woman’s wit contrived a plan to chloroform her and relieve her of her funds, which *as successfully accomplished, and the dining operator got off safely with her booty A young man advertised for correspondence with ladies in Cleveland a short time ago. Some fellow answered, and appointed an interview one night on Euclid avenue. One of their number dressed in woman's clothes and met the advertiser and then another pretending to be her brother, belabored the romantic youth with a stuffed club, purposely prepared. He ran away crying loudly for‘the police. * An Indianapolis woman has notified several soda-water venders not to sell her husdand any more of that seductive impound of sugar, water and wind, llis organism is so sensitive (she says this) the promise of a drink of whisky intoxicates him, and two glasses of common soda causes him to step higher than a horse with the spring-halt, and his spirit to soar among the stars. One Allen, of Chicago, is now collecting documents and searching records, preparatory to commencing a suit to recover possession of a tract of land four miles square in Livingston Count}', N. Y., on which the village of Mt, Morris has been built. Allen claims to be a lineal descendant of Ebenezer Allen, to whom the land was ceded by Indians in trust, for his daughters, and who improperly disposed of it to Robert Morris,' who, in turn, sold it to individuals. Lawyers inform Allen that his Claim is good. * Professor Liebig, writing on the effects of various stimulants, describes the red wines as in some cases beneficial, or at all events the least hurtful; white wines generally are detrimental to the nervous system; sherry and strong cider intoxicate more rapidly' than most wines, and have a peculiar influence on the gastric juice. Beer produces a heavy' and dull intoxication, although the drinker of it is not apt to get thin. But the consumers of whisky ana brandy ‘‘are going to a certain death.” At San Francisco, recently, Miss Helena Frazer was awarded a verdict of $12,000 by a tender-hearted jury as a soliatum for blighted affections, breach of promise, etc., etc. The trifler with her maiden affections was a well-known lawyer bearing the eminently proper name of Thrifft, and how he allow'ed himself to be beguiled into such an untluifty piece of business as paying $12,000 for a few hours’ profitless flirtation is one of the mysteries of the case which ewe cannot fully understand.

"The other morning a tolerably welldressed but wild-eyed gentleman called Mayor Macaulev to one Bide, in the City Court room, and said be wanted something done with his wife. “ What’s the matter?” inquired his Honor. “ She keeps giving me pills,” was the reply. , “I wouldn’t take ’em,” said his Honor. “ I can’t help it,” said the injured husband; “ she gives ’em to me when I’m asleep.” “ I’d wear a muzzle,” said his Honor. The Injured husband started. He hadn’t thought of that. —lndianapolis Herald. Church and State are at variance at Portsmouth, N. H. The people of that town have procured the passage of an ordinance forbidding the violent ringing of church bells, and on Easter, morning, when the rector of the Episcopal church ordered the sexton to usher in the day with a lively ringing of the bells, that official, fearing the terror of the law more than the denunciation of his spiritual adviser, flatly refused. Thereupon the rector sent his son, mid there was an alarm betimes, that dismal, stormy morning, bringing hundreds of people from their couches, and stirring up a fire of indignation that will not be quenched, except by the resignation 6f the rector. A little circumstance came to light at New York, a few days ago, that illustrates the beauties of the detective system as it exists in our ltrger cities. A gentleman was robbed on a street car of a set of diamond studs, a gold chain and locket, and a fine garnet ring. Without letting his business be known, he made an appointment to meet one Bennett, a city detective, at police headquarters. When they met as agreed, the gentleman was surprised to find, sparkling upon the little finger of the officer of the law, his garnet ring. He naturally mentioned the circumstance to

the detective. The latter at first denied the possibility of such a tiling, but subsequently admitted that the ring was given to him by a tliicF only a day or two previous. The gentleman thereupon gave the detective one week to recover the rest of the property, and within that time it was delivered to him in a sealed express package marked Philadelphia. Of. course the thief was hot arrested. Two - remarkable cases of theft have been developed recent ly in New Haven and Portland. In the former city, an unfortunate man named De Wolf was actually brought before the Police Court for sjealing an umbrella! Worse than this, he was punished, thus establishing the dangerous precedent that umbrellas are personal and disturbing the time-honored custom whiclf lifts allowed the appropriation of the umbrella wherever found. Mr. De Wolf, being tile first martyr to this absurd, not' to say monstrous, proposition, should carry the case up to the United States Supreme Court. It is a,question in which the whole people are interested. The second instance of theft is of a graver kind. An undertaker at Portland lias advertised for a coffin stolen from his shop, and offers to trim and line it for the use of "the thief, and engrave his name upon a handsome silver plate, if he will only return it. Such acts of generosity are rare nowadays.