Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1873 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

mana, Wis., is shipping colossal thrashing machines to California. —■ There is a heavy immigration this spring to the Lake Superior irqnrcgion. Six young ladies acted as pail-bearers at a ftineral in New York City recently. New York has followed the example of Michigan in punishing those who point a gun, loaded or unloaded, at another person. A boy punched a hole through a dam at Sparta, Wis., just to amuse himself, and in fifteen hours the dam was washed away. Charles Heath goes to the lowa Penitentiary for three years and six months for marrying four women. Rather a mild sentence. . Adam Grim, of Watertown, Wis., claims to be the largest bee-keeper in the United States, with the exception of a California man. A precipitate Detroiter is miserable at discovering that his wife inherited half a million just after he had procured a divorce from her. _ It is asserted that a Vermont family, living on a retired road that had been blocked with snow for several weeks, were recently found to have been keeping Monday for the Sabbath. Apabsenger on an unusually slow railroad, aroused from a serene slumber by the tooting of a whistle, exclaimed petulantly: “The train has caught up with those cattle again I” One of the corpses picked up at the Atlantic wreck had on a quilted vest, and in every diamond of the quilting there was a sovereign, there being in all about eighty, equal to about S4OO. After thirty years of wedded life, and half that number of pledges to the union, a Mt. Pleasant (Iowa) couple got married again the other day, so as to be able to send a certificate to Germany before receiving a heavy legacy. The old certificate had been lost. A New Yorker has taken the contract of furnishing two or three railroad companies with all the tickets they require, free of charge. He gets his remuneration from the advertisements he is permitted to print on the back of each ticket. The City of New York is to be enlarged by the addition of that part of Westchester County comprised in the towns of Morrisiana, West Farms and Kingsbridge. If no unforseen obstacle intervenes, the annexation will take effect on the Ist of July. -4-—--— — —— ■ _ A young lady living at Eau Claire, Wis., disappeared the other day, and after three hundred people had searched for five hours, she was found sitting on the bank of the river with her lover, squeezing hands and talking nonsense as if nothing had happened. Isaac Rice, of Henniker, N. H., has been postmaster in that village since 1809, having been appointed by President Madison. He does not owe his place so much to his capacity to adapt himself to different Administrations as to the fact that the office is worth, on an average, only $25.63 per annum. Some weeks ago a woman was received at the Cottage Hospital of Minneapolis, afflicted with a disease like delirium tremens, caused by alcoholic drinks, but which in her case arose from the use of opium. She is said to be the daughter of a respectable New York physician. The Bristol (R. I ) Ptenix says : “Mr, John Bullock, formerly known as ‘Uncle John,’ who will be one hundred and four years old in June next, had an attack -of pneumonia last week, and when convalescent, remarked to one of his sons: ‘That was a severe attack: if I’d been: anold man I guess it would have fetched me.’ ” In a recent suit for damages in Boston, brought by a father whose son was run oyer by a heavy dray, the Superior Court charged that inasmuch as the boy was instantly killed, without any interval of conscious suffering, no damages could legally be claimed, and ordered a verdict for the defendant.

On a recent Sunday Mike Summers, a crazy man of Minneapolis, entered Gethsemane Church, having a drawn sword in each hand, and marching part way up the aisle, began to hold a service by himself. He addressed the congregation, brandishing his sword and throwing ids arms in the air. He • was promptly ejected, and the services continued. A funny lawsuit is to come‘off at Fort Madison, lowa. It is an action for $6,000 damages, brought by a lady for being forcibly ejected from a church, because she stopped her ears with her fingers during the prayer of a party personally obnoxious to her, and who had been instrumental in the excommunication of- herself and husband from church membership. A pathetic incident occurred during the floods at Binghamton, N. Y. A Mrs. Fox, residing near the cemetery gate, heard, in the morning, a peculiar moaning in the direction of the cemeterv. Going there she found a little child waist-deep in water and weeping near a head-stone, which marked a lonely grave. Upon being questioned she said that she lived a long way off. She had heard that the graves were covered by water, and she feared that her mother’s would be washed away. So she went to keep her poor watch and ward beside it. She was kindly cared for, and returned to her motherless home. The United States Consul at Dundee, Scotland, writes to the Department of Agriculture, stating that a firm in that city has shipped 30,000 plants of what ft known as the Scotch fir, or Highlandpine, for distribution in the great prairie States of the West. The plants are sent inpack-" ages, each containing 250. It is thought that these trees will be peculiarly suited to the plains, as they are very hardy, and of free growth. The’ same firm proposes, if it is acceptable to the Department, to make another shipment of 70,000 o£ the same kind of plants. The plants average eighteen inches in height, and the Commissioner of Agriculture proposes to distribute them in the original packages from New York to parties who desire to test their utility, and are willing to incur the expense of their transportation from New York to their place of destination. The New York Tribunt says that a clergyman of that city recently’received by express from the country a box which, when opened, was found to contain a large trout" neatly surrounded with moss. Highly gratified at this token of appreciation from some absent admirer, he determined to feast a few select friends therewith. He sent invitations to a few of his Fifth avenue friends, and there was a joyous gathering around his hospitable board; but, while each took his full share of the fish, no one ate morqthan a mouthful, a circumstance which puzzled him exceed-ingly-until he received a letter "from""a" brother clergyman in the rural districts stating that its author -had obtained the fish two years previous, and had preserved it in alcohol on account-of its monstrous size. Hearing, however, of the establishment of the Museum .of Natural Histoiy In the Central Park, he now sent it to his friend, asking him to have it put back into alcohol and presented to the Museum. An Ottawa (Canada) business man, who lives in one of a row of houses on Daly street, got slightly fuddled the other night, and instead of going to his own house walked confidently up to the door of his neighbor’s and rang the bell boldly. The inmates having retired, his summons was not very speedily answered, and the Whiskyfled individual began to get out-.|

rageously demonstrative. This soon brought the owner of the house to the door, when the jiot-valliiuit and now high* iy irate individual, being confronted,“at his own threshold as he supposed, by an entire stranger, seized the unfortunate owner by the coat collar and landed him ccrcmonie in the street. He then locked the door and proceeded up stairs, but not finding things in their accustomed places, he finally succeed in lighting a match, when to his horror he discovered that he was not in his own house! This sobered hijn somewhat, and hastily re’treating down stairs he made his exit, just in.time to escape a thrashing from the enraged proprietor, who had effected an entrance by the back door.