Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 June 1873 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

See, in anotW column, the advertisement headed U I will help mny man." An ingenious New England hen has laid two eggs joined together at the ends. On, Cm, Pa., has a cat which suckles a young rat along with the members of her own family. IT is reported that over 1,000 hotels in Pennsylvania have closed since the elec-' tions on the license question. A Chester County (Pa.) judge recently admitted to probate a last will and testament written on a slate. The California farmers have called a State Convention to consider the propriety of a general political movement. One thousand four hundred salmon were caught in one haul at Huine’g. fishery, Oregon, recently. —~~~~~ Swell youths of Gotham have their cigars manufactured expressly for them, and ornamented with their monograms in gold. The man who mails a postal card containing obscene language is subject to a fine of not less than SIOO nor more than $5,000 for each and every offense. Three New Hampshire brothers recently married a mother, a daughter, and a grand-daughter, and it was the oldest of the brothers that married the granddaughter. -rrrrrrr-^r-Gold in paying quantities is reported to have been found in Morgan County, Ind. A company has been formed and mining operations will be commenced in a few Wedfe. : The “Little Sisters of the Poor” have erected and dedicated to charitable purposes at Indianopolis a two-story and a half frame building, capable of accommodating fifty inmates. A woman named Courtney, of Torrance Bay, Nova Scotia, has given birth to four children, being the second time.within two years. She has had seventeen children in ten years. A Louisville man drank a Sedlitz powder, one glass at a time, and the boiling operation took place inside of him. His contortions are described as beautiful. Near Nebraska City lives a sixteenyear old boy who edn neither hear, see, feel, nor speak, fie is in constant motion like a caged hyena, but harmless. As he is so was lie born. The shoe-heel is hereafter to lie made upon the idea of common comfort. Paris makes the move, and of course the fashionable world will follow. The lieel will bfi low, and made as near as possible like the natural. The Court of Claims, in session at Wasbington, lately decided a large number of cotton claims, among them one in < favor of William Battersby and others for $485,342, the largest single judgment ever rendered by the court. A man in Baltimore, who was on trial for passing a counterfeit bill, was disdischarged because someone stole the bill from the Justice in the Court-room. Tlien .: they said there was no evidence, tff hold him. There was a rush on a savings bank in Waltham, Mass., the other day, and one man was so elated to find liis $l5O all fight that he called in his friends and went on a big spree. When he woke up next morning he hadn’t a cent. The Pennsylvania Railway Company are just now engaged in furnishing all - their conductors with new time, pieces. They are of silver, quite large, weighing about five ounces each, and are furnished with all the modern, improvements. It is stated that the grave of General Greene, famous in the Revolution, is unknown. His body was buried in an old cemetery on South Broad street, Savannah, on June 20, 1786, but no record being made, the remains could never be found. A Yankee grocer, being solicited to contribute to the building of a new church, promptly subscribed his name to the paper in-the- following manner:- “John Jones (the only place in town where you can get eleven pounds of good sugar* for a dollar), twenty-five cents.”" One peculiarity of the late electric storms in Southern-lowa. was that the electric current ascended from the earth as well as to it. On several occasions, bright flashes of flame, and even balls of fire, shot suddenly upward from the earth to greet the hovering clouds. For the past two years increasing numbers of real canvass-back ducks have been killed on Lake Koshkonong, Wis., where they feed on a species of celery, which is identical with that found in Chesapeake Bay. This bird is very rare north of Maryland or Virginia, and fe esteemed the finest for the table of the entire species. The murderer Lusignani, lately hung in New Jersey, had some native wit, if he » did part his hair in the middle. Just before he was led out to execution, one of the priests said: “I would willingly be in your place; you will be in heaven * soon.” “Well, take my place,” said the prisoner, “I wiil get under the bed.” A-gentleman unaccustomed to the new method of paving fare in the horse-cars in Lawrence, Mass., was so flustered that he threw a fifty -cent scrip in the box. Finding that he could get no Change from the, driver, he began to take up fares; he. had to ride a considerable distance past his destination before he succeeded iu getting his change. Cottage rents at Long Branch vary from $1,0(X) to $14,000 for the season, according to location. Lots are very high, --but sales are numerous. Cicnr-ral Grant owns two houses, one of which he rents to Mr. Jesse Seligman for $3,000. General O. E. Babcock’s new cottage will be fin- . ished in July; Jay Gould is building the finest cottage of all, and cither moneyed men are erecting some of elegant pattern. The Hoosae tunnel contractors have reported to the Massachusetts Legislature that the actual length of the boring now to do through solid rock is about 1,720 feet, which they are shortening up at the rate of about 300 feet per month. They expect to be entirely through the mofintain by the 15th of November next, after which date Borne six months will be required to put the tunnel in working order .for regular trains. Here is a matrimonial experience: About forty years ago, a man who then resided in Shaftsbuty, Vt.y married, and after living with his wife three years, they parted. He then married a Manchester lady, and they went West. They raised a family of eight children, and the wife died. He then returned to Shaftsbury, and took West with him another wife. Then she died, and now he marries the woman from whom he parted thirty-seven years ago. Mrs. Benjamin Hastings, living in the north part of Greenfield, Mass., who has just celebrated her 83d birthday, carries off the palm for business honor. One day, recently, she walked into town, a distance of five miles, and returned the same day, making in all a distance of ten miiea, for the purpose of meeting an appointment for the payment of a bill of ten cent* at one of the dry-goods stores. - Qjf the examination of samples of green tea, stored in bonded warehouses in London, it was found that this so-called tea contained from forty to forty-three per cent, of iron and nineteen per cent, of Silica, in the form of fine sand. The above substances bad been mixed with the leaves, with a view to increase their weight and bulk, After the leaves were curled, they became thickly covered with green pig, ment, and when infused in boiling water a turbid solution was produced, offensive to the smell and nauseous to the teste. .

Apashionable lady passing down Third street, at Winona, Minn., the other day, in animated conversation with a gentleman, was dressed in such extreme height of style .that her “little love of a bonnet”dropped off the tourth story of her back hair and fell, to the sidewalk, but ilie passed on in utter oblivion of the dangerous exposure of her head and health.until she reached the next block, when her attention was called to the incompleteness of her attire. Bv the aid of a microscope her bonnet was found and repfaced on the apex of the capillary pyramid. There are Fagins even In America. In Cleveland, a man bearing the extremely appropriate name of Wolf, was brought before the Police Court charged with receiving stolen property. Several children, from eight to ten years of age, testified that Wolf had taught them to steal iron and brass from the car-shops, and that they .obeyed him. The old scoundrel, instead of being sent to prison for life, as he should have been, was merely fined SSO and costs. The Judge observed that the offense of the prisoner was becoming a common one, and that it should be severely dealt with. That, it seems, is a mild way of putting it. The army Signal-office has made preparations for a very great extension of its. valuable system of reports of the height of rivers, particularly of all those opening into the Mississippi. Over twenty-five stations are now established at suitable -points on these rivers, especially, of course, on the Ohio, Missouri, and Mississippi. They are provided in some instances with automatic self-recording ap-paratus,-and at all other-places -the observation of-the heigh t-of the water is taken eight times daily when floods are apprehended. By this most beautiful system every wave of high water is accurately followed in its course downstream, and the approach of dangerous high floods is easily foretold by the repeated telegraphic reports. The system of river reports, which has been in operation during the past year, has given such universal satisfaction to those* navigating the Western wafers that the demand for increased facilities can only he met by this new and far more elaborate system of stations. A Second Sam Patch.— About two o’clock Sunday afternoon a man named George Watson, a carpenter, was strolling around the Passaic Falls half drunk,when he suddenly took it into his head to outdo SaniPatch’s famous leap froihtKe Fall s. So he deliberately climbed up on the iron bridge which crosses the chasm, and before any one could prevent had jumped off the dizzy height, and sped through a dis. tance of fully eighty feet to the boiling flood, below. A number of persons saw the fearful leap and hurried to the spot, expecting to see a dead body floating on the water, but to tlieir astonishment Watson came up.safely but soberly, and hastily clambered upon the large square rock.below the bridge, where he sat cowering and shivering with affright at his foolhardiness. lie was too much unstrung to swim across the basin to dry' land, and so had to try to clamber up through the narrow crevice near by. A large crowd soon gathered, with every- appliance to extricate- him from his precarious situation. Watson was completely,,exhausted when drawn out by life friends. —Paterson (N. J.) Ghiardian. - c Singular Cause of Fire.— A legal gentleman, in one of our large Eastern cities, •upon entering his office one summer morning, found the loose papers on. his table just starting into a light flame, which surprised him greatly, as there was no fire in the room at that time, neither was it apparent how they could have ignited from any external cause, the windows being closed. This happened several mornings in succession, but one day be arrived at his office earlier'than usual and succeeded in detecting the origin of the fire. Sitting at his table, lie felt a burning sensation upon one of life hand, which gradually increased until it became insupportable; and on looking at the window through which the silu was shining, he noticed that one of the panes of glass had a bubble or flaw in it, which served to concentrate the rays of light in die same manner as a burning glass, and, with sufficient power to ignite paper in a few minutes.. The dangerous pane was at once removed, and with it the cause of a “mysterious conflagration.”