Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1873 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

A sewing-machine lias been named after Shakespeare, A Frenchman has invented a process for making paper oht of starch. A New Hampshire farmer hfts Worn a pair of boots for twelve years. A California dog revealed a murder by bringing home a human arm. The Baltimore fire was caused by a man throwing away a cigar stub, A Providence fireman has been convicted of stealing a SSOO shawl at a recent fire. A Canadian Justice of the Peace fined a man three dollars for saying “thunderation.” < The noble elms of Boston Common are being killed by the asphaltum pavement on them all. An old colored woman shouted herself to death at Columbia, S. C., the other day, at a prayer-meeting. A family of three persons were recently discovered in the suburbs of New York living in a sugar hogshead, ’ English advertisements are commending “the American stove” as a “remedy for the high price of coals.” Bedford County, Pa., has a cat that has received a regular course of training in the art of squirrel-catching, A Long Island gentleman cultivates an eighty-seven acre flower-bed, as well as several blooming daughters. A clerical gentleman in the Southwest calls a political enemy “a vulgar fraction reduced to its lowest terms.” The Louisville Ledger says it doss not look exactly the thing to see a minister fanning himself while offering a prayer. A little girl at Bowling Green, Ky., fell into a forty-five foot well with fifteen feet of water in it, and was rescued unhurt. A school for waiters, designed to teach them the “ elegancies of their profession,” is shortly to be opened in New Y"ork. The Graphic thinks a clergyman traveling in the East may expectorate on the pyramid, and still expectorate as a gentleman. Tattle-growing and beef making pay well in Nebraska; and hog raising in connection with it is exceedingly remunerative. Joseph Dellman, of Camden, 0., was driving a nail, when it rebounded, striking him in the eye, and completely destroying the sight. A sensible Newfoundland dog at Rochester, having the rabies, leaped off a cliff head foremost, and rendered himself harmless. Ann Jones, of Providence, R. 1., fell to the floor dead on seeing the undertaker’s hearse drive up for the burial of her infant child. The latest mode de Paris is to have one’s furs trimmed with lace, which is something like having hot plum-pudding with ice-cream sauce. A Wisconsin stroke of lightning ran off a tree and killed thirty-two out of forty-seven sheep, and did not leave a mark on any of them. It has been discovered that the Colorado potato-bug eats weeds, thistles, meadow grass, and, in short, anything vegetable that comes in his way. The Bloomington (Hl.) Pantograph acknowledges the com. It was planted May 28, and in just two months reached a height of 13 feet 7 inches. A Troy man tried- moral "suasion to keep the boys from stealing his cherries, but while he was tenderly talking to one the other four stole his dog. The owner of half a dozen dwelling Ilduses in Detroit begs from door to door, inspired by a desire to pay his taxes and furnish the parlor in satin rep. 1 The trousseau of a young Austrian bride was seized by the New York Custom House officials, a few days since, and confiscated for non-payment of duty. A, Georgia “cracker” was offered $4 per day to labor, when he exclaimed: “ Sir, d’ye s’pose I’d work when I’ve jest discovered a fresh coon track!” One of the Siamese twins was recently summoned to serve on a jury in North Carolina. Chang would not go, and Eng was fined $25 for non-attendance. The last mystery is a phantom train. It makes its regular appearance on one of those Pennsylvania railroads which are mainly devoted to killing people. Philadelphia is strong on brotherly love, but an average of thirty-three marriages a day for the past year indicates something more than brotherly love. Ons. of the complaints filed by Mrs. Patterson, of Ohio, in her suit for di--voree, is that her husband made her eat a quantity of potato-parings and applecores. —; A So great is the demand for Paris green and arsenic, Used to kill caterpillars and cotton worms in the South, that both articles have considerably advanced in price. The proposition of Brigham Young to compromise with No. 17, who wanted more wages or more husband, has been defeated by the interference of her attorneys. Professor Wise declines to take any female with him. She would want to take fourteen satchels and a trunk, and would be growling all the time about her lost band-boxes. The smallest baby exhibited at the San Francisco baby show weighed two pounds and a half. It is nearly two months old, and is to be exhibited through the United States. A REMARKABLE bull-frog, which W&S in the habit of seizing and hopping off . with the voung chickens of a Mrs. Otis Holmes of Taunton, Mass , was lately detected and killed by that lady. The California mines are queer places. A Golden Statereporter heard "the growl of a bear, the howl of a wolf, the voice o£. prayer, the cry of a child, and the clash of bowie knives” from one gulch. The women of Wyoming are in arms, not socially but politically. They propose to nominate one or two ladies as candidates for the Legislature, and support the party which ratifies the nomination. A doctor of Portsmouth, N. H., wants the custom of tolling the bells for funerals discontinued. It has a depressing effect upon the sick, and cannot prove a source of much enjoyment to the departed. ■ " An old lady named Hancock, at Chicopee Falls, Mass., who is suffering with tfater'around her’ heart, has lain on one side for five years, the physicians saying that any change of position would cause death. ‘