Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1874 — Page 2

THE HEMttUar UNION. Thursday, April 46. 1674.

Present Grant has vetoed‘the hill for inflation <jf the currency. The Toledo Blade advocates the enlargement of the Wabash -etfr.al and its extension to St Louts. In a Hat 0f265 Middle, Southern, Western and Pacific States newspapers, collected by the Inter Ocean, 211 favor expansion oftbe currency and only 48 oppose it. The Baxters are proving paradoxically troublesome this season. Baxter’s Bill worries anti-temp-erance people of Indiana, while Rltslia Baxter troubles Arkansas Brooks. The Lowell Star says that Lake county “is fast ripening into a condition to put- down all cliques and money-leeches, and purity the political atmosphere.” That is encouraging, surely. The White county Republican convention is to be held on the second day of May, and the Grangers arc busy laying their plans to capture it and their prospect of success is almost certain. The Logansport Journal says all persons having business in our Circuit Court speak highly of Judge Hammond, who has occupied the Bench here frequently, while the docket tvas being cleared -qf- cases in which Judge Chase was interested as attorney, “Dick” Dodd, the ihan who led the famous Butternut raid in the 1 \ alley of the Iroquois, and was ' himself taken prisoner in Rensselaer by a gallant band of Home Guards ! during the eventful summer —of | 1363, was recently elected Mayor of Fon duLae, Wisconsin. Mr. Andrew Hall, clerk of New- i ton county, says: “If this district ! changes its Congressman, it will probably be worse represented than it now is.” And Andy’s neighbors tell that he aspires to succeed Mr. Packard. The selfabasement of that man is quite beautiful. A company has applied to the New York Legislature for articles of incorporation, which lias for its object the burning of the bodies of the dead. Singular, people are so impatient! Why can’t they leave the duties of another life to those appointed to discharge them? The Laporte Argus, a Democratic paper published at Laporte, thinks from the present outlook that Maj. Calkins has the best chances lor-the- Republican —Con-" gressional nomination; still as on two previous occasions thel Argus is doing its level best to secure that honor for Mr. Packard. However there is not ranch danger of such an accident, as salary-grabbers are not very popular just now. The South Bend Register “authoritatively” states that General Packard is not a candidate for renomination to Congress. But very considerately, however, the General “cannot and will not absolutely refuse,” notwithstanding he thinks “no man with a' proper sense ol selfrespect, will voluntarily place himself a second time in a position where, having mistaken the sentiments of the people in a matter in which he followed his convictions of right, he is to 1 e pilloried in the rogues’gallery and denounced as a thief and a scoundrel.’' Among the gentlemen who are reported as having aspirations to a seat in Congress from this district are our own admired Slate Senator lion. R. S. Dwiggins, and Newtou county’s clerk and model letterwriter, Mr. Andrew Hall. Perhaps it would be well enough for them to adopt the advice contained in II Samuel, 10th chapter and sth verse. Many think themselves called hut few are chosen. However, either might be an improvement on the present incumbent; and that is no-flattery. • At a meeting ol the Prairie Farmers’ Union Central Association of Patrons of.llnsbandry at Francesville on the 4th instant, they unani toously adopted resolutions pledging themselves not to support for office of whatever kind any man who-wilt attempt to influence his election by means of intoxicating liquor; nor any man who is an habitual drinker or who is known to get intoxicated though it be only occasionally; not to purchase intoxicating drinks for any one, nor to aecept a drink purchased by another for political influence; and also to use their influence to secure the nomination and election of farmer « alone for all local offices.— How does that last clause sound to thk arifirage Htope-box politician?

Judge Hammond's decisions on | the liquor cases, tried before him in the Pulaski circuit court, arel being favorably commented upon j by the temperance press through 1 out the State. Judge Hammond is, rapidly moving to the front rank of Indiana jurists. \ The Winnnvac Republican —lion. Jacob Reiser’s paper—thinks Mr. j Packard could hot be elected to' Congress again from this district, even if the Republican party was so indiscreet as to nominate him; and that it would not be worse represented by any man the Democrats could elect. The second number of the Fran-, cesvillc Home Banner is an improvement on the first issue. Perseverance and capital in connection with i Brother Mattingly’s native talent ; will make a good paper of it—but, ; (in a whisper) doii’t let your press- j man thin Ids ink with coal-oil, and make the devil wash his roller. I —mm It has been remarked that the | more machinery a nation has in . | operation, the more fully and profit- i i ab!y r is its labor employed, the , more rapid its materia] progress, i and the more developed its civiliza- ! lion. What is true in regard to a j nation is no less true of its integral ; parts, Stales and Counties, therefore encouragement should be extended to all manufacturing interests; not; to the detriment of any other -interest, of course* but in order to more perfectly build up and more fully develop ail other interests as well. Wherever factories exist, workmen must be employed, and wherever there are workmen there f will be mouths to feed and bodies 1 to clothe and to shelter, hence in that place will be a market for the produce of farmers, for the labor of other mechanics, for the coin- j merce of tradesmen, and -for the , skill of the professions. Take good, thick paper, cut three cornered, and double it in the shade of a funnel; fill with dirt and plant a seed in each one —a cabbage, tomato, or flower seed, or whatever else you want to start early—bury it in a box filled with earth. The seed will soon germinate. When the plants are ready to remove, lift the papers out and plant it like roots. The papers will soon rot and the young plants will never wilt. In case of plants that are liable to be attacked by cut-worms, let the paper funnel ex- ! tend about an inch above its filling of soil and when it is planted out let it remain about that bight above the earth, and it will afford a perfect shield against uut-wpnns until--the plants are so large or the season -striate they cease txr"trouble.

INFORMATION WANTED.

The Indianapolis Sunday Ilerold , is a spicy, readable paper, possessing a full average amount' of information upon, ordinary secular topics, but its religio-political edu- ! cation is somewhat deficent. Still j it is not in the least bigoted nor is it conceited, but it evinces a d.cMre for information iqron this topic that is truly laudable and which should be gratified. Here is what it wants to know, and there is no doubt eni lightenment would be gladly receiv(ed from whatsoever source, .ho niatter how humble, providing. it j was connected with a reasonable ! degree of intelligence: ! “We should be pleased to have I gome intelligent advocate of God iin the Constitution expiaii} the J object of the movement whether ! it is simply prompted by an earnest : desire to see that the Creator is I treated with due consideration at the hands of his creatures, or whether it is an entering wedge designed to make this a “Christian government” with power to punish | infidelity after the good old fashion. !If it is simply an expression of good will to God, then we should prefer to hear from him directly before taking action.”

AN EXCUSE FOR OFFICAL DISHONESTY.

Says the Republic , a monthly publication at Washington Ciiy, devoted to the task of apologizing for the shortcomings of the Administration and of ail Republican officials detected in transaction of questionable nature: “It is very sad to think that, with the great profession of virtue on the lips of private citizens and their professed bad opinion of Government officials so many of them should resort to all manner of dishonest tricks to evade taxation, and thns*set bad examples for Government officers to follow.” r So saddening are the effects of rice that it is said even angels weep

! because mortals are so sinful in i thir beautiful:world of ours. But practices arc when j found among people in the private walks of*life, bow much more to bo , regreted are the evil tvays of those who have been elevated above ! their fellows and'idected to import- | ant positions in the Government.— l And what shocking depravity do | such person's exhibit when they hunt among the more vicious elements of society for examples to serve as an apology for their own corrupt practices. When men are elected to office it is a presumption of their constituents that they are possessed of the requisite qualifications—moral, intellectual and educational—to perform the duties of that office honestly and efficiently; if they fail, either from j lack of ability, or because they arc ; dishonest, they should be replaced | .by others who can and will do well. | No greater insult could be offered the people than to turn round as tlie | Republic does when they complain of official corruption] and excuse or palliate it by answering that some who are not in office arc just as bad as tliose complained about. — To be sure there are dishonest men out of office, but that is no reason j why other dishonest ones should be kept in office. Nobody proposes to take convicts from penal institutions and put them into positions of trust, even though strict justice might consign some now in official position to cells in a penitentiary.

ON DANCING AS A SIN.

Rev. W. 11. Mickle lives at Ron.dout, and is a crusader. The objective subject of his attack is not the infidel Moslems who overrun the Iloly Land; nor the weak old man at Rome; nor the whiskey traffic that gallops the youth and talent of America to perdition; nor yet the social evil, which, like a sepulchre is full of foul corruption; no, it is neither of these, for they each have multitudes to oppose them from every coign of vantage, but the thunders of this reverend gentleman’s'field batteries are directed against a deadlier, subtler, more insinuating and dangerous sin—that of dancing—which leads captive llic young and unsophisticated of the land. In this age of intelligence is it not strange that prommineut journals should be found with peiceptive faculties so dimmed as to be oblivious to the ravages of this evening destroyer of youth, beauty and innocence? Alas!it is so, and even that influential paper at Chicago which fashionably parts its name in the middle lends its stalwart power to flpfend wickeds ness. Just read how the luter-Ocean -scoffs at the -holy.- labors —of Rev. Mr. Mickle to reclaim votaries at the shrine of Terpsichore fiom their evil ways, and then groan at the heathen darkfiess in which some of the prominent journals of theTiiiicteenth century still grope: “Did the Rev. Mr. Mickle ever hear of a flirtation being opened with prayer, and it there were no flirtations, even among the clergy, where would the ministerial calling go to? Does he ever remember to have heard his respected mother offer up a prayer before cutting off the neck of a chicken, or commencing to darn a pair of his reverend stockings? Is it usual to offer up prayer before entering upon the mystic rites of candy pulling, or the equally festive games of baseball and leap-frog? And because it is not usual, is the reverend gentleman going to abolish all youthJalsport—and healthful exercise, and the elasticity of heart which conies, alas, but once?» Men like Rev. Mr. Mickle would turn the world into a huge groaning house, where even laughter would be a sin, and merriment the voice of the devil. VVe have known more celebrated divines by far than the Rev. Mr. Mickle, men whose piety was as sincere as their labors were efficacious, who not only encouraged dancing and reasonable frolic among the young folks, but (raonstrum borreiiduni!) had a dancing party occasionally at their own houses. Everything in its place, Mr. Mickle! There is a time to laugh, and a time to cry; a time to dance, and ar time to S.eek commun--ion with the Almighty. When God gave to His creatures the gifts of youth, and health and beauty, he meant them to be happy, according to the natural instincts of a buoyant spirit; not to assume a gravity becoming the shadows of the evening, which, in the s*un. shine of mirth and joy, they can not feel. The next meeting of the Northern Indiana Editorial Association will be held at Laporte, on the first day of Jugs.

INDIANA GOSSIP.

A great deal of sickness is reported in Porter county. It is a slim prospect for a wheat crop they have in Lake county. The Kentland Gazette favors the construction of a gravel road from that place to Morocco. A couple of men are talking of commencing the manufacture of patent beehives at Winamac. Caryoll county ’estimates' there are about four hundred voting Grangers within her borders. “HanncraHn” thinks Winamac needs a board of trustees with a little backbone and enterprise. A lady in the southern part of Porter county is preparing to raise 2,000 chickens this season. Ten new graves have been mado in the Crown Point Cemetery in eight weeks, and it is not considered a very sickly season either. The snowfall of this region during the past winter is estimated at about five feet. That of the winter before was nearly twice as ranch. On the 20th day of May the semi-annual communication of the Grand Lodge of I. O. O. F. of Indiana, will convene at Ind* ' ianapolis. Mr. F. Alkire, of Brookston, has I nine four years old steers which average 1,812 pounds apiece. The heaviest one pulls down the beam ! at 2,090. They are one-fourth Durham stock.

The Odd Fellows are making great preparations for the celebraof the 55th anniversary of their Order, in several localities in Indiana. The anniversary occurs next Monday. Hon. P. M. Kent’s dwelling at. Brookston was baVnt on the night of the lltli. Loss estimated at $16,000; insured for sll,lOO. Burning soot from the chimney fell on the roof and ( started it. About four hundred shade treps have been planted in the Carroll county fair grounds this season. — There is lots of room in the fair ground of Jasper county tor like improvement and ornamentation. Temperance meetings are being held with most encouraging results at Elkhart, Delphi, Monticello and other towns in the State hitherto notorious for the inebriety of many : of their prominent citizens, Pulaski eoanty with a - staunch old reliable .Democratic majority of about 400 reaches to the front with current expenditures during the last year, exclusive of the last term of court, amounting to $29,000. ■ r David Hickman, Silas Hughes and George Cutler, recently arrested in White county charged with counterfeiting nickel coin, have their trial se't for the 9th day of May, in the United States Circuit Court at Indianapolis. Some person tired inloJ.be rear ear of the westward bound express train as it was passing Crooked Creek, White county, last, Thurseav night, and severely wounded, in the back of his head Mr. Heckatliorn, of Mdnt'fcdlo, who was a passenger thereon. Owners of submerged lands bordering on the Calumet river and it 3 tributaries in Lake and Porter counties now have reason to rejoice. The dam across that sluggish stream in Illinois has been removed by order of the Legislature of that State. It has taken about fifteen years of constant fighting to accomplish this end.

South-Eastern Kansas-

A private letter from Crawford County, Kausas, dated April 13th, 1874, says: “Spring still continues wet, frosty and backward. Slock feed is gone with most cattle keepers, and no grass yet. Thousands of cattle die. It is not a paying investment to borrow money in the fall because cattle are cheap and times hard, buy stock, buy leeu keep it? on, and in the spring Bell their hides. “Corn is 75 cents a bushel, oats 40 cents, prairie hay 88 to 810 a ton, cattle are tvorth $1.75 to s'i. per cwt., and hogs $1 per cwt. live. ‘®We made garden some time ago for hardy seeds and vegetables.— Peas, onions and the like grow some, but we have ventured no tender vegetables. Appearances are now favorable,, aqd this weelt we may be able to plant more. “Peach buds have started some, but none are in bloom yet. All kinds of fruit looks well. Wheat and rye w’ere more injured by the frosts of the past two weeks than Ofiring the whole winter, still the prospect is good for more than an average crop. Some, oats have rotted" in the ground ifi recent heavy rains.

“Last week a vote was polled Against issuing bonds to the amount of $52,000 for the Crawford county Court House. School districts vote tftXes in every direction for school., purposes. “The antagonism of land title j has in it a drawback unfavorable, and the population of this county is diminishing; the exodus hailing ‘ for Oregon, Missouri or Texas, and |in proportion to the first or last ' named States, more going to Ore- ' gon. Some return even from there.”

The Wheat Crop.

'The department of Agriculture at Washington has received very full information concerning the appearance of wheat throughout the country. The returns cover a large proportion of the winter wheat area in each State. The winter has been extremely favorable in all sections. No previous season has been more generally so since the inauguration of the crop j reports, In the south, very few exceptions to the general vigor and even luxuriance of the growth have appeared. In the Gulf coast region, winter pasturing of wheat fields has been practiced to the advantage of crops. In New York and Pennsyl- | vania, the weather since the mid- , die of March has been unfavorable on account of sudden changes in the temperature and cold winds, to the injury of wheat on clay and undrained lands. In Ontario, Niagara, Livingstone and Genessee —four counties which produce onethird ot the winter wheat of New York—average expectations are entertained, though some injury from freezing and thawing on low ground is reported The promise isremarkable in Pennsyl v ania, n inetentES oF the counties making favorable returns, and many of them very flattering. Fully three-fourths of the counties of the Ohio Valley report either average or superior condition. Mississippi, Missouri, and Kansas have still fewer unpromising representations. There are reports from the northwest which are more favorable than usual. The prospect in California is very promising, though complaints of injury from an unusual cause—wet weather —come from several counties. The Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture | reports a promise of 40,000,000 bushels in the State.

Louls Agassiz.

No sounder piece ot manhood was put together in this century. It was a orreat nature, affluent, genial, overflowing with sympathy, absolutely unselfish, artless and fresh as a child’s with a poetic warmth and tenderness and richness that suggested Burns, while the steadiness, the manly energy, the simple uprightness, the goodness, were all Scott. Jlow welcome lie always was, and everywhere! How he loved children, and how they loved him! How sympathetic andvippreciative of all other talent and aspiiation! It was this sense of goodness which impressed and and charmed all who met him, and with which he warmed and dre,w his public audiences. Somehow it was transmitted beyond his personal circle, and everybody had a pride in him and a love for him. He was one of the men in whom we all see our own capacities and possibilities “writ large”— a high-water mark of human nature. The great impression that lie made upon the country is more remark' able because there are so few persons Who are capable of really estimating just what he did, or who could follow him in his scientific explanations. In this he was very different from a man who tells a story or writes a poem that everybody can enjoy. But we all felt that, if we could not understand him, he was working for us all the time; and whenever, during that life-long labor, he looked up with a smile, those who saw. in it the sweetness of that noble, manly soul, felt it to be a benediction. He was one of those over whom, when dead, we do not say, Nil niti bonum, Sor when he was among us and living and loving, nothing else could be said Magazine.

The People Moving

The Valparaiso Yidette is glad to note evefy evidence that the people are moving in the matter of their own political action, and hopes the. Grange influence in this State will be wisely used to benefit all classes ! of people. “We have no donbt there will be an effort on the part of mere poliiiciaris to capture this large body of voters; but we have faith in the intelligence of the Order of ! Patroiis, and do not think they j will be led by any gang of politi- | cians. On the contrary, we predicthat all political wire-workers will .be captured by this Grange move- • ment and discharged on parole.”

FLORICULTURE.- THE DIANTHUS.

An eminent florist says of the dianthus that it is “a splendid genus of'the most beautiful perennials grown.” As it blooms the | first year from seed, it is usually classed among annuals in the catalogues. In this family of plants are the sweet-william (dianthus barbatus),fhe carnation and picotee (dianthus coryophyllm), and the blue foliaged, fragrant garden pink or| dianthus hortensis. It is the object of this article to treat more espe-, cially of dianthus Chinensis or the Chinese pink, including dianthus Heddewigii and lacinatus comparatively recent introductions from the islands of Japan. Should any reader imagine these italicised

words difficult to pronounce, and on that account skip them, let him now go back, study them carefully, and learn to master that much botanical Latin. The dianthus is recommended to nmatenrs and beginners in floriculture because it is easy to grow, perfectly hardy, and a splendid, brilliant flower. Inbeauty it ranks next the rose and the lilly, while its fragrance is unsurpassed by either. The colors of the dianthus are the richest that can be imagined, without being eaudy. The blendings, stripir.gs, markings and contrasts of color in these flowers are the most delicate, the most effective, and the most exquisitely perfect in nature ; nothing in art compares with them. Dianthus is a Greek name, meaning Jove’s own flower. Botanists call the family of which it is a member, the Carynphyllacce-, which Gray describes as “Bland herbs, with opposite and entire leaves, regular flowers with not over ten stamens, a commonly one-eellod ovary with the ovules rising from the bottom of the cell on a central column, and with two to five stiles or sessile stigmas, mostly separate to the base. Seeds with a slender embryo on the outside of a mealy albumen, and usually curved into a ring around it. Calyx persistent. Divides into two great divisions or suborders, viz. the true Pink Family and the Chickweed Family.” The dianthus belongs to the first named family, which is thus further described by the same author: “Sepals (five) united below into* a tube or cup. Petals with slender claws which are enclosed in the calyx-tube, and commonly raised within it, with the ten stamens, on a sort of stalk, olten with.a cleft scale or crown at the junction of the blade and daw. Pod mostly opening at the top, many seeded.” But one variety-of this family has been found growing wild in the United States, and it is a small-flowered, insignificant plant, supposed to have deteriorated from the Depford pink of Europe. The cut at the hea’d of this article was furnished through the kindness of Mr. James Vick, the famous Rochester, N. Y., seidsman arnTflorist, and is an accurate representation in black of a single flower and also of a plant of the double Chinese pink, or dianthus laciniatus Jtore ple.no. It grows from six inches to fifteen inches in hight, produces flowers from July until after hard frosts in the fall, which are very large, sometimes being more than three inches in diameter, and of many combinations or markings of the different shades of red with white and black. Seed :nay be sown now out doors in any good garden soil, but a mh\ture of about equal parts sand and prairie loam is best. In the fall after the ground freezes throw over the bed a thin scattering of leaves, straw or coarse manure —not too deep, however—which may be raked off late in April. Seed sown late in the spring, or early in the fall, will produce strong young plants lor the second season's blooming Plants may also be obtained by dividing roots, and by layering. The dianthus is'a good house plan t, if not kept too warm.

Ups fSaperl! pplf WALL PAPER For the million at KJIJII T KAXIUL’S DllfC STOKE. Two Thousand Bolts of Wall Paper of ull Grades and Shades, from the Cheapest Brown to the Finest Satins, at Prices l»eniarkably Low for Cush. Wo DOW SHAOi Sos all kinds, Including Paper, Cloth and Uollund. Fixture* to Hang:, Complete. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. musical Inssruincnts nitty be had Ht CASH PKICKS. A good Violin for $5. A Guitar for *3 to *lO. Flutes 60 cents to *ls. A vurit tyof VIOLINS, GUITARS, FLUTES. FLAGEOLETS, HARPS, FIFES, PICCOLOS, VIOLIN BOWS, VIOLIN BRIDGES, VIOLIN ROSIN, Violin keys, VIOLIN AND GUITAR STRINGS Of nil Grades and Prices. SECF-INSTICFCTOKS for Violin, Guitar and Fiute—the very Latest editions on Hand. FANCY GOODS AND NOTIONS. Picture Nails, Picture Cord and Tassels, CHROMOS nice and cheap, all the material s for making WaX FLOWERS, a lull line of Artist’s Material, Tube Runts and suitable Brushes for such Work. My stock of LADIES’ AND ' GENTS’ POCKET-BOOKS, PORTMONAIES AND PURSES is full, and I think the most complete ever offeree for sale in Rensselaer. I also have at very large assortment of HAIR BRUSHES, QLOTH BRUSHES, RUBBER COMBS’, IVORY COMBS, 5 * TOILET SOAPS, POWDERS, POMADES, HAIR OILS, V FINE HANDKERCHIEF EXTRACTS , AND PERFUMERY Which is now complete, and full of the VERY BEST and FRESHEST GOODS just brought lrom Chicago. Are You Going to PAINT? ** ■ " . . \ : r> ■ . Having investigated the many and various hindts of paint in use, we are satisfied the AVERILL CHEMICAL is the best, and cheerfully recommend it to our friends and the pubis*, for general use. Sample cards of shades and prices furnished free of charge, at EMMET K A NNA L S DRUG STORE, where a full stack of this Paint is kept for sale. He also handles a large slock of LE AD and OIL. White Lead in 25- R cans or kegs, and in I2>£, 5,3.2 and l -pound cans. Red Lead Dry, Chrome Green and 'Cal'I abtf 'learn prices before purchasing yoUr bill of Painta, at EMMET KANNAL’S DRFG'SSPORd. WneWnfte* Street, aeuth es McCoy dt Thompaon'a Bank.