Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1874 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

The largest room in the world Is the room for improvement. Sulphur comes from Vesuvius; therefore it is good for eruptions. Carpenters are not particular about their food. They are used to boarding houses. Eight hundred marriageable young ladies, for whom thero is no visible prospective husbands, is what’s the matter with Eastoa.Pa. i. The production of brick in the United Stater in 1870, if laid in a wall one foot thick and ten feet high, would reach a distance of over 2,908 miles. A brother of Nathan K. Hull, of Killingworth, Conn., who was recently killed by a train of cars, has committed suicide from grief by jumping into a well. A Deb Moines genius who loves his ease has l vented an automaton firelighter. He lies in bed, pnlls a string which sets the kindling on Ire, and when he liears the kettle singing he gets up. A Bostonian keeps a large standard dictionary on a slightly-inclined shelf in his parlor, which the children and adults of the family can instantly and easily comult for a definition or a lesson- in spelling. A town in Kentucky has developed a queer specimen of qenu* homo in the form of a facetious dentist, who advertises that he will pull teeth “ without pain to the operator, and with very little to die bystanders. The Columbus (Ga.) Enquirer says: “ We are going to quit <he newspaper business; it doesn’t pay to ran a paper in a town where business men read almanacs and pick their teeth with the tail of a herring.” On the average of the last six yean the loss of life in English coal mines, by explosion and other accidents, ammints to one death for every 100,01)0 tons of coal, not to mention injuries of a more or less serious character. The Boston Common Council has voted that the 4th of .Jcily shall be celebrated at an expense to the city not exceeding $25,000, while SBOO has got to answer for June 17, the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill. Thirteen years ago John Kendall, of Alabama, culled Arthur Spooner a liar. Spooner reflected, got mad, and the other day decided to shoot Kendall for the insult, and did shoot him; and now bis honor shines like a new tin pan off a gatepost. While Prof. Watson has been fooling away fifteen years of his life in the study of astronomy, a very common fellow in Delaware has discovered that a turnip tied to a string and hung to a hook will S revent rheumatism from entering the ouse. There must be a demand for sawdust in Gardner, Me. A local paper says that the sawmills in that city make from fifty to seventy.flve cords of sawdust per day, which sells readily for abont as high a price as though it were in solid long lumber. ± A Baltimore paper tried to say something about “ Churches and Skeptics,” and the writer of the article pleaded piteously for some one to put him out of his misery when he saw his pions editorial appear under thh head “Crutches and Sheeptics.” At Quccbee, Vt., the farmers were plowing in January, and on May day had the pleasure of seeing a foot of snow on their fields. Some of the hill roads were rendered impassable by snow-drifts. The birds were starving, and many robins were found dead. Lccy C. Donegan, of Dubuque, lowa, has sued Frank 8. May for SIO,OOO damages. May bad the small pox, and hung some of tqe clothes he had worn upon a fence near plaintiffs house, whereby the woman ana two of her children were infected with the disease. Many Cuban sugar-planters are emP grating to Southern Texas, glad to exchange the comparatively quiet condition of affairs in that State for the existing troubles at home. The country between the Sabine and the Rio Grande is well adapted to the sugar cane. “A man in a Pennsylvania lunatic asylum,” says an exchange, *'imagines himsell a woman, and for that reason parts his hair in the middle.” Beveral young men outside of the lunatic asylum part their hair in the middle because, it is supposed, they have no reason. North Hadley, Mass., is disturbed by foul water iD its wells, and an old astrologer, well known in that vicinity, has traced, with his mysterious rod, a sub'erranean stream from the cemetery, a few rods distant, to the welt at the parsonage and to others along the street which contain foul water. The preparations of the United Btates for observing the coming transit of Venus are very nearly completed. Eight') parties are to be sent out from this country. One will go to Siberia; another to Central Asia; a third to Nagasaki, in Japan; a fourth to Pekin .China; m d the rest will go to the Southern seas by the sloop-of-war Swntara, which is n»w being fitted up'with all necessary appliances for tbat purpose. The Syracuse (N. V.) police authorities are dealing severely with those little boys who, in their anxiety lor fun. play such games as “ slump the leader” and *• follow jhe leader.” The games themselves are harmless when properly played, but the Syracuse youths, in following their leader, r.>ull down fences, tear the roofs off houses, trip pedestrians, etc., which is carrying the game too tar. —There were 14,087 births in Connecticut in 1873, a gain of 282 over the previous year, and ot 43 12 percent over 1803; the marriages numbered 4.841, 189 less than in 1872, and the deaths 9,822,148 less than in 1872. A noticeable fact in the record of births Is, that Bridgeport, which has little more than half the population of Hartford, reports 1,082 against 939 in tne latter city. A young lady of respectable parentafp, living near Carlisle, Ind., mane a fortunate escape from a fickle marriage recently. She was engaged to be man led to a young man, ana every preparation was being made for the wedding. The day previous to the day set for the occasion he called with a buggy and they took a long, pleasant ride, ana ne left, making arrangements to take her with him to Virginia immediately after the ceremony At the appointed hour the expectant bride waa dressed, the minister and friends were present, and the feast fully prepared, but the young man never came or sent any word, and when the train came along he stepped on board and left without explanations.