Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1874 — CURRENT ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

CURRENT ITEMS.

A Bt. Louis cat bit a boy and he is mad —the boy is. Brack satin fans trimmed with white lace are something new. A foolish lady sent a bride a white satin pen-wiper as a gift. Reading, Pa., is catching dogs and measles with equal alacrity. Gray hairs seem like the light of a soft moon, silvering over the evening of life. Stiff, straight hair and beard indicate a coarse, strong, rigid, straightforward character. Don Piatt says: “ Humor is to a newspaper what a tail is to a kite—very absurd, but very necessary to its ascension.” . Washington Territory is agitated by the Oriental magnificence of “ the first brick residence” ever erected within its boundaries. Henry Ward Beecher says collecting autographs is an alarming literary intemperance, for which the only remedy is total abstinence. The legislator who wanted to make kissing a misdemeanor probably never had the pleasure of seeing a miss demean herself under the operation. IF women would study housekeeping as their husbands study law, medicine and book-keeping, there would be less complaint of bad servants. It is said that the essential oil in onions is so powerful that if a man were to die shortly after eating one his brain would exhale the odor of the vegetable. Mrs. Seha Spicer, of Tipton, Mo., aged seventy-eight, recently employed a mason to repair her chimney, and herself carried all the mortar and brick up a ladder. The English sparrows which were introduced into Albany five or six years ago have become so numerous and annoying that they are pronounced to be an unmitigated nuisanv. Poughkeepsie, N. Y., has a stoneyard, and requires each tramp soliciting alms to earn his food and lodging by breaking stone. Applications for charity have fallen off. A fish-farmer in Illinois gets seventyfive cents per pound for his trout; thus a small string offish will bring as much as a sheep, and they require neither grain, hay nor stabling. The snow-fence on the Kansas Pacific is being taken down for the purpose of saving it from the fire which passes over the prairies every summer. It will be replaced in the fall, as usual. Peter Baker, of Indianapolis, is about discouraged trying to raise a nose. It has been broken four times, and he has about concluded to pack it away in tissue paper for the balance of the year. In San Francisco, Judge Louderbach has just fined a man S6O for insulting an editor. This goes to show that however loud you may talk to a California journalist ho can always talk louder back. A Fort Dodge (Iowa) man lived in this world of sin and deceit sixty long years before he found out that a stranger on a railway train, borrowing on the security of a bogus check for an immense amount, is a snare, a delusion, a fraud. He will never see his SBO or the gentleman he loaned it to again. A Detroit gentleman prides himself on his fine fowls, and his neighbor is equally vain of a fine coach dog. The dog worries the life out of the chickens. A lew days ago the owner of the dog received the following note: “Friend— You keep dogs. I keep chickens. If my chickens worry your dogs, shoot ’em." When fuel is burned in an open fireplace at least seven-eighths of the actual or potential heat passes up the chimney unused; about one-half being carried oft with the smoke, and one-fourth with the current which flows in between the man-tel-piece and the fire, while the remaining loss is represented by the unburned carbonaceous matter in the smoke. A man about thirty-five years old died recently in Kentucky who, since the termination of the war, has been making tri-weekly pilgrimages between two churches ten miles apart, always making the journey on foot, fasting with great severity, and keeping silence during the whole of his long walk. He would never disclose whether the penance was selfimposed or what it was performed for. A little girl who fell off Long Bridge and nearly drowned was rescued by a young man. It is condoling to think that as the child is only five years of age the usual denouement may be averted, but we advise the young man to emigrate, or she will go for him as soon as she is old enough, and girls do grow so fast in this country.— San Francisco News Letter. Harby 11. Baugh, of Quebec, fourteen years old, fell desperately in love with a little performer in a variety show several months ago, and ever since has been following it about, though the girl won’t pay any attention to him. He is quite penniless, and has begged his way about the country, but finally brings up at Taunton, Mass., where he has been handed over to the Board of State Charities. A Kentucky Grange has had its little romance. Recently a young brother and sister of the Order walked to the front of the Master and were united in marriage. The entire audience were taken by surprise, having had no intimation that there was to be a wedding. Soft eyes began to dart love glances around the Grange, and diffident bachelors exclaimed that the new Order exceeded their most sanguine expectations, in providing lifepartners for the faint-hearted. A Washington man proposes that a suitable-sized, cannon be kept at- all dangerous river reservoirs or dams, to give instant and general warning of breakage, by which, as in the recent calamity in Massachusetts, many lives and much property might be saved. The trouble, says an exchange, is that when the moment came for the cannon to be exploded it would be found to be loaded with black sand, duly certified to sb the best powder by a County Commissioner. A recent letter from Sargent, Kan.; to the Topeka Commonwealth contains the following: “ Large numbers of wild horses abound on the rivers. They are of all sizes and colors, and are the wildest of all wild animals. They nsually roam in bands of from six to twenty, and will run at sight of a man two miles away. A great many domesticated horses, as well as mules, Which have strayed away from their owners have taken up with the wild ones. After running with them for awhile they become as wild as their untamed companibns. Various methods have been adopted to catch them, but have generally proved fruitless. A scrub

by colt or a broken-down mule is, as a general thing, the only reward for all the time and labor. Settlers on the frontier woulifhail their speedy extinction as a blessing, for when domestic animals get with them their recovery is simply out of the question. ” A marriage was recently solemnized by telegraph, and now the news of a wedding ceremony performed in a barnyard comes from New Hampshire. A young lady living at Flatbrookville, in that State, fell in love with one of her neighbors, a young man, and he reciprocated the passion. Desiring to get married, they notified the ’Squiro, and he consented to “ splice” them. Shortly after he arrival of the ’Squire the mother of the expectant bride, who had been absent from home, returned and discovered the situation. She objected with a piece ol board, and proceeded to belabor the parties concerned. The groom went one way, the ’Sqpire escaped in another direction, and the blushing bride fled to the garret. Later in the day the lovers were seen together, and the result of the stolen interview was that early the next morning they presented themselves before the ’Squire in his barn-yard. He asked them to go to the house, but they declined, stating that the bride’s mother was on the war-path and in hot pursuit of the flying pair. Without further delay the twain were made one, the only witnesses to the ceremony being the wondering cattle that surrounded them, silently chewing their cuds.