Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1874 — BREVITIES. [ARTICLE]

BREVITIES.

Ax unsatisfactory meal— A domestic broil. Sometimes coal does not burn as well of an evening, because it’s slate. The habit of keeping still under provocation at length makes one almost tireproof. . -* j Bashfulness is often like the plating on spoons —when it wears ofl? it shows the brass. The plainest woman alive, if she reaches the age of eighty, will be a pretty old one. Cincinnati claims to have the best hotel cook in the world. He gets up frog suppers out of mutton. If brooks are, as poets call them, the most joyous things in nature, what are they always murmuring about? ifoDEL wives formerly took a stitch in time; now, with the aid of sewing machines, they take one in no time. Those Detroit ladies who bleached their hair to a blonde are bleaching it back again. Fashion is a fickle jade. It is economy to purchase the best black silk. The cheap materials are never worth retaining a second season. The labor of the body relieves us from the fatigues of the mind, and this it is which forms the happiness of the poor. A house in St. Joseph, Mo., is haunted by a ghost, which appears to tenants who don’t pay up promptly, but never to those who do. Some of the students at Eastern colleges can board themselves for thirtyfive cents per week, but they don’t feel like tearing around much. Louisville wants an ordinance to prevent her citizens from throwing quids of tobacco in the street. One quid will ofteqjimes blockade a street. A San Francisco policeman who was living at the rate of SIO,OOO a year was found to be in receipt of $75 a day for winking at Chinese gambling. The man wdio has not had anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors is like a potato plant—the only good be-, longing to him is under ground. “ Do you get whipped at school now?” asked a mother of a young hopeful who had recently changed his place of instruction. “ No, mother, I have a better teacher and I’m a better boy.” Dresses are made to fit the figure “like a glove,” and the great majority of New York fashionable women have discarded corsets in order to bring about the “ eternal fitness of things!” A lamp-chimney may be made almost indestructible by putting it over the fire in a vessel of cold water and letting it remain until the water boils. It will be found that boiling toughens in this case. Recreation is not idleness. It is absolutely necessary at times that a man should get out of the routine grooves of w r ork, that lie may grow mentally and physically and become nearer perfection. Lancaster County, Pa., has an old lady w j ho recently*refused the gift of a load of wood from a tree struck by lightning, through fear that some of the “fluid” might remain in the wood and cause disaster to her stove. A Brooklyn woman sues her husband for divorce, one of his. trifling offenses being the entering of the room in w r hich she was sleeping with a lighted Candle in his hand which he held in , a position so that a drop, of melted tallow r fell into : her eye’! An extraordinary large turnip was dug in a garden at Salt Lake the other day, which, on being cut open, disclosed a large-sized frog, well and hearty, which tumbled out and hopped off just as if he was not the creature of a wonderful phenomenon. There’s nothing like adjectives. In Philadelphia the “ crisp chestnut is crowding the popular peanut out *of the market.” Here, the pulpy but presently putrid paw-paw is giving w r ay to the pungent and pleasantly puckery persimmon. — St. Louis Journal. A calculating machine on two legs,

and with a black skin, who can mentally add, subtract and multiply large numbers, is a Memphis curiosity. The negro cannot explain how he does it, neither can he perform the operations with a pen. Third Assistant Postmastek-Gen. Bajuikk, who has given the subject much -attention, expresses the belief that the Government is annually defrauded out of $1,000,000, or 5 per cent, of the amount of stamps sold, by the use of washed postal stamps. As a river boat was loading at a landing on the Mississippi River a large gray mule refused to go on board. The mate sung out to a deck-hand: “ Twist his • tail and he’ll come.” Like Casabianca, that deck-hand obeyed orders, and, like Casabianca, lie nobly died. A farmer in Oregon has had a field of sixty acres of grain eaten by rabbits, and all of his other fields have suffered, although to a less extent, from their depredations. Hundreds are shot every day, but hundreds more come out from the sage brush and take their places. A pretended clergyman swindled the Norwich line of boats by getting a commission of S3OO on a contract for transporting 600 members of the Episcopal Convention from New York to Boston, and then tried the same unsuccessfully upon the Btonington line. He is still at large. <? Tiie Superior Court, Portland, Me., recently ruled that -.they right to recover for a sum, due on account for a load of coal depended upon observance of the statute, which provides that unless otherwise agreed the coal shall be weighed by a sworn weigher, if it is not sold by the cargo. Game in Colorado is abundant. Buffalo, elk and antelope roam over the plains to the eastward, while bears, both of the cinnamon and grizzly, species, mountain sheep, and black-tail deer reward me mountain hunter; many of thd smaller*streams are well stocked with fish. White snipe, geese, duck and plover are numerous. Fuss kills more than fever. The paupers of the New York alms-houses, though entering at an advanced, age, average twenty years of easy life thereafter. All from being free from worry, fret, trouble, anxiety, disappointment and botheration generally. Such obstinacy on the part of poor-house inmates is very provoking to the tax-payers. An exchange gets off the following on delinquent subscribers: “ Looking over an old ledger we see a long array of names of former subscribers who are indebted to us. Some of them have mdved away and are lost to sight although to memory dear. Others are carrying the contribution-boxes in our most respectable churches, and others again have died and are ahgels in heaven; but they ow *» us just the same.

Something Better , than ShortCakeL— -Make nice, light, white gems by mixing flour and milk nearly as soft as for griddle-cakes, and baking quickly in hot gem-pans. Break, not cut, them open and lay in a deep platter and pour over strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, peaches (or even nice stewed apples), mixed with sugar and a little rich cream if you have it. Ten times better than any pastry or short-cake, and you get rid of soda or baking powder and shortening. —Laws of Life. In going out with the crowd at the close of a performance in the theater in Wheeling, W. Va., recently, Mr. John Dunlap, a book-keeper at the Register office, was jostled about by a gentleman with whom he was unacquainted. Mr. Dunlap carried . his overcoat upon his left arm and it was against this arm that the stranger had been pushed by the crowd. As they passed out John noticed that the watch-chain of the strange gentleman was broken and hung from his vest. Upon arriving home he hung his overcoat up and had no occasion to use it again until two days afterward. Then, upon taking it down, he was astonished to find hanging from a button a silver w r atcli to which a broken chain was ah tached. He remembered the incident at the theater, advertised the fact and the | owner recovered his property. j Secretary Bristow' lias officially decided that jourßalism is a profession, under the following circumstances: An American journalist, who was returning from Europe, bringing with him a considerable quantity of books for his own library, held that the books were entitled to be entered duty free under that section of the customs laws which makes provision for the free importation of books for the use of a library of a physician, a lawyer and a clergyman. The Custom-House officers at Baltimore, where the books were entered, decided that journalism is not a profession and that the books must pay duty. An appeal was taken to the Secretary of the Treasury, who has reversed their decision. This is the way they are to be manufactured for us, and then w T e can all wear them except the bon ton , w f ho w r ill then discard them for something that costs hiore monej’: Benzine is introduced into a glass shell about six inches in thickness and capable of standing enormous pressure. Another substance, having a strong affinity for hydrogen, but the name of which is kept secret, is introduced with it. The poles of a moderately strong battery are also introduced and the whole hermetically sealed. As decomposition takes place slowdy the hydrogen unites with the substance for which it has an affinity, and pure, colorless carbon is set free and in course of time forms in various sizes on the interior side of the glass shell. And what is formed, gentle reader, by this simple process is the sparkling diamond or pure carbon. At least the papers tell us that some genius claims that he can make them by this process. A short, time since a young lady, a resident of this place, experienced a creeping sensation in her nose after, she had retired for the night and all efforts to remove the annoyance were without the desired effect, the difficulty remaining for several days, merely changing to a location farther up in the nostril. At length it, seemed to pass down infq the throat, causing a choking sensation, and finally disappeared. Immediately after its disappearance the victim experienced acute pains in the stomach and called medical assistance in vain, the only thing that gave relief being copious doses of brandy, which failed to produce any of the usual effects. Finally severe vomiting ensued, and after one whole night’s suffering and the patient giving up hopes of life the cause of the trouble was removed and an examination found it to be a small particle of blood and matter, in the center of which was a commonsized black spider; Evidently the brandy saved the young lady’s life.—lndianapolis Journal. Yesterday morning, about eight o’clock, a little two-year-old child of Mr. Webb Calhoun, living two and a half miles north of the city, fell into a cistern, and the mother, who happened to seotho child fall, jumped in after it. Mr. Calhoun, who is dealing in stbek, was away from home at the time of the accident, and there w r as no one on the place, and Mrs. Calhoun, being unable to get out, was compelled to stand in the water waist deep from eight o'clock in morning until five in the evening. The unfortunate w'oman probably would have had to spend the night in that distressing condition, where, no doubt, she and her child would have perished be fore morning, if, by her screams, she had not attracted the attention of some children who were returning from school. The school children heard her cries for help, but it was some time before they discovered and rescued the almost exhausted lady. Indeed, shewvas so much chilled and fatigned that it will be fortunate if she escapes a severe- illness. Dr. Sibly was sent for about seven o’clock last evening, and it is to be hoped the lady will escape serious consequences from her Jong bath. —Decatur Magnet.