Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1875 — BREVITIES. [ARTICLE]

BREVITIES.

Ip you want to feel warm all through give some poor family the means to Keep warm. Kalakaua is forbidden by his physician to venture out after night during a cold snap. Bkwake of friendship with surgeons. When you require their services they will cut you. Tom Thumb’s fortune is estimated at |300,000, more than enough to keep so small a person and fixings. Pomeroy, the young Massachusetts murderer, is now said to have acquired his thirst for blood from hearing Indian stories. The shipments of machinery from the ports of the United States to South America and to Europe are steadily growing. Two hundred and forty-nine persons were killed last year by jumping On and off moving trains, but there is still room for all who come. Excellent calico dress material sells at the leading dry goods stores in New York at the unprecedentedly low price of six cents per yard. Twenty-fivk cents apiece is all the Centennial Commission asks of the people of the United States to pay for the “ peep-show of the universe.” Some Western grain shippers have a habit called “plugging,” which means the spreading of screenings an inch or so deep on the floor of a car of wheat. One by one the roses fade. It is now boldly denied that men who wear long hair are possessed of any more talent than men who have it snipped close. An ingenious Vermonter has invented a catapult with which he can storm' fortifications at a great distance, and is practicing with it on a mountain near by- “ Sitting on the eastern bank of the Mississippi, and bathing her fair feet in the tide of that magnificent river,” is the way in which Tennessee correspondents speak of Memphis. A New Haven man, worth $300,000, has been pilfering eggs, apples, etc., from dealers in the city, and though they have only reprimanded him as yet they say he must do so no more. , A Californian contemporary puts in a good word for the much-abused Mongolian, remarking that no Chinaman has ever yet become a book canvasser or a life assurance-agent. According to the Milwaukee News, a' young lady asked a bookseller’s clerk if he had “Festus.” “No,” was the answer,’ but I’m afraid a boil is coming on the back of my neck.” Fifty dollars was the fine a Massachusetts man had to pay for kicking a dog. The present of a pup to the Judge from the dog-owner could hardly have brought about a more satisfactory ruling. Mother’s Cookies. —Two cups of cream, one heaping teaspoonful of soda and one even teaspoonful of salt, two cups of sugar (we use white), one egg and flour enough to roll;’ when very nearly the thickness desired sprinkle on sugar and roll once over.— Oor. Household. Snow-flak Ceream. —Take nice clean snow, one quart; two tablespoonfuls of nice white sugar, extract of vanilla (or any flavor you like) sufficient to flavor to your taste, then add good, sweet cream or milk sufficient to make it the consistency of common ice cream and you will have as nice a dish of cream as one would wish. The plaid suit excitement appears to be subsiding as rapidly as it began. The fashion was decidedly overdone, as other fashions have been time and again, and now ladies are not averse to admit the fact. Black silk, discarded and neglected for a time, is joyfully taken up again, and now the fashionable girl of the period rattles and rustles happy and radiant in the heaviest gros grain. A real hero is he who in the presence of danger conceals his fear lest others, becoming terror-stricken, might lose their senses. Such a man was found in the„person of a Roman Catholic priest in New York, who recently urged his large congregation to leave the church and enabled them to do so with absolute ignorance of the cause, and yet before they were fairly out flames broke forth under the altar where the priest had been standing. Pause, rash youth, if you are in the habit of removing the postage stamp from your sweetheart’s letter and pressing the under side of the stamp to your lips under the rapturous delusion that the honeyed labiels gave it adhesion to the envelope—oh, pause, for Williams, of the Norristown Herald, detected at the postofflee the other morning the ladylove’s coachman applying the stamp to his last letter she sent him. So perishes forever another of love’s young dreams! —Danbury News. A good washing compound may be made thus: One pound soda ash, onehalf pound stone lime (unslacked), six quarts water. ? Ighil one hour and a half, let it Settle and turn into jugs for use. Put the clothes into a tub of cold water over night. In the morning put four pkils of water into the boiler and one {lint of soap and one-half pint of fluid; et this come to a boil. Wring out the clothes from the tub; put them in the boiler; boil *6ne-half hour, and then rinse well in an abundance of water.— Exchange. To Prevent Ingrowing Tob Nails.— This very painful disease of the great toes may be obviated by the very simple expedient of trimming the nails perfectly square like the edge of a chisel or plane bit, being careful never to, leave any ragged edges, and let them grow long. When thus trimmed and kept so, the edges grow square and smooth and cannot inflame and fester. This complaint is frequently so severe that sufferers have had their toe nails taken out by the roots while under the influence of chloroform. A New Hampshire school-teacher lately was questioning one of -his class upon the anatomy of the human body, and, standing upon one foot and, swinging the other fool and limb, he inquired bow many bones he was moving. Several incorrect answers were gi ven at first, hut after it had been answered correctly

the question was- asked if any of the scholars thought differently, A little fellow, not yet in his teens, raised his hand immediately, signifying that he disagreed with his schoolmates, and the teacher, repeating the question: “How many bones was I moving?” was astonished to hear the little chap increase the proper number by one, in the same breath giving as his reason: “ You were moving your jaw-bone, too.” Potatoes are a standard article of food on most tables, but they are often f , so badly cooked that “they are neither palatable nor wholesome. As a breakfast dish they are excellent. We like them prepared thus: Select the smaller ones — leaving the larger ones for dinner —scrape off the skins of new potatoes, put them into cold water for ten minutes, have water boiling, and cook them twenty minutes; pour oft the water and add a cup of milk or cream, and thicken it with a little flour and butter rubbed together. Butter never floats on the surface when mixed with flour thus, nor does the flour trouble you with lumps. It is just as well, however, to leave out the butter, mixing the flour with a little cream. — Prairie Farmer.