Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1875 — FACTS AND FIGURES. [ARTICLE]

FACTS AND FIGURES.

—The first, services at Independence, ! Tex., were held in an extemporized ! church, the building having been previously used as a saloon and gamblingplace. The first Sunday after the preliminary services, just as Rev, Mr. Pierce had began his sermon, a gust of wind struck the building and blew a card from one of the rafters. It was the “ ten of diamonds,’’ and fell face upward upon the open Bible. The circumstance seemed to disconcert the minis ter, whereupon old Felix Robertson stepped up, and taking the card said: “ Well, Parson, you’ve got him. The devil has thrown up ids hand already.” —The number of periodicals published in Paris is set dow n as 791. Of these, 113 are devoted to politics, 9f> to science, 78 to religion, 68 to fashion, 42 to law, 39 1 to finance, 14 to military affairs, 9 to naval matters, and 8 to architecture. The remainder are occupied with amusement and trade matters, most branches of commerce having their especial organs. The Revue dee Deux Monde* —the most famous of the Parisian publications—was established in 1629. The compensation received by its writers is, as a rule, 200 francs for the sheet of 16 pages. M. Actor Feuillet has the exceptional stipend of 500 francs per shed. The Revue has 18,000 subscribers, at 50 francs each, affording an income of 900,francs asnually. Its expenses do not reach 400,000 francs yearly. The property is held in shares of 1,000 francs each. In the last years of the Empire the dividend reached the extraordinary figure of 2,000,000 francs. —The wealthiest State in proportion to the population was Massachusetts in I 860; it was New' York in 1870, where the wealth was $1,483 for each person ; in Massachusetts it was $1,463; in Connecticut, $1,441; in Rhode Island, $1,366; in California, $1,140; in Pennsylvania, $1,081; in New Jersey, $1,038.50; Texas shows the smallest per capita wealthonly $194. The State, county, town and city debt is also given per capita for each State, and here, too, Massachusetts stands second—her debt for each person being $47 .49, while Louisiana has $73.03; Virginia, $45.64; Tennessee, $38.80; Maryland, $37.18; New York, $36.46; and all the other States less, except Nevada, with $46.74. West Virginia has but $1.27 of local debt for each inhabitant, and Texas less than $2.00. The per capita of the national debt in 1870 was something more than S6O for each person, besides the amounts above given. —There are 125 Signal Service stations in the United States, five in the Hudson Bay Territory, six in the West Indies and nine jn the Canadian Provinces. There are also twenty river stations in the Mississippi Valley for the purpose of recording the varying height of the water. The trainiug-scliool for the Signal Service Corps of the United States is at Fort Whipple, where the students are thoroughly instructed in their duties, including the.use of meteorological instru ments and military telegraphing and signaling. The average cost of maintaining each station is $516.58, exclusive of the cost of telegraphing reports. The total force connected with the service comprises 2A\ Sergeants, Corporals and privates. At St. Paul Island, Alaska, which is the interesting location of one of the stations, the coldest temperature noted during the past year was 8 deg. Fahr., occurring in January. The warmest was 52 deg., which occurred in May. The greatest rainfall was, in December, and was 5.60 inches.