Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1875 — Useful Knowledge. [ARTICLE]

Useful Knowledge.

A max walks 3 miles in an hour; a horse riots 7; steamboats run 18; sailing vessels, 10; slow rivers flow 4; rapid rivers, 7; moderate wind blows 7; storm moves 36; hurricane, 80; a rifle ball, 1,000; sound, 743; light, 190,000; electricity, 280,000. A barrel of flour weighs 196 pounds; a barrel of pork, 200; barrel of rice, 600; barrel of powd r, 25; firkin of butter, 56; tub of butter, 84. Wheat, beans and clover seed, 60 pounds to the bushel; corn, rj e and flax seed, 56; buckwheat, 52; barley, 48; oats, 35; bran, 20; timothy seed, 45; coarse salt, 85. Sixty drops make a drachm, 8 drachms an ounce, 4 ounces a g 11,16 gills a pint, 60 drops a teaspoontul, 4 teaspoonfuls a tablespoonful or half an ounce, 2 tablespoonfuls an ounce, 8 tablespoonfuls a gill. 2gi Is a coffee cup or tumbler, 6 fluid ounces a teacup full. Four thousand eight hundred and forty square vards, an acre, a square mile, 640 acres. To measure an acre: 209 feet on each side, making a square acre within an inch. There are 2,750 languages. Two persons die every s< cond. A generation is 15 years; average of life, 31 years. The standing army in Prussia, wartimes, 1,200 000; France, 1,360 0b0; Russia, 1 000,06»; Au-trih, 825.000; Italy. 200,000; Spain. 100,000; Belgium, 95.000; England, 75,000; United States, 24.Q00. Roman Catholics in-United Sta es, 5,000,000. Mails in New York city are 100 tons per day. New York consumes 600 b< eves daily, 700 calves, 20,000 swine, in winter. — American Journal of Health. It's simply absurd to talk about a woman being qualified to fill every p sition in hfe thatt man fills. For instance, what woman could lounge >dl d y s ound the stove in a country i rocery and lie about the number of fishes sue caught last summer*—ifocAater Democrat. f

Congress passed the bill equalizing soldiers' bounties, and it now Requires the signature of the President, only, to be effective. Yesterday closed the career of Mr. Jasper Packard in Congress. .To-day this district, is represented by an honest man. God bless the day, the man, and the people. Out of 800 men who went to see the can-can in Kansas City-, 600 were bald-headed.— Ejxdwnge. How vividly suggestive of matrimonial infelicity were those 600 bald pates’ If there is a neater printed paper in the .State of Indiana, or one •whose local columns have greater care bestowed on them, than the Plymouth Democrat, we should like to exchange with it. Ability and good workmanship are prominentin each issue. It is possible that only a few of the readers of this paper have personal recollection of the circumstance, but one hundred and live years will have elapsed with to-day since the affray occurred which is known in history as “the Boston massacre.”

Last week passengers were carried from Cincinnati to St. Louis for tl; yesterday tickets fiom Chicago todialtimore were sold forts, and it was announced that today they would be reduced to $6. Thus does rivalry accomplish more than the Grangers could. Every Republican Represerftati ve in Congress from Indiana vbted for the infamous Force bill, recently passed by the national House of Representatives. This action of itself should forever seal the fate of every man of them. Not one ought ever to be again elected to 'nave a voice in the legi.-latioii of the country. Ex-Senator .lames Nye, of Nevada, is reported hopelessly insane. He recently jumped off a train of cars at Richmond, Va., in a nearly nude condition, and hid from some imagined pursuer. At one time—only a few' years since—Mr., Nye was recorded among the wittiest members of Congress. A long career of dissipation has probably wrought the devastation of his mind.

A good advertisement in a newspaper pays no fare on railroads; costs nothing for hotel bills; gives away’ no boxes of cigars to customers, or merino dresses to customers' wives; drinks no whiskey under the head of traveling expenses, but goes at once, and all the time, about its business free of unnecessary expense, making for the advertiser acquaintances, friends, customers, and a well filled purse. Try it if you would prosper in business. Pulaski county has been taken from the Thirtieth Judicial Circuit of Indiana, leaving only’ three counties in the jurisdiction of Judge Hammond and Prosecutor Ihompson. They are Briton, Newton and Jasper. A new Circuit has been created of the counties of Carroll, White and Pulaski. It has not yet been announced who will be appointed judge of the new circuit, though it is surmised that that honor will fall upon either" Burson of Pulaski, Reynolds of White, or Daily of Carroll, with probabilities largely favoring the former. »

Parson Brownlow has revived the old Knoxville a paper which under his management be- < came famous during the war, but which was suspended shortly after his election to the United States Senate. His paper will be known as the Doily Chronicle 'and the Weekly Whig and Chronicle. They will be . Republican in politics, but -independent in management, for the reason he says that he is “not so blinded by party prejudice as not to ha*’£ long known, what I have hitherto publicly declared on frequent occasions, that evils had grown up in .the Republican organization in some quarters, which peeded correction.” ■

Excitement arose to quite a high pitch at Sioux City the other day, upon the return of two members of the Black Hills expedition named Gordon and Wctcher. Nearly the entire population turned out at* towns along the line of the Dakota Southern railroad, where the news of their coming had been telegraphed. The specimens of gold they brought back have been examined by thousands, and they say there is no trouble to make from $lO to $25 a day in the diggins, which arc comparatively easy of access and extensive enough to give employment for 10,000 miners. It is thought that a great rusji will be made into that region as soon as the season opens.

It is reported that Andy Johnson was recently called on to stump New Hampshire for the Democrats, and that he returned this answer: l am too busy, and your weather is too lively, for me to think of going up to New Hampshire this winter. All our troubles have arisen from the Democratic attempt to break up the Union and overthrow the Constitution in JB6l-’5. The only obstacle to peace now is the refusal of the Democratic party to concede equal rights to all men. When I say that I am for equal rights, I mean it; but when you say it you don’t mean it. When the Democratic party gets right on this question, then the Constitution will be safe, and you can command the services of yours truly, Andy Johnson. It is also stated that Fred Douglass was also sent for to canvass that State for the Republicans. Ip one place, however, the chairman of-the local Republican organization notified Mr. Douglass thatthey did not want him and would not hear him.

‘ Gordon Claude is a nice young man. His pa says “he was raised as a Southernerconsequently the young gentleman is very tine-haired, high-toned, and all t-hat sort of thing. Well, Gordon was a cadet in the naval academy at Annapolis, buthe isn’t any more. In that academy is a young negro midshipman. Only last week cadet Claude was ordered to fence with the colored midshipman. He declined on account of color, as became a scion of proud Caucasian stock, and resigned—-was expelled. Still the midshipman lives, the academy flourishes, the government exists and the world moves on in its usual manner; probably very much to the astonishment ot foolish er cadet Claude.

' When Senator Morton passed through Chicago last fall, on his way to Washington, the Inter Ocean embraced the occasion to promise that he would make his voice heard in Congress this winter in advocacy of of the Republican party to those principles which made it strong in infancy, the pride of the nation, and the wonder of the political world. Congress closed its labors yesterday. For the honor and welfare of the country the 43d Congress has ceased to exist. All through the dreary winter we carefully watched and attentively listened for the great bugler to sound his key note of reformation. Watching, waiting and listening were in vain. Not a note did he blast. Silence, ominous and j deathly, has hung funereal upon Mr. Morton's eloquent lips. The voice that was once clear, impassioned, and powerful to advocate the true and the right is now heard no more. Why? Is the record of the Republican party so pure and so shining that our glorious old war governor is satisfied with it? Does he approve of the corruption which investigating committees, have so often developed and traced to the doors of those who are the leaders and managers of his party? Does he approve of Credit Mobilier transactions' of Pacific Mail > x, ’ ■ subsidies, of salary grabbing, of; El Paso jobs, of the upholding of “gigantic frauds” in elections managed and manipulated by’ members of the dominant party, of military interference with the rights of the people? Is fie content to be made a party responsible for these and j many other similar crimes and outrages that he has no word of condemnation for them? . Or did he despair of accomplishing anything while the 43d Congress was in power, and was he waiting for a convenient season to make his influence felt when that corrupt body was succeeded by honester men? $

The agent of the Panhandle Line at Goodlaqd, o‘n the Logansport division, states that there will be fully one million bushels of corn shipped from that point this year. Mr. Bowen, proprietor of the New York Independent, differs from Gen. Tracy, of Mr. Beecher’s counsel, iff regard to the efficacy of lying. He (Bowen) seems to think that falsehood is not to be commende'd under any condition of circumstances —jiot even for the purpose of advancing the cause ot religion, or to promote the glory of God. But it must be remembered that the orthodoxy of the Independent has been questioned for some time by one class of the religious press. •- l , " , Governor Hendricks vetoed the bill recently passed by the legislature for the incorporat ion of c amp meeting associations, giving as his reason therefor an opinion that the creation of religious incorporations is not in harmony with the spirit of the government. As an offset to his Excellency’s views the fact is noted that a member of the North Carolina legislature was recently expelled from that body, because of his unbelief in the orthodox idea of a personal God. lie admitted the existence of a Supreme Being, and believed in the God of the Bible in part, but not in all. lie was a member of the sect of Progressive Friends.

Indications are strong that the management of the Indiana penitentiaries, north and south, are very corrupt. Reports are rife that in both institutions convicts Have been made to suffer unnecessary cruelties, and the State has been defrauded of a considerable portion of their earnings. It is charged that the wardens oPbotli prisons have appropriated the labor of convicts to their private use, have furnished an inferior quality' and an insufficient quantity ot food to the poor wretches in their power, and have shared in the profits of contractors for prison labor. These are serious charges which demand thorough investigation, and if sustained by evidence the penalty that ought to be meted out to the guilty parties is a term of years behind the bars of the institutions over which they have presided. ... .

There is not an editor in the State of Indiana who is fairer towards bis political opponents, honester in the advocacy of his political convictions, or readier to condemn dishonesty among the public men of his own party, than Reuben Williams, of the Warsaw Northern Indianian. If all Republican newspapers were like the Indianian in these respects there would be less corruption in that party and less necessity'for what are known as “independent” journals, the large majority of which are controlled by editors who would be Republicans did not the infamous corruption of Republican leaders compel them to take an independent position in order not to stultify themselves byacting with men, and carrying the weight of their influence to individuals, whose 0 conduct conscience compels them to condemn.

During all the time that the Republican party has ‘been in power no important bill against which the Democrats were a unit met with anything like the formidable array of Republican opposition that the Force bill did in tlie House. Among the 135 yeas we recognize no leading Republican. if we except Maynard, of Tennessee, and Coburn of Indiana. The weight of Republican authority, except in numbers, was really upon the opposition. We call attention to this feature of the case because it is Evenly -Journal. The reason for this opposition on the part of all the able and clearheaded Republican members is that they believed the hill to be wrong in principle and dangerous »n practice. They believed it wrong to invest the President with such extraordinary powers in time of peace as that bill would confer Upon hith ; and they believed also that the enactment of the bill would be a huge party blunder, giving the Democrats a drib with which to pound Republican heads. The clear-headed Republicans in Congress' regard Butler as a most Feckless and unsafe leader,, and whose evil influence has already done the party great harm. There is one consolation, which is, that he will “step down and out’’ within sixty hours from this time. —CA<cogo Tribune. •