Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1875 — BREVITIES. [ARTICLE]

BREVITIES.

Spring vegetables canniot be expected; jet, but it is almost getting time for bonnet bills. It comports with the eternal fitness of things that a drunkard should speak in gutteral tones. It appears on the authority of the statisticians that one of woman’s rights is to live longer than man. A baby with twenty-eight toes has been born in Stockton, Mo. What a character for corns he will be! Shoemakers complain that the times are so hard they can scarcely keep sole and upper together. An eccentric woman in New York has established “ a home for indigent cats,” where she feeds about eighty. A Troy printer has five wives that the officers know of, and they suspect the existence of three or four more. Another way to dispense with cemeteries without cremation —Take all the newly-invented pills and don’t die. From all recent accounts of life in Florida, the abbreviation Fla. wovjfl be more significant with the insertion of the vowel E.

“ What a shame that I should be starving!” exclaimed a poor cornet-maker out of work—“ I that have stayed the stoinachs of hundreds.” A law forbidding \he payment of different salaries in t’ne public schools on account of sex just passed the Legislature of California. At a funeral at Madison, Me., lately, the man w’no was buried was placed beside two of his dead wives, while *wt living ones attended the funeral. Southampton, Mass., has only three cents in the treasury, but then the town !aas no debt and the three cents is so much ahead. Good at “ dining and wining”— a hungry dog. He can be relied on to dine heartily at any time and to keep whining till he does. Transfusion of blood doen’t work well in Delaware. A son transfused his father’s blood into the ditch and is to be hung for murder. The Sultan of Turkey recently ordered half a ton of American bar soap, and the supposition is that he is gojjdng to wash up and commence life anew. ; The season has now arrived when the husband who finds buttons off his shirt should make known his purpose to go to the Black Hills. It will act like a charm.

Three hundred years have passed since Lucrezia Borgia lived, and now they are trying to’make her out a kind and gentle woman, a sort of third-class angel. Any rich man has a right to make a fool of himself. A Philadelphian has allowed a house to stand empty thirteen years because he cannot get the rent he thinks it worth. A lazy school-boy who spelled Andrew Jackson “&ruJaxon” has been equaled by a student who marked the first of a half-dozen shirts “John Johnson” and the rest “ do.” Zeke Carey, a Jamestown (Pa.) pilgrim who has gone up and down the earth a widower for two long weeks recently consoled his aching heart by taking another wife. Says a writer in Harper's Bazar: “ The reign of the chignon is over; its glory has departed; its name is Ichabod.” Chignon was bad enough, but the change of name is enough to banish it. The title “reverend,” it is pointed out in a London paper, in no way declares a man to be a clergyman. Two hundred and fifty years ago the English Masters in Chancery were styled reverend. “Budding Statesman:” No, sir; an emigrant could not under any extradition treaty be sent back to his native town in the South of France on the ground that he had deserted his Pau. Dio Lewis says that a man could live ten years on raw apples, but after the seventh or eighth year it is believed that the patient would want a rutabaga or a Hubbard squash to break in on the monotony.

“What becomes of all the pins?”— Ex. If the writer of that will move around the house in his stocking feet after a day of dressmaking he will get more real valuable information on the subject than all the books in the world.can give him. In hanging paper, first pumice-stone the wall and wash with size made of one ounce of glue to one gallon of water See that the paste has no lumps and that the back of the paper is covered with it fully ten minutes before hanging. At the trial of one Putnam, at Virginia City, fur leading jin idle and dissolute life, District-Attorney Campbell defined a bummer as “an aggregated, concatenated, conglomerated, segregated, contaminated loafer.” This decided the jury at once, and they found Putnam guilty. New water-proof cloaks for spring are called M’Farlanes. They are long, with a belt in the back, like the Ulster overcoat worn by gentlemen, and have a cape that is carelessly thrown over the right shoulder. English water-proof cloth, of which they are made, comes in invisible checks and plaids like the patterns seen in dress goods. During the last four years and a half Gaul has averaged one dhd one-third Cabinet Ministers per month—total, 66. The average is on the increase, moreover. “ Too many cooks spoil the broth,” says the proverb; and the real trouble with France is that she has always had too many. People should eat to live, not live to eat. « A child affected with measles appears to have a severe cold in the head, its eyes are red and very sensitive to the light, its face is swollen, and on the third day the eruption appears on the face in blotches of a crescent or horseshoe shape, which spread and cover the surface of the body. When the finger is pressed firmly on these red blotches the redness does not go away. Custard Corn Cake.—This cake is very nice for a Bunday morning breakfast with fish-balls. One-half cup of sour milk, one' and one-half cups of sweet milk, one-half teaspoonful soda, one tablespoonful melted butter, same of sugar, and about four small handfuls of Indian meal. This will seem vei thin, but when baked in a hot oven twenty minutes it is very moist and much like a thick custard. Eat hot with butter. The extraordinarily numerous and severe “ cold spells,” or “ cold waves,” as they are now coming to be. called, after the manner of the Signal Office at Washington, which have characterized the present winter give special interest to the latest explanation of their origin, as set forth by Prof. Loomis in a recent pa-

per before the American Academy of I Sciences. According to this theory, irregular periods of low temperature > are caused at all seasons (and, of course, particularly in the winter) by the descent of cold air from the upper layers of the atmosphere, rather than by c arrents of cold air setting in from the north. In summer, during a thunder-storm, the temperature often falls ten in a few minutes without any no\th wind. The descending currents resvjt from the. outward movement, which generally takes place from the center o f an area of high barometer; and theoe “ sudden gusts of cold from the hiivher atmospheric regions” reveal a p/mnection between the phenomena of \be barometer and those of the thermometer which throws new light on meteorology. To Hui xCorn in Ten Minutes.—Heat a pot ha jf f u n o f W ater with half the amoun t of good hard-wood ashes sifted in - T ?our the shelled corn into it—as mu<jh, if you wish, as this lye will cover. J?-oil it as quickly as you can, and for five to seven minutes, or until the hull is eaten off, which may be by this time half or all jelly, and the kernel not saturated or swelled any. Then wash it in a colander set in a small tub, pouring in gradually about two pails of water while squeezing the corn through the hands. It is then hulled and ready for a thorough boiling,which will take about four hours. Keep the corn covered by pouring in hot water from the tea-kettle occasionally. The second hour the corn swells rapidly and absorbs a great deal of water. The last hour let it boil very slowly and simmer down about dry. Don’t stir it any,as that will make it stick on the bottom of the pot and burn. Put no salt in it. When done it will be as free from the taste of lye as rice, and if white dent corn is used (which I generally prefer) it will be burst open and white, like popcorn.—Cor. Prairie Farmer.

Scarlet-fever generally begins with nausea, followed by pain in the limbs and sore throat; the face is not swollen and the eyes are not very sensitive to the light. On the second day the rash appears, first on the face in small points of vivid red, which become diffused and spread over the entire body. The tongue is very white, with blood-red spots appearing above the furred surface. If a pencil Or the finger is pressed firmly on the skin the redness will give place for a time, leaving the skin white where the pressurewas exerted, and then the scarled returns. On the fifth day the rash turns brown and the skin is very dry. This is the dangerous time, since the skin, being unable to perform its function, the kidneys and lungs have double work to do. At this stage of the illness the foundation is often laid for Bright’s disease of the kidneys, and everything depends on keeping the skin soft and moist. This can be done by oiling it freely with salad oil, with pure lard, with unsalted butter, or, what is most agreeable of all, with glycerine and rose water, two parts of the former to one of the latter. In England the favorite treatment is to immerse the patient in a warm bath, which is repeated frequently.— Chicago Inter-Ocean. A falnful story from Homer, Courtland County, N. 1., is briefly told by the Ithaca Journal'. “A little girl named Clark, aged four years, was visiting Friday afternoon with her parents at the iouse of a Mr. Joselyn, a short distance east of the village. A daughter of the latter invited* her little visitor to go out to the coop and see her chickens. They went together, and as they were passing through the wood-house were joined by a large dog belonging to Mr. Joselyn. Ar riving at the hen-house the daughter of Mr. Joselyn opened the door and passed in. The little Clark girl attempting to follow was set upon by the dog, which so frightened the Joselyn girl that she closed the door of the hen-house. The screams of the girl at length reached the ears of the inmates of the house, who came running to her assistance. When they reached the spot the dog had hia teeth fastened in the child’s right arm and was shaking her furiously. She was rescued, but was horribly mangled. One ear was bitten off, the right cheek bitten out and a portion of the scalp torn off. Besides these wounds both arms were terribly mutilated. Everything was done to relieve the excruciating sufferings of the unfortunate child during last night, and this morning death mercifully put an end to them.”