Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1875 — FOREIGN GOSSIP. [ARTICLE]

FOREIGN GOSSIP.

—On the 31st of March, 1873, the number of registered newspapers existing in India amounted to 478; during the past year 131 fresh papers were registered, fiftynine discontinued, and eight publications included in the previous list were omitted as not being newspapers, thus leaving on the 31st of March, 1874, a net total of 542. —A significant fact is the statement that a firm in Wales tendered to supply an English railway with 20,000 tons of rails at a price which would not have given them any profit, and yet the contract was gained by a firm in Belgium at twenty shillings per ton less than the Welsh offer. —The gendarmerie of Valencia have just arrested a Dutchman whose profession is, to say the least of it, extraordinary. He is a dealer in all sorts of instruments employed by burglars and thieves. When arrested he had in liU possession a large stoek of pamphlets giving the fullest directions as to the best plan of waylaying people on the high-roads, and also how to kill them without any noise in case of resistance. ' . :•' —A strange scene lately took place at the Russian Theater at Odessa. While the performance was going on it had bogun to rain, and the roof of the house must have been sadiy in want pf repair, for the rain penetrated on the stage.* The actors jumping about and using all their gymnastic skill to avoid the ponds and rivulets gradually forming on the stage had at last to retreat’to the parterre. But the performance must be continued was the imperative order of the director, and to heighten the misfortune in the scene now to be played the actors had to glide in socks over the stage. The prima donna and the first lover refused to do this, and appealed to the medical man of the theater. The Solomon decided that the two might act, but only in felt slippers, for otherwise they would expose themselves to a severe cold. New slippers were accordingly brought. Happily there was na use for them, for the audience, convulsed with laughter, had left the theater. —The San Francisco Bulletin says, concerning the mining prospects of that region : “If we can judge of the remainder of the year by the first three months the chances are that the assessments will outbalance the dividends. It is true we have an increased amount for the Consolidated Virginia mine, but the Belcher and Crown Point mines have ceased to pay, which neutralizes the amount received from the Comstock lode. But in the meantime there is an enlarged amount of preparatory work in progress, and of course a corresponding increase in the assessment list. The number of mining assessments delinquent in March was forty, the largest number in .quite a long time.”