Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1875 — BREVITIES. [ARTICLE]

BREVITIES.

Jams, preserves, etc., can be prevented from, graining by adding a teaspoonful of cream of tartar to every gallon of the jam or preserves. He was bound to be accurate, and he described the woman’s costume thus: “ She wore an elegant suit of something or other, cut bias and trimmed endwise.” “ Jump-Up- Anp-Run- Aw at- And-Then--Bit-Dow-Again” is the name of an Indian chief who has taken the war-path. Here’s our ha’r, says a Colorado editor. The old Belgian proverb is: “No grass, no cattle; no cattle, no manure; no manure, no crops.” All States and countries come to this position sooner or later. Somebody says that “ large ears denote broad, comprehensive views and modes of thought.” What magnificent ideas (thinks the Boston Journal) a jackass must have! A lazy fellow falling a distance of fifty feet and escaping with only a few scratches, a bystander remarked that he w’as “too slow to fall fast enough to hurt himself.” Port Eads is to be tlie name of a new “ settlement” down at the New Orleans jetties. Hundreds of workmen are already settled there, engaged in the jetty construction. “ What is proper condiment for one sex of the bird is proper condiment for the other,” is a Connecticut legislator’s way of saying “ What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.” The Russian Government spends annually $32,000 for carriages in behalf of singers at the St. Petersburg opera in ith der to keep them out of the snow worwann feet and plear voices. This is the season when people cook great quantities of provisions in the house and go out in the w oods like wild Indians to eat wha they have cooked. That performance is what is called a picnic. The total cost of the St. Louis bridge is but little less than $7,000,000. Its gross receipts in the last year were $286,000, and its expenses $98,000, leaving SIBB,OOO to pay the interest on the $7,000,000. Iceland’s volcanic action is increasing in intensity. “ The w’hole region of the My-vatu Mountains is one blazing fire,” and new craters and fissures of portentous magnitude are making their appearance every few weeks. The Chemical Bank of New York, with a capital of $300,000, deciares' a dividend every two months, the last on the Ist of July, 15 per cent.; par value of shares, SIOO, while $1,600 a share is bid for the stock, and none for sale. It is estimated by competent authority that the accidental deaths occurring in and around the Comstock mines will average one death for every week in the year, while tlie serious accidents will average one for each day in the 365. It is intended to build, at the great steel works in Essen, Prussia, a new’steam hammer, capable of w’orking a mass of steel 100 tons in weight. It is estimated that this machine, w hich will be the most pow rerful in the world, will cost $1,000,000. It is recorded that M. Thiers once had his hat knocked off by some fixtures in front of a shop in Paris, and he was so pleased with the fact that he was too tall for once in his life that he often revisited the shop and became a regular customer. An unparalleled feat was accomplished recently in the district of Shahabad, India. Two unarmed youths attacked a tiger of immense size, and with the aid of some other natives who came up, strangled the beast without using any other weapon but those given them by nature. The stories that mining was successfully carried on at Newbury, Mass., 100 years ago have been corroborated by the discovery, in an old shaft forty feet deep, of the rotten timbers of a coping, ropes and other relics, together with some good specimens of silver and lead.

How to Judge the Weather.—The colors of the sky, at different times, are a wonderful guidance. Not only does a clear sunset presage fair weather, but there are other tints which speak with clearness and accuracy. A bright yellow in the evening indicates wind; a pale yellow wet; a neutral gray color constitutes a favorable sign in the evening—an unfavorable one in the morning. The clouds are full of meaning in themselves. If they are soft, undefined and feathery, the weather will be fine; if the edges are hard, sharp and definite, it will be foul. Generally speaking, any deep, unusual hues betoken wind and rain; while more quiet and delicate tints bespeak fair weather. Simple as these maxims are, the British Board of Trade has thought fit to publish them for the use of seafaring men.— Exchange. The London correspondence of the Liverpool Post says a fearful rumor is about that the Princess Beatrice may very probably marry neither a German nor an Englishman, but an American who has lately been very much at court. A New York, paper has information that there is not one-half the demand for soda water that there was two or three years ago. And yet, soda water seems to fill a place which rain-water or dish-water can’t touch.