Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 October 1875 — BREVITIES. [ARTICLE]

BREVITIES.

Shk is called honey because she is—beeloved. A farmer’s crib is a gnawful place for rats. Epitaph for the tomb of American Girl —‘•A kind-hearted creature, but very fast.” The “ National Air” (according to the “intelligent foreigner”)—The American spit-toon. Acquired oratory is as a moth to an eagle as compared to the eloquence of sincerity. Jet is entirely out of fashion, not so much as a bead being admissible this season. —Paris Correspondence., -* There are those that think we should take care of the poor Indian because he is so willing to take hair of us. Deer are so numerous in El Dorado County, Cal., that complaint is made that they are ruining the vineyards. A young lady, being charged by a gentleman with having trifled with his feelings, exclaimed: “Well, I ple;id jilty.” Tt was observed of a deceased lawyer that he had left but few effects, to which a lady remarked that “he had but few causes.” A Milwaukee lad}' who paid fifty dollars to have a wart removed from her nose now wants to know what has become of the nose. They met; that is, she went to the store And made him turn his department o’er. Till he vanished behind the goods, and then She pleasantly said she would call again. “Are you ‘‘the mate of the ship; asked an emigrant of the cook, who "was an Irishman. “ No, sir,” was the reply, “ I am the, man who cooks the ma te ” Martha Jane finds in her Bible that the ant is held up as a pattern of industry. She therefore indignantly wants to know why lazy, idle schoolboys should be called lru(e)ants. A Detroit mother can’t understand how it is that her girls can play croquet half a day and not feel tired, and yet if one of them is asked to wash the dishes she reaches for the camphor bottle. “My articles do not receive a very warm reception of late.” “ Our fair correspondent is mistaken,” replied the editor; “they meet with the warmest reception possible. We burn them all.” The Butte (Cal.) Mercury tells of a band of sheep being brought down from the mountains and turned into a wheatfield. Over 100 head died in one night from eating wheat and drinking water.

A shocking account of the maltreatment of Jews comes from Bagdad. One old Jew was burned alive by the populace. The excuse tor these barbarities was that the Jews had been guilty of blasphemy. In the Monongahela coal-trade there are now engaged 125 steam tow-boats and 3,000 barges and boats, having an aggregate tonnage of 1,300.000 -a tonnage greater than all the rest of the Mississippi Valley. The Boston -journal sees in the sea-ser-pent a fraud, and alludes to the singular feature in the habits of the creature that he never visits our coast except when boarders are desired at the seashore resorts. " ~ r The Emperor and Empress of Russia wear pretty good clothes. The latter has a red velvet mantle, lined with 228 sable skins and valued at about $26,000. The Emperor has a cloak of blue fox-skin, worth $24,000. “ I wasn’t so very late —only a quarter of twelve.” “ How dare you sit there and tell me that I lie ? I was awake when you came in, and looked at mj- watch—it was three o’clock.” “Well, isn’t three a quarter of twelve?” A Leavenworth paper says that if turnips were bread and cabbages were meat Kansas could take a contract to winter the paupers of the world at two cents per head, and make enough on the contract to pay the entire State debt. Peter Reid, of Bridge of Caley, Blairgowrie, has sent four stamps to the English mint to pay for coining for him two pennies, one with two heads and one with two tails. He adds: “N. B.—lt is for tossing that I want them.” An old author quaintly remarks: “Avoid arguments with ladies. In spinning yarns among silks and satins a man is sure to be worsted and twisted; and when a man is worsted and twisted he may consider himself wound up.” A Pennsylvania parent named his daughter Malaria; and now, when the unfortunate victim has grown to be a young lady’, she is avoided by the gentlemen, who fear the results of being exposed to Malarial influences. A Springfield (Mass.) milkman has a boy in his employ that is too honest for the business. When one of liis customers accused the lad of watering his milk from a brook he very earnestly 7 assured her that they got the water from a w r ell. She used to keep bits of broken china and erpekery piled up in a convenient corner of the closet, and when asked her reason for preserving such domestic lum her she shot a lurid glance at her husband and merely remarked: “He knows what them’s for.” ’Tis said the world grows wiser, day by day— That! mind is climbing to perfection’s peak; Yet, after all, ’tis but a childish play— Man’s chief dependence Beems to be his “ cheek.” A custom which the French women will not adopt, but which the Russian ladies affect, is that of communicating in white dresses. Working-women in the Empire of the Czar attend the communion service in black dresses and white veils, but for the richer classes the most magnificent white toilets arc prepared for these religious ceremonies. The monument recently erected to Sir John Franklin in Westminster abbey has been mutilated itn some mysterious way, about one and one-half inches of the chief mast of the Erebus having been broken off. This is said to be not the only act of vandalism committed in the abbey, the head of Maj. Andre having been removed no less than three times. Converting potatoes into what is termed farina, or potato flour, is an extensive business in Europe, yielding ljiillions of pounds sterling annually. 'The process is said to be as follows: The potatoes are peeled in the raw state. They are then crushed or ground into an impalpable pulp, which is well washed. The water is then evaporated, leaving a pure white residuum, which is the flour, or farina. According to Alex. S. Macrae, of Toronto, three tons of potatoes, costing $45, should yield one ton of farina, worth SIOO, leaving $55 for wear, tear and profit. There are indications of a turn for the better in the iron industries of the West and .Southwest, Furnaces, out of blast for months, are now again blowing, though there is some trouble among them in consequence of the lack of coal. The Pennsylvania works fti many cases are running on full time an J with heavy- forces, partic-

ularly those manufacturing rails, sheetiron and agricultural implements. The nail manufactories of Ohio also report activity. From other localities given to the manufacture of specialties a like improvement is reported. —Philadelphia Trade Journal. The cotton-mills and industries at Manchester, N. H., don’t seem to be suffering very much in profits. The profits of the past year were made up at the annual meeting on tire Ist of October, and we put beside them the capital stock on which they are made: Capital. Profits. Amoekeag $3,(00,(00 $320,000 Stark. 1,230,0(0 143,204 Lanedon 500,000 40,0.(0 Manchester I,BOOXOO 821,90 The profits of the last-named corporation are given at $258,818 for fourteen months, which we have reduced one seventh to correspond. These profits are from 8 to 12.3 per cent .—Springfield (Mass.) Republican. The Princess Domenica Ciarelli was left a widow with two sons, and the elder died. Almost crazy with sorlow, the Princess was ready to fight the men who brought the coffin, and protested tliey should not carry away the boy. In an interval of calm the younger brother, left alone with the body and the coffin, resolved to cheat the men and help his mother to keep Domenico. He hid the corpse in a closet and got in the coffin himself. He was carried to the church without discovery; but at the church, nearly suffocated, he groaned, and the coffin was opened, but he died in a little while. Now the mother is dead. All this in Paris only the other day. Regulations in regard to the fitness for occupancy of dwellings, especially new ones, demand a certain degree of dryness, and the questions as to what the amount of moisture in a wall at any particular time may be, and as to what state of dryness is required by considerations of health, have been much discussed. In a particular place a certain period for drying new buildings, dependent upon climate, material of construction and style of architecture, may come to be fixed by experience as necessary, but the direct testing of the walls as to the amount of moisture in them has been untrustworthy. In view of these facts, a number of experiments were made by Dr. Glassgen, under the direction of Prof. Pettenkofer, for the accurate determination of the amount of moisture present in the walls at any time,' and a method was finally found that gave satisfactory results. Portions of the plastering taken from different parts of the partition walls were tested. The free water and water of hydration of the lime were determined separately, the former by drying sifted specimens in a Liebig’s dry-ing-tube, in a current of air free from carbonic acid, and the latter by passing a current of carbonic acid over the specimen thus dried while heating it. The general conclusions from the tests made of a great number of buildings, under varying conditions, were that there is a constant loss of moisture proportional to the time, and that there is a great difference between the times of drying in winter and summer, and of exposed and unexposed buildings. .