Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1875 — VARIETY AND HUMOR. [ARTICLE]

VARIETY AND HUMOR.

—California V hoodlums” complain that aha law against killing Chinamen is comlagto be too strictly interpreted. « —A woman was arrested at St. Albans ▼L, lately, by the customs authorities with 400 yards of black silk upon her person. —The President Las threatened the peace ot Europe bv his Thanksgiving proclamation. All.Turkeydom is in a flutter. —A Pennsylvanian named Wjngert cut his toe otT because of an aching cbm. and 'then hung himself because of the aching of the amputated toe. —Table salt is served in China dissolved in water, it being used in a fluid state. Why don't they scoop it right out of the Pacific ? — Boston Advertiser. —Santa Anna has gone into the poultry business, and will now raise hens instead of rebellions, though he confesses that he'd like one more little rebellion. —Leaves have their time to fall, Now, in November; Falls have their time to leave, Next month, December. —Detroit Tribune.. —A New Jersey: worn an has invented •“an everlasting clbthes-line;” but, alas! the head of the family has to arise in the night and take it in to avoid a shower, the same as with the old ones. —A Chicago girl worth $3,000,000 is out doing housework in order to know how to govern her own mansion when she gets one. This item is right from a Chicago ?aper and can be relied on.— Detroit Free ’ret*. —A sign in Louisville reads: PLAIN SOAI : Mi ANd VVA ; SHINUXIRE : ; MNO l. . . •%, . .i? —Somebody wants to bet that American ■Oirl will have a monument before G. Washington gets one. But you must reoicmlier that Washington never ran a mile in 2:16. In fact, the British couldn't make him run at all. — Norristown Herald. —Russia’s part in our exhibition next year may be comparatively small, but it will be interesting all the same. It will consist of products which cannot be duplicated by any other country, for they are to lie confined to those which are peculiar to her soil and climate. —A Lehigh quarryman dreamed that his w ife was a bowlder, and hurled her from the bed. He scarcely changed his mind, it is presumed, when he awoke, for ' the Item-states that she battered him worse than the fragments of a blasting explosion could Lave done ordinarily. —The increase in the number of insane comiAitted irom San Francisco the present year is 25 per cent- over the corresponding period last year. During the year 1874 the number committed was 195, while for the nine months of 1875, ending Sept. 30, the number reached 210. —For the first time since the inauguration of the letter-carrier system the free-de-livery division of the Postoffice Department has paid its expenses. For the last fiscal year there is a balance in favor of the Government of nearly SIOO,OOO, between the cost of that bureau of the service and the receipts from local postage in cities where the delivery is free. —The Jacksonville (Fla.) Press says that some $40,000 of judgments have been obtained against the city. A mandamus has been granted, requiring the Council to discharge this debt by next .1 anuary, or to stand committed for contempt. To do so they have been compelled to levy a tar of 2 per cent, upon the assessed valuation, which will yield about $50,000.

—Sheep-raising in California must be •attended with some excitement. Mr. John Maxwell, living near Blairatown, lowa, recently received from his son in California the skins of seven panthers, two black bears, fourteen lynx, one brown bear, two cubs and two gray foxes. Mr. Maxwell's son is in the sheep business, -and these pelts were the trophies gained while guarding his flocks; —ln Galveston, Tex., when a butcher fails to give satisfaction to his customers in the quality of his meat and the prices charged therefor, they take a novel way of expressing themselves. Instead ot getting their meat elsewhere and allowing the butcher’s falling off in trade to punish him, they make an effigy of the offenler, hang it before his shop, and hoot at it all night. Wketheranv improvement follows this action is not stated. r —The other day a Vicksburg wife went into the country on a visit without saying anything to, or leaving word for, her husband, , He was uneasy on returning home, and made inquiries among the neighbors. “ Gone! missing!” exclaimed one woman; “ why, I should think you’d be uneasy about her.” “ I am,” he replied, wearing a sorrowful look, “ for some one has got to split the wood to get breakfast with.” —Vicksburg Herald. —The little sense of moral obligation that a baby has is a marvel |to me. That he has any duties in life never occurs to k him. In the present only he lives, with _an idea evidently that nothing is expected of him but to grow. Where his dinner comes from matters not to him so long as he gets it. Though it may be that the milk wherein he rioteth belongeth of right to another baby, the ethical question which at once ariseth troubleth him not. —John Haul.

—The reader is not required to believe any more of the following story than he chooses: John King in 1862 lived in Tennessee. Soldiers of both parties raided on his farm. So he removed all his produce to-a cave in the Cumberland Mountains. A storm threw down a rock which closed the mouth of the cave. Therein he lived for thirteen years, in the dark, eating from his produce and drinking from a spring. The other day a railroad company, blasting tor a runnel, blasted him out. •, —Mr. .Wylie, the successful checkerplayer, has met his equal at Burlington, Vt., in a gentleman named McGregor. Out of twelve games played by them since the 15th of October each has won a single game, while ten games have, been drawn. This result seems to corroborate what has often been asserted by critical observers of the game, that its ■combinations are so comparatively few that they may often be completely'mastered by skillful players, who consequently on meeting find themselves very evenly matched.—A Y. htening Pott. —■“ Lovest thou me?” asked a MinnespoJis swain of his last year’s girl. “ Not much I don’t,” was her emphatic reply. •“ Then death is toy best friend, and here’s ta hi* health!” spoae up the sighing lover as be drank off a bottle filled with a mixture which he supposed to be laudanum. But when the emetic, which a shrewd druggist had given instead of laudanum, began to work his girl just held his hat to save the carpet and then dragged him

out on the door-steps by the hair of. his head. He has no longer any Mth in the vaunted tenderness of womens sympathetic nature.