Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1875 — VARIETY AND HUMOR. [ARTICLE]

VARIETY AND HUMOR.

—Philadelphia added 6,000 to the number of her dwelling-houses last year. —ls all things are for the best where do the rations for the second-best come from? —The Jackson (Miss.) Times says: “ The loss of cotton this year, for want of picking, is estimated at $5,000,000 in gold.” U-uv —The hdme emigration of the past year has ben almost exclusively to California. That State has gained at least 70,000 good population. —A prominent land-owner on Detroit street, Cleveland, recently refused $4,000 per acre for his entire tract of eighty acres, that is $320,000 —The friends of Samuel Saugner, of Schuylkill County, Pa., lay his death to five drops qf croton-oil, administered to him by a physician. —The Arctic Ocean is said to be warmer now than for many years before, and everyone having real estate bordering on that pond will rejoice over this information. —At a Georgia hanging, the other day, a chap in the crowd took offense at some remarks by the doomed man on the scaffold and tried to get at him with a bowieknife. —One hundred thousand trade-dollars were recently delivered by the coiner to the Cashier of the Carson mint. This is the largest delivery of this coin yet made at one time. —Tiie New York Graphic says: “Anonymous attacks are indecent and cowardly.” And some one else says* “Theyemanate?' from liars, w-iio lack the nerve to write themselves as such.” t —The mules in the Pennsylvania coal mines, hundreds of feet below the surface, are said to have the epizootic, although none of them have been aboveground for months. —A man named Peace was stopped in the road through a piece of woods in Otisfield, Me., the other evening, by a man who demanded his life or his money. He ran three miles and saved both. —As a colored man w-as walking over a lull back of Perryville, Md., the other evening, he saw a large eagle sitting in the grass some distance off, leisurely eating the carcass of a rabbit. Picking up a stone he threw it with considerable force at the eagle’s head; his aim was perfect, and the bird dropped dead where it sat. —Moses L. wheeler, convicted of arson in 1860, and sentenced to imprisonment for life in the Charlestown (Mass.) Prison, has just been pardoned. There is now satisfactory evidence that he was not guilty of the crime with which he was charged. His sister, on whose testimony he was convicted, confessed on her death-bed that she had perjured herself in order to get him out of the way and obtain control of his properly. —A fair young couple of Rutland, Vt., went on their bridal tour as far as Poultney before the ceremony. They went in search of the cheapest and best private means whereby to become one flesh. Having secured the services of a Justice, the happy pair were united, and, handing the officiating gentleman ten cents, were joyfully departing, when the polite Justice observed that, as the bride appeared dowcrless, he would bestow the marriage fee upon her. —At the close of the Pittsburgh Industrial Exposition a wedding took place, as extensively advertised, before an immense throng of people, who crowded upon the pair after the ceremony, until they had to be rescued by a charge of the police force. The managers gave the half-smotliered couple several elegant articles of jewelry and silverware, sent them on a wedding. tour, paying a week’s expenses, and then made several thousand dollars out of the operation.

—A man in Lyme, Conn., was preparing to blast a rock. Two of his nephews were seated on the top of the rock, quietly,, eating raw turnips, and waiting for their uncle to get ready. The powder got ready before the uncle, and in an instant those nephews were turning somersaults at a fair elevation. Luckily there was but a moderate charge of the powder, and the two nepnews came down uninjured, and without losing their grip on the delicious esculents on which they were feasting. —The last one comes from Warren. He came all the way to get a tooth pulled that had robbed him of four nights’ sleep. He sat down, and just as the. doctor was applying his forceps changed the expression of his face, and said ; “Look here, Doc,Low much is this business going to cost L fellow?” “ Fifty cents,” replied the doctor. “Can’t you do it for less?” said the man with the toothache. “ No.” “ Then we can’t trade,” said the sufferer, and lie rode back to Warren County.— Scottsville ( Ky.) Argus. —The other evening a young man with a cigar in his mouth" and a young lady on his arm entered a Memphis theater and took a seat in the parquette. , One of the ushers induced the young man to dispense with the cigar and take off his hat, but the verdant youth was a little surprised at. the request. lie was not aware that he was in a theater, but thought he had come to a stationary circus. In a few mjnutes he put his arm around the young lady, who lovingly rested upon the brachial member of her escort, unconscious of the critical glances of the audience. The usher finally induced the youth to withdraw liis arm, but this request seemed to astonish the boor, who said: “ You’ll next ax me to take off my coat, and I ain’t going to do any such thing. So away, and don’t bother me with politeness.” —A new device for the confusion of the thieving street-car conductor has been in use for some time on the Philadelphia and Boston lines. The invention, which is called the “passenger fare enumerator •and classifier,” consists of a nickel-plated metallic case some -six inches long, two inches wide and three-quarters of an inch deep, whose interior contains a system of wheels and dials somewhat like a gas or water-meter. From the top of it project three finger keys, by pressing upon which a signal is given and a fare registered. The first is the “ ticket” signal and a register, another is that for “ cash,” while the third is for “half-fares.” The pulling of a knob at the bottom of the instrument provides similarly for “ transfers.” Pressure upon tlie ticket and cashkey's strikes a clear-sounding gong, another bell for the half-fares gives forth a muffled ring, while the transfer-ticket signal is a click and a ring. Every night after his hist trip tlie conductor surrenders the register which had in the morning been given him locked and sealed in such a manner as to surely reveal any attempt at tampering with recorded fares. He also simply turns in all the tickets and cash in his possession after deducting the caslf he started with in the morning. Then deducting the standing of tlie several dials in the ihorning from their record at night shows the railmad officials just how much and What tmgWrplyr.tnr should turn in.