Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1876 — BREVITIES. [ARTICLE]

BREVITIES.

A skambtresb’ exclamation--A-hem! Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell.began life as law-students. Ice continues to be broken indifferent parts of the country for drowning purposes. 4 Why is a Judge’s nose like the middle of the earth * | Because it’s the scenter of gravity. The entire product of writing paper in all the mills in this country, is about forty tons a day. Why is a minister near the end of his sermon like a tagged urchin? Because he’s toward (tor’d) his close (clothes). C. B. Pierson, a dairyman, of Greeley, Col., has churned out 8,000 pounds of butter this season, from which he realized $2,800. It is claimed that Senator Jones has discovered on one of his Nevada farms a mine of Castile soap, but the story will hardly wash. A couple of Bridgeport (Conn.) families have builf a twentydbot board fence between them, so. as to keep from tearing each other’s hair out.

There is a postoffice at Sonoma Township, Cal., but it is without a master, because none of lhe applicants could give the $4,000 bond required. t Dr. Holland thinks the cure for) gossip is culture. He says good-natured people talk about their neighbors because they have nothing else to talk about. A lantern-maker in Tokio is now making a great number of with the likeness of an eagle on the side for the American centenary celebrations next year. A Dooly County (Ga.) man who ran away from his family and went to Texas writes back that he took this step because he couldn’t make up the beds to suit his wife. Have we ever thought before of asking why a fast black horse-is like a patent preparation of india-rubber? If we have not, it’s because it’s an inky-racer.— New York World. Oregon gives an annual premium to the man who kills the most squirrels in the course of the year, and it went this year to an old chap over seventy, whose tally- was 1,538. “That,” said the tramp, “is the top buckwheat; it has been used to keep the others warm, and I don’t eat no coverlids.” So he laid it one side.—St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Said a young man to his bachelor uncle: “What advice would you give to a young man who was contemplating matrimony?” “I should advise him to keep on contemplating it.” Slrs. Mary A. Murphy, of Locke, Cayuga County, N. Y., died recently at the age of sixty-two. She had been afflicted with elephantiasis, and had attained? to the enormous weight of 450 pounds. Some Norwegians have discovered a large lake about fifteen miles from Beaver Pass, in which the fish are so thick that a man could walk across the lake oil their backs; at least the discoverers say so. Russia is, it is said, going to abolish the passport system, and the Minister of Finance has already declared hisyeadiness to dispense with the 2,500,0(16 of roubles which the passport fees annually’ bring into the imperial exchequer. A lady riding on the cars the other day was amused by the question of a little girl who, hearing the conductor cry the stations, looked up into her mother’s face and innocently asked: “ Bay, mamma, do we get out at tlie next holler?” A jury at Toronto have given a verdict of SSOO against the commercial age ncy of Dun, Wiman & Co., being thesum lost by a subscriber who, on the representation as to a customer’s standing by the defendants, made advances to him to that amount. The Supreme Court of Minnesota has affirmed the constitutionality of the law providing that a State Inebriate Asylum shall be built and maintained at the cost of the licensed liquor-dealers of the State, and work on the institution will be begun at once. An odd ceremony took place in the principal circus at Berlin at the coinple-. tion by a monkey of a service of twentyfive years. Jocko was formally installed in the place of honor at a grand banquet, and, besides his sawdust acquaintances, made his grimaces of thankfulness to a number of prominent military men and lawyers of the city. p Georgia is gradually filling up with' cotton factories, which continue to arise on every hand. The Memphis Avalanche,' in noticing the latest enterprise of this kind, predicts that the time is not far distant when a very large proportion of the cotton grown in the South will be manufactured at home, not only for domestic supply but for export. Alfred Cope, an old merchant of Philadelphia who died a few days ago, gave $25,000 to the Zoological Garden of that city on condition that no liquor should be sold on the ground, that the animals should not be unnecessarily molested, and that the society should raise the additional sum of $125,000, which has been done, and the society has agreed to accept the conditions. The sugar interest of Louisiana, which was aforetime the basis of prosperity in that State, is now giving promise of renewed vigor. The crop this year is estimated at about 190,000 hogsheads. This is the largest crop produced during the past thirteen years, being fullv one-third larger than last year, and equal to about half the average yield of the ten years immediately before the war. The statement is made by the President of a life insurance company that it is a fact that women live longer in tilts’ country than in any other. They are l less Robust and muscular than the women of other nations, but their tenacity of life is strong, and their constitutions’ are sufficiently enduring to keep them alive considerably longer than their appearance, as a general thing, would warrant. A remarkable instance of calculation was recorded at Alymer, Cap., recently, where a barber named Jenson, fora bet of fifty cents, ran under the cars of a railway train that was passing at a round speed, He won the wager, though he lost the heel of one boot by awheel that came unpleasantly close as he emerged. The man who lost the bet said he had expected to win and get a couple of dollafs for attending the inquest. „ The Dominion Government has sent a dispatch' to the Government of British Columbia announcing the abandonment of ffie construction ot a railway from Esquimau to Nanaimo. It also proposes to pay $750,000 to British Columbia as compensation for the delay in completion of Uie Pacific Railway. This amounts to an indefinite postponement of the commencement of the work on the railroad. The scarcity of labor in our large cities, and the eagerness with which men out ot work grasp at every opportunity of earn-

ing a little money, were recently iliutt trated in New York. The management of Booth’s Theater advertised foe snmd men over six feet tall to act as auxiliaries in a forthcoming spectacular trtgeay. fn answer to the advertisement' ovfer 1,000 giants presented themselves- for tagage.' mjmt at fifty cents a night.' >q- r i The other day, while tki' Vtaflnfien «t‘ the saw-mill; Camberdown ship-building yard, in Dundee, Scotland, "stere engaged cutting up a large log of (Quebec yellow pine, they laid open several (sections of a wasp’s nest. The nest being near the cehter of the tree, the animals, several thousands In number, must liavebeeninclosed for upward <rf a hundred years. Tlie prisoners, are in a good state of preservation,and are evidently of the Wasp ‘species, with very large wings in comparison to tlie size of the body. Vesuvius, after a long period of rest,., gives signs of an approachlhg' eruption. The large crater which has been.formed sipce the last disturbance emits a black smoke, Always a symptom of volcanic activity, although the time, which may elapse between the first symptom and an actual'eruption is hot definitely known. In December, 1854, similar appearances indicated approaching activity, which did not set ip, however,