Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1876 — INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS. [ARTICLE]

INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS.

—At Eugene City, Oregon, Daniel J. Lemons, becoming'excited over a game of cards, seized his adversary and gave him a good choking. A witness went for an officer, and when he relumed fonnd Lemons had died in a fit of apoplexy. —A moribund resident of Troy, N. Y., mindful of possible post-mortem extortions, Called for proposals from different undertakers for conducting his funeral, and had the contract made in black and white with the successful competitor. —ln removing the box of an old pump near the Poetoffice, the other day, the workmen found over fifty letters which had been slipped into the pump by persons mistaking it for a letter-box. The letters were taken to the Dead-Letter Office to havfe the mold scraped off them.— WaMinyton (D. O'.) Telegram to InterOcean. —A newly-married couple named Benson, of Buffalo, were en route for New York via the Erie Railway, one day recently. Near Narrowsburg the husband took from his pocket a roll of brown paper, which the bride snatched and threw out of the window, remarking: “ You said you’d quit chewing tobacco when I married you." As gently as he could, under the circumstances, the husband remarked that the brown paper contained not tobacco, but SIOO in greenbacks! —A singular suicide occurred in the old town of Guilford, Conn., the other day. Patrick Sheehan, a farmer, some fifty years old, who by industry had accumulated quite a little property during several years’ residence in that place, went to his bam and hung himself while his wife was getting breakfast ready. When she went to call him she found him hanging to a beam, dead. The only reason that can be assigned was Sheehan’s low spirits because his crop of onions had not quite met his expectations.

—A little son of Mrs. James Hodge, residing in Auburn, Me., recently found a pretty little copper cylinder, which he concluded to use as a head to his leadpencil. He showed it to his mother, and solicited her aid to th# job of making it ready. Mrs. Hodge took up the little copper cylinder, and, with a pair of scissors, began to punch a hole into it with a view of digging out some substance which appeared to be within. She had not been long engaged in this work when it exploded with a tremendous concussion, and blew off Mrs. Hodge’s forefinger and part of the thumb on her left hand. The lad was hit in the face and slightly wounded. It was a dynamite cartridge. —Orville Bosserman, a boy twelve years of age, son of Bamuel Bosserman, of Valle de las Viejas, Cal., was accustomed to exercise on a swing, and, standing on a box, would turn the rope under his armEits and throw himself forward with all is strength, so as to make the swing rise to the greatest possible height. The other day he met his death in a sad manner. It was evident that the rope had slipped from under his arms ana caught him by the neck. He had been engaged in conversation with his mother not more than ten minutes before the accident was discovered. She afterward called to him from the kitchen, and hearing no response, she went out and found him suspended by the neck, and dead. —Dr. Leonard Bacon, of New Haven, Conn., at a meeting in the Center Church of that city, a few evenings ago, related the history of the silver basin which is used in the baptismal service of the church. The basin was presented to the church in the year 1735 by Jeremiah Atwater, who was at that time a New Haven merchant, buying his supplies in Boston, and receiving them from that place by vessel. Amonfe the goods received were several nail casks, one of which, under a layer of nails at each end, was found to be filled with silver dollars. Mr. Atwater, who was a conscientious man, immediately wrote to the Boston merchant that there must be some mistake in the invoice of nails, as some of the casks contained other articles beside nails. It was promptly answered that the supposed nails were bought for nails, sold for nails, and nails they must be. Mr. Atwater then melted the silver and had made from it the silver basin which he presented to the Center Church.