Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1877 — SENSE AND NONSENSE. [ARTICLE]

SENSE AND NONSENSE.

The regulation sizes for ladies* umbrellas to twenty and twenty-eight inches. A novelty in ladles* breakfast caps is made of striped Madras gauze, and imitatc the half handkctchiefs worn formerly by the mulatto women of the South. —Chicago Tribune. A New Bedford teacher asked his class to explain the difference lietween “dear” and “deer.” One bright little fellow exclaimed, “one is a biped and the other is a quadruped.” The World says: “Some wondrously smart fellow has Just determined the difference between an editor and his wife. He says one writes articles to set and the other sets articles to rights.” “ He is a man after my own heart, pa,” said Julia, reverting to her Augustus. “Nonsense,” replied old Practical, “he is a man after the money your uncle left you.” And then all was quiet. The new dress goods called “bunting” is said to combine every good quality; it is light, cool, durable, inexpensive, will not crease, and is not affected by dampness or salt water. Long may it wave. The Roumanians have been working Incessantly at the Kalafat fortifications and have mounted some forty new guns. If the Turks capture this fort they will have what one might Kalafat thing.— Worcester Preu. Two young brothers may be as devotedly attached to each other as were Damon and Pythias, but you will never hear of one snatching the scuttle from the hands of the other and insisting upon going down cellar to bring up the coal. Jones has discovered the respective natures of a distinction and a difference. He says that “ a little difference” frequently makes many enemies, while “ a Irttle distinction” attracts hosts of friends to the one on whom it is conferred. There is something indescribably grand in the indomitable perseverance w’ith which our court-house architects, year after year, attempt to perch 170,000 tons of dome qn about 256 pounds of foundation — Burlington Hawk-Eye. The Boston Pott thinks that when Cossack meets Bashi-Bazouk then comes the tug of war. On the other hand, then comes a tug at each other’s canteen, and the solemn agreement to go and shoot some unarmed person.—2F. F. Graphic. “Susan,” says the madame of a board-ing-school, “you say your young mistress wishes to absent herself from the classroom this afternoon; is the reason for her staying away very urgent?” “ Yes, mum, it is ’ergent.”— New Orleans Republican. Anyone would suppose that the employment of sewing was the most peaceful and quiet occupation in the world; and yet it is absolutely horrifying to hear ladies talk of stilettoes, bodkins, gatherings, surgings, hemmings, gergings, cuttings, whippings, lacings, cuffings and bastings. What a list of abominables! The paint brush is now wafted over the hotels at Niagara Falls, the resident Irishmen are practicing upon tlieir Indian dialect, the hackmen are robbing and murdering each other for practice, and all nature bears the unmistakable indications that the annual summer victim is approachimc.—Rochester D tmocral. A Russian engineer has invented c bombshell tower, which is moved about by steam, and in which artillerists sit and pelt the enemy with destruction. By the time the next war breaks out the warrior will sit in a rocking-chair in the front parlor of a hotel and talk his enemies to death with a revolving telephone. A Hartford lover of the sport declared lately that he never knew a good troutfisherman “that he wasn’t a poor, miserable cuss.” The common opinion of New. England seems to be to this effect. The shy inhabitants of the brooks have almost an affinity for the vagabonds with ragged trousers, crownless hats and still more dilapidated morals. Spring is here. Every morning the painter who agreed to have your house all painted by the 30th of May comes round and sits in the front yard and holds a paint-pot between his knees and stirs paint till three o’clock in the afternoon, and then says he believes he will go down to the shop and get a brush and see if there is a ladder there.— Burlington HawkEye. The industry of railroading has developed some thrifty characters, among whom a former workman of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Road deserves high rank. He was 'at one time at work in the Springfield depot, and while taking a trunk out of a baggage-car from Boston he was thrown over ard hurt, the baggagesmashing art being for the time reversed. The injured workman suffered terribly and crawled around on crutches until the Boston & Albany and the New Haven Roads united and gave him $6,600. He was cured the next day. Shortly after a’ man on the Boston & Albany Road was killed and the company gave his widow $3,000. The former cripple, who had sepred $6,000 already, soon married her, and thus counted $9,000. He recovered his health so completely that he was able to work again on the railroad, but finally, not being hurt again within a reasonable time, he retired to a farm which he had bought with a part of the proceeds of his former calamities. — Hartford Courant.

Perhaps there is no one way in which more money is spent to less purpose than upon funerals. So long as it was believed that a future hope was involved in the preservation of the outward form, it was natural that to the precious spices and the embalmer’s art should be added the protection of massy structures, that the tomb should be graven in the abiding rock, and that the dust should not be suffered to mingle with meaner elements. Science and Christianity alike have tried to-teach a letter lesson, and yet the power of the old superstition is not quelled. It would seem incredible, were we not so used to it, that a large and profitable ti aonsists in taking costly woods, in drying and polishing them with care, decorating them with silk and silver, and then putting them where they will be forgotten ana perish as speedily as possible. We do not like to look at these things in the undertaker’s shop, and we like them so little, that whatever reminds us of undertakers’ work is distasteful. — Lippincott's Magazine.