Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1877 — PERSONAL AND LITERARY. [ARTICLE]

PERSONAL AND LITERARY.

—The house where William H. Seward was bom, in Florida, N. Y., is occupied by a fashionable dressmaker. It is old, but is well preserved. —Miss Paran Stevens, daughter of the rich hotel keeper, is to marry the heir of Viscount Hawardeu, who is both a Peer and an Irish Baronet. —James Lenox, of New York City, is called the most liberal man in the world. For nearly forty years he has given away his surplus income, which Las always been large. —Rev. George Allen, of Worcester, Mass., now in his eigbtv-sixth year, states that he has never been laid upon his back or deprived of a meal by means of sickness, and has never had the headache. —The Albany Argus learns from a private letter that “ Mr. Tilden has received much benefit from the ocean voyage, and tbat he looks and feels in better health than at any time within the last three or four yearb.” —Friends of the two say that on account of the embarrassment in business of Francis Moulton, his old associate, Theodore Tilton has offered to advance him several thousand dollars for an indefinite period, without security. —The Rev. Phillips Brooks says that a backwoodsman on hearing Bishop Mead, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, preach a sermon in a iron tier chnrch without a manuscript, said: “He is the first of them fine fellers that I have ever seen who could shoot without a rest.”

—Mr. Bigger, the traveling American in France who alluded to President MacMahon as an ass, and was put into jail for his pains, has probably come to the conclusion by this time tnat he is mistaken in his animal. He had been looking upon the wine when it was white, and, seeing his own image reflected in, its limpid depths, he mistook himself for a brave military chieftain and a patriot. —Chicago Tribune. —Mr. John G. Whittier, in reply to an inquiry, has written a letter saying that the poem called the “ Hong of Vermonters,” which many persons have supposed to be oi the date of the Revolution, was composed by himself in 1833 or 1834 as a literary hoax. Its inspiration was drawn from reading the exciting history of Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Bovs at a period when Mr. Whittier’s peace principles were the fruit of tradition rather than of conviction. —When Gen. Grant was President an eminent physician said to him: “Do you know, Mr. President, that strabismus is easily removed in these days of advanced surgical skill ?” “ What do you mean?” answered the President, in his abrupt, level wav, “do you mean that you want to straighten my wife’s eyes? They were as they are now when I married her, and I am satisfied with them justasthey are.” Also, wheu he first became President, some one delicately suggested to her that she would better have them operated upon. “No,” she said, placidly, “Ihave been able to make General Grant happy notwithstanding these crooked eyes, and I hope I shall be able to make President Grant equally happy.”— Chieago Tribune. —There is a bit of romance connected with the marriage of poor Tom Placide, whose remains were recently consigned to the earth. His wife was an early love wbcun he had not seen for forty years and who had been twice married and twice widowed in the meantime. She came to New York and stopped at the Union Place Hotel, and while there learned that Tom Placide was also in the house. A wellknown New York lady was with her when she learned it, who was an acquaintance of Placide’s also. “ Why, Tom and I are old sweethearts,” said Mrs. Davis, and the other lady told her that Placide was in straitened circumstances. “ Bend him to me, won’t you,” said Mrs. Davis, “ there is no reason why we shouldn’t spend the rest of our lives together. I have plenty money.” The pleasant message was taken to Placide, and the couple soon met and shortly afterward were married. The marriage, as was scarcely to have been expected under the circumstances, was an exceptionally happy one, and Mrs. Placide is stricken with sorrow at her husband’s death. — N. Y. Graphic.