Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 March 1878 — MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

—Thomas Hardy makes a man's reason become equal to his passions when he reaches the age of thirty-five,. —The mule is a musical animal. His voice has remarkable volume, :ind his hind legs a~efull of shoe Uy.— Exchange. —“ The Pitman short-hand system of disposing of the dead” is the way the New Orleans Picayune refers to it. —‘‘Beauty and booty” was the cry of the young man, who kissed the girl and was kicked by her father. -HawkEye. —The Signal Service reports that not a drop of rain or flake of snow fell anywhere within the United States on last New Year’s Day. -Bayard Taylor says that the newspaper man who works French and Latin into his articles is a fool, and is seeking to hide the fact. —A tailor, in skating, fell through the ice; he w r as afterward heard to declare that he would never again leave his “hot goose” for a “ cold duck." —Women are proverbially severe in their criticisms of each other’s attire. It makes all the difference in the world whose dress is gored.— Harper's Bazar. —A Bridgeport man courted his wife seven years, and after living with her two, now acknowledges it was a court of errors.— Bridgeport (Conn.) Standard. —An African traveler who attended the obsequies of a deceased sovereign of that country speaks of the remains, when prepared for interment, as the largest box of black King he ever saw, —Oh, the snow-shovel, the beautiful znow-shovol,' Out on the sidewalk you’ve got for to jc shovel. Needed alike at the palace and hovel, What should we do without any *now »tiov-e\l Scraping. —— Scnttchiny, It's all very well. To sing of the snow, but blarst the shov-«2. —Burlington Ila tek-Eye, —Washington’s tomb has been connected with the Mount Vernon Mansion by an electric burglar alarm. Imperia’ Caesar, dead and turned to clay, is gir; with lightning to keep thieves away.— Detroit Free Press. —“What cable news does that remind you of?” asked Spilkins, pointing to a man carrying a keg of lard across the sidewalk. “Give it up,” said the other. “ Why,” said Leander, “it reminds me of ‘ Greece in arms ’ ” —“Now, your Honor, we must consider the animus furandi," said a Detroit Police Court shyster, who was eloquently defending a chicken thief, a few days since. “ Latin quotations are not admissible in a chicken case,” said the Justice, thoughtfully, “ninety days in the Hiuse of Correction.” —The Paris EvenemcnCs American correspondence informs us that in the cars on the Orange, Lemon & Alexandria Railroad, bet ween Washington and Richmond, there are always a surgeon and undertaker, with a stock of coflins, an while hospitals are erected at regular distances along the line. —A learned doctor, who went out for a day’s recreation on the ice, talked in a masterly way about the science of skating. He buckled the irons on his shoes, and, after a few indescribable movements, found himself gliding along on his vertebral column and the back of his head. “Ah,” he sighed, when he recovered his equilibrium, “ I am like some religious people—up in theory and down in practice.”

—A traveler in Western lowa, while riding along, came to a large sign which implored him to “ Look out for the locomotive.” He accordingly rode dowh the track for a better view, and while he was looking out” for it, it came along. He saw ft, but he had to sit in the ditch and wait until a freight train of thirty-seven cars passed by before he could get back to the other piece of his horse.—Burlington Hawk-Eye. —Spikes says he has thought it over a good deal, and he wonders if the curious phenomena have been generally observed, that to-day was to-morrow yesterday, and yesterday yesterday was io-day. To-morrow to-day is to-mor-row, but to-morrow to-morrow is day after to-morrow to-day, Yesterday tomorrow is to-day, and yesterday to-day will be day before yesterday to-morrow. The day after to-morrow to-day will be to-morrow to-morrow, and to-morrow to-day will be to-day to-morrow.— N. Y. Graphic. —A farmer was boasting to Sam about the speed of bis horse, which, he said, would trot a mile inside of three minutes, and follow it for three miles. “A mile inside of three minutes ain’t much to brag about,” said Sam. ‘‘Why, the other day I was up to S , sixteen miles off. Just as I started from home a shower came sweeping on. The rain Struck on the back part of the wagon, and the moment it struck I hit ohi Kate a cut with the whip; away ihe trotted, scarcely touching her feet to the ground. She kept nip and nip with the shower. The wagon was filled with water, but not a drop fell on me.” —ln a wild part of Scotland, a dealer in fish used to drive his cart a considerable way inland. On one occasion, when passing ; • i moor, where, although there di •: a schoolmaster, the knowledge r „• inhabitants of affairs in general a..s not extensive, he droppea a lobster. Some children picked it np, and, wondering what the strange creature could be, took it to the schoolmaster. The dominie put on his “ Bparticles,” and, turning ft over and over, examined it carefully. “ Weel,” at length said the oracle, “J ken maist o’ the wonderfu’ o’ creation except jist twa, and those twa I never saw. They are an elephant and a turtle-dove; and so this must be ane 19’ th§ twa ” ,