Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1879 — PERSONAL AND LITERARY. [ARTICLE]

PERSONAL AND LITERARY.

—Senator Sargent of California is in Florida, suffering from bad health. He will pass most of* the .winter at Nassau, New Providence Island, one of the Bahamas. —Spurgeon says thatgoing to America to escape excitement" would be like visiting the tropics to escape the heat He is suffering severely from rheumatic attacks and needs rest —The report that Jeese Pomeroy, the murderer, is failing in body and mind is emphatically denied. On 'the contrary, he is very fat and healthy, and is so cunning that a careful watch has to be kept on him by the prison officers at the State Prison at Concord, Mass. —lt is related of Sec’y Evarts that, as he stood dressed in plain black broadcloth among the much-adorned foreign diplomatists at the Presidents reception, the other day, an eight-year-old boy who had accompanied a gentleman into the rpom, pointed to the Secretary, saying," “ Grandpa, is that man too poor to buy a dress?”

—When Sierra Nevada stock began to go up, Mr. Mackey, the “Bonanza King,” made an investment for the benefit of Gen. Sheridan’s twin babies, moaning to surprise them with the gift of a fortune. For a while it seemed likely to become a goodly sum for the little pair, when it suddenly fell, and all that had been gained in the rise was lost. —The Misses Thornton, daughters of Sir Edward Thornton, English Minister to this country, have not heretofore taken part in Washington gayeties, because English etiquette requires that young ladies shall be presented to the Queen before they enter general society. During their recent visit in England, two of them went through the ceremony, and they are, therefore, now at liberty to accept social attentions in this country. —A remarkable convict in the Rhode Island State Prison is David Peters, a colored man, who, in 1860, received twenty-five years’ sentence for assault. He was ignorant, but when allowed the use of the prison library he soon made astonishing advances in learning. He mastered arithmetic, algebra and geometry, took a course in logic and rhetoric, and then turned his attention to languages. He acquired a fair knowledge of French, German, Latin and Greek, and then took up jurisprudence. He is now reading law, and for a change studies Hebrew. He delivered at a Thanksgiving celebration in the prison a year or two ago anoration which was pronounced a remarkable production.