Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 April 1879 — INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS. [ARTICLE]

INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS.

—A school-teacher at Parkbifl, Can., has been summoned to answer several chargee of grots cruelty to pupils. Among the punishmebts inflicted has been to draw a circle on a blackboard, Inside of which the pupil is made to plaoe his noeo. The effect is to strfcin the eves in a painful degree and oause strabismus. —A negro man, named Joseph Armstrong, was found dead at the end of a trace chain, to whioh he had hanged himself, near Cross Plains, Robertson County, Tenn. He is supposed to have committed suicide in oonsequence of his former owner having failed to leave him sotde property whioh he bad expected to be bequeathed to him, and coveted. —When a lady answered a ring of the door-bell in Baltimore, the other day, she was pushed rudely aside by a burly fellow who strode past her into the hall. • The lady’s screams brought her husband to the scene, whereupon the intruder remarked, “ Beg pardon, didn’t know any men were about,” and rushed away before the gentleman recovered from his surprise. —Positive romance, epitomized: Miss Martha Ruggan, a pretty young schoolteacher of Cleburne, Tex., was engaged to be married to Henry Crowley, of Little Rock, Ark. The wedding was set for April—showers and flowers. Recently sue received an invitation to attend tne wedding of Crowley and a Little Rock woman. In a few minutes she died by her own hand. incident occurred in the Pmice Court at Cleveland, Ohio., recently, when a son of Judge Tilden was arraigned for petit larceny. His venerable father, who has been the honored Judge of the county for twen-ty-four years, appeared and asked that he might prosecute the case against his own son as a matter of duty owing to himself and the State. He then conducted the examination, and at-its close said he was satisfied beyond a doubt that his son was guilty, and when he referred to the sad spectaole of a father prosecuting his own son he burst into tears, while his powerful frame shook with the violence of his grief. The Police Judge found the boy guilty ot stealing a coat from a common pleas juryman and then pawning itfor money, but reserved sentence.

—George Bryant, train-master of the High Bridge, N. J„ and Wm. Hiobler, conductor on the Central Railroad of New Jersey, were fishing from the Newark bay bridge three years ago. Bryant lost his sinker and substituted for,it a Central Railroad switch-key. He got a “huge bite,” and in drawing in his line discovered a large eel on his hook; but, before he could land him. the eel broke loose, carrying away the hook and the Eight months after an eel was caught by Capt. Simon Chapman in an old barge at Chapman’s Wharf, on the Thames River, three miles above New London, Conn. When the eel was cut open the lost Central Railroad switch-key was found inside of it. Last evening, on Conductor Hibbler’s train, the son of Captain Chapman introduced himself to Mr. Hibbler, and said his father still had the key in his possession. Arrangements were made to have it returned to Mr. Bryant at High Bridge. —Easton {Pa.) Express. —A new confidence game is being played with considerable success in this part ot the country, the modus operandi of which is as follows: A young, well-dressed man puts up at some town on a railroad where there is an express office, and ingratiates himself into the confidence of a hotelkeeper. He generally claims to be a Mason, engaged in selling charts, or else he is a picture-dealer. After a few days, Us accomplice in the •ity sends him by express, O. 0. D., a quantity of charts or pictures, in reality worth a few dollars, but marked at anywhere from twenty-five to fifty dollars. The young man is short of funds when the package arrives, and borrows twenty or thirty dollars from the hotelkeeper to pay "expressage, saying the charges are much more than he expected. He pays the bill, removes the charts or pictures to the hotel, and almost immediately disappears, going back to the city to share with the shipper of the goods. The notel-keeper finds the articles to be of the commonest description, and is compelled to stand the Joss. The game has recently been played successfully in several towns in the oil region's, and other parts of Western Pennsylvania.—Pittsburgh Special to Chicago Tribune.