Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1879 — PERSONAL AND LITERARY. [ARTICLE]

PERSONAL AND LITERARY.

■—Bishop Ames left $250,000. —Mr. Spofford, the Congressional Librarian, is reported to have said that SmatorThurman reads more foreign books than anyNqther Senator in Wash ington. Joseph R. Hawley, of Hartford, who was a lawyer before he was an editor, has been admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court at Washington. —Ralph Waldo Emerson is a spare liver, but takes care of himself. Of an evening He plays whist. He likes to wander through the streets watching mechanics at work. —Justiceswayne of the United States Supreme Court has hired one of the Cliff cottages at Newport, and President and Mrs. Hayes have promised to visit him during the summer. —There are some words in the English language which drive even scholars to despair. For instance, which is the plural of a tailor’s goose? There were seven tailors, and they had seven —what? —Senator Gordon, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, has made Robert Alston, of Georgia, son of the murdered Robert Alston, the messenger of the comrpittee, with a salary of $1,440. —To some young ladies who asked Pope Leo’s permission to dance during the Carnival he is said to have replied: “ Go, my dears, and enjoy yourselves in an innocent dance, only don’t keep up too late you papas and mammas when they want to get home again.”

—Representative Alexander H. Stephens was so poor when he began the practice of law that he had to live on live dollars a month. This is said to be the secret of his assistance to poor more than fifty of whom i aided in securing a liberal education. —As Horace Greeley was once registering his name at a hotel in Omaha, a huge bed-bug came crawling deliberately down the page on the register. Horace threw down the pen in disgust, and remarked very emphatically: “Well, I have been bled by St. Jo fleas, bitten by Kansas City spiders, interviewed by Fort Scott graybacks, but this is the first time, in all my travels - , that bed-bugs have attempted to find.out the number of my room.” —The death of Gen. Richard Taylor recalls to a charitable correspondent of the Buffalo Courier an illustration of what he calls the simplicity of the General’s distinguished father, President Taylor. As the story goes, Sec’y-of-State Clay waited on the President to bring before him the matter of the search for Sir John Franklin. “Yes,” said President Taylor, “we ought to do something, for this country is much indebted to him for his services in gaining Independence.”— N. Y. Post. —lt is related that after Mr. L. Bradford Prince had received his appointment as Chief Justice of New Mexico, among the first persons whom lie met in Washington, was Miss Slough, the daughter of an ex-Chief Justice of the Territory. She was very entertaining, and gave him much valuable information. On his way to the Territory, Mr. Prince took a seat alongside of a finelooking man, who also proved to be from New Mexico. After a long conversation, Mr. Prince mentioned his meeting with the ex-Chief Justice’s daughter, and asked his companion if Col. Slough was living. “No,” replied the stranger, “ I killed him.” The information was found by Judge Prince to be correct.