Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 July 1879 — PERSONAL AND LITERARY. [ARTICLE]

PERSONAL AND LITERARY.

—The Marquis of Lome is writing a book about Canada, to be illustrated by his wife. —General Grant’s two Arabian horses were shod in New Haven, and the blacksmith preserved the nails from the old shoes. He sold one nail to a Bridgport man for one dollar, and refused ten dollars for one of the cast-off shoes. —James Larrabee, of Stark, N. H., a veteran woodsman eighty-six years old, has furnished spars and masts for five hundred vessels; he has not been ill for fifty years, and can still remain up day and night for two days at a time while engaged in his work in the forest. * —At the funeral of General James Shields in Carrollton, Mo., the two swords presented to him by the States of Illißois apd South Carolina for gallantry in the Mexican War were crossed .over ■; the coffin. The gift of Illinois "cost $2,000 and that of South Carolina SB,OOO, and both are richly studded with jewels. The immediate cause of General Shields’ death was the opening of the qld wound received by him at the battle of Cerro Gordo. —The following story is told of General Grant: He met and recognized a man in Washington one day whom he had not seen for years. The man, who was distinguished for dirty shirts and collars, was so much gratified by the ' -recognition that he related the circumstance to a friend, who in turn told the President how much the recognition had been appreciated. The General could not recollect the man until his chief characteristic was mentioned, when he quietly remarked: “Oh, yes; I always wonder who wears his shirts the first day.” —Mr. W. D. Eaton, formerly of Dexter, Mfe., but now a wool merchant of Boston, was connected with the savings bank in Dexter when it was founded, and was intimately acquainted with its officers both before and since Barron’s death. He says that no man’s habits could be more simple than Mr. Barron’s, and that without doubt the Cashier alwavs lived far within his income. Mr. "Eaton scouts the notion that the books of the bank have shown clear evidence of the Cashier’s wickedness, as he also does the allegation that the present officers of the bank have made alterations or false entries. j-'Captain Calvin Hall, who recently died in Somers, Mass, at the age of pinety-four, was one of the most eccentric farmers in Western Massachusetts. He would never begin apiece of work on Friday, would cut his fin-fer-nails at stated times, would never ill a hog for his own use unless the moon was growing larger, so that the meat would swell while coOking, would “ talk” to burns to cure the pain, and had as many superstitious notions as a heathen. To look op and see an odd number of crows 'was to him an omen of bad luck, and to see the new moon over his right shoulder indioated that good, fortune lay in his pathway.;