Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1879 — PERSONAL AND LITERARY. [ARTICLE]

PERSONAL AND LITERARY.

—At the funeral of Morris Einstein, in Titusville, Pa., recently, in accordance with his wishes a funeral oration which he had written was read hy a friend. ' '< —Mrs. Polk, the venerable widow of President Polk, thinks that the dust of all the dead Presidents should be removed to Washington, where, if gathered in one place, a suitable memorial to them could be erected. —Edward S. Stokes, the slayer of James Fisk, Jr., is dabbling in the mining business on the Pacific coast. He is mentioned in a Montana City (Nev.) newspaper as selling his interest in one mine for $65,000. —A conceited student in Brown University once told Dr. Francis Wayland, the President, that he thought it would be easy to make proverbs like those of Solomon. The reply of Dr. Wayland was simply, “ Make a few.” —Ex-Governor Frederick Holbrook, Vermont’s war Governor, has been for forty years a member of the Brattleborough Congregational choir, and for the most of tne time chorister, and he sings now without a tremor in his voice. —Mr. Alvan Clark, of Cambridge, Mass., the telescope maker, is now seventy-six years old, and still full of energy and skill. For forty years Mr. Clark was a portrait painter, and earned $30,000 by his art before he began his telescopic experiments. —Tho Rev. Olympia Brown-Willis, pastor of the Church of the Good Shepherd at Racine, Wis., has received a vote of thanks from the church for the manner in which she has performed her duties during the last year, and an invitation to act as pastor for another year, with an increased salary. —John Brown Smith, who has been for some time in Northampton (Mass.) tail for refusing to pay nis poll-tax, ias applied for a writ of habeas corpus in order to have the legality of the poll-tax tested. He founds his application on severalgrounds, one of which is as follows: “T am not a citizen of tho United States, but am the acknowledged ptller of the independent sovereignty known as John Brown Smith; hence, according to international law, ,1 am equal with tho other sovereignties of the world, and not subject to arrest while residing in foreign countries, Mr the same reason that ambassadors are exempt from the operation of civil law; hence I am beyond the jurisdiction of civil law courts outside of international liiw.” >