Rensselaer Union, Volume 12, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1879 — “Icee Wagon Comee Nextee.” [ARTICLE]

“Icee Wagon Comee Nextee.”

A short time ago the hub of the universe was visited by a terrible thunderstorm, accompanied by a well-developed sample of the Kansas tornado. Many lives were lost among the shipping along the Massachusetts coast, ana especially in Boston harbor. The damage to glass in the city ot Boston was very heavy., The next day after the storm one firm on Canal street reported the sale of two thousand panes of windowglass. The whole performance was without a precedent in the memory of the oldest native. The startling appearance of the sky previous to the bursting of the shower warned travelers and pedestrians to seek cover. Among the many careless ones caught out in the storm was George 8., a young reporter on the Boston Telephone. He was caught by the shower on Hanover street, and stepped into a doorway to wait until the heaviest was over. George had company in the doorway. There were two Chinese washeewashees from Howard street, and several less queuerious looking individuals, each and all of whom, it would be safe to say, had not for a long time back had any very close relations with a laundry. The rain fell in torrents, and soon great hail-stones struck the sidewalk and rebounded a few feet in the air. Rushing out in the rain, the enthusiastic reporter got several specimens, drew a tape-line from his pocket, measured them carefully and recorded the exact figures in his memorandum. Repeating this operation several times, he attracted the attention of some young clerks in the office up-stairs, who broke large chunks of ice from the block in the ice-cooler, and threw them out to the reporter, who measured them carefully and recorded the result. Every one in that doorway was awe struck at the size of the hailstones, and the Chinaman were exhibiting eyes of an unusual roundness and prominence. One of the chaps in the office accidentally dropped the balance of the block of ice from which the monstrous hail-stones had been ehipped, and it came down and landed on the sidewalk with an immense crash. It must have weighed all of twenty pounds, and spattered the water right and left. Just at this instant came that awful crash of thunder that startled every one that heard it, and of which the papers spoke next day. This was too much for John Chinamen. They both ran yelling up the street in the driving rain, the last one saying as he cleared the doorway: “Whoopee up. Icee wagon comee nextee. Good-by, John.”—-De-troit Free Press. The Sunday-School is rapidly growing in favor in continental countries. It has made great advances in Germany, and in France there are no less than 1,100 schools belonging to the French Sunday-School Society. These schools are found in all parte of the country.