Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1873-07-17
MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

after him, but he has buried each one,
and now, at the age of ninety, is looking
for the next
A NEVADA paper reports that the ser
want girls of Helena have struck for $66
per month, two silk dresses and the privi-
lege OF the parlor every Sunday.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY says that among all
the oldworld wisdom, so-called, which
binds the minds of the human race in
stupid, narrow minded ignorance, there
is nothing more delusive than the often
quoted proverb, Man proposes"
THE late John Van Buren, once, when
travelling on one of our North River
steamers, asked his friends friend to join
in drink-probably soda-water. The
man said he had mot the pleasure of an
introduction" But" said Prince John,
you know enough to drink"
A QUAINT sort of person, the Rev Mark
Wilkes, once introduced his text in this
manner: My hearers, did you ever see
cat? Did you ever see Cat walk? Did
you ever see cat walk upon the top Of a
wall? Did you ever see cat walk upon
the top of a wall covered with broken
glass? How carefully she lifted each
foot. How slowly and cautiously she set
1t down again! So would the text from
which am about to speak have you act
See that you walk cir-cum-spect-ly.'
A LITTLE six-year-old boy was asked by
his teacher to write composition on the
subjec$Of water, and the following is the
production: "Water is good to drink, to
swim in, to skate on, when frozen. When
l was a little baby the. nurse used to
bathe me every morning in water. | have
been told that the 1nju don't wash them
selves but once lin ten years. | wish [
was an Injun''
FAMILIARITY with American geography
is not the strong suit of the literary
Briton, and in particular Of Lady
Georgiana Fullerton. In her romance,
"Too Strange Not to be True" Charlotte
of Brunswick, early in the last century,
settles upon the Lower Mississippi, where
the Rocky Mountains are visible from her
windows, and where, amid the gambolings
of monkeys and the tumblings of buff
faloes, she gathers the lotus flowers from
out of the tropical luyuriance, and in the
twilight rows her canoe to the falls of the
Minnehaha, narrowly escaping the ALI
gators, but returning in time for tea, and
to amuse herself, quoting LOngtellow's
song, ''Hiawatha, " which she had heard
the Indians chanting in their forest
places.-Baltimore Gazette.
TALENT APPRECIATED-Some years
ago an honest citizen of Newburyport,
who had acquired competence by hard
work, was appointed by His EXcellency
Justice of the Peace. The appoint
ment which had been unsolicited, was
regarded by him as a very great honor,
and he determined to make himself wor-
thy of it by retiring from active business
and giving his attention to books. His
first purchase was copy of the general
statutes-his next volume of the plays
of Shakespeare, about whom, as he told
his wife confidently, he had heard the bic
guns say a great deal The great poet
produced a powerful impression upon
him. Il don't suppose he said, speak
ing of it atterward to his friends, there
are twenty men in Massachusetts who
could have written such book"
THE Woolwich {Eng) workmen have
lately been getting into place the great
plate upon which is to rest the anvil block
of the new thirty -five-ton hammer. This
plate weighs Of itself one hundred and
three tons, and had to be cast, of necessi-
ty, in an open mould. The surface which
is to receive the anvil block lay, there
fore, downwards, and when, many weeks
after, the colossal casting grew cool, it
was needful to turn the huge mass COM
pletely over On April 18th an army OF
sturdy smiths undertook this task with
hydraulic jacks, and combination of the
strongest tackle; before night they had
lifted the monstrous lump Of solid metal,
twenty-five feet square, and since then
they have laid it in its bed upon the rock
like structure of concrete and piles made
to receive it. The anvil-block to be
mounted on the huge plate will weigh
only trifle short of 200 tons, and the
steam hammer which will strike upon ii
is made of 81 tons of metal. The whole
weight of metal in the hammer is 500
tons.
HAVING been appointed (says Wiscon
sin man) to administer on the estate Of a
neighbor recently deceased, | was greatly
annoyed by solicitations for an order fol
the grave stones for the departed. After
some three or four weeks, very gentle
manly marble man" introduced himself,
told me his business, and asked for ''the
job" l replied that as soon as it was
known that a person was dangerously i'll
"a grave-stone man. made his appearance
demanded 1.-The job" and asked for the
inscription for the headstone. He replied
that he knew it was so, and added, II
| don't do it, and won't, for it isn't decent
but often find myself in the same fix tha
Deacon B was in" "How was that?'
| asked "Why," said he, "old Deacon
B had long had his eye on Mrs. w,
whose husband had for several week.
| fingered on the borders of the grave. A
| few days after the funeral of Brother
! W the Deacon made friendly call OIL
! the widow, and in the course OF the con
versation remarked that after proper
time had elapsed he proposed to offer he
| the consolation of his hand and heart
which he hoped would not be Unacceptable
| to her ooh, Deacon she replied, 'yol
are too late; Elder C. spoke to me at til
| grarer r"-Harpers' DraWer.
A New DIsEAsE.-Dr. Gait, in hi:
''Medlcal Notes on the Upper Amazon,
| has furnished some curious information
on the strange practice known as Geo
phagie,'' or officiating. This disease, &C
| cording to DR.. Gait, now counts as one O
the chief endemic complaints of al
tropical America; and, at distance o
| over 1000 miles from the sea, on the Anna
zon Valley, where the negro is a rarity
being merely waif from Brazil or tn
| Pacific coast, it is the most important dis
ease among the children and women of tn
country On the Maranon the halfbreed
are mostly addicted to the practice of dirt
eating-nei,her the pure savage nor tn
more cultivated being so often the victims
| Children commence the practice from tn
time they are four years old, and frequent