The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1875-05-20
ITEMS OF INTEREST.

KIssING-MATCHEs are suggested as sue
cessors of the spelling-matches. The
girl who can stand it the longest win:
the prize.
"MUsTARD color underclothing" is al
the rage now for mems wear, owihs
probably to an impression that it makes
one smart.
AND now, close on the heels of the
grasshopper plague, we are threatened
with a plague of gnats. That would be
. gnat-ional disaster.
AS THE Mennonites are also adopts d
its manufacture, it is not probable thu
the intricate art of making sour-kror1
will ever die out in this country.
"THE battle of spring." says the New
York Epening Mail, ais fought with
blades of grass" What does spring
mean, then, by arming all her flowers
with pistils?-Louisotlle Courier-Jou'nat
HERE it is the 9th of May, and nc
onions planted YET mournfully observed
a matter -of.faCt Rhode Island dame, as
she showed her glasses back and wipeo
her eyes with very small table-cl0th
A DELAWARE man has invented ma
chine which, pushed by hand, raises po
tato vines, with piece of iron, while
brush sweeps the bugs on to an endless
piece of carpet, which carries them be-
| shi Cr than Hat
THE other day the Postmaster, On Ell,
terng his office, had his olfactory nerves
disagreeably assailed. On questioning
boy in the office as to the cause the ia.
cetious youth replied: "I don't know
sir, but perhaps the smell comes from
some Of the dead letters" s."-DetroI Press
A TENNESSEE newspaper tells funny
story about little red bird in Lebanon
which lately lost its mate. Happening
to alight few mornings afterward on a
vine in front of highly-polished win
dow, he caught sight of his own reHec'
tion, and, evidently mistaking it for his
missing companion, began to make love
to it Narcissus-like, and has continued
the practice every day since.
THE monthly-payment system in the
matter of sewing machines has received
| a setback in the New York courts, 1t
having been decided that a woman who
has nearly paid for her sewing machine
in that way has rights that the company
is bound to respect, and cannot be de,
prived of her machine and all she has
paid upon it by little delay on her part
in meeting the claims against her.
In Boston, the other day, a vain young
fellow, dressed in a new spring suit
called at the house of q lady acquaintance
and asked her how she thought he looked
"You remind me of early green peas,
was the answer. He was obliged to de-
part without solution of this conun-
drum, but understood it afterward when
he heard marketanan say that early
peas looked nice but were very insipid.
Do Boston women chew tobacco?
That's the question. Rev. MIR. Lathrop
has declared it fact, before the
Women's Temperance Union of that
city. He not only makes this charge,
but, generalizing little, claims that he
can get ten men to leave OIL chewing
where lie can induce one woman to say
that she will never more use " fine cut
or "sweet navy" Can such things be!
YEARS ago the pretty schoolteacher
used to collar the boys and wallop 'em
one day and kiss them the next. Be
tween the two, however, they enjoyed
matters. But that was long ago. The
school-ma'am of to-day collars the boys
the same, and pounds them just as hard,
but tall chap with black mustache
comes around and gets in enough OF the
other work for the whole school; and
who says this is not an age of monopoly?
THE following description may serve
to give an idea of the present style for
suit: The train skirt is mounted IN
the bulgare-plait and made OF limousine,
striped with blue and gray; the front OF
the skirt is of plain gray vivogue and is
knife e-plaited. Three limousine scarfs
are placed at equal distances apart; they
commence at the bulgare-plait, surround
the apron, form a sailors knot in the
center and fall over each other in fringed
ends. The corsage cuirass is of gray
vivogue and adorned with limou-
sine paysanne-shaped tichu; it is
trimmed with a fringe corresponding
with that on the scarfs; the ends OF the
tichu are joined at the waist under a
bow and fall over the apron, continuing
the other scarfs.
ALL lovers of flowers must remember
that one blossom allowed to mature or
ago to seed" Injuries the plant more than
dozen new buds. Cut your flowers,
then, all of them, before they begin to
fade. Adorn your rooms with them, put
them on your tables, send bouquets to
your friends who have no flowers, or ex-
change favors with those who have
You will surely find that the more
you cut off the more you will have All
roses, after they have ceased 70 bloom,
should be cut back, that the strength OF
the root may 60 to forming new roots tor
next year. On bushes not seed should
be allowed to mature.
THE disaster to the Paris aeronauts
resulted from the feebleness OF the
human intellect when the body is sub
iected to abnormal conditions. Probably
the oxygen gas which they carried with
them and inhaled when breathing be-
came difficult helped to unsettle their
minds. Sivel threw away ballast with
the frenzy of madman, and his COM
panions acquiesced in the reckless pro.
ceeding; Spinelli did the same thing, and
Tissandier, who had the clearest head in
the party, was too feeble to make any
protest. Hereafter, when aeronauts 60
up to the altitude of six or seven miles.
they ought to remember that they may
become the instruments of their own de:
struction, and that there is as much dan.
ger from temporary alteration Of the
mind as there is from asphyxia, and that
the one is likely to result from the other.
Baltimore american.
RETIRED men, even with the amplest
claims on their time, are seldom able to
work at their new occupations without a
considerable quantity of the old work to
make them feel busy. Merchants or
lawyers who retire early should accept
directorships" or arbitrations," If
only to give that necessity for prompt
ness and for compression to their ar