San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1878-04-06
HERE AND THERE.

AihH oeoiJ SoiicS poNobOSNf
VT, of an old clock that no tinkering
will induce to run; but at every annual
gathering of the family it starts of itself,
and keeps on ticking and striking the
hours until the visitors have departed.
GEORGE MANTER, an aged widower
of Pennington, Me-, is sued by his sis
ter-in-law for breach of promise. She
says that long before his wife's death he
promised to marry her as soon as he
became free.
MOST of the women in Monson, Mass,
have signed total abstinence pledge of
so sweeping kind that they must either
break it or make mince-pies without
cider. They have sent to Murphy for
advice.
Two dealers in horse-fesh from
Rheims are to open an establishment in
London for the sale of horse-hesh as
food. They belong to a society for the
promotion of hippophagy, founded by
M. E. Decroix.
THE case of Miss Margaret Thomson,
who had her pet horse shod with gold
en- shoes and distributed showers ofgold
among the poor of various European
towns, was heard before Lord Adam, in
Edinburgh, on the Esd ult The hear
ing was had on the petition of George
Graham Thomson and two other BROTH
ers of Miss Thomson. She is in the
Royal Lunatic Asylum, Gartnavel, near
Glasgow, whittier she was taken on her
arrival in Scotland from Barcelona,
Spain, having been taken charge of there
by the British Consul. She is about 40
years of age. On the testimony of DR..
Tannahill she was declared unable to
manage her affairs.
A TERRIBLE story comes from the
Ottawa, Canada, lumber woods. A lum-
herman named Paquette was discharged
and undertook to walk home. He got
lost in the woods and wandered without
food for seven days, when having suf-
fered all the pangs of starvation he lay
down to die. 1t happened that per-
son drove by in a cutter and found the
almost exhausted man. The driver
took him home and spread bountiful
supply of provisions before him. He
left Paquette alone at the table while he
attended to his horse, and when he re-
turned Paquette was writhing PROSTATE
on the floor in the most horrible agony,
having gorged himself with food. In
few minutes the unfortunate man was
dead.
The most unique" trade yet is that
reported from Upton, la. Eight or nine
years ago two Michigan men, Stevens
and Kepler by name, traded wives, KEEP
Ter getting $500 to boot and all the chill
dren. Soon after all the parties drifted
into Iowa, where they have since lived.
A few weeks ago Stevens left Upton,
saying that he was going to look up a
new location, and he managed to get
tie household goods shipped in his
wife's name to Marshalltown. Two
weeks having elapsed, Mrs. Stevens be-
came uneasy about her man and her
goods, and followed them to Marshall
town, where she found him keeping
house with another woman who proved
to be his first wife, the men had agreed
to retrade! But Mrs. Stevens No. 2
had not been consulted, and she refused
to sanction the bargain. AS things now
stand, Kepler is minus wife, Stevens
has his children, and Mrs. Kepler is
"out" husband and children both.
The republic of Peru is bankrupt. 1t
contracted with Henry Meiggs for build
ing 1,O42 miles of railway, for which he
was paid 81, 900, 900 in bonds and S11s,-
5000 in cash. The funds for this
enormous expenditure were raised by
foreign loans, which were readily nego-
tiated, as up to this time the credit of
the country was good. Messrs. Drey-
fus & Co. became the agents of the
Government, and certain amount of
guano was hypothetical. Work was
commenced on the roads, money be-
came plenty, corruption set in, enor-
nous sums were squandered, ruinous
course of extravaganza was run, and
Peru found herself, in 1876, with for
eign debt of f37 ,OOO,0 600, with an annu-
al charge of per cent. for interest, and
2 per cent. for sinking fund, or together
equal TO about &, 900; also, with
an internal debt exceeding fl,OOO,OOO.
The budgets of 1871 and 1872 combined
show an average annual revenue of f5,-
COS 900 and an average expenditure of