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This newspaper page contains 11 articles. Subscribers can read the full text of each article.
Newspaper
Freeport Journal
Location
Freeport, Illinois, United States of America
Date
Oct 30, 1878
Page
3
An old narrative contrasts a woman’s claim that whistling is needed for music with a tale of a benevolent impostor Sir Orlando Materson. A hotel-stage scam by Canada Bill and Beau Hickman defrauds gullible givers, revealing how tricksters prosper briefly but perish in penury, while the benevolent legend ends in moral reckoning.
Canada Bill, touring from Washington toward New York after a Western gambling spree, plans to con Beau Hickman. Hickman, famed trickster, greets Canada Bill and they discuss a scheme to flip $6,000 into $12,000 in three days in Willard's Hotel crowd of senators and office-seekers.
The piece explains horsepower as Watt’s standard 550 foot pounds per second, detailing two calculation methods using piston area, boiler pressure, and piston travel. It notes a friction deduction and citesErratic Enrique from the New York News and a humorous aside about Cardamon seeds.
A Canadian traveler's letter from Ottawa criticizes dull eastern Canada, contrasts Tory and Reform parties with the U S, notes McDonald’s unsettled government, and praises the United States while praising the journal. He recounts boat-race views, British airs, and economic contrasts, lamenting limited farming and wool manufacturing in Canada. He closes with patriotic wishes for U S unity and a wish to prosper in the Queen's Domain.
The Western Rural advises hot alum water as an insecticide for red and black ants cockroaches spiders cinchbugs and other pests. Dissolve two pounds of alum in three to four quarts of boiling water apply nearly boiling to joints crevices and surfaces then whitewash with alum in the lime to deter insects. A chalk ring around sugar containers stops ants and travelers should carry alum or borax to sprinkle where bed pests may be.
Voters are urged to approve a drainage amendment to the Illinois Constitution at the next election. The measure allows landowners to create drains ditches and levees for agriculture sanitary or mining use and authorizes mining districts with taxing power to fund works. Supporters argue it could reclaim millions of acres and boost state wealth while current law bars taxes for such levee projects.
The text recounts a duo of vignettes from a Richmond Virginia newspaper. In the first, a stranger refuses to move a trunk on a New York bound train, finally having it removed after warnings, declaring it is not his trunk. In the second, Brother Peter admonishes a youth against temptation, recounting a personal near theft and choosing cheaper shoes instead.
Modern measurements suggest a larger ellipticity for the Earth than earlier estimates. From Walbeck’s 1 3028 to Airy and Bessel figures, then Clarke’s revised 1 28475 and later 1 20498, new data yield an equatorial semi axis of 20 926 202 feet and polar semi axis 20 654 895 feet. Also noted: Lt. Mahood’s wartime Pennsylvania posting and a vanished romance with Miss Gentry, plus Paris square umbrellas as a witty aside.
The New England Farmer urges out of work city and manufacturing workers with savings to buy small farms at low prices. It argues such buyers can live off the soil with careful reading and observation of successful neighbors, avoiding debt while gradually paying for a portion of land until it can be turned into cash. It cautions that speculative large farms usually fail without heavy borrowed capital.
An authority asserts the western average wheat yield per acre is about ten bushels, urging farmers to crave a fuller return through better cultivation. The piece laments widespread neglect, notes farmers west of Ohio doubt the ten bushel figure, and argues that with careful land preparation and select seed a twenty five to forty bushel average is attainable, advocating smaller farms and intensified effort. The article urges reduced acreage with improved practice to exceed current outputs at lower cost.
An article notes how tiny details reveal character in a story about a man who judges women by small signs and later marries well. In Vienna, a blind bear undergoes cataract surgery via chloroform and a contrived restraint, emerging from the den able to see and calm, enjoying the return of sight.
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