Spirit of the Times Batavia, Genesee County, New York State November 29-1881 What We See, and What We Hear. The foundation walls of the new Erie Railroad depot are fast going up. The Board of Supervisors has appropriated $100 for religious services at the County House for the ensuing year. Mr. Russel L. KINSEY, of Darien, after a vacation of three months, has resumed his studies in M.H. PECK's law office. Mr. and Mrs. EVEREST have returned from the east. Mr. E. officiated at the funeral of the late Alfred W. RICHMOND on Monday afternoon. Mr. Jas. F. HAMILTON, a former prominent farmer in the northwest part of this town, recently died in Clinton, Wisconsin, aged 52 years. Mr. P.P. BRADISH, of the Genesee Agricultural Works, in an adjoining column presents his annual circular to the farmers of Genesee county. Miss Livinia TOMPKINS has purchased the business and stock of Millinery, of Mrs. MOLONEY, and will conduct the business in future at the old stand. J.F. PRUE, of Alexander, has tried credit business for the past eight months and don't like it. He announces that after the 30th inst. he will sell groceries very cheap, for cash only. Mr. Wm. E. KERSLAKE, for many years a clerk in T.F. WOODWARD's store, has leased the store of M.J. MORSE, adjoining, and will soon open the same with a full line of boots and shoes. Attica's young woman has set the fashion of hanging her "mushroom hat" on the back of the seat during a performance, putting on her head in the place of it, a worsted-worked "fascinator." Vennor in his weather prophecies says of December: "This, I believe, will be one of the Decembers that will cause inquiry of the oldest inhabitants as to whether there ever had been such a December before." "Bury Me Near the Old Home" is the latest Song and Chorus, by Will. L. THOMPSON. Price 35 cents. Since the death of President GARFIELD the sentiment expressed in this beautiful song has become universal. The melody is very pretty, and already the piece has become a great favorite. + The Catholic School Property Sold. The stone school building situated on Jackson street and owned by the Catholic Church Society has been sold to Josiah LORISH, of this village, for $3,000. Mr. LORISH purchased a strip of land north of the building about five feet wide, making a frontage of 35 feet and 8 inches. The property extends 95 feet back, and the Catholic people reserve an alleyway 18 feet wide back of it, as well as the lane on the south side of the building. It is understood that Mr. LORISH will make very extensive alterations and repairs to the building, and fit it up for the occupancy of his son, L.C. LORISH, who will remove his grocery thither. The floors will be lowered, a new front put in and an addition of several feet built on to the rear. The improvements will cost in the neighborhood of $2,000. + The Buffalo Body Snatchers. Last week we published the particulars of the body snatching affair in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo, and the unsuccessful attempt to capture the ghouls. The mystery has at last been solved. It seems that when BURNHAM was taken sick (?) at THOMAS,' Babcock street, he employed Dr. COLTON, and shortly after, with his confederates, obtained a draft certificate in his name. A body of a man some sixty years old was obtained and the Lancaster man employed to bury it in Forest Lawn. In a few days BURNHAM and his pals got the idea that the insurance companies in which he was heavily insured, suspecting foul play, intended to exhume the body. He was fearful for his own safety, and with others attempted to raise the body and make away with it. But in this he was not successful, as everybody knows. The body was brought down town and Dr. BAKER, Coroner FOWLER and others made an examination and found it full of arsenic evidently used for preserving. + Wedding Bells. On Wednesday afternoon last a very happy wedding party assembled at the residence of Mrs. GRISWOLD, on Summit street, the occasion being the marriage of District Attorney Safford E. NORTH and Miss Cora M. GRISWOLD, sister of Mr. Gerrit GRISWOLD, editor of the 'News.' The nuptial knot was tied by Rev. H.L. EVEREST, rector of St. James' church, a select party of relatives and friends witnessing the ceremony, after which, happy congratulations and greetings were in order. The presents were numerous, elegant and appropriate.--The bridal party left on the afternoon express train for Ithaca, where they will spend a short honeymoon among friends, official business requiring Mr. NORTH's presence here at court next week. + Personal Paragraphs. Miss Katie BUELL, who is attending the Brockport Normal School, spent Thanksgiving with her parents on Ellicott Ave. Mr. Chas. W. GOULD, Revenue Collector, Buffalo, spent Thanksgiving at his father's residence in Batavia. Master Will SMITH, a student at Hobart College, also spent Thanksgiving at home. Miss THRALL and her niece, Miss Cornelia KNIGHT, are spending a few days with friends in Waterloo. Mr.and Mrs. George WASHBURN, who have been traveling during the summer in California, are expected home in a few days. + From California. Letter from J.M> PATTEN, a former Bergen Boy. We are permitted to publish the following extract from a letter written by J.M. PATTEN, a former Bergen boy, now in California, to John H. WARD, of this village. Mr. PATTEN went west about eight years ago, having spent most of the period in the mining regions and traveling over the State. The letter is dated Bodie, California, Nov. 14th, '81. ***I have been absent a good deal traveling on the west slope of the Sierra Nevadas. My health prior to this time was very poor, consequently I have been in no mood for letter writing. I was in the mountains most of the time; hunting and fishing were very good. In the valleys I found a great variety of fruit, flowers, etc., many things I had never seen before, oranges, figs, and that class. Grapes in great variety--all the foreign varieties. I saw the raisin made and helped gather the grapes. I improved rapidly under the new regime and can now report myself in good health. Among the novelties I visited the "big trees" and was in the Mammoth Grove of Calveras Co. I brought home some of the bark and seeds. Among other curiosities send you a piece of the bark and seeds. These big trees are really monsters, ranging from 250 to 400 feet in height and from 12 to 35 feet in diameter. The bark on some of these trees is fully twenty inches in thickness; that of the tree from which I took the bark I send you was twelve inches thick. This is a very strange, wild country, with scenery reaching far up into the sublime, high mountains, and deep into valleys holding mad plunging streams. Many of the roads are cut on the sides of the mountains, narrow roads, too, just a wagon track. Some places on these grades it is fully fifteen hundred feet to the bed of the valley below. The agates I found in a deserted placer mining claim in Tuolumne county. In many places in this country the soil has been entirely washed away by placer miners, leaving the surface a honey-combed mass of bare rocks. In one locality, near Columbia, there are hundreds of acres left in this condition, where millions of tons of soil and debris have been washed away. Several millions of gold dust have been taken from this district. This may seem to you like fiction, but is nevertheless true. The buttons are made from a shrub quite common on the west side of the mountains; you will observe the wood is very hard and heavy. One thing farther regarding those trees, observe how small the seeds are. It would, therefore, follow that very large trees from small seeds grown. J.M. PATTEN. + Mrs. BREWER Found Dead in Her House in Bethany. On Wednesday last the citizens of Bethany were much shocked to learn that Mrs.. BREWER, an old lady who resides about one mile east of the County House, was found dead on the floor of her sitting room. The particulars of the sad event are as follows: It seems that Mr. Rob. EASTLAND, who is a neighbor of Mrs. BREWER, had not noticed any indications for two or three days that the old lady was at home. On Wednesday morning last he went over to the house, and looking in the window, discovered her lying on the floor. He immediately called assistance, and on entering the house, the dead body of the old lady was found stretched on the floor, she evidently having fallen from her chair, and striking the stove caused a large bruise on her left cheek. From the indications of the body it is thought that she must have died about the Friday previous, as that was the last time she was seen alive. Deceased was the widow of the late Cornelius BREWER, of Bethany, and was about seventy-five years of age. + Obituary. Alfred W. RICHMOND. Although not unexpected, the sad news was telegraphed to Batavia last Friday that Alfred W. RICHMOND had breathed his last the evening previous at Atlantic City, New Jersey, where for many weeks he lay on a bed of sickness. Deceased was the eldest son of the late Dean RICHMOND, and at the time of his death was in the forty-seventh year of his age. + Neighboring Counties. The Perry 'Herald' denies that COLEMAN & TABOR commission merchants of that place, have made an assignment. A Dale, Wyoming county boy, who lately lost two of his fingers in a cutting box, was explaining the accident to a friend, and lost two more fingers in the same manner. Geo. W. MUTH's drying house at Bennington Center was totally destroyed by fire on Monday morning of last week. Only 200 pounds of stock was in it at the time. The proprietor feels all Muthed up. The Rochester compressed air motor, obtaining its power from the lower falls of the Genesee, will be in running condition in a few days, when the street cars of the city are to be run with it and horses retired. A severe and painful accident occurred to Miss Belle SHELDON at Perry Center on the 11th. She was engaged in papering a kitchen and while standing upon a table her foot caught the cover of the stove reservoir, which was full of boiling water, into which she fell receiving painful scalds upon her limbs. Dr. CRICHTON was called and found her injuries of a severe character. The authorities of the city of Lockport have issued circulars giving the exact condition of things as relating to small-pox in that city. The circulars contain a statement from the Lockport health officers, which shows that the disease has not prevailed there at any time very extensively, and that reports regarding the same have been remarkably exaggerated. An exchange says that a man in Dunkirk, who has got the money to do it with, is putting up a dozen neat, comfortable cottages, upon small lots, which he proposes to sell to respectable parties upon the payment of twenty-five dollars in cash, the balance to be secured by lien upon the place. In this way poor men can get a good home, the rich man can sell his land and houses at a fair profit, and at the same time help to build up a town. A hint to Batavia capitalists. + submitted by Linda C. Schmidt