AMERICAN ITEMS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 86, 10 April 1872, Page 2

AMERICAN ITEMS.

Tennessee, boasts of a three-year old prodigy with a beard like a man and a coarse voice. The New York ladies have revived the fashion of wearing black patches on the cheeks and lips. An extensive migration is taking place from the Eastern Slates of the Union to the Pacific coast. A chicken pie, which required four men to lift it, was recently made for a fair at Bridgeport, Conn. California has 80,000,000 acres of arable land, of which only 3,000.000 acres are under cultivation. A railway bridge, a mile and threequarters in length, has been constructed across the Mississippi. There are twelve private galleries of paintings in New York computed to be worth a million dollars. There are iv Boston at present thousands of unemployed women, whom starvation stares in the face.

For remainder of news see fourth page.

Nineteen panoramas of the Chicago fire, none of them such as a Cricago resident would recognise, are on exhibition. A crusade among rowdies, hoodlums, and scalawags has been commenced by the authorities in California. On being discovered in a hencoop, a Connecticut thief explained that he was trying to find Encke's comet. Frauds of the Tammany type have been discovered in the management of the New York Customhouse. At Springfield, Illinois, ihe cold has been so intense as to lead to services in the churches being dispensed vrith. An attempt is about to be made to colonise Southern Brazil, the emigrants being allowed to choose their own land. The Utah mines are flourishing, owing to the recent investment in them of a very large amount of English capital. A pew in a fashionable church in most American cities costs as much as the rent of a comfortable house for a year. Garotters and other desperadoes are numerous in Salt Lake city, and neither life nor property is safe after nightfall. The Grand. Duke Alexis would not visit Omaha, and the papers take their revenge by calling him a " grand dupe." A Californian lady has had a robe made from the skins of birds. It cost 1000 dols., and is said to be " indiscribably rich." A scientific American journal predicts that the sun will burn out in 44,389 years. No one is likely to live long enough to prove the prediction false. New York, says Governor Hoffman in his message, has nearly a million of children going to school, and receives over 10,000,000 dollars for educational purposes. A two-year old Ayrshire hull and a yearling ram at Ogdensburg, New York, recently fought a desperate battle, lastiug two days afc intervals. In the last round the bull fell dead, having succumbed to the judicious butting of his lighter antagonist. A mouse in Belfast, Maine, was found the other day frozen stiff upon a hammer. Investigation showed that, in picking up something that lay on the head of the hammer, the tongue of the mouse had frozen to it, and, being unable to get away, it died. Compulsory education in Brazil is of. the thorough-going kind. Parents are obliged to send to some school all their children between the ages of seven and fourteen. When the parents are too poor to provide clothing for their offspring, they are to be clad at the cost of the Provincial Treasury. A practical joke played off in New York has given rise to much scandal. Some |t,men had inserted in the sandwiches led for the luncheon table at a well- | civic reception of the Grand Duke 1, thin layers of soap to replace the ihich had been previously abstracted. Ixquisite enjoyment of the perper- | of the joke may be imagined when gbdwiches were bitten and the portion I forcibly swallowed for manners' ly the unfortunate victims, I up-country Californian paper says : It B. N. Rugbey's vineyard, on lay last, a dance took place in one of Lmmoth wine tanks. A large party of [ and gentlemen, invited to the U'ory ceremony of dancing in one of jrgest vats in the United States, were [tendance, and participated in the tality of one of the most enterprising ers in California. The monster tank it up; the musicians announced * take partners for a quadrille,' and dancing lenced after the old Bavarian style — one "set danced, there was plenty of for twenty spectators and the iians. The vats are able to contain 50,000 gallons of wine." A dangerous practice for beautifying the personal appearance is rapidly spreading among the fashionable woman of the United States, which, if not stopped, will be productive of the most alarming results. It is arsenic eating. The drug produces a most pleasing, fresh, and healthful appearance, together with a certain degree of embonpoint. It is taken at the commencement in a very small dose, a fraction of a grain, and is continued for some length of time, when the quantity has to he increased until the desired effect is produced. After a person begins to use it there is no turning back, and the amount has to be continually increased until it breaks down the constitution. Finally the point is reached where to continue it is death, to turn back is death also ; there is no escape, no means to avert the dreadful fate which sooner or later meets the arsenic eater ; and almost horrible death from poisoning is the penalty which all have to pay who once | begin to practise the temporary enjoyment, j