OUR AMERICAN EXCHANGES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 45, 20 February 1873, Page 4

OUR AMERICAN EXCHANGES.

(From the New Zealand Herald.) When one of the mail steamers arrives in Auckland from San Francisco tbe polite purser invariably presents us with -riles of American newspapers coming from all parts of the Northern States, and in such numbers that the mere act of ripping off the envelopes and assorting them according to their dates and from whence they were issued absorbs no small amount of time and labor. To read the large quantities through with anything like care would occupy many men many weeks. All that editors and sub-editors can do is to glance at -the sensational headings and select from them such articles as they may think will either engage the attention, inform, or amuse their readers ; but of those at their command they can only insert a few, and ihen in a greatly abridged form. An American fire, •• at which only 50,000 dollars worth of property has been destroyed is perhaps recorded in six lines. A fire-loss to the extent of 150,000 dollars will perhaps receive two inches of notice. Nothing under two millions loss of the " mighty coin," by conflagration, arouses an: American reporter into action. Then he does the thing properly in ten or twelve columns of nonpareil type and a dozen different founts of capital letters. It is tbe same ! with a shipwreck. A smaller casualty than six ships which have foundered, in a " terrific hurricane" with ell bands lost except one, who is providentially preserved for the reporters to *' interview," is scarcely thought worthy of notice. The same also with a " railway smash;" It is nothing without many hundreds of trunks of men's r and 1 women ? s bodies are : found severed from their heads, and there are limbs mangled tand torn, and: when the groans of the scalded victims are heard, and other blood-curdling, blood-freezing events that can be recorded. These the colonial, journals reprint to the .extent of their columns. But there is much that is ; very curious in; American newspaper literature vyhich , the ! general colonial : vreader never the American cities are *Mi^cKflm. There iis^no other clms.^ be compared ? nor any ot^r to be cobIp^diiwi itt^em.;;y! y ykkkYYYY ;,■ '' v;• "• :;, yk

Here, by way of a small specimen is a ■ summary of local! events recorded Mri|;»the; I News Letter .1 in .SariyErancisco for the week' ending the 4th January : — Local Dottings.-— Wtai j Schmidt; gbes to ?San Quen tin. for missing Ihis shot at ' Cbarles Schrader. Better hit and be acquitted. — Knights of Pythias have ia new hall. The old one was too small for a comfortable drunk. — First officer of the Olympia drowned. Which be should have known better than to go to sea in the Olympia.— Chronicle reporter concludes ■ that Shipping Commissioner Stevenson is an old fogey.. Shrewd youth.~Hewittsays: he was not drunk wben he broke bis leg. Then what did he break it for.-— Henry Levy, who came down from Sacramento for the benefit of his health, will never be sick any more.— -Public school teachers are undergoing examination. We trust a committee of matrons attends to the females. — Mexicans celebrate tbe day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Who was the old gial ?— Man fell from fourth story of tbe Bibernia Brewery and quenched the vital. — J. Clem TJbler has a splinter in his eye aod one eye less to get splinters in.— Wm. S. Gardner ate a hearty supper and blew it out with a pistol. — "Our Christmas Story Book" contains a Bong, "L et Me Kis* Thee," by Stephen Massett. Thou mayce, Stephen — but not upon this marble brow nor yet this mantling cheek. Eastern and Foreign Dottings. — A score of Irish girls done to cracklings in the sth Avenue Hotel. — The tbief elected U.S. Senator, has been arrested. — National Commercial Convention at St. Louis. "How to sand sugar" is the leading topic. — A straight week of- idiocy in the French National Assembly. We are unwell of it. — Viscountess Beaconsfield (Mrs Bendizzy) done gone got. — Marseilles newspaper shut up. Thank Thiers for so much.— Why Bismarck has returned, to Berlin — because Berlin would not go to Bismarck. — Consul-General appointed to Egypt in place of a drunken thief. — Secretary Delano says he is going to Havana for pleasure. Which settles it that he goes on business. — In Boston a Yankee legislator howls at Summer. In Florida an angry gnat assails an alligator. — Some Italian swindled immigrants in New York. When were thero any other kind of immigrants there ? — Canadian Pacific Railroad Company organised without a credit mobilier. We do these things better at home. — Steamship bt. Louis of New Orleans wrecked. Slow affair — nobody drowned. — Various bank officials secure the fruits of industry and bolt. — The swindling Lower California Company have elected a competent President — B»- F.Butler. — The Tichborne butcher begins to bore again. — The periodic idiotic letter from Garibaldi. ■ — Waucb, African explorer, is coming home. Why ? The following are two or three samples of advertisement cut from American papers: — There are giants in these days. Recently one of tbem walked into a newspaper office in Illinois and scared the editor half to death. He was Col. Goshen, of .Algonquin, Illinois, seven feet eight inches in height, thirty- three years of age, straight as- an arrow, and weighing 670 pounds. The editor interviewed him on tbe spot and elicited the following facts : The Colonel is very careful in his diet, and drioks nothing but tea, coffee and Hotaling's Cutter whisky. He is the youngest of a family of fifteen, not one of whom weighs less than 500 pounds. His venerable sire pulls down the scales at 520 pounds, and is too old to care about eating any more. The Colonel's wife weighs 210 pounds in her stockinged feet, and drinks nothing but green tea diluted with Cutter. He bas two fine boys who take after their father in stature and predilections. The editor, who is about the size of G— ; — , commenced forthwith to* take his Cutter three -times- a day; a pleasing improvement is already discernible both in his person and his editorials. Married people live much longer than single ones. Statistics prove that marriage is undoubtedly favorable to longevity, Methusaleh married young, when he was not over two or .three hundred years old, and j ust reflect bow the centuries rolled around . * before 'he crossed tp^ tiie 'other * shore. Old Parr buried six "wives before he concluded to meander along this vale; of tears alone. The immortal George Washington, who espoused his Martha, and: became: the father of his Jcoun try and several children; might have been swinging his little: hatchet! at a -ripe: 4>id ; agevi On the other hand, ; Thomas Cbatterton, foolish boy, never marriedj -andiafter.^peggingJ fifteen, pegged out. Lucretia 'Davidsonyi the girl poet; refused '-several ;<gqod^ offers, >t.^l^e^/,iLet;;<this be a solemn warning toi all who linger ;shivering^ph!};th6^;bririk.Avv.Makei;:;a tbpld pLung6',l 'order «?ai twoistorey^ wedding cake, .jpay'ta^visituto : , cent 1 • show* rooms and select • an x ou tfit ] of : :ifulrMu^ifr^ and, blew you, my ohildren, ,you may be