AMERICAN ITEMS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 942, 12 March 1872, Page 3

AMERICAN ITEMS.

Major-General Halleck was buried at Louisville January 13, with great military ceremony. On Jan 17, at New York a banquet took place to celebrate the birth of Franklin. The Rev. Dr Prime presided, and the speakers were Horace Greely, Henry Ward Beccher, Rev. Dr. Chapen, Erastus Brooks, and others. The head of the tobacco division of the Internal Revenue Department at Washington has calculated that there are 8,000,000 of tobacco consumers in the State?, averaging 121bs of tobacco and 167 cigars annually. The revenue produced by this consumption at 24 cents per pound would amount to 25,000,000 dollars.

From the Treasury returns at "Washington it appears that the amount of defalcations of collectors of internal revenue amounted to, under President Lineo'n 797,746 dollars, under Johnson 1,817,223 dollars, under Grant 135,746 dollars. President; Grant is said to be open in his denunciation -of the violations of law which are reported by the Customhouse Investigating Committee. One of the peculiar features of the "Colored Kepresenfative," a paper published in Lexington, Kentucky, in the interest of the colored people, is the advertising by former slaves for their wives, their children, or their friends, from whom they had been separated dui ing their emancipation. Commander Selfridge has mnde his report to the United States Government, showing that a good ship canal can be constructed across the Isthmus .of Darien at a cost of 125,000,000d015. The eastern terminus is in the Bay of Darien, whence the route would as'cend the Atrato river to the mouth of the Napipi, a distance of 150 miles ; pursuing a line direct to the [Pacific Ocean at Cupica Bay. The "Atrato river is wide and deep enough [for navigation, and the Commander 'estimates that Soo,ooodols. would be to construct all necessary :k)cks. There will be one turn on the "entire route, which would be 170 feet in height, to permit the passage of >hipd, 70ft wide; and five miles long, |he cost of which is put down at |B,ooo,ooodols. If the project is as [feasible as Selfridye reports —and there ris no reason to doubt it—the opening ftf the canal is simply a question of lime. The cost 125,000,000d015, will [not stay the progress of such an international work. r A. Boston physician says that four oung girls, full of intelligence and iromise, have been killed outright by the severity of the tasks imposed upon them in a high school in that vicinity. ; A woman was accused before a jury »t New Orleans with having thrown from her window, a pot of boiling water on the head of a person passing beneath. She limited her defence to pie reiterated assertion that she poured the boiling water out of the window because she thought the person passing below Was " only her husband !"'