AMERICAN NEWS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 960, 9 April 1872, Page 3

AMERICAN NEWS.

An Arizona paper fa printed with violet ink on lemon-coloured wrapping paper. A New York shoemaker advertises r ' Women's Eights—and Left*." It is proposed to make the pavements in Chicago of iron. Two out of every three persons in San Francisco do not go to church. Brigham Young complains that he has to board his own gaoler. A pew in a fashionable church in most American cities costs as much as the rent of a comfortable ho ate for a year. A Californian lady has had a rohe made from the skins of birds. It cost lOOOdols., and is said to be " indescribably rich." The New York ladies have revived-, the fashion of wearing black patches on the cheeks and lips. A New York paper, in a fit of Revolutionary enthusiasm, says, " Hurrah for the girls of 76 !" A New Jersey paper says, " Thunder ! that's far too old ! No, No ! Hurrah for the girls of 17!" Tennessee boasts of a three-year-old prodigy with a beard like a man and a coarse voice. A dangerous practice for beautifying the personal appearance is rapidly spreading among the fashionable women of the United States, which if not stopped will be productive of the most alarming results. It is arsenic eating. The drug produces a mo3t 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 qnantity has to bo 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 uutil 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 a most horrible death from poisoning is the penalty which all have to pay who once begin to practise the temporary enjoyment. A Boston girl has hair 6ft 3in long. The University of California is open to all students, free of charge. A spring, impregnated with arsenic, has been discovered in Nevada. A Cincinnata man has married his son's divorced wife. Peat is largely used in locomotives in the United States. A team of horses was lately sold in New Jersey for 25 cents.

Football is the favourite Sunday amusement at Cairo, Illinois. A Cincinnati paper tells of a charitable man in that city who keeps a pair of dogs chained at the door, so that poor people who stop to " get a bite " can be accommodated without taking the trouble to get into the house. This is the way a western lecturer explained a phenomenon:—" You have seen a cow no doubt. Well, a cow is not a phenomenon. Tou have seen an apple-tree. Well, an apple-tree is not a phenomenon. But when you see the cow go up the tree tail foremost to pick the apples, it is a phenomenon. An American author has reason to belieye that when the wages of the mechanics are raised to eight or ten dollars a day, the workmen will not come at all, they will merely send their cards. Mr George Vandenhoff, whose death had been reported by the American papers, writes as follows to the New York Herald: —" I perceive by the newspapers generally that I am dead, and have been buried in New York with masonic honors. I never, as a rule, contradict anything that the newspapers say about me ; but In this case it will not be considered presumptuous or egotistical to say that I am not aware of such a thing having happened to me, and that I am as well as can be expected under the circumstances."