AMERICAN NOTES.

A child in Milwaukie died through fright while having its portrait taken. . . '

There were in 1870 nearly 7000 farms in the United States of three acres or less.

Since 1836, fifty daily and two hundred weekly papers Lave perished in New York. The use of the electric telegraph for private houses is spreading in the United States. An old lady with money and a kind heart has established a cat infirmary in Cincinatti.

The debt of Canada in twenty years, from ISSI to 1572, has increased from 20,481,472 dollars to 126,532,00S dollars.

The American export trade in cheese has assumed enormous proportions, England taking nearly all the surplus product.

The Tribune speaks of the Woman's Journal as being " conducted by several very estimable ladies of both sexes. "

San Francisco has 40 foundries and ironworking establishments, with capital invested to the amount of 1,484,606 dols.

A California jury, in a suicide case lately, returned the following verdict: — "We, the jury, find that the deceased was a fool." Among the table-girls at one of the downEast watering places are fifteen school teachers, who thus employ their vacations.

The Ohio Farmer asserts that nine-tenths of the foot and ankle ailments of the horse are traceable to standing on dry plank floors.

A man at Cannelton, Indiana, has been granted a divorce from his wife because she wasn't as plump as she made herself appear. A Russian Government Geographical expedition has arrived at Salt Lake with the view of examining the mineral resources of the country.

The married ladies of Hannibal, Missouri, have organised a " Come Home Husband Club." Broomsticks figure among the indncements to come.

A house-painter named Witton, having been elected to the Canadian House of Commons, we read that he is the first working man to receive that distinction.

A club of Boston ladies are hard at work endeavouring to obtain the passage of a city ordinance providing that all tobacco chewers shall be muzzled when oa the street.

The number of Cashmere goats in California, from one-quarter to full- bloods, is estimated at 40,000. The fleece, according to grade, is worth 25 cents to Idol. 25 cents a pound. Among the American patent contrivances designed to stop runaway horses, is a pair of blinders by which the driver on pulling a cord, instantly and effectually blindfolds the animals.

A New York exchange says :—": — " This city, as is estimated by a careful calculation, pays eight millions of dollars yearly fcr milk, and three millions for the water with which it is diluted."

The cash value of a Chinaman's pigtail has been judicially established in Portland, Oregon, where 30 Caucasians, who had by force shorn a Celestial heathen of his queue, were recently fined 20dols. a-piece, or 660d015. in all.

Since Mr Beecher's manifesto in favour of billiards, the Cincinnati saloon keepers have adorned the walls of their portrait galleries with pictures of the famous divine, and one establishment has been re-named " Beechcr Hall."

A correspondent of the Nation states, on the authority of leading Southern physicians, that negro disease is largely on the increase, and that there is some ground for the opinion that the Indian's fate will finally be that of the negro.

A Missouri legislator the other day clinched an argument against dogs by swearing that the money expended in support of twentyone million of them in the United States would buy 1,344,000,000 whisky cocktails every year.

The great Chicago fire does not seem to have thinned out the population of that city. The now Directoiy contains 130,000 names, 20,000 more than appeared last year. It is estimated that this number indicates a population of 430,000 !

A party of courageous tourists in Colorado recently ascended Gray's Peak, one of the loftiest points of the llocky Mountains. This mountain is 24,300 ft. above the level of the sea, Mont Blanc being 15,800 ft. The view obtained by the party from the summit is described as grand in the extreme. In an article on the United States railways, the How York Nation- says :-r-" Unless, we are greatly deceived, within th£ aext few

years a great many very handsomely engraved railroad bonds will go to protest, and certificates of stock by the million will find their way to the trunkmakers."

The New York Post, in reverting to the catalogue of crime in that city, says : — " Sunday was celebrated in a strict metropolitan fashion. Three men shot, one man brained with a paving stone, five men stabbed, two men knocked over with a slung shot, and one man missing."

The credit system has been carried to a very fine noint in some of the Tennessee rural districts, if we may judge from the following dialogue, said, to have recently occurred between a customer and the proprietor :—: — • ' Haow's trade, Square ?" " Wa'al, cash trade's kinder dull naow, Major. Betsy Nipper has bort an egg's worth of tea, and got trusted for it till her speckled pullet lays."

The New York Herald is predicting a season of unusual gaiety in New York this winter. Weddings, receptions, and balls, we are told, will keep society in a flutter. The gorgeousness of the events of the hymeneal order has attained such proportions of late years that a marriage en ref/le cannot be thought of unless with a oolossal fortune at one's back, and the soirees, breakfasts, Germans, and balls that take place every week during the season on the Avenue or other fashionable resorts would astonish even the noblesse of Belgravia."

The Cincinatti Lancet and Observer has the following:— "On the 21st of August Mrs Timothy Bradlee, of Trumbull county, Ohio, gave birth to eight children — three boys and five girls. They are all living, and are healthy, but quite small. Mi 1 Bradlee was married six years ago to Eunice Mowery, who weighed two hundred and seventy-three pounds on the day of her marriage. She has given birth to two pairs of twins, and now eight more, making twelve children, in six years. Mrs Bradlee was a triplet, her mother and father both being twins, and her grandmother the mother of five pairs of twins."

At S. Gabriel, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, while a number cf gentlemen were amusing themselves at night during a thunder-storm, a joker, Juca Tigre by name, wished that the lightning might strike the house and turn everything topsy-turvy. Instantly a loud report was heard, live men fell down, one dead, one burnt, and one ' senseless. The lightning had struck the house, killed a man whose head rested on a wall, and thrown down two others leaning against it. Another in the same room, who was supping, was seen enveloped in flames, and on being stripped, all his clothes were burnt inside, a vest pocket, Avherein were two gold ounces, was all burned on the lining side, and one of the coins melted. His hat was in shreds, and his boots all burnt.

Some statistics just published on the growth of the new States of lowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota afford remarkable illustrations of the development of the NorthWestern portions of the American Union. The youngest of these is Minnesota, admitted into the Union 14 years ago — the oldest is lowa, admitted in 1845, and therefore 27 years old ; Wisconsin'became a State 24 years ago. Yet these three states, not one of which has been in the Union for the term of a single generation, counted an aggregate population of 2,656,163 souls under the Census of 1870, and the natural increase of Jhe past -two years has given them a total of considerably more than 3,000,000. Comparing the Census returns of 1850, 1860, and 1870, it appears also that the total values of real and personal estate in these States have steadily increased in a proportion still more remarkable than the access of population.