OUR AMERICAN LETTER

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 15, 17 January 1914, Page 9

OUR AMERICAN LETTER

■ ("Star Special.") NEW "SORK, December IL SIGNS OF CHRISTMAS. The tirat snow of the season came last nig-hri,. just enough to whiten the ground, and just cold enough to-day to keep it from melting; but the weather ban been very mild previously, and the poor have not suffered from frost, as they, will, later. In the meantime the season of Christmas cheer is being forced upon us, and the streets and stores..are gay with shoppers, while the importation oi Christmas trees from the woods where spruce and iir are grown seems to be no smaller thatt ever. These trees generally sell at retail in proportion to their height, commanding for the beat grades as much as a dollar a foot. They are brought to the city by rail or vessel, with their 'branches tied in as closely as possible to the trunk, and the business i 3 a very important one at this time of year. Business in general has not been in a highly satisfactory condition. Wall Street has temporarily gone to pieces. More gold has been exported to Canada titan ever before in history, and the banks are not nrakring any loans, except on the very best giltedge collateral. In a very few lines, such as snipping and shipbuilding, the situation is good, ibut conditions are not inviting for any new business of an experimental or speculative character, and the New Year opens- with rather a doubtful out'ook. The new Congress started at Washington wiitbout any receee from the deliberations of the old, and President Wilson again delivered his annual message by personally reading the came. The new .tariff is getting into operation graduaiJy, but smoothly, and the effect is riuch as to assure a decrease in -the cost of living in some respects before very long. One of the principal items, the price of which soared beyond placid toleration by the public, has been that of eggs. There seemed to be a corner in the market of ; fresh eggs, and the retail price had gone as high as seven cents a piece; a special; figure was demanded for white-shelled! eggs, and it is suspected that some of those with brown shells were bleached in order to bring them up to the standard, but one of the daily newspapers got a supply and sold them at cut rates, so .that the price came tumbling down to 32 cents a dozen, and the fallacy of brown-shelled eggs being any less valuable than white was-soon exploded, while the announcement that cargoes of eggs would soon be imported from Russia completed the matter, and iit is not likely that the price iwfll again go above 40 or 50 cents per dozen at a limit. THE SENSATIONS OF THE DAT. An extraordinary development in "white slave" abductions has been brought to light by the arrest of a man on the charge of having used a hypodermic needle on a girl sitting next to him in a theatre, the needle being charged with a powerful South American drug, wrhich rendered the girl unconscious long enough for the man to take her arway. In this instance a friend of •the girt claimed her in time to frustrate the abduction, and then it (transpired that there had been a good many other similar cases. The drug is said to be a species of foyocin or henbane, a very small injection of which is sufficient. Newspaper stories in regard to such matters have temporarily superseded those suicide by swallowing bichloride of mercury-. A surgical cure for poisoning by such a method iwau discovered in uncovering the kidneys and washing out the poison from it-hem. His proved efficient in two or three cases, so that the patients recovered, but the dread of a surgical operation tends to detract from the use of this ,poa»n by those seeking painless exit from the ills toiat flesh, is heir to. LETTERS TO SANTA CLATJS. The Postmaster-General has gladdened the hearts of poor children by an order making permanent the custom hitherto employed of turning over to charitable persons or organisations all letters received through the mails from children addressed to Santa Clans. Each postmaster has been authorised to djspost, of such mail, local to his office, in accordance with the order. UNITED STATES FINANCE. i will have t0 appropriate just 1,108,728,660.02 dollars to conduct the Government of the United States during the fiscal year 1915, according i 0 the est£ mates prepared by each department and sent to the House by Secretary McAdoo of the Treasury. With this vast sum' the Administration will maintain the j battleships, forts and armies; keep the 1 scales of justice balanced, endeavour to retain the friendship of foreign nations, look after domestic prosperity, and seek to discover new ways in which to better health, improve Irving conditions and investigate the merits of the thousand new things in industry and commerce that come to its attention. The estimates are 22.864,067 dollars in excess, of the- appropriations for, the last fiscal year, but -their total falls 39,255,066 dollars below the estimates for that year. ..PARCELS POST. Letter carriers and rural delivery mail contractors are threatening to resign in large numbers because of the action of the Post Office Department in enlarging the limit, for parcel post delivery t 0 'fifty pounds. Meanwhile the express companies report great decreases in their : earnings because of the operation of tbe parcel post system. A BIG CAKE. Incidental to the recent weddim* of Miss -Jennie Wilson and Mr. Sayres at the White House on November 26, one lof the greatest wedding cakes ever produced was served. The first layer of the cake was 4 inches thick and 22 inches ' across. When ready for the knife, the cake weighed 135 pounds, and wa s 2Wt". tall, if one counts the vase of white orchids placed on the top. It cost about 500 dollars and contained 19 ingredients. In 2,000 dainty white hoses, tied with •white satin ribbon, the cake was distributed; -each box the proper size to go under one's pillow to dream upon. Over the body of the cake was moulded a thick white icing scroll work. " Then," to quote the artist who made it, "there was a design for the initials of the bride and bridegroom done in silver. And then ! therevnrere lilies of the valley in white I Sugar on the sides." FOOTBAXI/S TOIX, Total football disasters during the season just closed numbered 14 dead, and 475 skulls, broken aecks and spinal injoxieg bsiagr, th« prin-

RISKS OF DKEB SXAXKXHG.

The killing- of 5,180 deer in Maine, New 'Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts this fall cost the lives Of 13 persons and more or less serious injuries to 72 others. Maine, as usual, leads the-northern New England States, in the number of deerhunting fatalities. Of the 11 persons killed in that State four were mistaken for deer and shot by other hunters, six were killed by the accidental discharge of their own weapons, and a little girl was accidentally shot by an elder brother who was cleaning a rifle. More than 60 persons were wounded in gunning accidents. Since the Maine season opened on October 1 more than 1,900 deer and 45 moose have been killed. In New Hamp-' shire, where each county has its own open hunting season, about 100 deer have been shot. The same conditions prevail in Vermont, where 1,600 deer hav e been killed. ' REMARKABLE WIRELESS. Something remarkable in-wireless telegraphy was accomplished on November 26, when the wireless station on tile i shores of Lake Huron ahove Point Edward picked up signals from the wireless station at Darwin, near Palmerston, South Australia, which was calling the wireless station at Sydney. The signals received were quite clear, although the distance they were i transmitted was half way around the world. This is said to be a record distance in wireless telegraphy. TOTTXAJn). Nearly 2.000,000 dollars' worth or" toys were imported into the United .States during the current fiscal year, according to recent statistics of the Department of Commerce, and for the full calendar year of 1913 the total value of toys imported will approximate 9,006,000 dollars. The domestic manufacture of tov«s is considerably greater than the imports, and will probably approximate 11,000,000 dollars for the current year, bringing the year's total supply up to ahout 26:db0,bbd dollars. This valuation is based, in- the case of imports, •upon the wholesale value in the countries from which the toys are imported, and in the case of the domestic product upon the stated value at the factory, the amount for which they will be sold being, of course,, very much greater. The consumption of toys in the United States has grown with remarkable rapidity. Importations in the fiscal year of 1893 were less than 3,000.000 dollars; in 1903, 4,500,000 dollars; in the fiscal year'of 1913 practically 8,000,000. Domestic manufactures of toys and games increased from 4,000,000 dollars in 1899 to 5,500,000 dollars in 1904, and 8,250,000 dollars in 1909. Dolls alone form nearly one-fourth of the total value of the toys imported, amounting in the single month of September to 383,466 dollars out of a total of 1,817,553 dollars' worth of toys imported. The total value of dolls imported in the fiscal year of 1913 was 1,500,000 dollars, and the indications are that the importations daring the calen- . dar year 1913 will reach 2,000,000 dollars. JOTTINGS. The .Masonic Grand Dodge of Arkansas has adopted a resolution making it a Masonic offence for .any member of the order to sign a petition for the granting of a saloon license or to circulate such a petition. Robert A. Nickerson. of Ceiitervillc, Nova Scotia, recently killed a pi<? one year and ten days old, which weighed 513 pounds. The Indian population of Canada at the present time is given at 109,93". ■Mails from Melbourne, November 14, and Sydney, November 15, "by the s.s. Ventura were delivered in New York on the afternoon of December 9; but mails from Melbourne, Octohcr 31, Sydney, November 1, and Wellington, November 13, hy s.s. Moana, were not delivered here until the morning o*f December 10.