OUR AMERICAN LETTER

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 30, 4 February 1916, Page 7

OUR AMERICAN LETTER

BUSINESS AND WAR. UNKING THE MOST OF BOTH. (Special to •'Star.") NEW YORK, December 20. Winter conditions in the American metropolis are this year more satisfactory and encouraging than for at least four years past. Business in most lines j s very active, the banking status is satisfactory, and the nation seems to have settled down to an assured and i confident neutrality with a simple deter- I mination to make all the money possible j while, the European conflict causes sucli a ready market. The exhibit of Christinas goods in the shops is notably different from that of a few years ago in the absence nf Gorman manufactures and of European importations generally except what are essentials, at very lush j prices, while new lines of American goods I are i n evidence, showing that some : talent, either native or imported, has received an incentive for manufacturing •which had been previously stifled by foreign competition. The number of new electrical toys, as well as useful electrical articles, is surprising. Home industry in ladies' fancy work is al«o more largely shown this year than evi*r ' before, while novelties in handles of urn- : hrellas and walking sticks seem to be conspicuous in the offerines for Christ ! mas gifts. Tn the way of furs it is not-' able that mink skins, which in late years ' have been as high as £3 14/ each, are now quoted by the dozen as low a* 15/. i and I have heard of a contemplated syn- ] dicate to buy them up and stow them , away in casks for a few years until the ' price again appreciates. There is not at ' present, however, any special favour iL | furs, all being worn promiscuously,' althoug-h. of course, the parade of sable! real black fox and stone-marten pro- '■ nonnee the wearers in the ranks of the wealthy. A SNOWSTORM. The first real snowstorm of the season swept the Atlantic coast on Decem- I ber 13, leaving six inches of snow in the' city, and several feet of it up the State, that is, at an increasing distance from the salt water. This storm, however, strange as it may seem, did not touch I,he province of Nova Scotia, which lie 3 more than 200 miles east from the meridian of the American coast, although somewhat to the northward, and steam- | ers from there left a balmy climate last ! week to run into much more arctic conditions as far as 500 miles south and west. Heavy importations of Christmas trees lave come from Nova Scotia and Maine. the forests of New York being generally devoid of the evergreen spruce and hemlock used for this purpose. These trees mounted on blocks, retail at a dollar a foot in height according to size, while the trailing mossy ground evergreen used also largely for Christmas decorations is ten cents a foot. FDTAWCIER'S GOOD YEAR. Th . P , Xp "- York financial houseware concluding- one of the most remarkable and euccossrul years on record, and the gifts to faithful employees will, fa cases prove princely. Conditions in Canada this Christmas are also eurprisinjJly encouraging, especially in the older eastern provinces, where there appears to be an abundance of financial resources and an evident spirit of determination that the country must be kept going in good regardless of war deterrents. A GREAT FISHING INDUSTRY. That gTeat industry which brings so much wealth to Xovia Scotia, the deepsea .fisheries, apparently inexhaustible in their resources, has tbie year vastly augmented the revenues of the vesselowners and the men who sail them. One man told mc that he lias shares in forty fishing schooners, all bat two of which this year gave handsome dividends, while the crews have earned as high as £75 net in a two-months' trip. Dry codfish are now quoted as high as £1 10/ per quintal, while some years they have been as low as 12/. One reason for this, however, i≤ that the latter part of the season gave very little good, dry, clear weather for the curing of fish, 6o that much of the later catch had to be pickled. GOOD YEAR IN CANADA. T*he Canadian rivers are already closed to navigation, although the U,t sailing from Quebec was at the unusually late date of December 15. In nearly all respects the Canadian year has been one of prosperity, despite* the fact that so many young men have been sent, and are being sent to the war. The yield of wheat this year in the Canadian prairie provinces amounted to 2fi7,000,000 bushels, giving about 200,----000,000 for export, whereas the greatest amount for export in any pretious year ■ was only about 50,000,000 busheU. Other j agricultural returns in the various pro- | vinces have also been good except that in the Atlantic coast sections the potato crop was practically a failure, with a consequent rise in price of this staple : vegetable to 4/ per bushel, instead of about 1/8 normal. The Canadian mining industry is ajso very satisfactory, l but lumbering suffers from low prices, owing to the war. .Advices from British Columbia gtate that the city of Vancouver suffered a lobh of 50,000 population in the past five yeare owing to the collapse of the real estate boom there, and business is showing a black outlook. CONFIDENCE IN WILSON. The utterances of President Wilson in connection with war matters have strengthened public confidence in his handling of affairs from a national point of Americanism, although there is still much criticism of the laxity of administration methods in regard to the encouragement of the American merchant marine. With all the opportunity in the world for the supply of tonnage for the overseas trades, there is no expansion of American shipyards, and many equipments are still idle, although the more modern ones are working to their capacity. Meanwhile, the transatlantic business is participated in by little old Bailing vessels to a degree which one would not have believed a few years ago that the trade could ever revert to. The restrictive laws enacted by Congress in regard to the operation of American ships are so serious as to quite discourage the investment of capital in them. The only explanation of the governmental neglect of the shipping industry is the influence of the railways and the popular ignorance of the subject. In come other lines, however, the past actions of President Wilson are being indirectly explained, as, for instance, his refusal to nroceed iv;th intervention in.

Mexico, the explanation of this being that it would only tend to antagonise Japan, which is steadily increasing a sphere of influence in Mexican affairs and may eventually dominate that country. Even this, however ini°-ht not be sufficient reason for the lack of American influence in Mexico were it not for the fact that England was indebted to Japan for naval protection in the North Pacific during t ho earlier stages of the war, and English influence at Washington during the present regime has been notable. NEW YORK UNDERGROUND. Complaints are growing i n New York despite all the increase in transportation fae.lihe., that those who laid out the city did not provide anything like adequate means for transit north and south, ihe avenues m those directions are 600 ft apart, while the cross-town streets between the East and North Rivers are only 200 ft apart. If the city were dependent upon the surface facilities for transportation to-day, instead of possessing the underground and elevated railways, traffic would be intolerablycongested, while the increase of high buildings, making a super-imposed city, adds to the difficulties of the problem." NEWFOUNDLAND AND NO LICENSE. A revised decision as to the vote on prohibition in Newfoundland rules that as the people polled 400 votes more than JO per cent of the whole electoral list in favour of the measure, prohibition must be put into effect on January 1, l»n. No one who knows the colony has any doubt that the new law will meet with evasion and transgression, but just howit will be done to the greatest extent remains to be seen. Meanwhile a very interesting new move in the same matter is being made in Nova Scotia. This is not for or against prohibition, but for the abolition of barrooms and public drink-j ing places. The idea is to make intoxi-1 cants unsalable except in sealed packages or bottles costing not less than two shillings each, and that these must not be opened on the premises where they are sold. The theory is that such restriction will kill the treating- habit and make for the use of a better quality of liquor than is sold in barrooms, besides the extermination of the evil associations of barrooms. The idea is on the Swedish principle. Brainy men who have given the matter much thought believe that the plan is entirely practicable and far more conducive to the practice of temperance ami the elimination of temptation from the weak than any chimerical scheme of a compulsory character or the plan at present mooted in New York of licensing drinkers who have obtained a medical certificate after examination. FOUNTAIN PEN IN A MAN'S EYE, Among the interesting cases of mysterious deaths Implying the possibility of murder, is that of a young man who was found one morning lying upon a lorry in the waterfront stable e-eetion of Brooklyn, unconscious and with ono eye apparently knocked out. He was unidentified, and lingered six weeks in hospital. An autopsy revealed the fact that a fountain pen had been driven into his head through the injured eye and was invisible from the outside. Whether the man was murdered by the j>en being driven into the brain with a mallet, or whether he may have possibly fa-Tlen from a window or other height and by some strange contortion driven upon his own pocket pen when he struck the earth, i« a problem that the police have never bothered to attempt to solve. Beyond developing the fact that the man's name was Mc-Loug-Uin. and that he had been eeen loitering in the vicinity, the police search was not prosecuted. The pen penetrated cix inches into his brain. CENSUS OF INDIANS. A reservation census of the Indians in the State of New York showe a total of 4451, which is a decrease of 609 eince IUOS. The great majority of these are not pure blood Indians, and a good many intermarriages have been made with negroes, besides miscegenations with white races, but strange as it may seem there were found 748 speaking little or no Knglish, while 762 confess to being pagans. In the eight reservations there are 87.076 acres of land, of which 30,556 acres were under cultivation this year. Among their means of livelihood besides farming are piano tuners, sextons, and telephone operators. The total Indian population of the United States, not including Alaska, is put down as 265,683, descendants of the old aborigines of North America.