AMERICAN ITEMS.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 193, 22 July 1873, Page 7

AMERICAN ITEMS.

Before taking his seat on a corpse the Louisville coroner first goes through the dead man's pocket for a chew of tobacco. A. negro who came near being drowned in being baptised scrambled ashore, and indignantly exclaimed, " Some gentleman']! lose an eighteen hundred dollar nigger sometime by dis dam foolishness." Michael Gorman, of Pontiac, Michigan, has died from the effects of habitual overeating, in spite of the warning of the disgusted doctor, who said, "If you will gormandise, why, Gorman dies, that's all." Some ladies in Savons, New York, tried to break up a billiard room by going there in the evening with their knitting and sewing. It did not work, however, as their presence attracted an additional run of custom.

Recently, in a church in New York, the parson, having several persons to marry, said, after entering the building, " All those that want to be married will please rise," whereupon every single lady present rose from her seat.

A coloured gentleman wis struck on the head with a brick falling from the top of a five-store;/ building. Be looked up to the workmen, and bawled out, "Say, you fellahs up tbar, ye ain't laying bricks without any morhah, arc ve ?"

" My brudders," says a waggish coloured man to a crowd, "in all affliction, in all ob your troubles, dar is one place you can always find sympathy." " Whar I Wharf shouted several. "In do dictionary," he replied, rolling his eyes skyward.

A man in New York went home a few nights since at a late hour, and gontlv knocked at the door. "Who is that]" inquired h's better half. To which very proper inquiry the heartless man replied by asking, "Whom do you expect at this hour of the night f A negro held a cow while a crow-eyed man was to knock her on the bead with an axe. The negro, observing the man's eyes, in some fear inquired, "You gwine to hit whar you look?" " Yes." " Den," said Cnffey, " hold the cow yourself. I ain't gwine to let you hit me."

A layman at Providence who occasionally exhorted at evening meetings, thus explained his belief in the existence of a Deity :—■ " Brethren, 1 am just as confident that there is a Supreme Being as I am that there is flour in Alexandria ; and that I know to a certainty, as I yesterday received from there a lot of 300 barrels of fresh superfine, which I will sell as low as any person in town."

Josh Billings speaks thus of a now agricu 1 - tural implement to which, the attention of farmers is invited:—"John Rodgers's revolving, expanding, self-con'raktin-/, unceremonious, self-adjusting, si 1: greasing, selfrighteous hoss-rake is now fo-cver offered to a generous public. These rakes will rake up a paper of pins sowed broadcast in a ten-acre field of winter stubble. No fanner of good moral character should be without this rake, even if he had to steal one." A Great Loss.—C. 0. Archimandritoff was divorced a couple of weeks ago from her husband, J. Archimandritoff, and allowed to resume her maiden name of Caroline 0. Peters. The long and short of it is, Archimandritoff is now Peters. To sacrifice such a name as that and become plain Peters must have required some strength of mind ; but she has cut Archimandrito'F right off, asserting that she found the eruel-ty of her spouse made the matrimonial tie a cruel tie to her.

It hai for several years been held by the Courts of New York, that where a man and woman live together as man anil wife, and publicly acknowledge such relation, no marriage service, or ceremony, is necessary to legalise the union, and give a title to his estate. This view of the marriage state has lately been affirmed. Recentlv a woman went before one of the Courts in New York citv, and preferred a charge of vagrancy against her daughter, in order to prevent the latter from living with a man in an unmarried state. Upon the man, in answer to a question of the judge, acknowledging the girl as his wife, she w:\s discharged, the justice stating that acknowledgment made them legally man and wife. Mr Kendall, sometime Uncle Sam's Post-master-General, wanting some information as to the source of a river, sent the following note to a village postmaster:—" Sir, — This depart in cut desires to know how far the Tombigbec river runs up ?—Respectfully yours," &c By return of mail came :—■ " Sir, —The Tombiglve does not run up at all ; it runs down," <fte. Kendall, not appreciating his subordinate's humour, wrote again : —" Sir, —Your appointment as postmaster is revoked ; von will turn over the funds, itc, - to your office to your successor." Not at all disturbed by this summary dismissal, the postmaster replied : "Sir, —The revenues for this office for tho quarter ending September 30, have been 95 cents ; its expenditure, same period, for tal-low-candles and twine, 1 dol. ii cents. 1 trust my successor is instructed to adjust the balance."