AMERICAN NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1148, 29 November 1873, Page 10

AMERICAN NOTES.

Henry Ward Beecher get 3, from all sources 50,000 dols. a year.

There are in Chicago's new hotel, the Grand Pacific, fifty-nine flights of stairs, thirty-eight miles of wire, 999 windows, 1070 doors.

The amount appropriated to the support of the department of education in New York city for the current year is 3,100,000 dols.

A Mississippi druggist is selling a drug to negroes under a pledge that it will convert their wool into long straight hair. He is said to be doing a brisk business.

Rev. Daniel Williams died lately very suddenly at East Killingly, Conn. He was sitting in the yard, holding a horse that was feeding. He was found dead, still retaining his hold upon the halter.

Rev. Dr Scott's church, San Francisco, Presbyterian, has got the biggest organ in California — dimensions, height 35 feet, depth 24 feet, width 19 feet ; weight, 26,000 pounds ; cost $8000.

The Philadelphians are hard at work preparing for their Centennial Exhibition to be held in 1876; £200 each for the ten best designs for an appropriate building had been offered, and forty plans have now been sent in.

During the last eight years the San Francisco Benevolent Association has assisted 58,270 persons, at an expense of 195,839,40 dols.; an average of about 3 27 dois. per month for each person receiving its bounties. Young girls in the San Francisco market recently brought one day $450, middle-aged women §200, and old women §100 each. This sounds rather strange, "but in a sale of twenty-two in the California metropolis the other day this is what they brought at auction. It is but a very little while since California was regarded as a mining country exclusively. Now her annual product of wheat, barley, wool, wine, and beef and mutton is not less in value than §50,000,000, and doubtless fully twice as much as the product of her gold diggings.

The number of buffaloes slain last winter on the western prairies of the United States reached the large number of 200,000. The robes were shipped to Chicago, and a few to Leavenworth. The demand is for robes and for military trimming for European armies. The prices obtained by the hunters were §1 50 c. for cows, and 82 50c. for bulls.

The coal supply of the United States in 1872 was 41,752,009 tons, and for 1873 it is estimated that it will amount to about 43,000,000 tons. The chief producing region is Pennsylvania, the yield of her coal mines, which are constantly extending their area, being estimated to be now worth 53, 000. 000d015. a year.

The Hoosac tunnel, in Massachusetts, is approaching completion, but 1200 feet remain to be bored. The workmen in the two headings can now distinctly hear each other in their blasting operations. Ifc has cost 12,000, 000d015. ; but in the first year it is opened the expectation is that it will produce an ample income on the cost, besides the great commercial advantages and increased railway facilities it will give to New England.

Ths wool clip of California for 1872 was 24,335,468 pounds. There was used by the mills of the Sta^e about 3,000,000 pounds, leaving about 21,000,000 pounds in round numbers that was shipped to New York and Boston in the dirt. The spring clip of 1873, as shown by receipts at San Francisco, bought by local mills shipped direct from the interior, is 15,670,822 pounds. Henry Ward Beecher declined to receive the degree of D.D., because he considered the honour an empty one, and preferred to remain a plain " Mr." Now (says the Springfield Daily Union) comes a venerable Indian clergyman, the Rev. Richard Hargrave, who refuses for the second time to be called "Dr." He says he is seventy years old and in failing health, but has no desire to be doctored. Cases where the degree is declined are growing in frequency, and the signs of the times rather indicate that the coming clergyman will not be a D.D. A rather novel mode of punishment has been adopted by the inhabitants of a little city on the frozen waters of Saginaw Bay, a city consisting of about 300 fishermen's shanties, and possessing a regular municipal government with a mayor for its head. Any violation, of the ordinances of the community is punished by ducking the offender in the cold waters of the lake, through holes cut in the ice. A thrilling lightning disaster is reported from Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania. A large number of women and girls were gathering berries on Scranton Hills, when suddenly a violent storm came on. They sought shelter in an untenanted building, but this gave them no protection. A flash of lightning descended in the midst of the group, killed two women instantly, scorched four others so fearfully that they died a few hours afterwards, and severely injured many others,

Commodore Vanderbilt controls 2160 miles of railway in the United States, between the West and Atlantic seaboard. The property he administers is represented on the Stock Exchange by securities equal to 215,000,000 dols., and its gross income last year was 45,000,000 dols. It is more than probable that he will soon direct the Western Union Telegraph Company, with its 70,000 miles of wire and 40,000,000 dols. of capital. Fairplay, Colorado, a town with a population of about 1000, in the Rocky Mountains, on the route between Denver and Santa F6, and 95 miles from the former place, is said to be the highest town in the United States, its altitude being stated at 9764 feet (nearly two miles) above sea level. The inhabitants, while never experiencing what is known as the " heated term," yet from June to September have moderately warm days with cool nights, the monotony being occasionally relieved by a snowstorm in August.

A few days ago, says the Chicago Tribune, a terrible accident occurred on the farm of Mr Wm, Preston, at Butler. They were at work boring for oil. Three men were in the well at the time, when suddenly oil was struck, bursting high into the air. Scarcely had it spouted above the surface when the oil took fire, sending a blaze high into the heavens for a distance of over 100 feet. Great excitement prevailed. The fact of the men being in the well caused a panic. They were burned to death, and when their bodies were recovered they were a horrible shrivelled mass. The derricks and machinery were consumed, involving a loss of several thousand dellars.

About one hundred girls employed in the stitching and mending room of the hosiery department on the Lawrence corporation in Lowell struck work lately, for the reason, as the Lowell Courier gives the stoiy, that Mr Hussey, the agent, would not give them the privilege of having the windows of their room open at the bottom. It appears that nearly two years since, Mr Hussey adopted the rule that the windows in all the mills if opened, should be opened at the top alone ; giving as much ventilation as if opened, at the bottom. The purpose to strictly enforce this rule occasioned the strike. One objection to the opening of the windows at the bottom is that the employe's are in such, case more liable to neglect their work in looking out.

Chinese labour in New Jersey seems to be a failure. The Philadelphia Inquirer says: — "Most of our readers, perhaps, remember a laundry of a wholesale order at Belleville, N. J., where a Captain Harvey determined two years ago to solve the perplexing labour problem by performing his washing, starching, and ironing by means of Mongolian labourers. Twenty-four months of trial have discouraged the brave experimenter of New Jersey ; his Chinese workers ' have been on several strikes, a number of them having violated their contracts more flagrantly by surreptitiously deserting the laundry altogether. Captain Harvey has now only one-half of his original invoice of Chinamen left, and is anxious to exchange them for workmen of other nationalities. "

A recent number of the Suspension Bridge (Niagara) Journal contains the following :—": — " Two men, named James Mumford and Thomas Conroy, who for many years have acted as guides through the Cave of the Winds on Goat Island, determined to ascertain if there was not another cave under the American Fall. They repaired to the first of the ferry stairs, provided with ropes and ladders. After getting beyond this sheet of water without much difficulty, they found it necessary to use their boats in order to reach the desired locality. Mr G. W. Simms, an eye-witness, says the men were out of sight for some time, and he gave them up for lost. They soon, however, made their re -appearance, and pronounced the new cave one of the wonders of the world. It was pitch dark in the cave, and in one place they stood between two walls of water. They were prevented from going further for want of some more tools, and some means of lighting the cave."

The prison arrangements of Windham County, Connecticut (says the New York Tribune), are of a kind to soothe and charm the obdurate heart. The gaol has a farm of ten acres, which is cultivated by the prisoners. When their labour is not needed on the land it is hired by outsiders. Sometimes one may see thirteen or fourteen prisoners armed with axes at work in the depths of the woods, with only one unarmed keeper in charge of them, or shovelling in some distant ditch under the same direction. All this has been done for the last twenty-six, years, and in that time but three or four prisoners have escaped. Punishments are very rare, and the labour of these men. annually produces a very comfortable sum for the county. The keeper treats them with great kindness. Their surroundings are neat and convenient.

Every influence about them is reformatory and helpful. We see no evidence that this humane and elevating treatment has any ill consequence. We commend the kindly tale to the author of " Never Too Late to Mend."

The greatest industry of all in the United States is that of iron, which has reached immense proportions, especially in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, and Michigan. There are iron establishments in every state of the Union, with the solitary exception of Florida, and in every territory, except, perhaps, Utah. About 200 millions of capital are employed, and the products reach' 325 millions ; the manufacture of iron gives work to 140,000 hands. Pennsylvania is facile princeps in this industry ; her factories numbering very nearly a thousand, and her products being not far from. 122 millions. But the most wonderful feature of iron manufacture is its spread v/estward. Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio, have between them about 860 establishments ; while in the Far West, in Minnesota, lowa, Wisconsin, and even in California and Nevada, they are becoming numerous and important. The progress of iron manufacture during the past twenty years maybe estimated by the fact that while in 1870 the factories numbered 3700, and had a capital of 200,000,000 dols. , in 1850 there were only 2364, with a capital of about 46,000,000 dols.

The cod fisheries of Alaska are assuming considerable importance, the fish finding a l'eady sale in the California markets. The codfish from the Shumagin grounds are thicker, fatter, and in every way superior to those caught in the Okhotsk sea, the source from which the supply for the Pacific coast has been largely derived, and they bring a higher price. As the distance to the Alaska coast is only about half as great as that to the Okhotsk, with an equal catch, those engaged in the Shumagin fisheries make greater profits by far than those who go farther. The fishermen employed in this trade do not work on shares, but are usually paid according to their catch, the price varying from §25 to $30 a thousand. When caught the fish are at once salted, but are taken to California for drying. If properly salted they arrive in good condition in San Francisco, whence the vessels are sent, as they arrive, to the drying grounds at California City and Redwood City. There the fish are taken oub one by one, and spread upon the ways after the brine is washed from them. When the sun is hot and the wind fresh the process of curing is completed in two days. Dr Glenn, of Colusa County, California, owns a ranch which contains nearly 45,000 acres. It embraces a frontage 18 miles on the Sacramento River, and extends back about five miles. It is enclosed and divided by 140 miles of fencing. One tenant, G. W. Hoog, rents and cultivates about 10,000 acres of the land, and the Gupton Brothers cultivate an equal portion. Some 15,000 acres are rented out to a number of farmers, who work on a smaller scale. At the present time Hoog is engaged in cutting 7000 acres of wheat and barley. The crop will this year yield about 20 bushels per acre of wheat. In favourable seasons the yield has been about 35 bushels. The yield of barley is considerably larger. The total crop will amount to nearly 180,C00 bushels. He is thrashing his grain with one of Case's 48in. cylinder thrashing machines, which is run by a 20-horse power steam engine. To supply this machine requires six largesized headers and 18 header waggons, all of which require the labour of 110 horses and 50 men. The machine has/ thrashed five sacks of barley per minute, at which rate it has run for an hour and a half in succession. It has also thrashed 32 sacks of wheat in seven minutes. It will require about six weeks to thrash the entire crop. These are the operations of Hoog alone. Gupton Brothers have an equally large cropland are driving business on about the same scale. The smaller tenants are equally well employed. During the trial of certain engines used by the Boston Fire Department, a thrilling incident occurred. We take the following from the Herald : — The Skinner truck was then drawn up, when Captain Damrell gave the word to go into action. Suddenly the men, although as yet "quite unused to the machine, sprang to the cranks, and while the " fly " or extension ladder was being shipped, the forward and rear wheels gradually drew together and the main ladder rose to its full height of about fifty feet. Then the splicer shot out twenty-five feet more and at the end of that was the twenty-foot fly. Hardly had the cranks ceased their revolutions when two bold ladder men were on their way up, and at five minutes and a half from the time from which the signal was given, three men were perched at the altitude of ninety-five feet from the ground, away above the the roof of Smith's organ factory, a five- storey building, in front of which the apparatus was located. For a moment they were heroes, and the crowd applauded liberally j but suddenly a hush

fell on all, for then it was seen that the wheels on one side of the truck were gradually sinking- into the mud, and the top of the ladder veering to one aide, carrying with it its living freight. Thoughts of of the Hanover street disaster filled the minds of all ; and a scene of death seemed imminent, when the voice of the Chief rang out the command, " Come down off that ladder I" Still unconscious of their danger the men held on, apparently exulting in their bravery, "when some one shouted, " Jump to the roof." Then they began to descend, and the moment — perhaps thirty seconds — of intense agony for the spectators — old firemen as most of them were — had passed. The ladders were then lowered and guys attached, as in ordinary practice, and the experiment was repeated. At one time tfee apex of the ladder was fully eight feet to one side of its base, and had the truck been lesa reeure and stiff in its lower portions, death or terrible mutilation must have resulted.