American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-08-16
MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

PHILADELPHIA mas % lager ldctOrlcS.
How TO become Il real estate agent
Marry rich wife.
THE internal revenue receipts for Tho
month of July amounted to $S,570,O00.
f ALI. sorts of notes from watering-places
are current, but the only notes that are
taken at the watering. places are green
backs.
| THE great balloon excitement now pre-
vailing has one good thing about it, al
least it turns attention from things ter
restral to things celestial.
A PIN manufacturer in Connecticut is
said to have made, this last year, oveI
100000. AT this rate, he will soon reach
the pinnacle of fortune. But where do
the pins go.
PLAYING cards with black borders is a
late nobby convenience to people who
have lost friends and think they know
something about euchre.
| A CONTEMPORARY asserts that "half the
| married women in the world wonder who
their husbands will marry next" The
other half more sensibly wonder whom
they will marry next.
ONE Ofthe great luXuries of riches is that
they enable you to escape so much good
advice. The rich are always advising the
poor, but the poor seldom venture to re-
turn the compliment.-Helps.
| II is eStlTldteu tIlat the increase OF Sill
yer in the United States has been about 20
per cent. over 1871 for the last year, and
that the net silver product of Utah and
| Colorado will, during the coming season.
fully reach that figure; but the statistics
| fail to show any increase in the gold pro-
| duct.
| IN the opinion of Professor Wyman, the
ancient mound builders of Florida were
cannibals. This conclusion is based on
the fact that many of the bone heaps con-
| tanned human bones, which were broken
| in the same manner as those of certain
animals that were killed for food. The
| splitting of the bones had been resOrted
to as a means of obtaining the inclosed
| marrow.
| THE Boston Journal Of Chemistry de-
| clares that zinc is at least as virulent and
fatal poison as lead, its salts, when taken
in small quantities, producing nausea;
larger doses causes vomiting, with violent
retching and cerebral distress. Some
painters are poisoned by zinc paint, and
suffer collie similar to that caused by lead.
Water in contact with zinc or galvanized"
| iron pipe, is charged to a greater or less
extent with the chloride, the protoxide
and the carbonate of Zinc-all poisonous
to those who use the water.
| AMERICAN society is comparatively new
| We have little among us that is tradition
| al liC Hdlipllii sly &c vi lldIluclS IS d
| formative state; but we certainly possess
the basis for good manners in a pre-emi-
nent degree. We are good -natured,
facile people, not ungraceful, and certain
ly not lacking in selfpossession. We have
need only to respect ourselves a little
more, cease looking across the water for
models, and give as graceful an expression
| as we can to our sentiments toward uni
| versal man and woman, to become the &C
knowledged possessOrs of good manners.
| j. G.. Holland.
IT is estimated that 10000 shooting
| stars daily traverse the atmosphere, adding
| perhaps, a thousand pounds to the earth's
| mass. These bodies move in space as
| dust clouds or nebula. When they come
within the suns attraction, the nebula as
sumes the form of a comet under the in
| fiuence of gravitation. and the comet is
gradually drawn out by the same force
into a ring revolving round the sun in the
same orbit and periodic time as the orig
inal comet.
THOSE victims of the hay fever who
can't afford trip to Fire Island, the gen.
ial climate of which greatly alleviates the
disease, may take hint from gentleman
who describes himself as sufferer from
''hay fever" for twenty years, but who is
now entirely relieved from the malady
His cure is to get a saturated solution of
StAipiist'S VI ItiiAliC III "dttl, Ill lIo-
portion of one part of quinine to TAO of
water, lie down upon his back, dip
small cancels hair brush into the
solution, apply the brush to the
inside of the nOstrils, moving the
head about gently SO as to make sure
that the fluid reaches all parts of the nos
trils until it is felt in the throat. He de-
scribes the relief as Immediate and says
that three applications day, when threat
ened by return of the disease, is suffic-
lent to prevent a return.
Dew is the result of the precipitation
of moisture from the air on its meeting
the colder substance on the surface of the
earth or within Il few feet of it. This cold
ness depends on the radiation of heat by
the surface ground during the night, in
return for the heat radiated to it by the
sun during the day, which, if suffered to
accumulate, would destroy the present
constitution of our globe. The surface of
the earth thus rendered colder than the
neighboring air condenses a part of the
watery vapor into dew. This condcnsa
ton is, of course, more perceptible on
those bodies which sooner become cold
by the radiation of their heat. For this
reason we find that the quantity of dew on
grass is much greater than on Il gravel
walk, the former being usually ten or
twelve degrees colder than the latter.
How TO MEASURE THE HEIGHT OF TREES
When a tree stands SO that the length of
its shadow can be measured, its height
may be readily ascertained as follows:
Set stick upright Oct it be perpendicu-
lar by the plumb line) Measure the
length of the shadow of the stick AS the
length of its shadow is to the height of the
stick, so is the length of the shadow of
the tree to its height. For instance: if the
stick is four feet above the ground, and its
shadow is six feet in length, and the shad-
ow of the tree is ninety feet, the height of
the tree will be sixty feet (6 A: 80 :6O. In
other words, multiply the length of the
shadow of the tree by the height of the
stick, and divide by the shadow of the
stick.
AT the present time the miles of rail
roads in operation aggregate g. 104,
against 2S miles in 1880. In the distribu-
ton of mileage the New England States
have 5,053 miles; the middle States 49,
400; the Western States 32,}03; the South
ern States HIP, and the Pacific States
2,13a OF the separate States Illinois
leads the list, the number of miles of road
being stated ut 6,:j61. Pennsylvania, with
$500 miles, comes next in order; New
York, with 1925, is third, and Ohio, with
4,1OS, is fourth. The total cost of the rail
roads of the country amounts to So, 159,
423,051
The combined area of the six New
England States is Gs,:'4S square miles; the
area of the single State of California is
nearly three times as much. The area of
the Middle States, including Maryland
| and West Virginia, is 1877, 1864 square
|