American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-07-26
MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS.

THE Missouri River has made cutoff
at the Big Bend four miles south of
Onawa, Iowa, thus transferring about
800 acres to Nebraska.
\ NEVADA paper reports that the ser
want girls of Helena have struck for $50
per month, two silk dresses and the priv
lege of the parlor every Sunday.
THE late John Van Buren, once, when
travelling on one of our North River
steamers, asked his friends friend to join
in drink-probably soda-water. The
man said he had mot the pleasure of an
introduction "But," said Prince John,
you know enough to drink
A QUAINT sort of person, the Rev. Mark
Wilkes, once introduced his text in this
manner: My hearers, did you ever see
a cate Did you ever see Il cat walk! Did
YOU ever see Il cat walk upon the top of Il
wall? Did you ever see IA cat walk upon
the top of wall covered with broken
glass. How carefully she lifted each
foot. How slowly and cautiously she set
it down again. So would the text from
which l am about to speak have you act.
See that you walk cir-cum-spectly-'
FAMILIARITY with American geography
is not the strong suit of the literary
l;riton, and in particular of Lady
Gcorgiana Fullerton. In her romance,
''Too Strange Not to be True" Charlotte
of Brunswick, early in the last century,
settles upon the Lower Mississippi, where
the Rocky Mountains are visible from her
windows, and where, amid the gambolingS
of monkeys and the tumblings of buf
faloes, she gathers the lotus flowers from
out of the tropical luXuriancc, and in the
twilight rows her canoe to the falls of the
Minnchaha, narrowly escaping the ALI
gators, but returning in time for tea, and
l Coll
song, ''IIiawatha," which she had heard
| the Indians chanting in their forest
places.-Battim0re Gdzette.
TALENT APPRECIATED-Some years
ago an honest citizen of Newburyport,
who had acquired competence by hard
work, was appointed by His EXcellency
Justice of the Peace. The appoint
ment which had been unsolicited, was
regarded by him as very great honor,
and he determined TO make himself wor-
thy of it by retiring from active business
and giving his attention to books. His
first purchase was a copy of the general
statutes-his next volume of the plays
of Shakespeare, about whom, as he told
his wife confidently, he had heard the big
guns say great deal. The great poet
produced powerful impression upon
him. II don't suppose" he said, speak
ing of it afterward to his friends, there
are twenty men in Massachusetts who
could have written such book"
THE Woolwich Eng) workmen have
lately been getting into place the great
plate upon which is to rest the anvil block
of the new thirty-tivet ton hammer. This
plate weighs of itself one hundred and
three tons, and had to be cast, of necessi-
tv, in an open mould. The surface which
is to receive the anvil block lay, there
fore downwards, and when, many weeks
after, the colossal casting grew cool, it
was needful to turn the huge mass COM
pletely over. On April 18th an army OF
sturdy smiths undertook this task with
hydraulic jacks, and a combination OF the
strongest tackle; before night they had
lifted the mOnstrous lump of solid metal,
twenty-five feet square, and since then
they have laid it in its bed upon the rock
like structure of concrete and piles made
to receive it. The anvil-blocll to be
mounted on the huge plate will weigh
only a trite short of 200 tons, and the
steam hammer which will strike upon it
is made of 81 tons of metal. The whole
weight of metal in the hammer is 800
tons.
HAVING been appointed Says WiscOn-
sin NAM to administer on the estate of a
ncimhbor recently deceased, | was greatly
ANNOYED by solicitations for an order for
the gravc-stoncs for the departed. After
some three or four weeks, Il very gentle
manly "marblc man" introduced himself,
told me his business, and asked for ''thc
job" | replied that as soon as it was
known that II person was dangerously i'll,
"a grave stone man" made his appearance,
demanded "thc job" and asked for the
inscription for the hcadstone. He replied
that he knew it was so, and added, 81
don't do it, and | won't, for it isn't decent;
but often find myself i'll the same fix that
Deacon b was in GLOW WAS that:"
| asked. "Why," said he, "old Deacon
B had long had his eye on Mrs. W.,
whose husband had for several weeks
fingered on the borders of the grave. a
few days after the funeral of Brother
W the Deacon made IL friendly call on
the widow, and in the course of the con
vcrsation remarked that after Il proper
time had elapsed he proposed to offer her
the consolation of his hand and heart,
which he hoped would not be unacceptable
To her. oh, Deacon, she replied, you
are too late; EIder g. spoke 10 me at tie
gi"cet "-Harpers' Drutrer.
a NEW DrsEAsE.-Dr. Gait, in his
medical Notes on the Upper Amazon"
has furnished some curious information
on the strange practice known rs Geo
phagie," or officiating This disease, ac-
cording To DR.. Gait, now counts as one of
inc cHicI endemic complains OF all
tropical America; and, at II distance of
over , 600 miles from the sea- on the Anna
Zon Valley, where the negro is IA rarity,
being merely waif from Brazil or the
Pacific coast it is the most important dis
case among the children and women of the
country. On the Marauon the halt-brecds
are mostly addicted to the practice of dirt
cating-ncither the pure savage nor the
more cultivated being often the victims.
Children commence the practice from the
time they are four years old and frequent
ly die from the results in two or three
years. In other cases they grow to man
hood or womanhood and DIR. Gait speaks
of having himself seen in the case of "A
Nestle soldier who was dying from
dyScntery, which sooner later super
venes on this habit, the poor creature, half
an hour before his death, detected with
lump OF clay stuffed in his sunken checks.
The negro and mule writes friend in
Clinton, Lao are inseparable companions
III the Southern cotton fields, and like
the Hawaiian string and bow, useless
each without the other The lazy indif-
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