Connecticut western news., 1884-12-24
NOTES AND COMMENTS.


 LEMON growing is rapidly becoming an important industry in Florida, and promises to be more profitable than orange growing. A great many lemon trees are being budded on orange stocks.
 A BOSTON police captain took it into his head that a traveller was inclined to uniustly dispute cabman's charge, and commanded him to pay, arresting him when he refused to obey. The official is now compelled to stand a verdict of S263 damages.
 THE citizens of Virginia City, New, though by no means angels, are already able to walk streets paved with gold. In preparing their highways for the winter, a top-dressing from the mine dumps was added, and recent assay of this dirt yielded $16S in silver and $164.75 gold per ton.
 A NUMBER of well-known gentlemen of Cleveland, Ohio, are about to start a colony in Mexico. They will inspect the Mexican exhibits at the New Orleans Exposition, after which they will select a suitable spot in which to settle. They will purchase Government lands, and will first go into the culture of tobacco, and afterward see what they can do with . coffee.
 AN agent of the Society for the Pre- vention of Cruelty to Children in New York traced ragged, bare-headed and bare-footed beggar girl to her home in that city, and found eighteen persons, of whom thirteen were children, living in three small rooms on the top floor of a miserable tenement house, six being packed in each room
 Gov. ROBE, of Maine, has issued his proclamation officially making known the fact that the prohibitory amendment to the Constitution of that State was adopted at the September election by a vote of 70, ,783 in its favor, to 23,811 against it, and that it becomes part of the Constitution and takes effect from the first Wednesday in January, 1885.
 THE centre of our population has for @ century moved westward with re- markable regularity, beginning at point on the eastern shore of Maryland and reaching one ten miles west of Cincin- nati. It js calculated, however, that progress in that direction is stopped, in consequence of the rapid growth of many Atlantic coast cities and the advancement of some of the Southern States.
 CAPTAIN DUDLEY and mate, whc killed 8 boy in order to save their own lives, will not be hanged, but will be given six months imprisonment instead. If they had drawn lots and given the boy a chance for his life perhaps they wouldn't have been punished at all. But it is an important point that, accord ing to their evidence, the boy was in a dying condition when they killed him.
 ARABI BEY and his fellow-exiles in Ceylon complain of ill-treatment. They pleaded guilty on the distinct under standing that if their property was con- fiscated they would receive an adequate allowance to support themselves and their families in exile. Two Governors of Ceylon have successiyely declared that their allowance is not adequate. But the Egyptian Government refuses to increase it.
 A DISTINGUISHED ex-Confederate off cer, now a resident of Washington used to drink a great deal in his wild and gilded youth. He reformed and is now a sober business man. He married the other day a prominent society lady who is a devoted Roman Catholic. The groom in speaking of his marriage said to one of his club friends: "I have tried Rum and Rebellion. l am now going ill for Romanism."
 EARLY exhibition visitors to New Or leans are astonished, on disembarkine from a steamer, to find that the sewers are open streams of water at the sides O the streets, and running away from the river instead of toward 1t, to see wells built up from the ground, not dug into it, and to learn that the cemeteries art veritable "cities of the dead," the tomb; being little houses with gables anC roofs, and arranged in avenues ant squares.
 IT is said that a feature of this season church fairs is the familiar "Cat Duet, sung by a handsome young couple whose heads are thrust through a can vas, which is painted to represent backyard fence, while attached to tn human necks are the bodies of cats, s made that their backs can be raised their tails waved, and their paws opera ted. The effect is comical, but Con necticut minister condemned it as ire igious, and suppressed it on the spot. A CERTAIN MT. Cole, who has fo many years been the superintendent C a Church of England Sunday school i the north of London, recently marie his deceased wife's sister. The locs clergy .thereupon refused to admit hin to the holy communion, on the ground probably, that he was notorious evi liver ;" and the Bishop of Bedford, "wit great pain," has endorsed the action C the clergy. Mir. Cole has replied to tn letter by joining a Nonconformist COT o,raoation