Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1867-10-19 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

INTERESTING ITEMS FROM AMERICAN JOURNALS.  A Mrs. Maria Starks. residing in Ontario county, N. V., cut and hai vested this season over twenty-Live acres of wheat with her own hand.  Hasheesh eating is growing common in Springfield, Masa It is worse than habitual ttuoking or draw drinking. The New York Herald has a special correspondent who dates from "the vicinity of the North Pole."  Out of a list of 110 persons summoned as jurors for the approaching October term of the District Court in the parish of East Feliciano, La., eighty-oue are set down as coloured.  Silver ear-rings, very long and very attenuated, are coming into fashion in America Three editors and one newspaper publisher have been returned to the Canadian Parliament. Speaker Colfax, in a recent speech at Worcester, Ohio, declared himself in favour of making the President dance on air."  A young lady is reported at New Haven, who goes through the Zouave drill with a 1211, musket on parlour skates.  There are already in the field nine candidates for the Secretary of state in Illinois. The election does not take place until next year.  _ _ The Shenandoah Valley is being rapidly filled up by emigrant& from the North.  A veteran of the Peninsula and Waterloo, Captain Labrush, aged 102, was lately present at a breakfast of the New York Athensurn Club. An individual in Petersburg, Va., who is above work, has devoted his faculties to training four chickens to draw a carriage in which a rooster is perched.  A shrewd villain in Nashu, N: H. lately walked deliberately up to a store window and broke a pane of French glass, and when asked to pay for it as deliberately drew out a 100 dol. 1011, which the storekeeper took, giving kiln 70 dole. hi change. The bill proved to be counterfeit.  William Sigley, a prisoner confintsi in the Liverpool Borough Gaol. committed suicide on Saturday morning by hanging himself with a rope which he had twisted from the oakum that he was picking. Fall River, Massachusetts, manufactures eighty-five thousand two hundred unties of printing cloths yesrly, consuming forty-eight thousand one hundred bales of cotton  -- - • In Minnesota, recently, two men were kept all night fl tt on their back and motionless, feigning death, by a freeclout animal which they anppoaed to 1w a bear, but which the morning light allowed to be a Newfoundland dog.  - - "'Of the maitly churches now being erected in Boston, one is Catholic, Imhe Unitarian, sici one Trinihumn Congregationalist The Unitarians are erecting two others, mut the Episcopalism' are about adding two more, not specially expensive.  An American pader says that a little girl named Florence Lucinda Story, only three years eleven months old, is astonishing the people of nsis,, sliCe eta 11,0, Al•lia CL Salem, with her wonderful musical talent. She plays some two hundred tunes on the melodeon with mat precision of time, and possessed of a strong musical voice.  The paator of the Secon:d Pregbyterian Church at Troy, New York, is said to be the richest minister in the world. In his own name he counts 1,500.000 dols his father is worth 3,000,000 dots , and his wife 5,000,000 dols His salary is 4,000 lols., lint he gave it all away last year, besides adding 31,000 dol, to it in donations.  To order to facilitate the reeruiting of the French army, the height of soldiers for cavalry regiments has lately been reduced 'uy two centimetres. It is estimated that the sum already paid this year for foreign wheat imported into this country has been at Inset between seven and right millions sterling in excess of the total paid up to the corremponding date t,f last year. Ifustia has been the principal gainer by the movetnent, and neat to her Prussia, the United States. met Turkey.  The Court Journal says :---"The Queen's journey to or front Scotland costa upwards of £2.000. Tut chasms, front Windsor Castle to It ilnioral is ouc nillee, which is usually performed ilt 10 hours."  - The New Orleans Piragriae says that at a negro funeral in that city recently, the men appeared dressed in black and the women in white. In front an empty hearse, with all the pomp of nodding plumes and mourning drapery, moved slowly, while Just behind four stout men bore a richly-decorated Coffin upon their shoulders. There were some 1,50 e per.ms in the procession as it moved silently through the streets, and altogether it was an impressive though peculiar sight. " A young Scott:hula]; named Hugh Crawford Pullet, who arrived in this city about LW., years since, awl shortly afterwards enlisted in the Fifth United States Cavalry as a private soldier, has, by the death of his father In "'nil tart, 1.. den lie r to a haroletry Red .C 5.05 a- earS Throneh the intercession of the late air Fret' rich Bruce, General Grant has discharged ?Auk from the servii.v. For seine months past the youthful baronet hod oLisuoirging the duties ot farrier or his regiment "—Nev. Yuri //eyed A few daye since, it is reported, a man captured near Bethlehem, Ky, , a snake havbg two heads. Tt Mel 6 about tea inches in length, and, though the heads were distinct, there was het one vertebra and ob* pelvis There were two eyes in each head, and each month trail the same appeaeance and size, dernettmes it would dirt out one tongue and sometimes the other, aud at times both simultaneously.  "A correspobdent, writing from England, says that In the Register at Portsmouth, Ike birthplace oi-Mr. Charles D:ckena under date May a, labi, is found the bamisui of Francis Pickwlck, awl almost immed,abq after it 'be, of Eliza Inekens and neat a child he the name of Roakess.ale. Tin ,hows the rig is of the na.ne ~r lit , us' 14,50113 char:icier. Mr Dickens' own name is thisrlesJohn Dick-us; and his fattier. Mr. Thomas Dickens, is entered is the Portsmouth Register as a comedian."— Roston COSlNKMwealth.