44 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[July i, 1890. 
under the eye of an unscrupulous solicitor, nodoub*' 
in order to fit well into (lie joints in tho harness 
of the Merchandise iMarks Act. The sooner this Act 
is enclosed in a new suit cf armour the better for 
the public, and we will heartily ccdperate with any 
association which has so meiitorious an end iu view. 
—London Citizen, May 20th. 

SOME STKANGE AMEEIGAN TEAUES. 
Nobody can travel long in America without 
noticing the sign-plates of many curious occupations. 
Artificial ear-makers, nose restorers, leg-stretchers, 
sermon-writers, prayer-makers, child-adopters, salad- 
mixers, lamp-attendants were among the vtrious 
businesses brought to my notice during a three- 
hours’ walk this morning up town (writes a 
contributor to GaUgnuni), by burnished brass 
signs on doer lamps or bold lettering across tho 
fronts of houses. 
The artificial ear, nose and check-restorer came 
into existence shortly alter the close of the Civil 
War. The disfiguring wounds of many soldiers 
taxed the ingenuity of the medical profession, 
and it was not long before advertisements in the 
public papers announced that Dr. So-and-So was 
able to repair all ravages by sword and shot. 
Many an old soldier with his nose shot away by a 
bullet, or cleft in half by a sword, willingly wel- 
comed these announcements, and it is said that 
in the first few years after the war the spectacle 
of a man with a wax nose attached fo a pair of 
green eye-glasses, was so common that it was 
hardly noticed. In the present day, however, 
a man’s note can be duplicated without the 
artificial attachment to his face being detected 
except on the closest scrutiny. 1 was talking to 
a gentleman whom I met in the office of an 
artificial ear-maker on this very topic. He was a 
man with a singularly sweet voice and a heavy 
black moustache beneath his delica'ely chiselled 
nose. “You are light,’’ said he, “ in saying that 
science has learned how to become almost a 
twin-brother to nature. Do you notice anything 
lieculiar about my face ?” I confessed that I 
did not, and he laughed as he said, “look here.’ 
He then put his linger in his moulh and touched 
something in his upper palate. The next mo- 
ment his nose fell into his hand, a false palate 
dropped cut of his mouth, and there he stood 
speechless and horribly hideous, vilh a deep hole 
in his face where hie nose should be. The next 
moment he pushed the nose back ; it was made with 
a shaft stretching into the skull. Then he put back 
the palate and fastened a small bolt connected with 
the nose-shaft, and again lie was as good-looking a 
man as you eculd find iu all New York. “ You 
look amused,’’ said he ; “but I assure you that until 
my doctor succeeded in making me presentable I was 
not only the frightful sight you just saw, but, although 
I can speak six languages, I could not make mj seif 
intelligible in a single one. At the Battle of Cedar 
Mountain a ball went through my noso and upper 
palate, destroying both.’’ Soldiers are not the only 
people who go to the feature-restorers for help 
when disfigured. Thin women succeed in having 
made cunningly contrived paps for their cheeks, and 
persons with hare-lips semetimes have the whole of 
the lip cut away and a false one substituted. 
Ear-makers contine themselves to their own 
Epccialily. Ears are frequently lost in America in 
personal flstictlfs, for there is nothing your American 
c-njoys more than a good chew at the oar of an 
antagonist, not to speak of the chance to sla;h it off 
with a bowie knife or a razor. Ears are also 
frequently lost through frost-bite. Tho roHore-r 
models them clovc-rly out of [lastor of rari-s, 
taking the remaining ear as a copy, then makes 
them from a composition of wax. India-rubber, 
and a peculiar sort of gum, and affixes them by rubber 
suction to the side of the head. A family living in 
Illinois, which h.-ippencd to be blown up on account 
of incautiously residing in the vicinity of a powder 
magazine, has only three noses and two ears 
between its members ; nor has any member of the 
family, which consists of parents, three good- 
looking girls, and two strapping young fellows, 
more than one eye. Nobody would suspect any of 
these defects at a general glance, for the ear- 
maker, the nose-restorer, and the glass-eye manu- 
facturer worked over the scorched and badly shaken 
family for weeks after the doctor had finished treat- 
ing them for their burns. 
There is a dentist on Broadway who calls him- 
self a “ tooth transplanter.’’ This gentleman’s 
occupation is as ingenious as it is romantic. A 
pair of lovers will go to him who are about to be 
separated for some lime. Side by side they sit 
with open mouths in the surgery while he draws 
out a small and sound molar from the young 
man’s jaw, and then immediately draws out the 
largest and soundest from the young lady’s. The 
dentist then quickly inserts the feminine tooth in 
the masculine gum and the masculine tooth 
in the feminine gum, and in a day or so the 
two teelh are fixed as comfortably in their 
foster mouths as though they had grown there 
always. The tooth transplanter’s charges are a 
a little high, and sometimes he is called upon to 
undo his own W’ork. Ho told me an amusing story. 
Last October a fine dashing young fellow about 
to join his cavalry regiment on the frontier, came 
with his sweetheart, a lovely little blonde, and 
requested to have their teeth transplanted. The 
job did not take long, although there was some 
little difficulty in drawing a tooth euffioienlly 
small cut of the officer’s mouth to fit the girl’s 
gum, a' d she suffered no little pain during the 
operation. She could not be induced to take ether 
as she said it would spoil the romance. In February 
the young lady came again, but alone and in 
tears. “ She rushed at me,” relates the dentist, 
“crying ‘Take it out, take it out; he is a 
wretch and has deceived me.’ I recalled her 
face readily, but I insisted on hearing her story 
before removing her sweetheart’s transplanted 
tooth. And I was quite moved,” continued the 
dentist, “ by her recital of the infamous manner 
in which her cavalry lover had suddenly ceased 
corresponding with her and deliberately married 
the rich widow of an intemperate Lifutenaut- 
Colonel. I took cut that tooth, and advised her 
to write to her recalcitrant lover and insist upon 
her own tooth being restored to her. I hope he was 
well wrenched in tho operation.’’ 
Leg-strefehers are men and women who fix their 
patients in a species of rack for an hour or two a-day 
and chafe the arms and limbs with weak whieky- 
aud-water. Six months of this treatment will ensure 
an extra inch or two of height ; but the operation 
is tedious and painful. Short men engaged to tall 
girls are the best-paying customers for this business. 
— Pioneer. 
- 4 >. 
THE SILYEE INDUSTEY. 
[Bv John BicHAirn?.] 
During the last four years this new industry has 
made most marvellous progress, and may now be 
classed as one of Australia’s chief sources of wealth. 
Its rapid and profitable development has lifted 
hundreds from comparative ' poverty fo affluence, 
and has enabled thousands of miners, smelters, and 
labourers to earn a comfortable livelihood, besideg 
