1881 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
35 
years ago (July 1, 1875), and now embraces the 
•whole world, excepting a few South and Central 
American States, viz.: Chili, Bolivia, Paraguay, 
^Nicaragua, Guatemala, Costa Rica, some Colonies 
•of West Africa, parts of China and Australia, New 
Zealand, and a few other unimportant points. 
With these exceptions, half-ounce letters go be¬ 
tween all other countries for 5 cents, newspapers 
for 1 cent per 2 ounces, and packet samples of 
merchandise of limited sizes, half a cent per ounce. 
Letters to the Canadas, except Newfoundland, 3 
•cents per one-half ounce.—Well may Postmaster- 
General Maynard exclaim in regard to the Uni- 
vorsal Postal Union: “ Nothing [else], in my 
opinion has contributed as much to a state of uni¬ 
versal peace and amity, or to promote civilization 
and disseminate truth and correct principles. It is 
a long step forward in the onward march of human 
progress. The brotherhood of man becomes 
thereby less and less a merely ideal relation.” 
The total mail exchanges during the year, be¬ 
tween the United States alone and foreign countries 
amounted to 34,579,702 Letters; 1,708,362 Postal 
Cards ; 29,835,360 packets of newspapers and print¬ 
ed matter; 362,500 packets of merchandise samples. 
Hot-Air Furnaces the Most Healthful. 
The warming of houses, healthfully and econom¬ 
ically, is a matter of great interest in millions of 
homes, especially at this season. Despite the 
prejudice against what are called hot-air furnaces, 
properly warm- air furnaces—there are sound philo¬ 
sophical, practical reasons for considering them 
[This Engraving illustrates the principle of heating 
•with warm air in one of the simpler forms. There are 
•many modifications and improvements, giving larger 
heating surfaces, etc. This Furnace is in a space arched 
by the brick wall, B. Through the house wall, 77, and 
above the ground surface, a large opening, covered with 
a wire-screen, admits the fresh air into the broad wooden 
box, C , (7, and it enters the bottom of the furnace- 
chamber. This air is warmed by contact with the walls, 
and the outside of the furnace itself, and ascends into 
the rooms through the tin pipes, a, a, a. A large iron 
basin, IF, always to contain water, saturates the air 
■with moisture. Unless they have a large surface, there 
should be two or more of these basins. The Fire or 
Coal Door, the Water Door, and Ash-Pit Door in the 
actual furnace open outside the surrounding brick en¬ 
closure. The hot air rising in the center of the double 
wall radiator, 7?, descends inside its outer wall to the 
base, and rising again through the smoke-pipe s, s, goes 
into the chimney deprived of a large portion of the heat. 
For a stronger draft to start the fire, the damper, D, can 
be opened. It will be seen that in such an arrangement 
the fresh air does not come in direct contact with the 
hot iron or fire-brick immediately surrounding the fire.] 
superior in point of bealthfulness to stoves, steam 
or hot-water pipes, or open fires—provided three 
simple, easily secured requisites are looked after. 
A proper furnace is one which has so large a heat¬ 
ing surface that the air passing through it does not 
•come much in contact with very hot iron plates— 
those heated bright red—as these may sometimes 
deoxidize the air a little—seldom enough to hurt it. 
Second, the air passing through the furnace should 
•coVne in pure and fresh through a large draft pipe 
or box extending to outside the house, and not be 
impure air from decaying vegetables in the cellar. 
Such draft boxes are provided in putting up any 
well arranged furnace. Third, and most important, 
ample supplies of water in open pans should be 
placed inside the furnace air chambers, and always 
contain water, to supply moisture to the warmed 
air ascending into the rooms. To the lack of this, 
most of the prejudice against warm-air furnaces is 
due. We use all that the furnace makers supply, 
and add an extra water pan or two. 
Now let us go into a room to be heated. If with 
a stove, there is a lack of moisture, because warmed 
air secretes or hides much moisture, gets hungry 
for it, so to speak, and draws it from the lungs, 
and the furniture even, unless the stove is covered 
all over with open water pans. Steam or hot wa¬ 
ter pipes and radiators in a room do the same. 
Their outer surface is dry and supplies no moisture. 
Stoves, iron water or steam pipes, and open fire 
places give out much of their heat by radiation, in 
straight lines. They make one side of a person 
warmer than the other, and it is, or should be, 
known by every one, that “ colds ” result largely 
from inequality of warmth in different parts of the 
body. Then, the fresh air entering rooms thus 
warmed, must come in in a cold draft, however it 
is admitted, whether through cracks, or openings 
purposely provided to admit it. * 
But the copious supplies of air, fresh from out¬ 
side, tempered warm in passing through the fur¬ 
nace, and moistened there, comes up into the room, 
spreads all around one, and is healthful everyway, 
unless one stands right over the register and gets 
overheated in part of the body. As warm air thus 
admitted to a room first rises to the top, if ventila¬ 
tors or openings be made near the floor, the cold 
and impure air will be driven down and out through 
these, and the whole room will soon be of a genial 
healthful warmth, if the heating capacity of the 
furnace be sufficient. There is a great deal of 
nonsense put forth about open fireplaces which 
radiate heat and warm one side while the other is 
cold. As for ventilation, a little cold air may come 
down the chimney while the hot air goes up, but 
there is nothing like the supply of pure fresh air 
that comes up from a warm-air furnace. A stream 
of such moist, fresh air passing into a sleeping room 
through a 4 by 6 inch register is good and health¬ 
ful to sleep in, if not so warm as to debilitate. It 
crowds out the impure air produced by breathing. 
As to economy, a good furnace constructed with 
large surfaces utilizes nearly all the heat from the 
coal or wood, little of it escaping up the smoke- 
pipe, and is much more economical than a stove or 
fireplace which sends half or two-thirds or more 
of the heat up the pipe or chimney. So, for health, 
comfort, and economy, choose a good, properly 
arranged furnace, wherever it can be afforded. 
The saving of fuel can be made to pay a consider¬ 
able interest on its cost. 
it read “ payable six months after death." In this 
case the father prevailed upon the young man to pay 
the note, on the ground that “ he (the son) was in 
a fair way to have plenty of other accounts to 
settle about the time the note, as written, would be 
due.”—This is an illustration of how easy it is to 
entirely change the purport of a written agreement 
so as not to be noticed by the casual observer. In 
this first number of the volume, we wish to impress 
our former advice upon every reader, especially 
farmers, namely, not to sign any paper for a stranger. 
Millions of dollars have been filched from farmers 
who have thoughtlessly, or carelessly, or ignorantly 
signed their names. Beguiled by the promises of 
large profits, they have undertaken to act as 
“ agents ” for this, that, or the other invention, or 
a lot of implements, new patents, spring mattresses, 
etc., etc., with the guarantee that all not sold would 
be taken back. They give notes for the payment 
with the verbal (or may be separate written) agree¬ 
ment that the note will not be collectable if the 
articles are not sold. But the seller soon disposes 
of the good note at a bank or elsewhere and disap¬ 
pears. His guarantee amounts to nothing, he is 
out of reach, and the innocent buyer of the note 
collects it. Very often the victim signs what he 
supposes is merely an order for the articles with 
his address for having them correctly forwarded, 
but the swindler has adroitly got his signature to a 
very different document. The only safety is to not 
wife one’s name and not even make a pen mark for 
any stranger whatever —under any circumstances. 
Lotteries Still Flourish. 
One would suppose that the Lottery and the Gift 
Concert business, with their exclusion from the 
mails by laws of Congress, and the sale of tickets 
made illegal in all but few of the States, might be 
suppressed. Yet papers that regard themselves as 
respectable, advertise them conspicuously, and the 
occasional spurts of the police upon the lottery 
dealers in New York and other cities have little 
other effect than to advertise them gratuitously. 
There is an abundance of law for their suppression, 
but laws do not execute themselves. A letter 
from a friend ■ in Pennsylvania, who sends a 
lottery advertisement, in which tickets are ad¬ 
vertised from a place not far from our office, 
suggests that “there is nothing to prevent the 
arrest and punishment of the persons.”—Oh 
yes, there is much.—Arrests have been made 
without number, the parties give bail, and that 
is the last of it; in a few days they may be found 
carrying on the business at the old place. There 
are two visible facts in the case : the lottery man¬ 
agers have immense sums of money invested in 
the business; and the cases never come to trial. 
“County Histories.” 
Sundry Humbugs. 
At the beginning 
of the year a word 
to many new read¬ 
ers as to the object 
of these columns. It 
is to protect the pub¬ 
lic generally, and es¬ 
pecially rural resi¬ 
dents, from becom¬ 
ing the victims of 
the various sharpers who seek 
to “ live by their wits.” These 
swindles are seldom heard 
of in cities, as they are either 
related to the farmer’s oc¬ 
cupation, professing to bene¬ 
fit him, or are founded upon the fact that the 
farmer, leading a comparatively isolated life, learns 
but little of the ways of rogues, and being honest 
himself, is slow to suspect dishonesty in others. 
Signing One’s Name. 
A young man traded a poor for a good horse, 
giving his note of $90, payable by agreement, six 
months after date, without interest. When called 
upon for payment he claimed that it was not due by 
any means, and a careful examination showed that 
Some publishers in the interior of the State are 
complained of. To help the project of getting up 
sundry “ Histories of Counties,” the postmasters 
and leading clergymen are asked to give their en¬ 
dorsement to the enterprise. These liberal-minded 
gentlemen, wishing to encourage what seems to be 
a useful work, give it their endorsement. In due 
time, each finds a volume of the History at his 
house, with a bill asking him to pay $12. Upon a 
refusal to pay, each is shown that he had signed 
a regular subscription contract, when he gave the 
book the weight of his name. Then follow 
threats, and the worst of it is, they appear to have 
succeeded in extorting the money in most cases. 
Some of the counties must have rich histories to 
make a bookful of them worth $12. These pub¬ 
lishers appear to be “ making history ” quite rapid¬ 
ly, in more senses than oue. The case has more 
than a local interest, inasmuch as other counties 
are to be done historically, and probably their lead¬ 
ing citizens done for—pecuniarily. 
Proof Necessary, 
We cannot “show up as a humbug,” any one on a 
charge unaccompanied by proof. A person writes 
from Illinois that he ordered a “Voltaic Belt,” 
“according to the thirty days’ trial advertisement,” 
and returned it, “and that is the last I ever heard 
of the belt or the money.” The party is not a sub¬ 
scriber, but if we will expose the “ Voltaic Belt ” 
