82 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
fntrs of t!)C Wtfk, 
HOME NEWS. 
Saturday, January 3. 
The customs receipts at Montreal for the 
past year were $6,800,000. a decrease of 
$943,000 as compared with 1883 .........The 
total recei ts for duties at the Boston Custom 
House for the 13 months just closed, amouuted 
to $20,859,668, against $22,780,557 for the year 
1883, showing a decrease of $2,370,889 . 
The greatest miser iu Indiana put his savings 
into life insurance policies, and denied him¬ 
self all luxuries and most comforts in order 
to pay the premiums, though his heirs were 
distant relatives for whom he seemed to care 
nothing. They will get, now that he is dead, 
about $34,000 .There’s generally some 
interest everywhere about the biggest city in 
the eouutrv. and here are some facts about 
Gotham: Last year 6.700 dead horses, 10,800 
dead cats and one dead monkey were found 
in the streets. Thirty-five thousand and forty- 
four deaths were reported at the Health De¬ 
partment. Permits were granted for 584 
wooden cigar store Indians, 466 barber poles 
and four meat racks. There were 2,401 fires, 
involving a loss a $3,469,539. Plans of *2,900 
buildiugs. to cost $41,000,000 were filed with 
the Building Department. The Board of Ex¬ 
cise issued 5,885 licenses, for which $411,930 
were paid. The Dock Department paid 
out $409,888 for repairing piles; $1,209,- 
014 were collected. The Pars: Department 
laid 2.221 lineal feet of brick sewers and 
19,946 feet of pipe sewers, excavated $13,451 
cubic yards of rock and graded 2 % miles of 
streets.Here are some condensed weather 
telegrams on New Year's Day: Chesapeake 
Bay was completely enveloped in fog yester¬ 
day. The Arkansas River rose four feet yes¬ 
terday, and raiu is still pouring. There is 
colder weather in the West. The mercury 
at St. Louis dropped 40 degs., to 20 degs. 
above zero yesterday, with a prospect that it 
would go to zero. The severest blizzard 
and snow storm of the season prevailed in 
Dakota and Nortben Iowa on Tuesday. All 
trains on the Iowa and Dakota division of the 
St. Paul Railroad were suspended. The bliz¬ 
zard was succeeded yesterday by clearer and 
colder weather. The mercury is 13 degs. be¬ 
low zero at Sioux City, and 15 degs. below 
zero at Cedar Falls, la. A few trains are 
still blockaded.According to the United 
States Surgeon-General's annual report, the 
death rate for colored troops has, for the first 
time since their organization, fallen below 
that for white troops. Their mortality from 
respiratory affections—usually pneumonia— 
is more than four times as great as that of 
white troops.From returns which were 
received by Bradstreet's nearly two weeks 
ago from 20 of the States, including those 
most active in manufactures, it appears that 
316,000 wage-workers were then out of work, 
or 13 per cent, of the 2,450,000 workers re¬ 
ported in these States by the census of 1880. 
Since then a large number of factories have 
shut down altogether or partly, throwing a 
very great number of ‘•bands” out of employ 
ment.Stove manufacturers will be 
pleased to learn that a rich and apparently 
inexhaustible supply of mica has been dis¬ 
covered near Tallulah. Ga.An unusually 
large number of foolish girls have lately been 
preparing the way for lots of misery and re¬ 
pentance by secret marriages and elopements. 
....The snow storm iu Oregon, which ceased 
Sunday, was the heaviest fall ever known in 
the State. The snow is five feet deep on the 
level. The weather is too cold for a thaw..,. 
The last rail on the Wisconsin division of the 
Northern Pacific Railroad, connecting Duluth 
with Ashland, Wis., has been laid. Regular 
trains will be put on early in January. 
South Carolina will finish its State House, 
begun in “ante belluru” times. The Legisla¬ 
ture appropriated $75,000 for the work, and 
it is proposed to give a similar sum annually 
for 10 years. The number of ships built 
in Maine during 1884, is 97 against 170 last 
year. There are very few contracts on hand. 
... .The statement is made that four regularly 
organized military companies of Socialists 
are in existence in Chicago, two of which are 
armed with breach loading rifles.A can¬ 
vass of the manufacturing interests in St. 
Louis shows that about 15.000 skilled work¬ 
men are out of employment and nearly 10,000 
day laborers.A young maD joined the 
Salvation Army in Montreal, and, feeling 
some compunction of conscience about some 
petty thefts, made a confession to the author¬ 
ities and was sentenced to ten days’ imprison¬ 
ment .President elect Cleveland has writ¬ 
ten his views on Civil Service Reform. Those 
office-holders who do their work well and 
faithfully should, he thinks, be retained ; 
those who work for a political party, should 
“go.” His letter is very generally approved 
by [all parties, except the hungry “outsiders” 
who want a “clean sweep” of the present of¬ 
fice-holders so as to get a better chance them¬ 
selves. After all there only about 114,000 
office holders—what’s that among over 50 000,- 
000 people?.Intermarriage of deaf mutes 
and a resultant increase of their number con¬ 
stitutes a danger to be provided, against, ac¬ 
cording to Professor Alexander Graham Bell. 
... During the last five years, so Adjutant- 
General Drum says, 10,991 soldiers have de¬ 
serted , nearly every other man enlisted. Gen. 
Drum wants all men dismissed for desertiou 
to be tattooed..The Christmas club, a 
benevolent and charitable association of 
Washington, of which Miss Nellie Arthur is 
president, gave a Christmas dinner to 600 poor 
children of the second district in the National 
Rifle Hall. Miss Arthur was assisted by Miss 
Waite, daughter of the Chief Justice, and a 
large number of other members of the club 
and women well known in Washington social 
circles . During the year 1,700 Mormons 
have been landed at New York from Europe. 
.The Bartholdi Statute Pedestal Com¬ 
mittee met Saturday night, and the members 
subscribed $25,000. One hundred thousand are 
expected from the Government, and with an 
additional $3,500 from the public the pedestal 
is assured .In Canada the new regula¬ 
tions for canned goods came into force on 
January 1st. Every can must contain the 
weight of goods, marked thereon. The regu¬ 
lations will not be rigidly enforced until the 
meeting of Parliament, when some changes 
in the law will be made .The Dominion 
Government has decided to defray the cost 
of sending a representative Canadian exhibit 
to the Antwerp Exhibition in May next, as 
well as to the Colonial and Indian Exhibition 
in London in 1886.The Canada Pacific 
railway has adopted the plan of running 
special heated ears for the conveyance of 
freezable freight.Notwithstanding the 
abolition of graiu dues at th» port of Montreal 
during the greater part of the season of navi¬ 
gation, and the dullness of freights at the open¬ 
ing of the season, the year’s receipts of the har¬ 
bor are only $8,000 less than in 1883. The 
amount of tonnage was greatly in excess of 
last year...,. 
.... In none of the Bouthern States do the re¬ 
ceipts of the Post offices pay the expenses of 
the postal service. In Virginia the deficit is 
$407,000, in Georgia $320,000, and so on. 
. Although the excess of the assets of 
the United States Treasury over demand 
liabilities exceeds $137,000,000, no bond call is 
to be made at present.Those who favor 
the treaty with Spain for Cuba and Porto 
Rico are making great efforts to have it rati¬ 
fied ; all opposed to it should, therefore, at 
once write to their respective Congressmen 
against it.. .Gen. Hazen, of the Signal Service 
Bureau, seems to he embroiled with everybody 
above and below him, from Secretary Lincoln 
downward.. An extra session of Con¬ 
gress is thought not unlikely, in view' of the 
fact that the business before it can hardly be 
finished before the end of the present session. 
If, as seems likely, the two Houses disagree 
irreconcilably on the Naval Appropriation 
Bill, au extra session will be unavoidable. 
....MissTheodoraKoyler,of Brooklyn, N. Y., 
who was made seriously sick and permanently 
injured by eating from a can of tomatoes 
improperly prepared by Thurber. Wyland & 
Co., of this city, has sued that firm for $50,- 
000 damages, The defendants alleged that 
there was an entire absence of fradulent or 
deceitful intentions, but Judge Brown of the 
Supreme Court overrules their demurrer and 
bolds that they were negligent in labeling as 
wholesome a poisonous can of food.... .When 
Grant & Ward, of this city, w'ere on the eve 
of failing for some $16,000,000 a few mouths 
ago, the young scamp, Ward, who appears to 
have done all the swindling, induced Gen. 
Grnut, a partner “in the coucern, to borrow 
$150,000 of W. H. Vanderbilt. After the 
collapse. Grant at once made over to Vander¬ 
bilt all the property that stood in the names 
of his wife and himself in all parts of the 
country, including all the presents of jewelry, 
etc. made to him by our own people and 
foreigners. Expenses and interest have run 
up the :.um bow to $160,000 A few of Grant’s 
rich friends here and in Philadelphia have 
just raised $100,000 of this sum. and Vander¬ 
bilt has knocked off the odd $60,000, and the 
matter will be settled so soon as the property 
caD be put in the hands of trustees, so as to 
prevent it from falling into the bands of the 
creditors of Grant & Ward. The $250,000 
raised for the General a few years ago through 
George Jones of the Times, are safely invest¬ 
ed, and give him $15,000 a year. 
FOREIGN NEWS. 
Across the Atlantic the great sensation of 
the week has been the earthquake or rather 
succession of earthquakes that have deso 
lated Southern Spain, utterly destroying seve¬ 
ral towns and villages and sadly wrecking 
most of the places in Andalusia and Gran¬ 
ada. Malaga, Alhama, Cordova. Seville. Jaen, 
Antiquera, Pertana, Nerja, Valez Malaga 
and Albunculas are some of the well known 
towns that have suffered most severely from 
repeated shocks. Beginning on Christmas 
eve, the earthquakes have chased each other 
from south to north along the Sierra Navada, 
spreading death, destruction and horror on 
either hand. Every fresh despatch down to 
this morning, adds more painful details to the 
picture of devastation. Over 2,000deaths are 
known to have occurred, but the record is by 
no meaus complete, as owing to the constant 
repetition of shocks, it has, in many cases, 
been impossible to search the ruins, lest the 
searchers should be buried with the dead, or 
maimed, by a fresh dowufall of dwellings. The 
shocks in places close to each other have 
varied from three toseventeenaday. Though 
generally running from south to north, some 
of them were rotatory; while after the first 
shock lightning flashed from a clear sky. The 
wretched people are huddled, without shelter 
and half-starved, in the public squares or ad¬ 
jacent country, afraid to venture in search of 
food, clothing or missing relatives among the 
cracked and tumbling buildings that line the 
narrow streets. King Alphonso is about to 
visit the devastated region,and has contributed 
$6,000 for the relief of the sufferers. Public 
officials are to contribute oue day’s pay each, 
by which means it is expected that $200,000 
will be raised. The Spanish Ambassadors, 
Ministers and Consuls in all countries will 
open subscription lists, and it is to be hoped 
Americans, with their usual liberality, will 
contribute generously to the relief of the 
sorely afflicted people. 
In other parts of Europe, the news is of little 
general interest. Yesterday another “dyna¬ 
mite outrage” startled London, but could 
hardly alarm it in view of the harmless nature 
of all such outrages to the present time. An 
explosion of a large fire cracker, or maybe a 
dynamite bomb, occuredin one of the under, 
ground railroads, by which travel takes place 
rapidly from one part of the immense metrop¬ 
olis to another. The roads are partly vaulted 
over, and partly deep, open cuttings, and the 
explosion having occurred underground caused 
a loud noise and broke some gloss, but hurt 
nobody. “Fenians”, shriek some: “A prac¬ 
tical joker” laugh others. Affairs in Egypt 
are coming to a crisis. England sticks dog¬ 
gedly to her financial policy. The other 
Powers will have none of it. The perplexed 
Khedive has just accepted the resignation of 
Nubar Pasha, his Prime Minister, who was 
compelled to resign because all the Powers, 
except England, refused to have anything to 
do with him. Wolseley is preparing to push 
south from Korti, dividing his forces into 
three detachments, says the cable; but it is 
hardly likely so good a commander would 
give El Mabdi such an excellent opportunity 
of destroying his enemies in detail. We are 
sure to know more later on. A genuine letter 
from Gordon, dated Dec. 14, tells us he is well- 
provisioned, and able to repulse the False 
Prophet for some time yet. He puts the 
forces of the latter indefinitely at from 40,000 
to80,000. Lots of rumors—probably false... 
There are conflicting reports about the French 
operations in the East, the cablegrams of one 
day contradicting those of the previous day. 
There is little being done, however; but re¬ 
inforcements are being sent forward, and it is 
expected that Frauce will soon formally de¬ 
clare war. Chi Da has engaged a considerable 
number of petty German officers to drill her 
troops, who are expected to fight much better 
on that account. Numbers of English sailors 
help to man her war vessels also, and the 
Chinese fleet is threatening to attack that of 
France. At home, France is drawing closer 
to Germany and further away from England. 
The rumor that Bismarck is about, to visit 
Paris is revived. Germany seems resolved to 
snub Englaud whenever an opportunity' oc 
curs. Several such snubs have been lately 
administered by Bismarck; evidently the 
English policy riles him, in that it checks his 
own “colonial policy.” It is not unlikely the 
two powers will come to loggerheads about 
their appropriations of territory in Africa or 
Ocean ica. 
NOT 4 SPASM OF COUGHING SINCE 
USING COM POUND OXYGEN. 
So writes a gentleman from Archie. Mis¬ 
souri, whose whole system was so run down 
that be was notable to doauy r kind of work. 
In a little over a mouth after commencing the 
Oxygen Treatment he made this report: 
“/ have nut had a spasm of coughing since 
the first time I inhaled the (jxygeu. The 
‘utter goneness 1 when a little out of wind (I 
can’f describe the feeling, but it was a most 
miserable one) also lelt lug right away. You 
think my recovery will be slow; 1 am going 
to try and disappoint you. Three days after 
I lost my leg, six surgeons gave me till next 
day at noon to live. When my stump was 
almost well I got a terrible fall * Again the 
hospital surgeons said I could not live: but I 
am here yet. 1 can’t say all right, but by the 
help of the Compound Oxygen 1 hope toj>o 
oon. Am much stronger, can stick all day 
at anything that is not too heavy." 
Our “ Treatise on Compound Oxygen ,” con¬ 
taining a history of the discovery and mode 
of action of this remarkable curative agent, 
and a largo record of surprising cures iu Con¬ 
sumption, Catarrh, Neuralgia. Bronchitis, 
Ast hma, ete.. and a wide range of chronic dis¬ 
eases, will be sent free. Address Drs. Star- 
key & Palen, 1109 Girard St, Philada.— Adv. 
AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 
Saturday, January 3. 
The most profitable bit of ne ws to an enter¬ 
prising person, “without regard to age, sex 
or previous condition,” is the announcement 
that he or she can make a largo profit for a 
little work in canvassing for the Rural 
among friends and neighbors. Those 321 
valuable presents offered “to sub?cribers 
only,” are goiog a-begging, and mauy of them 
are likely to be picked up for fewor subscrip¬ 
tions than a smart person ought to lie able to 
get in a day in a moderately thickly popu¬ 
lated section. However small the number of 
subscriptions you send in, euroll your name 
among the competitors for those presents, 
and then add all you can to the number until 
the first of next May, when the awards will 
be made. The dilatoriness of others gives 
you a splendid chance. 
The Milk Reporter will be issued by New 
York milkmen next week. It will give the 
total amount of milk received daily and its 
platform price.One of the exhioitors at a 
recent cattle show in England was a Mr. John 
Jones, of Llandudno. An animal he sent 
bore the euphonious name of Llanfairpwllg- 
vvy ngy 1 Igoge r o h wy r w y d rob w 11 an d is i 1 i ogogo- 
goeb. It is scarcely surprising that this ox 
did not carry off a prize, for discussion of its 
merits might have resulted in lockjaw. 
Not a mile of railroad, not a bank, not a tele¬ 
graph office is erected in Calhoun County, 
111., though it has a population of about 8.000. 
The typical resident is said to be part hunter 
and part farmer, with a decided leaning to 
leisure.The Commissioner of the Bu¬ 
reau of Statistics tabes ground against the 
introduction of sericulture into California. 
He maintains that silk-making can only give 
employment to cheap labor, aDd that it is not 
to the advantage of countries where there are 
so many occupations better paid and more 
useful, to introduce it......The largest 
graiu elevator iu the Domiuion, or the United 
States, is being erected at Fort William, 
Manitoba. Over 4,000,000 feet of lumber will 
be used, and it will contain 229 bins haviug a 
total capacity of 1,200,OIK) bushels. Eleven 
cars cau be unloaded at once by the shovels 
which will be put in. It will be completed in 
February nevt.The total receipts of 
grain at Buffalo by lake for the past year, 
figuring flour as wheat, were nearly 70.000,000 
bushels, C,000,000 less than last year; but more 
than for either of the two preceding years.... 
....The New Englaud consumption of Chica¬ 
go dressed beef has risen regularly and very 
steadily from 4,740 tons in 1878, to 106,804 tons 
in 1883, while the consumption of Western 
bpef received on the hoof has fallen from 97,- 
077 tons to 40,200, and the former kind last 
year amouuted to 72 per cent, of the whole. 
, ...The hens of Kansas, hardly ever thought 
of in agricultural returns, j'ielded iu 1879 six 
times as much as the orchards, eight times as 
much the market gardens, and fifteen times as 
much as the potatoe fields of that great State. 
Couldn’t we have an annual return of the 
profits from poultry iu every State ami Ter¬ 
ritory of the Union?.The annual meet¬ 
ing of the American Devon Cattle club will 
be held on Wednesday, January 21, at the 
Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York City. A full 
attendance is desired aud should be secured. 
...... Assuming 55 per. cent, of a living 
steer to be beef, a freight rate of 40 cents per 
100 pounds on live stock,is equal to 72?* cents 
per 1(H) pounds on the beef in the animal. The 
railroads «ant. to charge on dressed beef at 
live beef rates.The exports of live 
and dressed meats per steamers from the port 
of Boston for the English and Glasgow mar¬ 
kets, last week, were 1,873 cattle, 382 sheep, 
3.442 quarters of beef, and 85 carcasses of 
mutton.Among the exports from New 
York last week were 930 live cattle, 65 live 
sheep, 6,790 quarters of beef, 1,300 carcasses 
of mutton, and 425 dressed pigs.....The 
Spanish Government has closed contracts for 
about 14,000 hogsheads of Western leaftobac- 
co.It is sa»d that in some parts of Kan¬ 
sas a pound of good butter will bring as much 
in market as 160 pounds of corn. 
.. .Over 300 colonies of bees are kept among 
the brick aud mortar of New York City, 
mostly upon house tops.Secretary Frel- 
inghuysen has instructed our Ministers to 
England, France and Germany to collect all 
the information they cau iu regard to the 
systems of inspection of hog products iu the 
countries to widen they ure respectively ac¬ 
credited, especially such as bear upon the 
subject of discrimination against American 
