General Intelligence

Lynn. - Professor Tngraham, in hislast new work, The Young Genius," thus characterizes this town as the "vast cordwainery of the Union:" "The very pleasant and thriving town of Lynn is the paradise for shoemakers! lts young men, eariy transferred from the eradle to the last, cut teeth and leather at the same time; and its pretty maidens learn to bind shoes with the induction of their a, l, als. Lovers exchange hearts over a kid slipper, and swear eternal fidelity over a lap-stone. If they would get married they ask old Dr. Waxend, the parson, if hcw'ül stich them together, and they wil] pay him in hides and shoe-mending. Whipping their children they cali tanning, and the rod they use is called a coiohide. The little boys swear by "hides and leather;" and play at games which they cali "high and low quarters, and heel and toe." A child newly born is a lapstone and the ages of their children is known by the nwribcr of shoes they wear. Boys are called rights and girls lefts - an old maid is an "odd slipper," and a bachelor an "odd boot." The street doors to their dwellings are "insteps," and a man in an overcoat is "foxed." The fields about the town are patches and half-seasover is half-solcd. They never see an oak tree but they directly calcúlate the number of pegs it will make, and when they behold bees at work they reflect that the only end of wax is a waxed-end. They look on all cattle and sheep as only leather growing, andbelieve hogs were only made to produce bristles. lts lapstones would pave Broadway, and its lasts, if piled together, would make a monument higher than that on Bunker's Hill."Scènes in Washington. - A letter to the Philadelphia Gazette says: Some time ago a singular act of generosity was performed by a keeper of a gambling house. The collecting clerk of a New York house dropped in, and was duped out of a considerable amountofhis employer's money. He burst into tears and declared he was a ruined man, as it was out of his power to make up the loss. The proprietor, with a feeling worthy of a better occupation, produced a bible, andsaidto the astonished clerk, Lif you wil] swear to gamble no more as long as you live, I will return your money." - It is needless to say, the oath was gladly taken, and the father of a large family rescued from a suicide's grave. It is not gcnerally known that, in spite of the usury laws, a most lucrative business is done here by money lenders. - Five per cent per month can be had, and ihis enormous interest of 60 per cent per annum is paid from month to month by scores of clerks, who regularly forestall their salaries. They draw notes on the paying clerk, who accepts, with the promise "if due." So that if the drawer should be ejected from office before the maturity of the note, it amounts to nothing. Only a short time ago a wealthy usurer, tempted by the offer of ten per cent per month, lent without security a thousand dollars to a swaggcring fellow from the South. It is needless to say that the principal went with the interest, for the borrower "made tracks" immediately.A Printing office in London. - The following is an extract from the letters of Mr. Weed. of the Albany Journal: "Having beardand read much of the extent and magnitude of the "London Times" printing office, I asked and obtained permission (by informing a proprietor that I belongedto the "craft,") to look through the establishment. Over one hundred persons are employed in the composition and press rooms. The paper is vvorked off upon tvvo machines that throw off 5,000 sheets an hour. Thirty compositors are employed during the day, and tvventy during the night, on advertisements. The news and original matter begins to be put in hand at 6 o'clock P. M., and the paper goes to press at 4 A. M. They pay journeymen'nine pence(eighteen cents,) a thousand for bourgeois and minion composition, and ten pence for nonpareil. The salaries paid to editors, reporters, foreign correspondents are enormous, thoughnot halfso enormous as the profits of the establishment, üpon learning that I was acquainted with the "Geneves Travelier," their American correspondent, the gentleman who accompanied me through the office remaked that his letters were highly appreciated by statesmen, capitalists and merchants on this side of the Atlantic.Ihere are no subscríbeos here, as with us, to newspaper-offices. The papera are bought and distributed by agents newsmen, who have their rooms and depots in various parís of the city. Each advertisement pays a duty of eighteen pence to the government." TEA.One hundred and seventy íhousand chests of tea vvere imponed from Cantón to tlie U. States within the year ending June lst, 1843. París and London.- Thore are thirty thousand houses in Parie, and twelve hundred and fifty streets. ín London there are two liundred und forty-two thousand houees and Len thousand streets. A 4Chr simas Incident - A friend of mine who has no money to spend for jewels, or silks, or even antique vases, has employed his Christmas more wisely than this; and in his action there is more angelic music than in tliose divine old statues. He filled a large basket full of cakes and went forth into our most miserable streets to distribute them among hungry children. How littlc dirty faces peeped after him, round street corners, and laughed from behind open gates! How their eyes sparkled as they ]ed some shivering barefooted urchin, and cried out, "This little boy has had no cake sir!" Sometimos a greedy lad would get two shares by false pretences; but this was no conclusive proof of total depravity in children who never ate cake from Christmas to Christmas. No wonder the stranger with his basket excited a prodigious sensation. Mothers carne to see who it was that had been so kind to their little ones. Every one had a story to teil of h_ealth ruined by hardwork, of sickly children,of drunken husbands. It was a genuine outporing oí hearts. An honest son of the Emerald Isle stood by, rubbing his head, exclairnnig, "Did my eyes ever see the like o' that1? A jintleman giving cake to folks he don't know, and never asking a bit o' money for the same!"- Mrs. CJtüd. Peace Anecdotc. - Speaking of the folly and evils of war, Mrs. Child illustrates her views by the following anecdote: '1 have read of a certain regiment ordered to march into a small town, (in the Tyrol, I think.) and take it. It chanced that the place was settled by a colony who believed the gospel of Christ and proved their faith by works. A courier from a neigboring village informed them that troops were advancing to take the town. They quietly answered, "if they will take it, they must." Soldiers soon carne riding in, with flying colors.and fifes piping their shrill defiance. They looked around for an enemy, and saw the farmer at his plough, the blacksmith at his anvil, and the women at their churns and spinning wheels. Babies crowded to hearthe music, and boys ran out to see the pretty trainers, with feathersand buttons, "the harlequins of the nineteenth century." Of course, not one of these were in a proper position tobe shot at. " Where are your soldierst" they asked. "We have none," was the brief reply. "But we have cometotakethetown." "Well. friends, it lies before you." "But is there nobodyhere to fight?" "No; we are all Christians." Here was an emergency altogether unprovided for by the military schools. This a sort of resistance which no bullet could hit; a fortress perfectly bomb-proof. The commander was perplexed. "If there is nobody to fight with, of course we cannot fight," said he. So he ordercd the horses' heads to be turned about, as they carried the human animáis out of the village as guiltless as they entered, and perchance somewhat wiser.' Central Raüroad. - The receipts for the month of January were as follows:Taxing Negro Balies.-- Gov. Tucker of Mississippi, in his late message to the Legislature of that State, says: "I would recomrnend aros ort to new objects of taxation, and would include as such objects, negro slaves zinder the age offive years, plate and every description of house-hold furniture, and every species of property of real or ideal valué." Gipsies. - It is generally known that these strange creatures are found wandering overnearly every portion of the globe. Their character is nbout the same every where, and is well understood by the general reader. None have ever visitedthis country till the present season. A few weeks since a tribe of Gipsies, seven in number, arrived in Baltimore. They came from Bohemia. They play on various musical instrumente, and perform many strange and grotesque gymnastic feats. One black-eyed beauty, a girl of eighteen, is a fortune teller, and amazes the credulous -with her wonderful revelations.Fire. - The Baptist Church in Troy, Oakland co. was destroyed by ftre on the night of Wednesday last. The fire is supposed to have preceded fromsome pandies which were left burning in the Church, after service, wliich had been held in the evening. The Church was a large and handsome one,having cost between three and four thousand dollars.Transcendental. - Therc are LoveSpirit Spirits, Love-Germ-Germs, and Love-Atom Atoms; or Spirits, Souls and Bodies. A St. Louis paer tella a story of a disconeolate widower, who,on seeingr ihe remains of his wife lowered into the grave, exclaimed with tears 'm his eyes:-.We]l, I've lost hogs and I've lost cows, but Í never had anything' to cut me üp lika thisJ"Correspondènce of the Ohio Statesman. Washington, January 23. 1844. Col. Medary: - In compliance with a late resolution of the Senate, the Postmaster General has laid bcfore that body a statistical document, of the business of his department. The mailable matter which passedthrough the post oflïcesof the United States, for the month of October last. he siiras up as follows, as also the amount for the last year, to wit:In an accompanying statement, we learn the astounding fact, tliat, for three weeks, during the session of Congress, in April, 1840, there were mailed, at the city post office in Washington, 406,345 free letters, and 4,314,918 freo documents, weighing 359,579 pounds. Most conclusive evidence of the indefatigable industry of J. C. Clark & Co., in circulating the silver spoon speech of Ogle, and kindred papers, at the expense of the people. JDuly on Rail Boad hon. - Wo learn from Washington that the Committee on Commerce, in bolh Houses of Congress, have agreed to report in favor of reducing the duty on Railroad Iron. The effect of the present duty is thus statedby a whig paper in New York:"The Tonawanda Railroad company, whose road constitutes a part of the route connecting Boston and New York, with Lake Erie, have petitioned Gongress for an extensión of the act exempting rail road iron from the payment of duties. - The petitioners say that the duty of twenty-five dollars per ton is equal to a tax of tiuo tJwuscnid dollars per mile vpon every rail road to be construcled in the United States and adds: "Can such a tax be politie and just? It might with equal propriety be imposed upon every turnpike and Macadimized road or canal constructed for the public convenience inexchano-ing the producís of industry."The word Fatlier lecoming obsolete. - In Eögliéh the appellation "father" is givingway to "governor." In an Insolvent Couri a sen of one of the crcditors by the name of Brifain when of him, caïïed him Mr. Britain. On the commissioner refering lo it in severe ferms, the young man answering that he used the term "because he supposcd it easier;" lie said, (or rather, perhaps because the word father bas become obsolete. There is no siich word novv; there is not n single father in the oíd worid. A (laugh.) They are all changed into guv'ners' (Roars of luuhter.) lf yoti meet a youn man in these days of refinement and inquire the health of the family, bis reply is ''the guv' ner is pretty well." (A Jaugh)- or the, guv' ner is ir.disposed .' (Renewed laughter.) Al! the "fathers" of the last generation are clean gone, nnd we meet with nothing but the guv'ners" of the present." (Laughter long continued.)The Mormons Jlhr.ad!- The Nauvoo folk appear determined to rival their Missour neigbbors in the illegality of theii proceeilings At a Jate meeting of their city cotincil they passed an ordinrince, which has been duly op proved by the Mayor, .Toe Smith, of which the first section is as follows: 'Skc. 1. Bc it ordained by the City-Council of the City of Nauvoo, according to the intent and meaning of the Charter, for the 'benefit and convenience' of Nauvoo, thnt hereaiW if any person or persons shall come with process, demand or requisition, founded upon the aforsaid Missouri difficultics, to arrest said Joseph Smith, he or tbey shall be subject to be arrested by any offieer of the city, with or without process, and tried by the Municipal Court, upon testimony, and if found guilty, sentenced to imprisonment in the city prison lije, which convict or ennvicts can only be pardoned by the Goveruor, wUh the consent of the Mayor of said city.'1Newspapers. - Judge Thompson of Indiana has decided, 'That where a subscriber to a periodical faiied to notify the eeitor to discontinue the paper at the end of the time to which iie subscribed, or pay up the arrenroges, hc wo bound for nnotherypar. A year or two since, the Circuit Court o Pennsylvania decided , That where a Postmaster faiied to notify the publisher of newspaperö that their papers v?ere not lifted or taken out of his office, lie rendered liimself Jiable for the araount of the subscription.'A Smart Btsixess Place. - A French man entered Whitehall, N. York a few weeks since,and ín the course of the brief space of two hours and a half, had committed a robbery, been caught, Iried, convicted and was on his waj' to the jail. As he looked baclc on the scène of lus short, eventful history, he exelaimed with inimitable coolness, "Veil, dat is de sraartest little business place I ever saw!"The smal! pox, is rnging with much eeverity in many of the western villages of Wisconsin, and isworking its wny eastward to - wards Madison, the seat of government. In Platteville, aUhe lateet datef, there vere tyvenlytwo cases. De Bonnevillc. the Professer of Anitnnl Mnguetism, wlio bas wandered offto that counirv, announfe?, thro' the Dnb'uqüe Transcript, that "small pox can bc prevented and curer] by Magnetism." He was to deliver a Jecturc on the 22d uit.,