R. T. Van Horn & Co., Publishers.*

December 21, 1870.

     Clear and cold.  Good nights for astronomers.

     This is the shortest day of the year.

     Poor people suffer about this time.  Charitable folks need no reminder.  In your preparations for Christmas activities, remember the poor.

      The thermometer stood at about 12 degrees above zero all day yesterday.

     A large number of railroaders for Texas were a feature of the Union depot yesterday.

     Our streets are like funnels for the wind to blow through fiercely.

     Ice is forming  at either bank of the Missouri, and the channel runs full.

     The charming Zavistowski Sisters made their second appearance last evening to a fine house, and one which seemed fully alive to the fun which was fairly bubbling over on the stage.  The advent of this trio of sparkling artistes marks the first series of burlesques which have been given upon the Opera House boards.  These intervals of mirth and jollity serve as pleasant effects to the new heavy style of legitimate drama to which our theater is more specially devoted.  We appreciate them as a novelty, and enjoy them to their full extent.

     These nights are rather chilly for serenaders.

     Thermometers were in demand yesterday.  Everybody wanted to see how cold he was.

     Christmas trees are being brought into the city.

     Grading on Sixth street, near the Bottom, is progressing despite the cold.

     There was an incipient attempt at skating on the ponds of this city yesterday morning.  The ponds present a rather rough face, and it can't be smoothed over.

     The kind-hearted custodians of the city's welfare o' nights have erected a stove in one end of the Recorder's Court for the comfort of the many waifs and homeless ones who gravitate there nightly for shelter.

     There is a wax figure in front of a millinery store near the corner of Sixth and Main streets, which the public have stood about long enough  Last summer the warm atmosphere warmed the cheeks so that they dropped below the position they should hold, the eyes pulled much wider open than they should be, and altogether the thing is a base slander on the female face divine.  People generally complain of the horrid ugliness of the "fearful shape," and toppers complain that it induces uncalled for symptoms of "delicious tremendus."

     Jack Goulding, the pedestrian, started on his task of walking 101 hours without rest, being allowed only twenty-four minutes in each twenty-four hours for diet, etc.  The trial is taking place at the Delmonico, on Main street, and a large number of citizens witnessed him start last evening, at 7 o'clock.  He must walk until Saturday midnight to be successful.  The stakes are $300.