p. 206 | Notes of News

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · March 25, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 13

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Notes of News.

—A heavy fire occurred in Oakland, Cal., on the 9th inst.

—A tidal wave of Irish emigration to this country is predicted this spring.

—The teachers of California ask for a professorship on the science of teaching.

—The pope has instructed the Catholic bishops of Russia not to mix in political agitations.

—A lady has opened a jewelry establishment in London, employing women for watch-makers.

—The Spanish government has prohibited the importation of pork from this country and Germany.

—The Anglo-American Cable Company are negotiating for a new ocean cable to be laid the coming summer.

—London is considering the subject of buying out its water companies. The price proposed is £22,000,000.

—It is estimated that the liquor traffic costs the government $17 for every dollar received as revenue from it.

—The new French Cable Company expect to complete their connection with England via Brest by the first of April.

—Australia is competing with the United States in sending beef and mutton to England by the dry cold air process.

—There is a bill before the House of Representatives providing for legal tests to regulate the sale of oleomargarine.

—Great Britain and Germany have agreed to co-operate in using their war vessels for the suppression of the slave-trade.

—St. Paul's Cathedral, London, occupied 37 years in building, and cost £1,000,000, which was raised by a duty on coals.

—The time fixed for the dissolution of the British Parliament is March 29. The new Parliament will convene early in May.

—Kearney has been sentenced to 6 months in the house of correction and a fine of $1000; and quiet is restored to San Francisco.

—The British garrison in a village about 50 miles northeast from Cabul, has been attacked by the Afghans, and completely routed.

—The famine in Armenia and Kurdestan extends over an area of 100,000 square miles, in which the number of deaths is simply appalling.

—Last year the farm products of Illinois amounted to $200,000,000, double the product of all the gold and silver mines in the country.

—A colliery near Glasgow is on fire from an explosion; and 1000 men are thrown out of employment. One death resulted from the explosion.

—The value of the exports from San Francisco to the Sandwich Islands for the past three years has been $4,702,029, and from Boston $347,455.

—A dispatch from Cape Town, South Africa, says that the general post-office has been robbed of all the diamonds awaiting shipment by mail, valued at £75,000.

—In various parts of the country the “strikers” for higher wages are again repeating the folly of other years. “To learn from experience seems not to be one of their habits.”

—The committee to which the German army bill was submitted, have approved the clause exempting the clergy from military drill, and have adopted the whole bill by a vote of 33 to 8.

—A letter to the Tribune states that in the Brazilian province of Ceara, 200,000 persons have died from starvation, and 300,000 from pestilence; 250,000 people are now fed by government.

—During the past year the accessions to the library of Congress were 21,367 books and 12,050 pamphlets. Jan. 1, the library comprised 374,022 books and about 120,000 pamphlets.

—It is stated that at the close of the year 1879, there were in the world 10,207 members of the Order of Jesuits. Of this number 2,104 are missionaries, and the rest are engaged in teaching.

—A bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives for the repayment of the indemnity fund years ago extorted from Japan in excess of lawful demands. The sum to be refunded is $785,000 and accrued interest.

—The pilot slept, and the iron steamship Montana went ashore on the British coast. The passengers were all saved, and it is thought the cargo will be; but there is a prospect that the splendid steamer will be an entire wreck.

—The Socialists of New York City are opening schools to be held on Saturdays and Sundays, a prominent and avowed object of which seems to be to keep the children out of the Sunday-schools, and teach them to be free-thinkers.

Within a few weeks past, about 700 Hungarians have landed at Castle Garden. These people have been driven from their homes by the famine which has swept over their own country, and most of them are entirely destitute. Many have found employment in the Pennsylvania mining districts.

—There were in this country, at the end of 1879, about 84,000 miles of railroad; in Great Britain, according to the latest accurate statistics, 11,369 miles; in Prussia, 8,646 miles; France, in 1870, had 10,847; and Russia, in 1874, had 10,725 miles.

—Two men who were out prospecting silver mines in Southern Colorado, were recently attacked and murdered by Indians; their bodies were found riddled with bullets and badly mutilated. Another party of 6 is believed to have shared a similar fate.

—A strike of the train-men on the Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad will throw out of employment about 3,000 miners in no way connected with the strike. They are employed in coal mines to which this road affords the only outlet to market.

—The two towers of the Cologne cathedral, which has been centuries in building, but is now nearly completed, are the highest in the world, being respectively 524 feet 11 inches and 515 feet 1 inch, while St. Peters, at Rome, is but 469 feet 2 inches.

—The advance guard of the “Salvation Army” has reached this country from England, and commenced their work in New York City. This force consists of 5 country girls under the charge of Mr. Railton. They aim at nothing less than the “conversion of America.”

—Bismarck has presented in the Reichstag a paper on emigration from Germany, in which he shows that during 1879, 33,327 persons, two-thirds of whom were males, left that country, by far the greater number going to the United States and British North America.

—Spain has invited the European powers and also the United States to a Conference to be held in Madrid next June. The object is to determine the rights of protection exercised by foreign powers over the subjects of the Sultan; the treatment of the Jews will also be examined.

—During the past year the Peters-pence collection amounted to upwards of $1,000,000. Of this sum, the Roman Catholics of France contributed nearly one-fourth. The contributions from the United States amounted to $180,000. The Holy See, however, still complains of poverty.

—A committee of ladies entered Parliament recently, on the floor of the House, having a petition signed by 70,500 ladies asking for the Sunday closing of liquor houses in England. This is the first time women have ever appeared on the floor, a latticed gallery being assigned them.

—The different European consuls residing in Smyrna, Asiatic Turkey, have appealed to their respective governments for men of war to protect the European residents against the lawlessness and violence of an uprising of the people. The governor of Smyrna has asked the Porte for troops.

—There is a bill before the Louisiana Legislature repealing the city charter of New Orleans, and handing over its assets to commissioners, with instructions to divide them among the creditors. When the creditors attempt to collect the unpaid balance, they will find themselves minus a debtor, the city of New Orleans having disappeared.

—General Melikoff seems to hold the reins of government with a firm hand. A late dispatch says: “General Melikoff’s system of treating people with consideration and giving personal attention to public duties, raises a question whether a re-organization on this basis of the whole European empire of Russia might not be undertaken.”

—The Statistical Bureau of Massachusetts reports 7,233 divorces in that State during the last 19 years, which is an average of one divorce to 36 marriages. This record is bad enough; but it shines in comparison with that of Vermont, Rhode Island, and especially Connecticut, in which the average is one divorce to 11 marriages.

—The Nihilist Hartmann has confessed that he planned the recent attempt on the life of the Czar. He succeeded in escaping to France, and the French government refused to surrender him to the Russian authorities. Their refusal has resulted in a state of affairs which is little less than a suspension of diplomatic relations between the two nations. Hartmann is now in London, on his way to America.

—The famine in Ireland is said to be increasing. In Donegal 73,000 persons are destitute. One of the greatest evils resulting from the famine in Ireland is its appalling effect on the children, 40,000 of whom are kept from school by extreme destitution of food and clothing. These little ones, even if they survive the pangs of hunger, will remain dwarfed and enfeebled in mind and body.

—Greece is infested with brigands; no less than 13 distinct bands are enumerated. With the exception of the immediate vicinity of the towns, the whole country in the vicinity of Salonica is under their sway. The price asked by the band who hold Colonel Synge and wife has been taken to the British Consul. The brigands demand, as a primary condition of their release, that the troops after them be recalled.

—China and Japan, the one incited by England and the other by Russia, are said to be making preparations for war with an energy that the Celestials, at least, were not supposed to possess. This is a part of the game between Russia and England which is now being played in Asia. In consequence of the belligerent attitude of China, the Russians have modified their plans relative to the Turcoman war, and have abandoned all designs of attacking Merv.

—The Ferry Education Bill has become a law, with the 7th section, designed to prevent the Jesuits from teaching in France, stricken out. The Ministry now propose to enforce existing laws, which are said to be even more stringent. And the Jesuits are so fully convinced that they will be obliged to leave France, that they have caused all members of their fraternity who are not native Frenchmen to withdraw from that country. Spain and Belgium are the countries to which the Jesuits propose to emigrate.

—The Alps have now been tunneled in two places. The Mt. St. Gothard tunnel is 9¼ miles in length, cost $9,700,000, and was finished in 7½ years. The rails will be laid about next August, when the tunnel will be opened for traffic. It is to be lighted with gas, and being straight, will ventilate itself. The St. Gothard is a mountain range in Switzerland, and is composed almost exclusively of solid rock. This tunnel gives Germany a means of direct railroad communication with the Mediterranean, and makes the journey from the Rhine Valley a matter of 6 instead of 30 hours. M. Louis Favre, of Geneva, was the contractor. The Mt. Cenis tunnel, 8 miles long, cost $15,000,000, and was constructed in 13 years, 1857 to 1870. Our own Hoosac tunnel, 4¾ miles in length, cost $13,000,000, and was finished in 11 years.

—A dramatic scene was recently enacted in the Supreme Court of the United States. Joel Parker, of New Jersey, was admitted to the bar, when Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood, recently admitted by a special act of Congress, rose, and moved the admission of another person. The “other person” turned out to be a coal-black negro from the South. The white man and the negro placed their hands on the Bible together, and took the customary oath, near the niche where the bust of Chief Justice Taney, the author of the Dred Scott decision, is placed. The most visionary prophets of the last decade would scarcely have ventured to predict that a negro, upon the motion of a woman, would have been enrolled among the counsellors of the Supreme Court of the United States. It was a commingling of conservatism and radicalism never before seen in that high place.