p. 174 | Notes of News

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · March 11, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 11

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Notes of News.

—The United States has 98,000 salaried government officers.

—A Bonapartist deputy has been elected in one of the departments of France.

—A scheme to assassinate the Sultan of Turkey has recently been frustrated.

—The old historical State House near Sing Sing, N. Y., was recently burned down.

—During 1879, Bishop Hare, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, confirmed 130 Indians.

—Dispatches from Omaha state that an extraordinary tide of emigration westward has set in.

—The total reduction of the public debt during the past eight months is over $32,000,000.

—Philadelphia has 81 libraries, and 80 per cent of the books drawn from them are novels or stories.

—The citizens of Eastern Oregon and Washington are trying to improve that treeless region by a general planting of trees.

—The Iowa Legislature has passed a bill making the manufacture of oleomargarine punishable by fine and imprisonment.

—The Alps have again been pierced. The St. Gothard Tunnel, over 8 miles long, the longest in the world, is completed.

—At Ashton-under-Tyne, England, 10,000 cotton-weavers have stopped work, demanding an advance of 5 per cent in their wages.

—Germany contemplates cutting a channel large enough to admit of the passage of vessels of war from the Baltic Sea to the German Ocean.

—A movement is on foot to protect the Niagara Falls from further desecration, and to secure land on each side of the Falls for an international park.

—The life of the Marquis of Anglesey was insured in various companies to the amount of $3,700,000, the largest insurance ever effected on any one life.

—A fire-damp explosion occurred at Scranton, Pa., on the 5th inst. One man was killed, and eight are still in the mine, supposed to be killed by foul air.

—The mint report shows the total coinage of the country for the month of February to be $8,169,969, of which amount $2,300,400 was standard silver dollars.

—France has promised to send one of her finest regiments and a fleet of war vessels to take part in the forthcoming centennial celebration of the surrender of Yorktown.

—The Emperor William has sent a letter to the Czar, congratulating him on his recent escape from assassination. The letter bears the counter signature of Prince Bismarck.

—The Globe asserts that France has entered into negotiations with England and the United States with a view to bringing about a cessation of the hostilities between Peru and Chili.

—A Texan inventor has received a patent on a movable frame covered with awning, which can be wheeled along the rows of a cotton-field, and thus protect the cotton-pickers from the burning sun.

—A railway train from Andalusia, bound for the Spanish capital, carrying a government treasure box guarded by five gendarmes, was recently stopped by 15 brigands. On being fired upon, they fled.

—During the month of February, the national debt was reduced over $5,500,000, and over $6,000,000 was paid out on account of pensions. The total revenues during the month were very nearly $1,000,000 a day.

—The King of the Hawaiian Islands, who has hitherto lived in a number of wooden cottages, surrounded by a high wall, is soon to have a palace, the Hawaiian Legislature having appropriated $50,000 for that purpose.

—An Austrian Jew has been raised to the rank of Pasha and Assistant Secretary of State in Egypt. It is said that this is the first time since the days of Joseph that an Israelite has reached so high a position in Egypt.

—On a recent Sunday, a German theater in New York City was compelled to stop a play which had been widely announced, and to see which an audience of 2,500 persons had assembled. Another Sunday triumph.

—The Austrian Diet has just voted $75,000 to defray the expenses of the visit of the Empress to Ireland, whither she went chiefly to enjoy the exciting pleasure of fox-hunting. And the national debt of Austria is $2,005,150,000.

—The Speaker of the House of Representatives has a salary of $10,000 a year, with no perquisites. The Speaker of the British House of Commons has $20,000 a year, with perquisites to make his salary, all told, about $40,000.

—There is a rumor that Prince Bismarck is anxious to retire from the Chancellorship provisionally for three or four months, and if the affairs of the German Empire are conducted more satisfactorily, he will then retire altogether.

—The present British Parliament is to be dissolved this year, and a new Parliament is to be elected. This election will decide whether or not Beaconsfield’s “policy” is to continue to rule the nation. Two important elections have already been held, which have resulted in Tory (Beaconsfield) majorities.

—An elegant white marble tablet, representing a Grecian temple, and surrounded by a black marble border, is to be placed in the First Reformed church of Kingston, N. Y. It is to be erected to the memory of A. B. Hasbrouck, ex-President of Rutgers College, and will be the finest mural tablet in this country outside of Trinity Church.

—Rev. Edward Cowley, of New York City, has been tried for neglect and abuse of a child committed to his care as manager of the Shepherd’s Fold, and has been sentenced to one year in the penitentiary, and to pay a fine of $250. Cowley was at one time chaplain of the penitentiary in which he is now confined.

—The report of the Episcopal Church in Maine for the past year shows that there has been an actual loss in membership. The whole number of communicants reported in 1878 was 2,115; in 1879 the whole number is 2,107. In four years the gain has been less than one hundred, the whole number reported in 1875 being 2,014.

—At the close of business hours, last Friday, March 5, there was in the vaults of the Treasury, in round numbers, $37,000,000 in standard silver dollars, $21,000,000 in subsidiary silver coin, and $146,000,000 in gold. At the New York Assay Office $45,000,000 worth of gold awaits transportation to the mint at Philadelphia.

—Senator Morgan has proposed a constitutional amendment declaring the Indians to be citizens, and subject, in common with all other citizens, to the jurisdiction of the civil authorities. This amendment would make an end of the so-called tribal relations and the treaty business, and wind up the present Indian Bureau and the system which it administers.

—The storm of Friday evening, March 5, was very severe in some parts of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. In some places it became a cyclone. In its track, houses were demolished, trees and fences were blown down, and in some cases cars were blown from the track. At Cleveland one man was fatally injured, at Toledo two policemen were killed, and in several towns people were seriously injured.

—At a recent meeting in Boston Music Hall, Bishop McNamara, the leader of the Independent Catholic movement in this country, reminded the Irish that Pope Adrian II. was the author of the miseries of Ireland, as he consigned its soil and its church to Henry II. of England. “As to the Irish in America,” he said, “if they ever want to be free, let them cut loose from the Italian priesthood, take the Holy Scriptures for their spiritual guide, and obey politically only the Constitution of the United States.” This movement is gaining in strength and numbers.

—The cost of the proposed canal from sea to sea across the Isthmus of Panama, according to M. Lesseps’s estimate, will be $120,000,000. He proposes that the bonds be taken equally in America and in Europe, the head-quarters of the enterprise to be in Paris. As yet, but little has been subscribed to this undertaking. The canal, being essentially a foreign enterprise, would of necessity draw after it foreign protection; and hence it is thought that the project will prove an infraction of the Monroe doctrine, that no foreign power shall be permitted to obtain a foothold on this continent.

—General Melikoff, Chief of the new Supreme Executive Commission, is now the target for Nihilistic pistol-practice. On the 3d of March he was fired upon; but, as usual, the assassin missed his aim, and Melikoff is unhurt. But summary justice was meted out to the criminal. On Thursday, the 4th, he was tried by a court-martial, and on the next day he was executed in the presence of an immense concourse of people. Seven men in the crowd were arrested for saying that though this attempt had proved a failure, another one would succeed. The city is placarded with threats against Melikoff’s life.

—Russian architects promise that the magnificent temple in Moscow will be completed next August. It was begun in 1833 to commemorate the expulsion of the French army under Napoleon I. The height of the dome is 369 feet. The building is in the form of a Greek cross, is gorgeously decorated, and will cost about $15,000,000. About 925 pounds of gold have been used in the gilding. The church contains several columns of jasper, each of which cost $13,000. The famous cathedral of St. Isaac’s at St. Petersburg, consecrated in 1858, was begun in 1819, and cost $22,500,000.

—Messrs. Dun, Barlow & Co., of the Mercantile Agency, have issued their quarterly report of failures to January 1, completing the year 1879. The whole number for the quarter in all the United States is 1,838, comparing with 1,800 for the same quarter in 1878, and 2,397 in 1877. The number for the whole year is 6,658, with liabilities of $98,149,000, comparing with 10,478 in 1878, with liabilities of $234,338,000. This is a most encouraging result. The liabilities involved in 1879 are barely 42 per cent of the enormous total in the previous year, which nearly wound up the calamities following the great panic. We say nearly, because we have no doubt that very many of the 6,000 and odd cases in 1879 could be directly, and many others indirectly, traced to old involvements; and so we shall very confidently expect to see such cases greatly diminished through the quarterly reports to come in 1880.—Mercantile Review.