Notes of News | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · April 8, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 15

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Notes of News.

—There are nearly 100,000 lepers in India.

—It is proposed to lay two more Atlantic cables.

—Typhoid fever and small-pox are prevalent in Paris.

—In Scotland the Roman Catholics baptized 14,065 souls last year.

—The prospects for a war between Russia and China are becoming more threatening.

—A bill for an international exhibition in New York in 1883 has passed the Senate.

—Two rivers of Spain, with their tributaries, have overflowed, inundating several towns.

—The newly revised Maine liquor law prohibits the manufacture and sale of cider as a beverage.

—Paris and its suburbs contain 123 Jesuit communities; the Jesuit colleges of France number 27.

—The Chinese Vice-Consul at San Francisco is a regular attendant at the First Presbyterian Church.

—Europe has 719 princes and princesses, each of whom has a more or less remote claim upon the crown.

—The reduction of the national debt during the month of March will be between $13,000,000 and $14,000,000.

—It has been discovered that the electric light has the property of greatly stimulating the growth of plants.

—The memoirs of Louis Kossuth are to be published simultaneously in Hungarian, German, French, English, and Italian.

—In the construction of the famous St. Gothard tunnel, 120 lives were lost and 400 men were injured by accidents.

—Prince Bismarck has just celebrated his 65th birthday. His palace was flooded with offerings from all parts of Europe.

—Nearly one-half of the towns in Connecticut (76) have voted against granting any license for the sale of intoxicating liquors.

—Since 1866, the Spanish people have bought more copies of the Bible, in proportion to their population, than France or Italy.

—The town of Branchville, S. C., was recently set on fire in two places, simultaneously. Many valuable buildings were destroyed.

—The President and Secretary of State have determined upon a commission to revise the treaty relations between the United States and China.

—The Armenian Library in Smyrna was established in 1769, and contains about 2,000 volumes. An appeal is now made for more English books.

—There is a bill before the House of Representatives providing for a territorial organization for Alaska, which has a white population of only 250.

—On the 25th of March, the Treasury Department purchased 445,000 ounces of silver for the Mints at Philadelphia, San Francisco, and New Orleans.

—A Nihilist, the son of a priest, has been recently condemned to death. His execution will make the 19th in Russia, in less than two years, for political offenses.

—In Japan several earthquakes occurred on the 22d of February. In Tokio and Yokohama several houses were badly injured or destroyed, but no lives were lost.

—Fully 20 converts to Mormonism have gone from St. Lawrence Co., Ky., to Utah. Among them is a young and handsome married woman who left her husband behind.

—On the 30th of March, 2,000 people from the various European countries landed at New York. The tide of immigration to this country has set in at an unprecedented rate.

—A severe storm passed through portions of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, March 27–29, doing considerable damage to property, and resulting in three or four deaths.

—The English and Russians have come to an understanding by which the former is to leave Herat untouched, and the latter is to renounce the occupation of Merv. But neither nation withdraws its forces from Afghanistan.

—On the 31st of March, a fire-damp explosion occurred in the colliery at Anderlues, Belgium. It is not known how many lives were lost. There were 150 persons in the pit at the time of the disaster; 20 corpses have been recovered.

—Parnell has returned to Ireland, and has entered heartily into the canvass for a new Parliament. At Enniscorthy, in Wexford, he was violently assailed by a mob, from which he was rescued by the police; but he was not permitted to speak.

—Prof. Geo. F. Barker, of the University of Pennsylvania, in a scientific lecture in Philadelphia, indorsed the Edison electric light, which he has been carefully investigating. He says that until gas can be furnished for 60 cts. per 1,000 cubic feet, the electric light will be cheaper.

—A strange case recently occurred in England. A woman was killed by being kept continuously drunk for two months and a half. The man who did this inhuman deed, sometimes persuading and sometimes forcing her to drink, has been tried and condemned for manslaughter.

—The Czar permits Prince Alexander of Bulgaria to enlist 5,000 Russian subjects, for the purpose of enabling that principality to introduce certain desirable reforms into its charter. This is Russia’s method of pushing her designs for renewing the contest in the principalities, and falling upon the Turk.

—Lord Derby, addressing English workingmen, said that an acre of good land was worth on an average £60, or about 3d. for every square yard. And added: “I wonder how many workingmen consider, when they drink 3d. worth of beer or spirits, that they are swallowing down a square yard of good agricultural land.”

—The English Parliamentary elections are resulting in so many Liberal victories that the formation of a new Cabinet is now accepted as a foregone conclusion. But though Beaconsfield must retire from the Premiership, Gladstone will not succeed him. It is thought that Lord Hartington or Lord Granville will form the next Ministry.

—A letter from St. Petersburg to the Manchester Guardian says: “General Melikoff’s appointment as virtual dictator, which seems to indicate a relentless determination on the part of the Czar, really means conciliation in the end. A compromise is being tried under the forms of no surrender. The palace problem of the hour really is, how to yield with dignity.”

—The trouble in the piano trade in New York City, which began with a strike for higher wages among the employees at Steinway’s manufactory, has culminated in a general lockout in nearly all the factories in New York. Between 4,000 and 5,000 workmen are thus thrown out of employment, and they declare they will not go to work again until wages are increased in all the shops.

—The total contributions for foreign missions in Great Britain and Ireland for 1878 was $5,359,740. Of this amount, which is $140,000 less than in 1877, upwards of $2,365,500 was raised by the Church of England, $824,500 by joint Anglican and Nonconformist societies, and $2,122,225 by Nonconformist societies. The Roman Catholics raised for the same purpose, $47,445.

—President Hayes has recalled Mr. Seward, Minister to Pekin, on account of the punishment awarded to Chung How, Chinese Ambassador to Russia, for negotiating an unpopular treaty with that country, and for the comparative impunity with which the Chinese mob is permitted to attack Europeans. President James B. Angell, of Michigan University, has been nominated by the President to succeed Mr. Seward as Minister to China.

—Ever since the German occupation of Alsace-Lorraine, at the close of the Franco-German war of 1870, a censorship has been maintained over French papers circulated in these provinces. The object of this policy was to prevent any reactionary movement, by suppressing printed appeals to the people against Germany. This censorship has now been removed; hence it may be inferred that the annexation is nearing that consolidation which must transform Alsace-Lorraine into a component part, in sentiment as well as in fact, of the German empire.

—Commissioner Railton, who has charge of the branch of the “Salvation Army” operating in New York, has been refused permission to preach in the streets, as none but licensed ministers can lawfully claim this privilege. This army is the outgrowth of an unsectarian Christian mission commenced in London in 1865. The idea was to reach the worst classes of the poor, and to evangelize the non-church-going people of a higher social grade. This work has been very successful in England.

—The tomb of Pius IX., at Rome, in the Church of San Lorenzo beyond the walls, is said to be almost covered with inscriptions in various languages, besides wreaths, flowers, and other memorial offerings. They were written by persons from many walks of life, by priests, as well as by laymen; by pontifical soldiers, and soldiers in the Italian army; by widows, orphans and representatives of monasteries, colleges, schools, and societies. A peculiarity of many of the inscriptions is that the former pontiff is not prayed for, but invoked, this being an outcome of a belief prevalent among Italian Catholics that Pius IX. has entered into Heaven, and is now in the position of an intercessor.

—There are in Great Britain eight societies laboring for the conversion of the Jews, and on the continent of Europe a dozen more. These societies have incomes amounting altogether to about $500,000, and employ now, probably, about 250 agents, Christian and Christianized Jews. The oldest and most prominent British society is the London Society for the Propagation of Christianity among the Jews, which occupies 34 stations, embracing the principal Jewish centers in Europe and all around the Mediterranean Sea, and in Abyssinia employs 36 agents, and enjoys an income of about $200,000.