p. 286 | News of the Week

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · May 5, 1885

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 62, No. 18

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News of the Week.

FOR WEEK ENDING MAY 2.

DOMESTIC.

—The Erie Canal will be opened May 11.

—Idaho will build a new Capitol at a cost of $80,000.

—There are more than 2,500 lady physicians in the United States.

—A fast ocean steamer costs between $700,000 and $800,000.

—Ex-President Arthur is still suffering from an attack of sciatica.

—There were 48,000 visitors from the North to Florida last winter.

—The banking capital of the United States to-day is $738,000,000.

—Eighteen buildings were destroyed by fire at Randolph, N. Y., Saturday night.

—The patent office is one of the few branches of the government which pays expenses.

—Diphtheria of a malignant type is epidemic in Greenwood township, near Hillsboro, Ill.

—The Commercial Cable Company is putting all its wires in New York City under ground.

—The peach crop of Delaware will be unusually large, unless some unexpected disaster occurs.

—From eight to twelve inches of snow fell Monday night in Northern Michigan and Wisconsin.

—According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the lineal descendants of Brigham Young now number 15,000.

—Governor Carpenter, of Montana, has issued a proclamation against cattle entering into the Territory.

—A dozen business houses at Chillicothe, Mo., were burned Tuesday morning, creating a loss of $20,000.

—Business failures for the week number 167, against 198 last week, and 151 in the corresponding period of 1884.

—The Ohio Legislature has decreed that Cincinnati saloons must be closed from midnight until 6 o’clock A. M.

—A bill has been favorably reported in the Pennsylvania Legislature to impose a license of $1,000 on skating rinks.

—Alabama physicians say that pneumonia is now worse in that State than ever before within thirty or forty years.

—Militia are on duty at the coal mines near Streator, Ill., to protect persons wishing to work from the violence of the strikers.

—By a recent enactment of the Kansas Legislature, it is a misdemeanor to sell or give tobacco in any form to boys under sixteen years of age.

—The leather manufactory of J. G. Brane & Co., at Woburn, Mass., was burned at midnight Sunday, with its contents. The insurance is $45,000.

—During a fire at Pittsburg Monday night a building fell, killing two men, seriously wounding four persons, and injuring a number of others slightly.

—The improvement in General Grant’s condition has been so marked during the past week that he has been able to walk out and ride in the park, on pleasant days.

—The ice in the Straits is broken up and is passing in huge masses from Lake Michigan to Lake Huron. The belief is prevalent that vessels can now get through.

—It is reported that the maple sugar crop of Vermont this year will exceed in value $1,000,000. Vermont now produces about one-third of the maple sugar manufactured in this country.

—At a meeting of the Maryland Temperance State Alliance yesterday it was determined to again start a Prohibition party in Maryland, and committees on organization and platform were appointed.

—The number of railroad accidents in the United States during 1884 is given at 1,191. Of these, 445 were collisions, and 681 derailments; 65 are recorded as “various.” There were in all 389 persons killed and 8,760 injured.

—The Democrats of Louisiana are irritated at the course adopted by President Cleveland, and in an interview Wednesday Senator Eustis said that from a Democratic stand-point the President thus far “has been a conspicuous and humiliating failure.”

—The American McAll Association, the object of which is to “rescue France from the infidel,” began its second annual session Thursday at New York, and among the hundred delegates in attendance, are Mrs. J. A. Garfield and Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes.

—A collision occurred on the Iron Mountain road, seventeen miles from St. Louis, Monday afternoon between a special and a passenger train, two persons being killed and several injured. Both engines were completely wrecked. A misunderstanding of the train dispatcher caused the disaster.

—An overflow of the Red River has submerged a portion of Fulton, Ark., and the surrounding country is inundated, causing a heavy loss in live stock. Cultivated lands are under water and railway tracks and bridges have been washed out. In the Arkansas Valley heavy rains have caused serious damage.

FOREIGN.

—The Apaches are reported on the war path again in old Mexico.

—King Leopold, of Belgium, is now to be recognized as king of the Congo.

—The Emperor of Austria gave the pope as an Easter offering a chandelier for 600 candles.

—General De L’Isle telegraphed the French government from Tonquin, May 1, that the Chinese are loyally fulfilling the conditions of peace.

—An area of three million acres of very fertile land in New Zealand has been dedicated to prohibition. There is hope for the Maori race.

—A long-haired elephant, larger and more perfect than any specimen hitherto secured, is being extricated from the ice at the mouth of the Lena delta.

—Russia has a population of about 100,000,000; has a public debt of about $350,000,000,000; she spends about $10,000,000 a year above her revenues.

—Wealthy residents of Aspinwall have ordered ready-built houses from New York, which will be shipped in sections to replace the buildings burned by the insurgents.

—A terrible volcanic eruption has occurred at Passarveau, a province in the east end of the island of Java. A number of plantations have been devastated, and it is feared that fully a hundred persons have been killed.

—Word was brought to Gen. Middleton May 1, that Riel was intrenching himself at Batoche and preparing for a stubborn battle. Middleton decided to advance immediately, and at last reports a conflict was imminent.

—The Porte has replied to England that in the event of war between England and Russia, Turkey will remain neutral, and will close the Dardanelles and Bosphorus to men-of-war of either nation. Notice of this decision has been sent by the Porte to the various foreign ambassadors at Constantinople.

—There is a slight relaxation in the tension of the relations of Russia and England. Russia appears to be disposed to entertain England’s latest proposal to submit to the arbitration of one of the crowned heads of Europe, the question whether the convention of March 17 was broken by Russia. It is believed that the King of Denmark will be selected as arbitrator in the event of mediation being accepted.

RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE.

—Of the 8,000 native Christian members of the Japanese churches, it is stated that only one-fourth are females.

—In Western New York there is said to be a town of 5,500 inhabitants, 3,500 of whom are Protestants, having four Protestant churches, whose entire membership is only eighty. There are 1,200 children, of whom only 200 are in Sunday schools.

—At a late meeting of the directors of the London Missionary Society, Rev. J. H. Budden bore emphatic testimony to the fact that the people of India are just now in a special state of preparedness and willingness to listen to the gospel. This witness is the more valuable as coming from a veteran Indian missionary, who has been forty-four years in that great empire.

—The work of the Canadian missionaries in the north of Formosa has come to an entire standstill so far as the missionaries are concerned. They have been forced to leave the island and retire to Hong Kong. The anti-foreign spirit there has full sway, and the result has been persecution of native Christians,—even to the death in some cases,—robbery and pillage of their goods, and the wild and wanton destruction of their chapels.

—Rev. M. Thomas, of Henthada, Burmah, writes of the conversion of an idol-maker who was the most influential Buddhist in the region in which he lived. His baptism has been a great shock to Buddhism, and the prospect for immediate success among the Burmans, is most cheering. Mr. Thomas has seldom seen, even among the Karens, such interest in Christianity as he found among the Burmans whom he met in that section of the country. The more enlightened Burmans are rebelling against the impositions of the Buddhist priesthood, and the Buddhist archbishop was fired upon during a recent visit to Henthada.

—The Jewish reformer, Joseph Rabinowitz, to whom reference has heretofore been made as the leader of a new movement among the Jews of Southern Russia, succeeded in opening on January 5, at Kishenev, the capital of Bessarabia, a synagogue in which Jesus Christ is recognized as the Holy Messiah. This was done under the authority of the Minister of Police, who was present. In his discourse, Rabinowitz sought to prove that the expectation of the Jews was met in Jesus. A Lutheran minister assisted in the service. The chief hope for this movement lies in the fact that it is from within the Jewish body; and the opening of what may be called a Christian synagogue has created a great sensation among the Israelites of Russia.

—Mission work among the 4,500 to 5,000 Chinese in New York is extending more widely, and meeting with greater success, than even Christian people here who have not given special attention to the matter are aware of. Churches of nearly every evangelical name have their Chinese Sunday-school classes, gathering five, ten, twenty, fifty, and, in one case, seventy-two scholars, each with his teacher. From suitable text-books, as the Tract Society’s “English and Chinese Reading-Book,” etc., the pupils are taught to read in English. Their confidence is gained in the process, and the way is opened for personal religious conversation.