ITEMS OF NEWS by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 6, 1881

ITEMS OF NEWS.

By Editor

—Of 689 missionaries in India, the United States sends seventeen.

—By the sinking of a ferry-boat near Savannah Georgia, Sept. 28, twelve colored persons were drowned.

—A fire broke out in the Merchants' Bazaar, in Moscow, Russia, Sept. 28, and destroyed twenty warehouses.

—Pope Leo XIII., has given his approbation to a series of school-books specially prepared for Roman Catholic schools in America.

—Ex-President Enoch Pond, of the Bangor Theological Seminary, is ninety-five years old, and says that he has not had a headache in sixty-six years.

—Illinois was recently visited by another violent tornado, which did great damage at Quincy, and the village of Camden. Several persons were killed.

—A collision on the Southern Pacific Railroad, at Tucson, A. T., resulted in the serious injury of two men, and a loss to the company of over $100,000.

—The year's cotton crop is figured at 6,589,329 bales, against 5,757,397 bales last year; the consumption in the United States was 1,915,000 bales, against 1,760,000 last year.

—The mourning badge worn by Walter H. Leman, at the Garfield funeral procession in San Francisco, was the one which his father wore at the funeral of General Washington, in 1799.

—William Ryan, one of the participators in the robbery of the train on the Chicago and Alton Road, near Glendale, Mo., has been sentenced to the penitentiary for twenty-five years.

—Of sixteen souls on board the ship Calcutta, from the East Indies for Boston, and wrecked near East London, only three, the mate, captain, and one seaman, were saved. Five bodies have been recovered.

—The buildings of the Quaker College at Swarthmore, Pa., were destroyed by fire on the 25th ult. All the students escaped, but lost all they had. The fire was caused by an explosion in the laboratory.

—September 25, a slight shock of earthquake was felt at Elmira, N. Y., which was immediately followed by a hurricane, unroofing many buildings. A heavy rain-fall succeeded, which added greatly to the damage.

—A fire broke out in Robert's Opera-House block at Eldredtown, twelve miles northeast of Bradford, Penn., on Friday, Sept. 30, and before it was got under control, sixty buildings were burned, in the business center of the town.

—The town of Stanton, Nebraska, containing four hundred inhabitants, was destroyed by a hurricane, Sept. 29. Several lives were lost. The Union Pacific Railroad Company furnished box cars for the shelter of the homeless ones.

—A three days' conference of the International Federation of free-thinkers was held in London, commencing Sept. 25, Bradlaugh presiding. Bennett, of America boasted that there were millions of free-thinkers in the United States.

—A liquor saloon in Salt Lake was recently broken into, and the faucets of the whisky and brandy barrels were turned, allowing about $4,000 worth of liquor to run out. The newspapers think it was an outrage to allow so much "good whisky to run to waste."

—An important engagement recently took place between the French and the Arabs, south of Susa, Tunis. The Arabs admit the loss of fifty killed and many wounded. The French loss is unknown. Twenty-eight thousand troops have embarked at Toulouse for Tunis.

—In the Episcopal church of the Ascension, Chicago, they have, as a distributed tract informs the congregation, the blessed privilege of confession and absolution, the sacrifice of the mass, low mass being celebrated at 8 A. M., and solemn mass at 11 A. M. on Sundays, as also the celebration of each kind on week days.

—The Anchor Line steamship Anchoria, from Glasgow, recently ran down a small sailing vessel. All on board the latter were drowned. A passenger on the Anchoria says: "The boats were too slow to save any one on the unfortunate vessel. We heard cries for assistance, but the poor fellows were drowned before we could give any aid."

—Great destruction has been caused by an earthquake in the province of Abruzzo, Italy. The archbishop of Chieti, the chief town, says that over one thousand houses are uninhabitable, and the remainder more or less fissured. Four-fifths of the population are shelterless. The devastated territory is devoted exclusively to grazing, and cattle raising.

—The Directors of the Paramore Narrow-gauge Railroad met at Little Rock, Ark., recently, and consolidated the Missouri and Arkansas lines. A contract has just been closed for 40,000 tons of steel rails. It is claimed that this is the largest contract for steel rails ever made in this country. The length of the line will be over 1,600 miles, the terminus being in the city of Mexico.

—The beet sugar mill at Alvarado, Alameda Co., Cal., was blown up by the explosion of one of the boilers, Sept. 27. The accident was caused by the carelessness of the fireman, who fell asleep at his post. On awakening, he found the water very low in the gauge, and proceeded to pump cold water into the heated boiler. The result was an explosion. The fireman alone lost his life.

—September 27, while the express train on the Canada Southern Railroad was being transferred across the Detroit river, the transfer boat ran violently against the dock, plunging the sleeping car "St. Clair," with all its occupants, into the river. The passenger car adjoining was thrown off, but as the coupling did not break, it was not submerged. Three passengers were missing, others lost their baggage.

A most important discovery has just been made of enormous thefts from the treasury of Russia. Immediately after Baron Kuster had been relieved from his functions as Court Steward, a special Commission was appointed to look into his accounts. After working five or six hours daily, for twelve consecutive days, the Commission has ascertained that, roundly estimated, sixty million rubles (about $48,000,000), have been stolen from the imperial safe.

—The Herald's Cairo cable dispatch says: All who have had long experience in the East are firmly convinced that the recent disturbances in Egypt were but a prelude to much graver events. No one can mix with the people here without noticing their intense hatred of Europeans, especially those in the employ of the Egyptian Government. The gravity of the situation is not properly understood in Europe, and probably will not be till some terrible outbreak has occurred.

—Experiments have recently been made at Woolwich with a 100-ton gun, which gave entire satisfaction. The shot weighed 2000 pounds, and the cartridges, 448 pounds. The cost of each round was $150. The shot buried itself sixty feet in the sand bank against which it was fired. It was calculated that the velocity was sufficient to send the shot through three feet of armor one mile distant. Several of these guns have been made and are to be placed in position in the Mediterranean fortresses.

—A terrible explosion occurred at Council Bluffs, Iowa, Sept. 27. A car of dynamite was billed to Denver as common blasting powder, but the Union Pacific company refused to receive it, and it was returned to the Rock Island yards. By some means it exploded, completely destroying fifty freight cars, the freight house, and the round house, and shattering other buildings. Considerable damage was done to buildings in Omaha. Twenty miles away the explosion was felt, and was thought to be an earthquake shock.

—September 26, the ship Alice Buck from New York bound to Oregon with a cargo of railroad iron, struck on a ridge of rocks called Clam Rocks, situated on the southwest side of Half Moon Bay, about thirty miles south of San Francisco. The ship had been leaking for three weeks, and the crew had been working at the pumps continuously for the last sixty hours. Out of a crew of twenty-four, eleven were drowned. The remaining thirteen, including the Captain, were rescued after having remained in the water for nine hours.

—Cannon, the delegate to Congress, from Utah, in a recent speech in the Mormon tabernacle at Salt Lake, used the following language: "The Government of the United States will be powerless in the future as it has been in the past to enforce the anti-polygamy, or any other law detrimental to the interest or progress of the Kingdom of God on earth. Nineteen years ago on the 2d of last July the Congress of the United States passed a law to prohibit and punish the practice of polygamy in the Territories. How much prohibition has that law effected? How many of us have been punished for the practice of polygamy? But one man, and he furnished the evidence himself for his own conviction." When Cannon is in Washington he professes to be a very loyal and virtuous citizen; what he really is, may be seen from his speech.