News and Miscellany by Editor

California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists · Oakland, Cal. · Apr 8, 1875

News and Miscellany.

By Editor

"Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth." Luke 21:26.

-The San Francisco Chronicle for March 31, says that five hundred and ten emigrants will arrive by to-night's train, of whom eighty-seven are "first class." This is the largest installment thus far. From this showing it would seem as if California was very rapidly filling up.

-The Committee on the relief of the sufferers by the grasshopper plague met at San Francisco, March 3. The secretary reported that the total amount received was $14,224.50, which sum included $9,200 contributed by the Board of Brokers. The sum of $14,407 had been appropriated for the purchase of seed barley, which had been shipped to Nebraska. The deficiency remaining was made up by Mr. Friedlander and Mr. Babcock, and the duties of the committee were declared complete.

-The fiftieth anniversary of the American Tract Society was celebrated in New York on March 28. The annual report showed that during the past fifty years more than ten millions of publications have been issued, and of these more than half a million were volumes. During the past year, 220 colporteurs were employed, who visited more than 140,000 families. The cost of this work was about $50,000. Grants have been made to the number of 68,000,000 pages, and to the value of $45,000. More than 40,000 publications have been issued abroad, in 143 languages; and since the formation of the Society it has expended more than $60,000 in company with American missions.

TERRIBLE EFFECTS OF THE FAMINE IN ASIA MINOR.

LONDON, April 3.—A dispatch from Constantinople states that the famine in Asia Minor continues, having been greatly aggravated by the late disastrous floods which destroyed much property and increased the destitution largely. The Relief Committee finds itself unable to meet the constantly increasing demands that are made upon it.

It is estimated that over 40,000 persons are receiving aid. Many families have been driven to distraction by hunger, and have sold their children into slavery for food.

OPIUM EATING

Says the Record Union: There is some reason for believing that in addition to the ordinary vices characteristic of what is styled "Western civilization," the practice of opium eating must soon be credited to us as a national weakness. At present we import between three and four million dollars' worth of the drug, and it appears to be making rapid strides in parts of the Eastern States, as a stimulant which poor and shamefaced professional men, women, etc., affect. It is needless to state that its effects are, if possible, more pernicious than those of spirits, and those who have once acquired the habit of taking opium in any of its forms rarely if ever escape a fatal termination to the practice. In fact, we doubt if there is a well accredited case of the kind on record, and certainly none of those who have written on opium eating have been capable of liberating themselves from the spell.