News and Miscellany

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 29, 1867

News and Miscellany.

Can ye not discern the Signs of the Times? Matt. xvi, 3.

—By the devastations of the rinderpest in the Netherlands, 50,000 animals died and 21,500 had to be killed. Exportation to other countries has entirely ceased.

—In the impeachment matter the Judiciary Committee is moving with great caution, and there are no indications yet of their reporting any bill on the subject.

—Some of the Christians of Washington sadly need reconstructing. At a Sabbath-school meeting in the Fourth Presbyterian church, Sunday evening, Samuel McKee, member of Congress from Kentucky, was speaking to the school and the teachers, and made an incidental allusion of a kind nature to the colored Sabbath-school of the Fifteenth street Presbyterian church, of which Rev. Highland Garnett was lately pastor. A storm of coughs, sneezes and hisses immediately broke out, and was continued until Col. McKee left the pulpit.

In his New Year’s speech to the Diplomatic Corps, Louis Napoleon expressed the hope that “we are entering upon a new era of peace and conciliation.” The disappointment of the Imperial hopes in Italy, Mexico, Germany, and elsewhere, has, of late, considerably diminished the importance which used to be attached to Napoleon’s sayings on New Year’s day, and people are troubling themselves less about the apparent, the hidden, and the real meaning of his words.

The English papers give accounts from all parts of the country, of great storms, floods, shipwrecks and deaths from cold and starvation.

The Assassination Mania.—It has been often remarked that a crime of unusual portent, especially when aimed at some very prominent individual, is sure to find numerous imitators. Thus the assassination of President Lincoln was followed by a somewhat similar attack upon the Czar of Russia; more recently, President Prado of Peru was the recipient of an infernal machine which, had it exploded as was intended, would have ended his life; and President Mosquera, of Columbia, has sent in his resignation, on the ground that while he is in office his life is in constant danger; and now we have to add the reported attempt to assassinate the emperor of the French.

Out of Work.—The New York Post says, ‘Of ship-makers, ship-black-smiths, ship-plumbers, ship-joiners, ship-painters, riggers, caulkers, spar-makers, sail-makers, boat-builders, marine-machinists, boiler-makers, we have ascertained that not less than fifteen thousand men are out of steady work.’ The New York Times states that more than 20,000 girls and women in that city are also out of employ. Much suffering is anticipated.

A very active movement has been recently set on foot in England, in favor of allowing the laboring classes an opportunity to enjoy themselves at cricket and other athletic sports on Sunday afternoon, after the morning has been spent at church. The movement is headed by Archdeacon Dennison, and supported by a goodly number of people of religious standing.