p. 128 | News and Miscellany

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 19, 1867

News and Miscellany.

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

Twenty-Seven Hundred Murders in a Year.

The following paragraph is floating in the papers, like a frightful corpse on a gay and busy stream:

“Senator Roberts, of Texas, paints a horrible picture of affairs in that state. He says that twenty-seven hundred freedmen have been murdered within a year, and the persecution of the unfortunate blacks is so fearful that they are praying for a restoration of slavery as a protection against the murderous hate of the reconstructed white rebels.”

Who has paused as he read this item to reflect on the state of things which it suggests? Texas had a population at the last census of 420,000; Connecticut of 450,000. Supposing then, instead of Senator Roberts, of Texas, it read that Senator Dixon, of Connecticut, says that twenty-seven hundred Irish laborers have been murdered in his state within the year. We could then faintly conceive of the horror of horrors that overwhelmed that state. * On this same ratio Massachusetts should report three times that number murdered in a single year, or over eight thousand of her poor, peaceful, and industrious citizens. New York should report nine times, or twenty-five thousand persons murdered! What horror would freeze every soul at such an announcement. Well might the people, thus driven as sheep to the slaughter, pray for bondage as a protection against such merciless massacre.

Think, too, of the harmless conduct of these slaughtered ones. It is another Massacre of the Innocents. They open not their mouths. They give no provocation. They were taken thither by their masters, who now turn upon them and butcher them. They are faithful, affectionate, laborious, attentive to all the impious demands of the dominant and tyrannizing race, doing all in their power to ward off the terrible fate that hangs over them.

Think, too, of the friends who order or allow this massacre! These white men and women surpass the ancient murderer in hate and cruelty. He ordered but one execution, and that of babes, and for a day. These rage in devilish malice against babe and mother, especially against the fathers and husbands and brothers, by whom their scanty pittance of food is secured. They pursue them not in a single city and for a single day, but from town to town, from plantation to plantation, day and night, year after year.

Who can tell the agonies that have rent those victims’ hearts; the cries and tears that have gone up to God from these his bleeding and dying children? Who can imagine the shuddering with which they lie down at night or go out at day? Every bush is a murderer. Every eye burns coldly and hellishly upon them. Every step they take is into destruction. Twenty-seven hundred bodies bereft of life by open assassination in a single State, in the circuit of this year of grace—the year which many believed, and yet believe, to be prophesied by Daniel and John as the dawn of the millennium. The voice of our brothers’ blood cries to us from the ground; how multitudinous, how awful that wail! Will the nation hear it, and obey the will of God in putting its power into hands that will decree life and liberty to all the inhabitants? “How long, O Lord, how long?” these perishing millions of our brethren cry. Shall we answer, “Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate?” If that is his vision and declaration, be assured this nation will not escape his just and terrible displeasure. As for their thousands annually perishing before the war, we atoned by our tens of thousands slain during the war, so this multitude, daily destroyed by the permission, and therefore by the very power of the government that the North, thus chastised, has erected and allows to exist, will bring upon us further and more dreadful tokens of His judgment. Take heed, O America! for with what judgment ye judge these murderers ye shall be judged, and what measure ye mete to these victims and their slaughterers shall be measured to you again! —Independent.

Condition of the Papal Treasury.—A Rome correspondent of the Boston Post writes: The Papal Treasury is now bankrupt and has been so for a long time. With increased demands upon it, ruin cannot be long deferred at farthest. The “main nerves,” not of war merely, but of every thing else nowadays, are iron and gold. During the twenty-one years of Pius Ninth’s pontificate the debt of the States of the Church has increased from sixteen millions of scudi (a scudi is one dollar in gold) to one hundred and twenty millions. This is gigantic for a population of seven hundred thousand souls to bear, and in fact it could not be borne were it not for the charitable aid that the Pope receives from without. With the departure of the French and the increase of papal forces rendered necessary by that event for the maintenance of temporal power this debt will be of course enormously increased and cannot be long supported. When Napoleon’s troops were here, Pius Ninth paid no part of their expenses, and did not contribute a sous for their benefit, except providing the men with barracks in old disused monasteries and other localities which cost him nothing. He did not even furnish the officers with lodgings, but they were obliged to pay for them out of their own pockets. The French government defrayed all the expenses of these ten or fifteen thousand soldiers for seventeen years, and it will thus be seen how great was the devotion of that nation and its Emperor to the church. Now these troops are gone and the Pope is suddenly called upon to prepare for the payment of nearly ten thousand new troops. How this is to be done it is hard to understand. If in spite of this giant aid from France, this assumption on its part of so large a share of the annual expenses of the Papal government, the Roman debt has increased to 120 millions of dollars, how long will it take to double this debt now that the yearly expenses are so vastly augmented?

Another Meteor.—On Tuesday night about half-past ten o’clock another meteor was visible from this city, which was of uncommon brilliancy. It made its appearance suddenly in the northern sky, and lighted up the horizon very brightly and entirely eclipsing the rays of the gas lamps, which, of course, is not saying a great deal. The light emitted was of a bluish tinge, and by its vibratory character only differed from that of a powerful reflection.—Detroit Tribune.

Poverty and Destitution Abroad.—Short crops and dullness in trade are making the winter a hard one for the poor in England. The Liverpool papers state that 20,000 persons are receiving parish relief in that city, and there are fears of a bread riot. In East London 130,000 workmen are out of employment, have sold and pawned their last available property, and are suffering in cold and hunger, or getting a meager dole of parish relief. The deaths in London in a single week from cold and hunger were over four hundred, according to official reports. In the manufacturing districts there is great suffering. In Italy the poor are starving. At Venice, 30,000, out of a population of 110,000, are dependent on charity. In the Island of Sardinia the peasants are reduced to eat herbs and roots, like wild beasts. An Italian paper says, “Italy is hungry from the Alps to the Adriatic.” With tens of thousands at home and millions abroad begging for bread, we may realize more than ever before the truth of the Master’s admonition, “The poor ye have with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good.”