News and Miscellany

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 26, 1867

News and Miscellany.

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

—The opera is given in Brooklyn, New York, on the “off nights” of Plymouth church, showing that Beecher’s church is a serious competitor with the theatre, and showing, too, that both houses rank as places of amusement.

—The severe gales in Great Britain, which have prevailed for nearly a week, have proved disastrous to shipping. Many shipwrecks are reported on the English and Irish coasts.

—It is asserted in Washington that letters from the South leave no doubt of the adoption by the lately rebellious States of the provisions of the Military bills.

Brazil and Paraguay.—Rio Janeiro correspondence of February 8th reports another bombardment of Fort Curupaty on the 13th of January. On the 18th the Allies captured one of the enemy’s entrenchments.

Brazilian papers denounce the reported offer of mediation by the United States between Brazil and Paraguay. The Brazilian election resulted in the success of the conservatives.

The revolution in the Argentine Confederation was not suppressed, the government forces having been defeated, but vigorous measures were in progress and the national guard was called out.

Buenos Ayres papers bitterly denounce the continuance of the war with Paraguay and the alliance with the bigger empire, as they term Brazil.

Greece.—Athens, March 10th.—A terrible earthquake has taken place in the Island of Mitylene. All the habitations on the island are in ruins, and hundreds of lives have been lost.

—A Fenian spy was arrested at Suspension Bridge on Saturday, March 10. He had been followed from Toronto by detectives, who, on searching his satchel, found a plan of the city of Toronto, a plan of all the banks and public buildings, a map of the Niagara frontier, a list of the Judges who sentenced the Fenians at the recent trials, of the attorneys who prosecuted them, and the witnesses who testified against them, as also other documents containing information of a similar character. He is said to be a relative of one of the convicted Fenians now in the Canadian Penitentiary. He was taken to Toronto yesterday morning. It is expected that there will be important developments at his trial.

—European advices announce that a general rising was expected throughout Ireland yesterday or to-day, but none has yet taken place. Many of those, however, connected with the late uprising have left for America. A rising in Liverpool is feared and troops have been sent thither. The Paris Moniteur asserts that Marshal Bazain and the last of the French troops left Mexico on March 10.

Opium-Eating.—One of the curious facts revealed by the publication of custom-house tables, is that there was imported into this country last year 300,000 pounds of opium. Of this amount, it is estimated, from reliable data, that not more than one-tenth is used for medicinal purposes. The habit of eating opium is known to be spreading rapidly among lawyers, doctors, clergymen, and literary men, and enormous quantities are used by the manufacturers of those poisonous liquids which are dealt out in drinks at the saloons and groceries that infest every city and village in the country.

The Hog Cholera.—This mysterious and fatal disease prevails to a considerable extent in various parts of this State. A letter from St. Clair county says that “although the cholera is not as fatal as it was two years ago, yet it causes serious loss. There is hardly a farmer in this section but what loses from one to five a day from this cause. The cholera also prevails among the chickens and turkeys.” From Fulton county a similar report; and in several other localities, especially where are “still-fed” hogs, it is quite prevalent. This and the trichina have set many against pork almost as strongly as the Jews. It would seem, from the experiences of late years, that there was some good reason for the ancient prohibition, on sanitary grounds.—Chicago Journal.

A Statesman’s Hope.—Thousands who scoff at the Christian’s hope as wild and chimerical, see nothing improbable nor inconsistent in such utterances as the following, because they come from great men, and accord with their cherished dreams of peace and safety:—

Liverpool, March 14.—The American Chamber of Commerce gave a grand banquet to-night in honor of the heroes of the Atlantic cable. The American minister, Mr. Adams, in reply to a highly complimentary toast, disclaimed all personal credit for the maintenance of peace between England and America, saying that his course had been directed by the American government. He thought the magnitude of the relations between the two countries has been the guarantee of peace. The telegraph would, he hoped, strengthen that guarantee and ultimately supersede diplomacy and merge the world into one nation and one language.