p. 23 | Items of News by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 12, 1882

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 8, No. 2.

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Items of News.

By Editor

—Richard Henry Dana died at Rome, Italy, January 7.

—Ex-Senator Timothy O. Howe, of Wisconsin, succeeds James as Postmaster General of the United States.

—The highest temperature in San Francisco during the month of December was 63°; the lowest temperature was 43°.

—The entire tenantry of the town land of Leacka, North Tipperary, were evicted Jan. 7. The military was present.

—The department for the insane in the Macon County, (Ill.) Poor-house was burned Jan. 5. Loss, $14,000. Three of the inmates perished.

—Two police officers in San Francisco recently captured two men who were smuggling opium from a steamer and seized $35,000 worth of the drug.

A fire-damp explosion occurred in a coal mine at Mauch Chunk, Pa., Jan. 7. Several miners were severely injured, and others are missing, and are believed to be dead.

—In the past three years eighty-seven murders have been committed in Cook County, Ill. Nineteen were in 1879, thirty in 1880, and thirty-eight in eleven months of 1881.

—Moderation is the name of a new monthly journal in New York, devoted to the encouragement of "moderation" in the use of intoxicating liquors, instead of total abstinence.

—Seven-tenths of the wheat used in England, are supplied by the United States. During December sixty-eight ships sailed out of California waters with wheat and flour for Europe.

—Seven murderers were hung Friday, Jan. 7, in different parts of the country. This seems quite a large number till we compare it with the number of unhung villains who deserve it.

—It is said that since telegraph wires have been carried throughout Norway wolves have disappeared. It is stated that a wolf will not dare to pass under a rope or line stretched between poles.

—Very interesting experiments have been made in Brazil, by M. De Lacerda, which have established the fact that permanganate of potash is one of the most energetic antidotes to the venom of snake bites.

—A man was shot and killed at Castroville, Cal., Jan. 7, in the interest of the Sunday law. He had been arrested, and on account of some trouble, not stated, was shot by the constable. The jury rendered a verdict of justifiable homicide.

—During a funeral in a church at Quincy, Ill., the 5th inst., a panic ensued in consequence of the breaking down of a seat in the gallery. The church was filled, and in the rush for the door several women were thrown down and trampled upon. Three or four were fatally injured.

—The Railway Age says that twenty-nine railroads, aggregating 2,617 miles, and having an apparent investment of $51,278,000 in capital stock, and $76,645,000 in bonds and other indebtedness, making a total of $128,000,000, have been sold during the year 1881, to wind up their long-standing obligations.

—A veteran watchmaker at Vouvry, Switzerland, claims to have invented a process by which watches will run for years without winding up. A sealed box containing two watches entrusted to the municipal authorities on the 19th of January, 1879, has just been opened, and the watches were found going.

—The boiling-house of Havemeyer's sugar works in New York, burned Jan. 8. The building was seven stories high, and contained the copper boiling-pans, weighing from fifteen to twenty tons each. The loss on building and machinery was over $1,500,000. One thousand men are thrown out of employment.

—Postmaster General James believes that the Post Office Department will be self-sustaining next year. For the quarter ending September 30, 1880, there was $1,386,000 less receipts than expenses; for the same quarter in 1881 the excess of expenses was only $196,403, and the quarter including January this year will be self-sustaining.

—A Frenchman who has been conducting a series of ingenious experiments to ascertain the muscular strength of insects as compared with vertebrate animals has found that, in proportion to their size, a bee is thirty times stronger than a horse. According to his experiments, the law is that muscular power is in inverse ratio to size—the smallest insects being capable of displaying the greatest effective force.

—Five hundred pounds of powder belonging to the American Powder Company, exploded at Oskaloosa, Iowa, on the 5th. Three boys, one of whom was the son of the Mayor, were using the wooden magazine in which the powder was stored as a target for their rifles, and the explosion was the result. The boys were mangled almost beyond recognition. Many were injured. The damage to property was about $35,000.

—January 5, the Rev. James Cameron, late pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, Oakland, died from the effects of a dose of carbolic acid accidentally administered by his wife instead of a tonic which the physician had prescribed. Mr. Cameron had just been called to the pastorate of a Presbyterian Church in the Sandwich Islands. This is the second fatal mistake in the administration of medicine that has been made in Oakland within a few weeks.

—La Defense says: All arrangements are complete for the departure of the Pope for Malta, in case he deems it impossible to remain in Rome. It also publishes a telegram from Rome, saying that Bismarck has sent a courteous but very explicit note to the Quirinal, in which he states his opinion that the Pope's independence cannot be regarded as a question for Italian home politics, but should be held as an international question.

The note declares an intention on the part of Bismarck to promote the meeting of a congress of the Powers for the purpose of making the guarantees of the independence of the Holy See stronger and more effectual.

—Delegate McGinnis, of Montana, proposes the following solution of the Mormon problem: Let Congress divide the Territory of Utah, incorporating the western part with the State of Nevada, the southeastern part with the State of Colorado, and the small northern part with Idaho and Wyoming. A part of the Mormon population will then be citizens of States which have already established constitutions and laws, to which the Mormons would, of course, be amenable. Congress has a right to this, and he thinks that if it is done the Mormon power will be at an end.

—The Emperor William has addressed an edict to the Prussian Ministry in which he claims the sole right to direct the government and power of Prussia. He says: The official actions of the king require the counter-signature of a minister and are carried out by his ministers, but they remain official acts of the King, in whose resolve they originate, and who in them gives a constitutional expression to his will. Therefore it is not permissible to represent their exercise as proceeding from a responsible minister. It is my will that in Prussia, and also in the legislative bodies of the Empire, no doubt will be allowed to attach to my constitutional right, or that of my successors, to personally direct the policy of the Government. It is the duty of my ministers to support my constitutional rights by protecting them from doubt and obscurity, and I expect the same from all officials who have taken the oath of loyality to me. I am far from wishing to restrict the freedom of elections, but functionaries intrusted with the execution of my official acts are bound to support the policy of my Government, even at the elections.