News and Miscellany

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 4, 1867

News and Miscellany.

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

—The New York Herald says the proposed Fenian raid is taking a definite shape. A secret circular has been distributed to all the circles, calling them to arms. Munitions of war in large quantities have been taken toward the border, and secreted, ready for use when wanted. Quite a number of persons supposed to be Fenians are in St. Albans, Vermont. Fifty thousand troops are reported ready to take the field backed by fifty thousand more in case of need.

—The Paris Exposition is turning out in every respect better than first appearances promised. The attendance lately is very great, and the verdict quite generally is that the affair is neither a swindle nor a failure. The greatest attendance is on Sunday, which in Paris is the great holiday. But on that day the American and English departments are closed, a circumstance that occasions much disappointment to Continental visitors, whose style of civilization is not of that sort.

—The London Lancet says: “It is certain that many ladies carry about with them in their chignons the seeds of ringworm, an intractable malady.” It also stated that much of the hair used for chignons is “churchyard hair,” pulled from the scalps of the dead. It may seem paradoxical, but it is a fact, that while some aver that the rage for chignons is going down, the fashion seems to be “going up.”

—It is stated that there are no less than 40,000 persons in London, not only out of employment, but reduced to the extreme of destitution, and dependent on daily charity for their morsel of bread or cup of soup. A procession of one thousand was recently formed and marched through the streets, carrying money boxes to receive any donations. Every man was in rags.

—In a recently published statistical work, there are said to be in London one million four hundred thousand persons who never attend public worship; one hundred and fifty thousand habitual drunkards; one hundred and fifty thousand living in open profligacy; twenty thousand professed beggars; ten thousand gamblers; thirty thousand destitute children, and five thousand receivers of stolen goods.—Herald of Bridegroom.

—The doctrine of Christian perfection, which has been generally ignored for some years among the Methodists, is attracting new attention under the impulse of the spring revivals. A correspondent of the Zion’s Herald says: “I understand that there is a plan afloat for a kind of national camp meeting somewhere in New Jersey, in the month of July, to be specially devoted to the promotion of Christian holiness; that invitations will be issued by competent church authority to the leading ministers of Methodism throughout the country who have been identified with this doctrine, and a strong, well guarded effort made, to arouse the whole denomination, standing upon the threshold of its second century, to a fresh and new devotion to the universal ‘spreading of scriptural holiness over these lands.’”

The Rebellion not Suppressed.—Speaking of the unsettled state of the South and the release of Davis, a late N. Y. paper says:—

We have commented elsewhere on the surrender of Jefferson Davis by the military authorities, and his release on bail by Judge Underwood. We have made, as the chief objection to this foolish procedure, the unsettled condition of the Southern States, and the uncertain temper of the Southern people. Following the release of the arch-traitor, we have an assault upon Judge Kelley, of Philadelphia, for attempting the exercise of free speech in the city of Mobile. Shots were fired at the party occupying the platform. One white man and two negroes were killed, and the meeting was broken up. We say emphatically that rebellion is not suppressed until free speech is secured to loyal citizens in every nook and corner of the Southern States. We fought for this express end—that such men as Judge Kelley, Senator Wilson, and Frederick Douglass, too, if he is so minded, should have liberty to go South, and address, without molestation, as many as choose to hear them. And we trust that the people of the United States will not stay their hands till this consummation is reached. Our public men, as soon as they get out of sight of old precedents, seem to become bewildered; but, thank God, the sound common-sense of the American people has so far never entirely failed them.

The Freedmen.—In his speech at Charleston, Senator Wilson expressed the opinion that any persecution of the Freedmen of the South in consequence of their voting the Radical ticket, would be likely to incline him to support confiscation in the future. It would not have that effect upon Senator Wilson alone. The idea of punishing men because they do not vote as some particular class wants them to, especially when that particular class happens to be composed of rebels, can not be entertained for an instant. The colored people of the South must have absolute freedom of the ballot, and we greatly regret to observe that the failure of the Conservatives to cajole the colored electors into their support, has been succeeded by muttered threats of vengeance if the colored vote is cast against them. The rebel leaders at the South will add the cap sheaf to all their former folly since the close of the war, if they interfere with any colored elector of the South who votes as his convictions and interest dictate. Nothing would more certainly bring confiscation upon the South than such action.

Emigration.—The stimulus given to emigration from Ireland and Germany by the Fenian troubles and the continental wars and rumors of war, is very great, and we are just beginning to feel its effects. Never were the Irish here sending out for their relatives more freely than now. Three steamers with 2000 emigrants, mostly Irish, arrived at New York, Saturday. Nine steamers full of emigrants left Cork, Ireland, within a few days early in April. Bringing Irish and German to America for permanent residence, is proving a vastly more profitable season’s business for the steamers than carrying Americans over to see the Paris exhibition. America was never serving her mission as the refuge of the oppressed, and the hope of the dissatisfied, the world over, more fully than now. Our fame goes out to all the nations, and the wide arms of commerce gather in the overflow and outgo of all climes. It makes the head swim with wonder and doubt to observe the elements of growth and greatness gathering and developing here on this republican continent. Only a divine sight and faith can trace the future with comprehension and confidence. The world seems but just beginning to grow, and man to assert and wield his full powers.—Springfield Rep’t.