News and Miscellany

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 18, 1867

News and Miscellany.

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

The release of Jeff. Davis has been followed by that of Joel Lindsley, the New York clergyman who beat his little boy to death because he wouldn't say his prayers. As both claim to be very pious, and it would be hard to tell which is really the more loathsome criminal, if one had his liberty the other ought to have his. Lindsley's punishment is the payment of the enormous fine of $250! This infamous leniency is a disgrace to the whole New York bench.—Chicago Journal.

—A former slave of the Davis family holds the valuable plantations of Jeff and Joe in Mississippi, having purchased them of the government for $400,000, on easy payment, no doubt; and he is said to be a skillful manager and will make $80,000 a year profit.

—There is now in bond in the first district of Cincinnati 5,838,120 gallons of whisky equal to 85,000 barrels, the tax on which, if it could be collected, which it cannot, would be $7,676,240.03. There are five barrels of whisky in store in this district to one of flour.

—A letter in the N. Y. Independent of June 13, from Moses Coit Tyler, now residing in London, states it to be a fact generally known and admitted by the higher classes of London, especially by those best acquainted with royal affairs, that Queen Victoria is a woman of dissolute habits, a drinker of brandy, and a spirit medium.

—A convention of Jews has been in session at Philadelphia, nearly every synagogue in the United States being represented. It was resolved to co-operate in the removal of the Jews of the Turkish provinces and the Barbary states to Palestine, and to encourage the development of agriculture and the arts there. A paper read by Rev. Mr. Leeser claimed that the Falashas tribes of Abyssinia, and the people of the interior of China, are the lineal descendants of the lost tribes. Their manners, customs, and forms of prayer, show this to be the case. As efforts are making to convert them to Christianity, a messenger is about to be sent out by the Universal Israelitish Alliance of Paris to counteract the movement.

A New Gun.—A French paper tells us, with provoking caution and reserve, that modern gunnery has been enriched by a most destructive little copper cannon. The inventor is said to be an artillery captain, attached to the little armory which Napoleon started a year ago at St. Cloud. The new fire-arm is in three pieces. It is loaded with musket balls. Its range is between one thousand eight hundred and two thousand metres. By means of a very ingenious tourniquet, it can be discharged forty and even fifty times a minute. A cannon of this kind can be served by five men. Some experiments have been made in the ditches of the fortifications with the most astounding results. Artillery officers who were present say that this little piece will mow down the front rank of a battalion of infantry at a single discharge. During these experiments the cannon used was covered with a heavy curtain of cloth, so that nothing of it could be seen except its wonderful power.

How to Get up Early.—Place a basin of cold water by the side of your bed; and when you first wake in the morning, dip your hands in it and wet your brow, and sleep will not again seal you in its treacherous embrace. This is the advice given by an aged man, who had been in the habit of rising early during a long life. By attending to this advice, you may learn to rise every morning at five o'clock. The editor has found it a better plan to go to bed at one regular hour; leave your bed the moment you awake of yourself, after daylight; nature will thus regulate the sleep to the exact amount required by the system.—Hull's Journal of Health.

Critic on Women.—Ruskin abates not a jot of his sharp, biting, sarcastic style in his new essays. This hit from one of them is exceedingly pungent: You women of England are now all shrieking with one voice, you and your clergymen—because you hear of your Bibles being attacked. If you choose to obey your Bibles, you will never care who attacks them. It is just because you never fulfill a single, downright, precept of the book that you are so careful of its credit. The Bible tells you to dress plainly, and you are mad for finery; the Bible tells you to have pity on the poor, and you crush them under your carriage wheels; the Bible tells you to do judgment and justice, and you do not know nor care to know so much as what the Bible word justice means.

Tickets of the Pastor.—The following notice lately appeared in a paper in this State. In what kind of pastures are the shepherds leading their flocks?

A tea meeting will be held on Thursday, the 20 inst. Tickets $1.00, children half price. Ice cream, extra. Tickets can be had at 66 Washington Street and of the Pastor, W. D. Skelton.

The Clergy handsomely Rebuked.—At a certain Philadelphia conference, at Harrisburg, scarcely had the opening services concluded, before a lad of fourteen years and a girl of the same age, passed up and down the aisles, putting into the hands of the preachers the following circular:

DEAR PASTORS: Allow us to inform you that we have a Eureka Band of Hope connected with this church. We are only young girls and boys. We are pledged to abstain from the use of tobacco. Will you please set us a good example? Don't use tobacco in or about the church during the Conference.

The Indians.—A white boy who has been a captive among the Cheyenne Indians since 1865, has reached Denver and reports that the savages contemplate a general and simultaneous attack all along the Platte river early in June. The American express company has ordered its employees on the Smoky Hill route to shoot every Indian that comes in sight, and it is thus evident that both whites and Indians are preparing for war to the knife. Gen. Meagher has raised 1000 men to take the field against the hostile savages in Montana. In Dacotah no new outrages have been committed since the opening of navigation on the upper Missouri river.

Paper Boats.—It begins to be evident that paper has been put to but few of the uses of which it is capable. The principal demand may continue to be for printing, writing, wrapping and paper collars, but experiments now in progress show that paper makers will soon find extensive use for their product outside of these present principal sources of consumption. It has already been found that paper can be used advantageously for water-pipes and tanks, and in the construction of frost-proof buildings; it is almost certain that it can be made to take the place of leather for machinery belting, and George A. Waters of Troy, N. Y., has demonstrated that paper makes the best material for shell boats, by constructing one thirty feet long, which weighs only forty pounds, and is in every respect superior to boats made of wood.

Religious Items.—The Swedenborgians have established a theological school at Waltham, Mass. The number of weekly publications belonging to the Methodist church in this country is 57. An effort is making to endow a professorship in St. Lawrence University, the only Universalist college in New York. The American Chapel at Rome is still open and services are held every Sunday. Over 250 persons worship there. A remarkable desire to read the Bible has shown itself in France, which is said to be due to the sensation produced by the works of Renan. The number of Bibles sold in France last year was 66,873.

Southern Political Prospects.—A competent friend has made a careful computation by which it appears that of the million of white males over twenty-one in the military districts about three hundred thousand will be disfranchised, leaving about seven hundred thousand white and as many colored voters. It is this which makes the great importance of the colored vote, and each party will spare no effort to secure it. We have little doubt that the new voters will unite with their old and not with their new friends. There is a great deal of human nature in man, and those who made war to enslave their colored fellow-citizens hope-lessly and forever will need all their eloquence to prove to those fellow-citizens that they have always been the best friends to the colored man. The colored man understood the war and he has not lost his wits since it ended. There will be remote districts in which by various persuasions a part of the new vote will be cast against the Republican party; but a general and hearty union of the truly loyal white and colored vote against the party which still reveres “the lost cause,” will reorganize the States upon the best basis. In this union we count many who were sincere secessionists.

It is not impossible that where this union is strong enough to control the conventions it may propose a much more stringent disfranchisement than that of the military bill. But we trust that our friends will see that where they have the power such a disfranchisement is unnecessary, and where they have not the power it would not, of course, be ratified by the voters. Meanwhile the tendency of the new vote will be indicated by the election in Washington, where the white registry is only eleven hundred more than the colored. The whole vote is more than seventeen thousand, nearly three times as many as have ever voted before.—Harper's Weekly.

Austria and Hungary.—Dispatch by the cable. Pesth, June 8. The Emperor and Empress of Austria were to-day crowned king and queen of Hungary. The city was crowded with visitors from all parts of the world, and was splendidly decorated. Ambassadors of all nations having diplomatic relations with Austria, except the United States, were present. The coronation took place at Ofen (or Buda), across the Danube, and the concluding rites were held in this city. The coronation was witnessed by 8,000 Hungarian and Austrian nobles, 60 peers, 100 diplomats, and 1,000 strangers. Bishops of the Roman Catholic and of the Greek Churches assisted at the ceremony. The display was gorgeous. The Emperor was anointed in the ancient robes, crown, mantle, and shoes of St. Stephen, the first Christian king of Hungary. The Empress was anointed under the right armpit. A special mass, composed by Liszt, was sung by the Imperial choir from Vienna. After the coronation, the king knighted several Hungarians, and then rode in person to Pesth, where he took the coronation oath, in which he promised to reconquer the ancient limits of Hungary. The coronation ceremonies closed by the king riding up a mound of earth, formed of soil brought from the different departments of Hungary, and waving his sword successively toward the four points of the compass, at the same time swearing that he would defend the kingdom against the world. There was immense cheering during the rites. There is a grand illumination and a banquet to-night. At the banquet the peers act as servants. The Hungarian Diet voted 100,000 ducats as a present to the king and queen. There were ten Archdukes present, together with the Austrian Prime Minister, Von Beust. Mr. Deak was absent. Mr. Andrassy crowned the king and queen. A general amnesty for political offenses was proclaimed.