ITEMS OF NEWS by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 8, 1881

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 7, No. 46.

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ITEMS OF NEWS.

By Editor

—Three hundred persons died of cholera at Mecca, in one day last month.

—An attempt was made recently to murder Manuel Lerdo, the Governor of Mexico.

—The library of Harvard College has received gifts amounting to $135,000 since 1870.

—Ex-president Tappan, of the Michigan University, died recently in Switzerland, aged seventy-seven years.

—The Crescent City Railroad stables in New Orleans were burned recently. Fifty horses perished. Loss $30,000.

—At Winterset, Iowa, Dec. 2, three girls aged 9, 12, and 17 years, who were sleeping in an upper room, were burned to death.

—The Cashier of the Bank of Prince Edward Island, has absconded with over $800,000 of the Bank funds, and the Bank has suspended in consequence.

—The officers at Prescott, Ontario, have made an extensive seizure of American coal oil, which has been smuggled into Canada during the past few days.

—An attempt was made on the 3rd inst., to blow up the Montreal City Court House. A clock-work machine was used, which contained ten pounds of dynamite.

—November 29, two propellers on Lake Michigan, the Lake Erie and the Northern Queen, came into collision near Green Bay, and both sank. The crews escaped.

—On the thirty-fifth anniversary of Dr. R. S. Storrs' settlement as pastor of the church of the Pilgrims, Brooklyn, N. Y., the members of the church presented him with $35,000.

—A party of five men who left Ophir, Col., to walk to Silverton, several days ago have not been heard from since, and it is believed that they perished in the snow, which is very deep.

—A special engine with caboose, came into collision with a passenger train on the New York and New England road, near Thompson, Conn., Dec. 3. About a dozen persons were injured.

—At Virginia City, Nevada, workmen in the bottom of a mine drilled into an unexploded cartridge of giant powder. The cartridge exploded, and several men were terribly mangled.

—A fire November 29, destroyed the entire business portion of Augusta, Ark. Loss about $200,000. On the same night the Court House at Decatur, Texas, was burned. Loss about $150,000.

—Last week a man at Port Costa, Cal., after drinking freely, went to his cabin to sleep, leaving, as is supposed, his candle or pipe burning, and as a consequence was burned up with his house.

—Four large flouring mills, and one cotton mill, were burned at Minneapolis, Minn., on the night of the 4th. Total loss, over half a million dollars. Four men were killed, and several severely injured.

—The works of the American Rubber Company, at East Cambridge, Mass., were burned on the 28th ult. Loss about half a million. The works consisted of five large buildings, and 600 hands were employed.

—The barns of Maxwell Bros., near Geneva, N. Y. were burned Nov. 30, and fifty Holstein cattle, five horses, fifty hogs, and a large quantity of hay, etc., were destroyed. Loss $50,000; cause, incendiary.

—A novelty in the line of chicken stealing has been recently introduced in San Francisco. While the attention of a family was attracted by an accordeon in front of the house, a party relieved the hennery of two dozen fine chickens.

—J. W. Stevens who was found guilty of robbing the mail of three registered letters at Caliente, Kern Co., Cal., was sentenced to one year in the State prison, at hard labor. The sentence was made light in consideration of his age.

—November 29, ten freight cars were thrown over the embankment near Cape Horn, on the Central Pacific. Seven cars containing cattle, fell a distance of 200 feet. Fifty head of cattle were killed, and the rest escaped into the woods.

—A brakeman on the Central Pacific Railroad, was crushed to death by a freight train, at West Berkeley, Cal., Dec. 4. He was running to open a switch, when his foot got caught, and before he could extricate himself, the train passed over him.

—The Arabic language is the spoken tongue of 60,000,000, and the sacred language of 120,000,000 of Moslems. The entire Bible has been translated into it, and is now issued in many editions, either complete or in parts. An edition of the same in raised Arabic characters is also issued for the blind.

—It is impossible to estimate the damage done by the gales on the British coast, and they still continue. Along the western islands and on the west coast of Inverness, Ross, and Sutherland, over three hundred fishing boats were destroyed by the late gales, and the nets and fishermen washed away.

—The Methodist Judicial Conference at Terre Haute, Dec. 1, refused to entertain the appeal of Dr. H. A. Thomas, on the ground that Thomas had gone out of the church since his trial, and the church had no jurisdiction in any case except those of the members. This settles his case so far as the Methodist church is concerned.

—Outrages seem to be on the increase in Ireland. The landlords suffer persecution, and those tenants who will pay their rents are liable to be killed, and have their property destroyed. One farmer had an entire flock of sheep battered to death. All parties are stubborn. One thousand tenants in Roscommon refuse to pay rent. They declare that they will not apply to the land court.

—A daring thief, on the 3d inst., captured a box from the Commercial National bank, Cleveland, containing $117,000 in bonds, from which the president of the bank had just cut the coupons. The man had been sitting in the office, and when the cutting was finished, and the bonds replaced in the box, he quickly took the box from the table, and disappeared being gone half an hour before the bonds were missed.

—Thurlow Weed says: "Neither George Law, Dean Richmond, nor Commodore Vanderbilt could have passed a competitive examination for the berth of night-watchman in the Custom House, or letter carrier in the Post-office." He has preserved letters from all three, in which not a single word of three syllables is spelled correctly. Still it is not necessary to the acquirement of wealth that one should be a poor speller.

—Quite recently a babe two months old died in Oakland from the effects of an overdose of "Pulmonary Cough Syrup," administered by its mother. The cause of death was the opium which the medicine contained. The amount of opium taken was about fifteen times what is considered a dose. There is always danger in using patent medicines, for it is impossible to tell how much material of a poisonous nature they may contain.

—John Hilliard, president of the Mechanics' and Laborers' Bank, at Jersey City, which suspended in 1878, has been convicted of conspiracy to defraud, and sentenced to eighteen months in the State prison. The cashier of a Caldwell, Kansas, Bank, that had received deposits until the hour of suspension, was for several days in the hands of a mob, who were determined to kill him unless their money was returned. Altogether the way of the Bank defaulter does not promise to be an easy one.

—Recently a stage robber was arrested in Colorado, and sentenced to the Detroit House of Correction for life. On the way, the convict picked the lock of his hand-cuffs, and struck the Marshal over the head, knocking him down, and then seized his revolver and tried to shoot him. Although there were seventeen men in the car, none came to the Marshal's assistance, and he would have been overpowered, had not a woman seized the ruffian around the neck from behind, and thus enabled the Marshal to secure control of his prisoner.

—A large school of whales was recently encountered by the steamship Newport, off the capes of Delaware, on a trip from New York to Havana. The school was about twenty miles in length, by a quarter of a mile in width. Suddenly the ship shook from stem to stern, as she struck a monster sixty feet long, and cut him in two. The ship came to a stop, and it was found that her steering gear was slightly damaged. Soon another shock was felt, which almost threw the passengers from their feet. Another whale had been cut in two. The engineer rushed to the deck, thinking the ship had struck a submerged wreck. The course of the steamer had to be changed in order to proceed.

—The New York Herald says: That there are paying gold and silver mines in the United States; and that some large fortunes have been earned from them is beyond denial; but taking the mines and miners in the aggregate, what business shows so small results in proportion to the number of persons engaged and the amount of capital invested? In three States and as many Territories the production of the precious metals is the principal object of the people, and yet the total annual yield is less than $80,000,000. This should not discourage legitimate, intelligent mining operators, but it certainly indicates that most men lose their heads when they begin to search for gold and silver.