Untitled article | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, October 29, 1867

News and Miscellany.

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

—The coming winter is likely to be a very hard season in England in many ways. The revenue in the last quarter has fallen off in certain items which show that poverty is pinching large numbers of the working classes. Well it may, for not only are there 30,000 men without work or hope of work in East London, but the ship-yards of the Tyne and Clyde are silent. What with suspensions of work and strikes there must be 100,000 workers idle, and this means ten times that number pinched and suffering.

—A dispatch from San Francisco states that the king of the Feejee islands has ceded to the United States three small islands in a group, one of which possesses a fine harbor, capable of being converted into a naval station. There have recently been troubles in these islands between the natives and American residents, and the United States steamship, Tuscarora, has been cruising in these regions to investigate the troubles. Whether the cession of three islands was intended as an atonement for any wrong done to Americans, or whether it was made in consequence of direct solicitation from Washington, is not stated. The king even offered the protectorate of all his dominions to the United States, but Capt. Stanly declined accepting it, believing that he did not possess sufficient authority. Whether he did accept the cession of the three islands, the dispatch does not say. The Feejee Islands are a group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean, east of the New Hebrides. The entire group comprises altogether 154 islands, of which 65 are inhabited. The total population is estimated at 133,000. The people are ruled by chiefs, to whom great deference is paid, and who in turn, appear to acknowledge the supremacy of the Chief of Ambow, who has assumed the title of the king of the Feejeeans. Vegetation is exceedingly rapid, and the climate is agreeable and healthy. The inhabitants were formerly a barbarous and savage race, but of late Wesleyan missionaries have made great progress among them.

Impeachment.—The Sub Committee of the Judiciary met to-day, and made preparation to take evidence concerning Maryland affairs. Nothing was done at the session to-day, other than to discuss the general question of impeachment and the bearing of the late elections upon it. Those members who have been for impeachment are firm in their convictions that the case against the President is a very strong one, and that the movement will not be regarded in any sense as a partisan movement when the facts are made known. They think that the whole history of impeachment trials in foreign countries and our own will not show another as clear a criminal as this. In addition to the evidence ready to present to the House on the last day of the summer session, the committee now have in their possession original official papers which it is confidently asserted, bring the President clearly within the strictest construction of the constitutional phrase, “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The evidence is all printed and locked up in a burglar proof safe at the Government Printing Office, and the superintendent is now printing the various documents and extracts from the reports and evidence of the other committees, which will be presented with this case.

Sunday Laws at the Polls.—It is said that the German population in California went en masse for the Democratic ticket, with the understanding that the new Legislature will repeal the Sunday laws. It is also said, that in New York the Germans have proclaimed that they will ignore politics, and vote for no candidate who does not pledge himself to oppose the Sunday laws. Referring to the latter fact, the New York Observer says:

“This will bring the question directly to an issue before the people. It suggests the duty to all political parties to put up only good men for office, on whom all the friends of the Sabbath may unite. It will cost a great struggle to maintain the rights of the community to their day of rest, but the end is worth the struggle. When a German holiday takes the place of the Christian Sabbath in New York, the work of demoralization will go on much more rapidly than even now. But it shall not, until a battle has been fought, compared with which all former moral contests in this country have been child's play.”—Sabbath Recorder.