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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, February 18, 1868

FromReview and Herald, Vol. XXXI, No. 10

News and Miscellany.

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

The Days of Famine.—From Sweden, Finland, Northern and Eastern Russia, Eastern Prussia, Tunis, and Algeria, we have accounts of the people perishing for want of food. In some parts of France and Spain the scarcity is also great. In Tunis, so many are the deaths that burials are made in trenches, as after a battle, or during the night of a malignant pestilence. In the colder regions, bark and buds of trees, in the warmer, blossoms and tender vegetation, are consumed for food. In England the destitution is greater than has been known for many years. The London Star says: “Men and women die in the streets every day of starvation. One is afraid not to relieve the professional beggar, knowing that yesterday one who looked like him lay down in his rags on the spot where you are now solicited, and died of sheer starvation. Whole districts are sinking into one vast, squalid, awful condition of helpless, hopeless destitution.” This has more particular application to the East End of London; but the distress in many country places is extreme.

China.—LONDON, Feb. 10. Despatches from China, and news to the latest dates received, state that United States Minister Burlingame had left Pekin on his mission for the Emperor of China and arrived at Shanghai, from which place he was to proceed direct to the United States.

An earthquake has been felt at Shanghai and Ningpoo, and surrounding districts, but no destruction of property or loss of life is reported. The oscillation was not violent, but unusual. The occurrence caused great consternation among the Chinese, and whenever the phenomena was felt the wildest panic prevailed.

Intelligence in regard to the rebellion in North China is not very definite. The Imperialists report that a battle has taken place since the conflict at Shinting, and claim that the rebels were defeated in all these encounters, and that the Imperial arms are rapidly gaining the ground they had lost.

California.—The winter of 1867-8 has been one of the most severe ever experienced in California, and by far the roughest since that of 1861-2, when all the valley country was desolated by floods. This season the levees of Sacramento have stood the test, and that sadly afflicted city has not been deluged, but the entire valley country, from one end of the State to the other, has been flooded, and the loss is immense. In Yolo County, opposite Sacramento, orchards, worth as high as $50,000 or $75,000 each, have been utterly ruined by the floods, which have swept over them and covered them with wood, clay and coarse gravel, washed down from the mountains. In early times the rivers carried off the floods of the rainy season, or, if an overflow took place, it benefited rather than injured the rich alluvial bottom lands. But since the vast mining enterprises of the State have been in operation, the foot-hills all along the Sierra Nevada have been gradually washed down into the gulches and carried bodily by the winter floods down into the rivers, the beds of which have been filled up to such an extent that they can no longer carry off the surplus waters which now periodically inundate the country, and leave such deposits behind them as ruin the finest farming lands over which they pass. It was proposed at first to construct levees along the rivers to keep in the floods as they do in Louisiana, but this was soon found to be impracticable. Then side ditches and canals were suggested, and these, too, ultimately were found inadequate. Now it is recommended by the best authorities on the subject that the floods be allowed to take their course unopposed, and that the farmers or ranchmen along the bottom lands simply build embankments high enough to be above the water at its highest point, and construct thereon their houses and barns. By this means the valleys can still be cultivated, though the farmers must live on little islands for a month or two each season, and do their visiting in boats. Since the floods have proved so disastrous in the low lands it has been discovered that the hillsides and mountains even are better for fruit growing, and even for cultivating grain and vegetables than the valleys, and all attention is being turned toward them. The wine produced at the vineyards on the mountains is found to be far superior to that of the valleys, and to the hills we may look hereafter for our raisins, figs, apricots, peaches, pears, plums, nectarines, apples, and even breadstuffs.

A writer in the Chicago Tribune, speaking of the wide-spread famine in the old world, and its probable effect upon this country, says:—

Some well-read thinkers here fear that the “hard times” are just beginning. The year preceding a Presidential election is usually one of great commercial depression. But this is not all. From every part of the Old World—from the tropical countries of Africa, as well as from the northern climes of Sweden and Finland—come the cries of famine-stricken multitudes; and many there be who fear that the world is again to experience the horrors of one of the same kind of wide-spread famines that desolated it so awfully in the middle ages; and they fear that the “hard times” of 1868 are but the first indications of such a calamity in this country.

The Queen Consulting the Spirits.—A London letter says: I hear from a reliable source that Queen Victoria has been to see the Davenport Brothers, and has imported a trial of their spiritual, dark lantern jugglery game at Windsor Castle. She has gone quite daft with spiritualism, and these impostors have promised to bring back Prince Albert to this world for an hour, in the very room where he died. They have promised, moreover, I am told, to not only allow the Queen to have conversation with him, but to actually touch him. As their performances are conducted in the dark, they will no doubt succeed in carrying out the delusion. Pray, what are the guardians of the poor Queen about to permit such a criminal imposture to be practised on one who is already far on the road to lunacy? Such an arrant imposture is a melancholy exhibition of human weakness and folly.

Novel Church Socials.—The Corunna American chronicles the fact that “a mush-and-milk” social was held in that village last week for the benefit of one of the churches, and says that it was an amusing affair and enjoyed with zest.

—The young people of the First Baptist Church of Terre Haute, Indiana, have lately turned their church “sociable” into a masquerade. The local newspaper reports: “Thursday evening last was held the church social, and thirty or forty couples assembled at the parsonage, dressed in every variety of fancy and fantastic costumes, and all masked. When all were congregated, the gentlemen and ladies, in pairs, went over to the residence of Dr. Mahan, where after the usual exercises of social gatherings, at about 10 o’clock, masks were removed and not a few were taken aback when they ascertained whom they had been doing the agreeable to during the evening, and many amusing and ludicrous situations were developed.” It is not supposed that the example will be very widely followed by their co-religionists.