News and Notes by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 23, 1882

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 8, No. 12.

Read the full edition

News and Notes.

By Editor

—A Danish polar expedition has been arranged to start in July.

—A mail of about 2,000 letters was burned at Madison, Wis., March 17.

—The prohibitory liquor bill passed the Massachusetts House by a vote of 15 to 8.

—The accounts of the loss by the earthquake in Costa Rica were greatly exaggerated.

—A snow slide at Genoa, Nevada, covered twenty-two persons, eighteen of whom were killed.

—Santa Ana and Orange, Los Angeles, Co., have shipped nearly 15,000 boxes of oranges this year.

—It is reported that the Union Pacific Railroad will discharge 150 conductors for alleged misconduct in office.

—A bill to establish capital punishment was defeated by a close vote in the Legislature of Wisconsin, March 16.

—Three thousand miners in the coal regions of the Cumberland, in Maryland, went on a strike March 15.

—The fishing schooner Bellerophon and her crew, fourteen men, were lost off Gloucester, Mass., March 16.

Very heavy floods are reported in Brazil. News to March 2 state that the rain had been falling in torrents for six weeks.

—A theater in Marseilles, France, burned recently involving a loss of 1,000,000 francs. The actors escaped with difficulty.

—Postmaster-General Howe intends to shorten the mail service between New York and San Francisco by one day and a half.

—Dr. M. M. Gibson preached in San Francisco in favor of Sunday, taking for his text Isa. 58:13, 14. Rather inappropriate.

—The Anti-Chinese bill is not receiving that ready favor in the House of Representatives which it was supposed it would receive.

—The Alta says the Savings Banks of San Francisco contain $443,000,000. The deposits have increased $18,000,000 in one year.

—The "Pond's Extract" (patent medicine) Company's works, at Williamsburg, N. Y., burned March 17. Loss reported at $150,000.

—By a strike of the women and girls in the Pacific Mills, Lawrence, Mass., in consequence of a reduction of wages, 64,000 spindles were stopped.

—The Young Men's Hebrew Union of San Francisco has before it for discussion this question: Resolved, That the Sunday Law should be enforced.

—The Channel Tunnel has progressed 1,000 yards from the English shore, and the boring proceeds at the rate of nearly one hundred yards per week.

—Two men were recently lynched in Wasco Co., Oregon; one for the murder of two men, and the other for expressing satisfaction that it was done!

—Subscriptions are being taken for the support of the family of Sergeant Mason. He says he does not want a pardon from one who was made President by Guiteau!

—Senator Edmunds having continued to decline a position in the Supreme Court, Judge Blotchford of New York has been nominated and will doubtless be confirmed.

—The immigration into Oregon and Washington Territory by water is estimated at 20,000 per month, and the overland immigration into Eastern Oregon at 1,000 per month.

—From Lawrence, Mass., March 20: One thousand looms in the Upper Pacific Mill, and the entire Worsted Department were closed to-night, throwing 3000 persons out of employment.

—The small-pox is said to amount to a "terrible epidemic" in South Bethlehem, Northampton Co., Pa. Over one hundred cases were developed in a few days, and all business is suspended.

—The Olympia (W. T.) Transcript says that the lower Columbia will be the scene of great industry during the coming season. There are now thirty-nine salmon canneries on the river.

—It is now believed that De Long and his party died of starvation in Siberia. The North Pole will never prove of much practical benefit to people of this latitude. Better give up the search.

—It is useless to attempt to give any idea of the destitution and suffering and destruction of property by the floods in the lower Mississippi country. Nothing even approaching it in horrors has ever occurred before.

—News from Ogden, March 17, says: Nine polygamists of this city have resigned and it is said that the vacancies have been filled by others, who are not polygamists in practice.

—Fred Newburgh, late Clerk of the Board of Public Works in Ohio, who forged checks on the State Treasury to the amount of $20,000, with 52 indictments against him was convicted on one charge and sentenced to three years in the penitentiary.

—Dr. R. H. McDonald resigned the presidency of the Home Protection Association because the officers refused to circulate his (excellent) tracts against the "twin evils," whisky and tobacco. "Cause why?" The officers use tobacco. We side with the doctor.

—The stables at Fort Leavenworth, Kas., containing thirty-five horses of troops of Company G. Seventh Cavalry, and Company F. Second Battery, were burned March 15. All the horses perished in the flames, together with their saddles, harness, etc. Loss $8000.

—One hundred and thirty complaints against violators of the Sunday Law were made in Sacramento March 20. A jury trial will in all cases be demanded. Thirty-one complaints in San Jose. Eleven arrests in Los Angeles. In some places the law was not regarded at all.

—The late storm was attended with more thunder and lightning than we have known before in a residence of several years in California. All along the Coast Range, the thunder was in sharp explosive reports, followed with reverberations after the fashion of eastern storms.

—Accounts from Bodie, Cal., say that the late severe storm has occasioned many snow slides in that section. Several men were buried March 15, in Lake Canyon, Three bodies were recovered on Friday night, and left lying on the snow, when another slide buried them forty-five feet deep.

—The mail of four days came through on Sabbath, March 18; but the storm on the Sierras increased in violence, and the road was immediately blocked again. So far as eastern mail is concerned, California is not benefited by the construction of the Southern road, by which the through mail should come in the winter.

—The Fourteenth Street railroad stables, corner of Fourteenth and Peralta Streets, Oakland, were burned on the night of March 15. Twenty-seven horses were burned. The building was lost, with seventy-five tons of hay and feed, thirty-one sets of harness, and one car. Two men sleeping in the loft, narrowly escaped.

—Archbishop Alemany has purchased a lot on the corner of O'Farrell Street and Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, 384 by 120 feet, at a cost of $71,250, for the erection of a new Catholic Cathedral. The location of the present Cathedral on California Street is no longer desirable because of the rapid encroachments of Chinatown, and the extension of the city west and south.

—Dr. Beckwith of the Third Congregational Church in San Francisco, on Sunday, March 19, in a sermon on the Sabbath, said:—Having inherited the Sabbath from God, we have a right to it just as God made it. No man has a right to change its original character and restrict the use of it. Who has a right to change the Sabbath day from that which the Lord sanctified?

—588 complaints were entered against violators of the Sunday Law in San Francisco, on Monday, March 20. There are said to be about 4,000 places of business open on that day—perhaps over-rated. The Chief of Police, whose order was published last week, has expressed the opinion that, with the known difficulty of obtaining a jury, they may dispose of two cases a month in Court!

—The enemies of the Anti-Polygamy bill tried to defeat it, practically, by means of amendments. This caused the friends of the measure to push it through with all possible dispatch—too much, 'tis found to be defective, and further legislation will be needed. It is a good point gained, however, that our National Legislature has recorded its disapprobation of this disgrace to our country.

—A prominent broker in New York, a Spiritualist, was recently married by a spirit clergyman to a spirit bride, the woman having died some time before. The marriage was performed in order to legitimize their children. But whether such "materializations" would be recognized by the law is a question. We suggest for the benefit of Spiritualists that it would be better to marry sometime before death, and save that disgrace to their children.

—A dispatch from Truckee, March 20, says: "The great storm is over, and now a better opportunity is given to see its effects. The town of Truckee is literally buried in the snow, the smaller buildings being out of sight, so that a person can walk from the street directly on to the roofs of the houses, and the others are piled up almost even with the balconies of the buildings on Front street." On the western slope of the mountains it was still storming heavily at that date. The railroad officials say this is the severest storm they have ever had to contend with.

—The American ship Gatherer arrived at San Francisco on the night of March 14, and the captain was immediately arrested for cruel treatment of his men. According to the accounts the conduct of the captain and officers was brutal in the extreme. One of the sailors was driven to suicide to escape the harsh treatment. As several of the abused men were foreigners, the foreign Consuls are taking steps to secure the punishment of the accused. If one-half of the accounts are true they deserve as severe a punishment as the law will accord to them. Tyranny on the seas is too common, and offenders need to be taught that the law reaches them.

—A boiler in Goodwin Bros.' shoe factory in Lynn, Mass., exploded March 15, leveling the building and killing several men. The Fire Department was quickly called out and immediately went to work to remove the debris. From the end of the building near Exchange Street one poor fellow, badly mangled, was taken out. His first words were: "There are more in there." Soon after the dead body of John Moore, an engineer, terribly crushed, was recovered. Half an hour after, another body was taken out. Four men who usually came to work at six o'clock every morning are missing. Almost every house within 500 feet of the place was damaged.

—A terrific tornado passed over San Mateo, Cal., March 15, 8.30 A. M. The course of the tornado was from south to north. It first struck the residence of John Parrott, moving his hothouse about two feet on its foundation. It next struck the Episcopal Church, taking off about one-fourth of its roof. It took in its course trees and fences for the space of about 100 yards wide, crushing and twisting them in a fearful manner. No lives were lost. Fifty feet of the roof of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church at San Mateo were blown off. A furious gale prevailed for several hours throughout this county, accompanied with loud thunder and heavy rain. Several buildings were blown down at the residence of Wm. Douglass.