ITEMS OF NEWS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 21, 1881

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 7, No. 27.

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ITEMS OF NEWS.

-Four comets have been discovered since the first of May.

-There were 1,021 patients in the Napa Insane Hospital at the beginning of July.

-Nashville, Mich., has shipped 63,000 pounds of maple sugar of this season's make.

-The United States sold goods to Great Britain last year to the amount of $500,000,000.

-John A. Appleton, the noted publisher of the firm of D. Appleton & Co., died, July 12.

-The aggregate number of live stock in the United States is set down at 82,000,000 head.

-The Sultan has decided to commute the death sentences of the murderers of Abdul Aziz.

-During the week ending July 8, there were twenty-three deaths from yellow fever in Havana.

-Propositions are being considered for a general thanksgiving if President Garfield recovers.

-Accounts received from Spitzbergen say the Arctic winter is excessively severe, the ice not yet breaking up.

-The steamer Oceanic from Hongkong, arrived in San Francisco the 12th inst., with 1007 Chinese passengers.

-A dispatch from Tunis says an insurrection threatens the regency unless it is put down with a strong hand.

-The Chinese educational mission, established in Hartford in 1872, has been recalled. The reason is unknown.

-The Jewish inhabitants of Nave Tiherkask, on the river Don, have been ordered to quit the town by the 1st of September.

-It is reported that some pious women of a town in Iowa chased a book agent out of town, because he had for sale the Revised New Testament.

-Twenty-two Socialists have been banished from Leipsic. The Socialist printing-house in Dresden has been closed and the employes arrested.

-The Andover bridge, over the Merrimac River, near Lawrance, Mass., was burned July 17. Loss, nearly $30,000. The bridge was built in 1793.

-It is asserted by hatters that the size of the human head in England and Scotland has been gradually diminishing during the last quarter of a century.

-A recent fire in the gang saw-mill of the Sherman Lumber Company at Potsdam, N. Y., resulted in the loss of 2,000,000 feet of lumber and eighteen horses.

-The Secretary of the Iowa State Board of Agriculture states that there will be a shortage of 7,000,000 bushels of corn, wheat, and oats in the Iowa crop this season.

-In the seven days from July 10 to July 16 inclusive, the deaths in Cincinnati from sunstroke were 264, and from excessive heat 150, making 414 deaths from the heat.

-Sunday afternoon, July 17, the Washington-Hall block in East Oakland, containing two stores, several dwellings, stables, etc., was burned to the ground. Loss $50,000.

-Warner Miller has been elected by the New York Legislature to fill the vacancy in Congress caused by the resignation of Senator Platt. Conkling's successor has not yet been elected.

-Terrible destitution is reported to exist in northern China. Parents are selling their children for trifling amounts, to keep them from starving, and to provide a little food for themselves.

-The Pennsylvania Railroad Company, with a view to relieve the barrenness of the railway stations, have recently purchased 50,000 plants to use in flower beds at every station along the line.

-A St. Petersburg dispatch says it is believed that the Czar will commute the sentence of Hessy Helfman, the woman condemned to death for complicity in the murder of his father, the late Czar.

-The tunnel on the Cincinnati Northern Railroad under Crown street, on Walnut hills, about two miles from the central part of Cincinnati, fell in on the night of the 13th on a party of thirty workmen.

-A most terrific cyclone visited New Ulm, Minn., July 15. The whole town, containing 3,500 inhabitants was laid in ruins. Many were killed and more wounded. The State is assisting the sufferers.

-It is reported that in some Russian districts, the peasants have offered to pay for the damage done to the property of the Jews. In some districts the perpetrators of the cruelty have been severely punished.

-In the investigation of the California state prison at San Quentin, it was found that land which was assessed at $20 per acre was bought by the prison authorities for $300 per acre. Crookedness somewhere.

-July 16, the train on the C. R. I. and P. railroad, was boarded by a gang of men, near Winston, Mo., who shot the conductor and another man, knocked down the express agent, and rifled the express and mail packages.

-Work on the Hudson River tunnel is progressing at the rate of five feet daily. The tunnel now extends 300 feet under the river from the Jersey shore. Its entire length will be 5,400 feet, and the company expect to have it completed in about three years.

-Great excitement is caused on the Hawaiian Islands by the new eruption of Mauna Loa. Latest accounts state that a stream of lava from 50 to 200 feet wide is consuming everything in its way. The town of Hilo was directly in its track and in imminent danger of destruction.

-The London Economist estimates the average immigrant in capital or capital-producing force at $1000—an estimate that agrees with the opinions of political economists generally. Looked at in this light, the United States is being enriched at present to the amount of $4,000,000 to $5,000,000 daily.

-Five men recently rode quietly into Riverton, Ia., and made their way to the bank of Davis & Sons. While one of the party engaged the attention of the cashier, the others leaped over the counter, took $4000, and invited the crowd to follow as they rode away. A large company immediately started in pursuit.

-The Siberian plague has made its appearance in the environs of the St. Petersburg and is spreading with alarming rapidity. Horses are dying by the scores and many persons are afflicted. The local authorities are helpless, owing to want of efficient doctors, and the fact that the peasants sell the skins of beasts which have died of the disease.

-A New York paper states that above $30,000 were spent at the recent shooting-match at Coney Island. The "tournament" consisted in slaughtering sixteen thousand immature pigeons that had been closely confined for weeks with insufficient food and water. This is called "sport," in this Christian land. If it occurred in China or India it would be considered barbarous cruelty.

-A dispatch from Des Moines, Iowa, July 13, says: "The Raccoon river continues to rise. South Des Moines is under water and sixty families are driven out of their homes. The track of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad has succumbed, and Des Moines is now out of connection with the east part. It is the heaviest rain-storm in the history of this section."

-Bradlaugh has served formal notice upon the speaker and other officers in the House of Commons, protesting against his previous expulsion from the House as illegal, and giving notice that before the 3d of August, he will present himself, and that any one endeavoring to prevent him will be committing an illegal act, and he will resist physical force and endeavor to overcome it if offered.

-A dispatch from Marshalltown, Iowa, says the floods there have never been equaled. The water was four feet high on the car tracks. Immense damage is done to the railroad and other property, amounting to $200,000 and upward in the city alone; besides this, much damage is done to crops in the surrounding country. A later dispatch says: "The country hereabouts is afloat, and the damage cannot be even estimated."

-The Sydney (Australia) Herald states that in a fortnight over 2000 Chinese have arrived at that port, and that they described themselves as but pioneers of an immense body of emigrants who were en route from Hongkong. Both the pioneers and the main body were of the poorer class, who had scraped together £8 for their passage and landed penniless. Their reception was very cool, especially by the rich Chinese merchants there, who will be obliged to support them till work can be found for them. These merchants say that over 20,000 Chinamen will pour in on them before the year is out.

-Well-informed correspondents at St. Petersburg state that Russia is fast drifting into anarchy. The Czar still keeps himself a close prisoner at Peterhof. Occasionally, when business of State requires his presence at the Capital, he leaves his fortress, enters St. Petersburg almost by stealth, and returns as quickly as possible. The new ministry is crushing out, in the most autocratic manner, the demands for a representative government. The officials, from the highest to the lowest, are sunk in corruption. The priests of the orthodox church are not much better, and militiaism has reached a pitch of arrogance and insolence unknown in the worst days of the Romanoff. The Nihilists recently told the Czar that there was no longer occasion for the use of dynamite, as the whole fabric of the Empire was about to explode.