p. 95 | ITEMS OF NEWS

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 24, 1881

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 7, No. 8.

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ITEMS OF NEWS

—Eleven Christians were killed, the 16th, by the Turks.

—Two families have been poisoned at Rondout, N. Y., by bad pork.

—Small-pox has closed the State Normal School at Trenton, New Jersey.

—The head-quarters of the Irish Land League has been removed to Paris.

—The grounding of a steamer in the Suez Canal has stopped all traffic there.

—The Kurds are collecting a considerable force for another invasion of Persia.

—A genuine storm of thunder and lightning visited Oakland last week Tuesday.

—The tunnel under the Hudson river is advancing at the rate of five feet a day.

—A saloon-keeper in Rockford, Ill., has recently been fined $200 for violation of law.

—An electric light company has been organized at Detroit, with a capital of $500,000.

—The Czar is sending Aids-de-Camp to distribute money in the famine-stricken villages.

—The Internal Revenue raiders of Nashville, Tennessee, have destroyed three distilleries.

—The greatest destitution prevails in Yorkshire, England, on account of the strike of colliers.

—John W. Young, son of Brigham, was arrested in Denver, Col., the 15th, on a charge of bigamy.

—The rainfall for the season in Sacramento has been 22.02 inches; to the same date in 1880, 8.08 inches.

—Two Alpine avalanches have entirely swept away the village of Breven, Switzerland. Fifteen persons killed.

—While Parnell was in Paris, all communication between him and his English friends was carried on by couriers.

—The small-pox is reported as epidemic in Honolulu. Up to Feb. 10, forty cases and three deaths occurred.

—The Universalist churches in this country have increased from 656 to 739 since 1877, and the membership from 32,947 to 38,048.

—The trial of I. M. Kalloch, for murder of Chas. De Young, has begun in the Superior Court, the jurors having at last been obtained.

—The Reichstag at Berlin was opened last Tuesday with a speech from the throne by Emperor William. Von Gossler is elected President.

—Ice in the bays and harbors about Long Island is reported twenty inches thick, and still doing much damage to wharves and shipping.

—A three days' imprisonment, and a fine of $5.75, is the sentence just pronounced upon a man in Mexico for cutting timber on public lands.

—The "Chicago Sabbath Association" has publicly announced its intention to enforce in that city the Sunday observance laws of the State.

—In Cincinnati it has been found necessary to suppress by special ordinance the indecent and immoral plays which have long disgraced that city.

—Joseph Cook, it is reported, proposes to proceed on a mission to the Hindoos, to counteract the views of Theodore Parker, which have been propagated there.

—Notwithstanding the distress of that country, the Roman Catholic bishops of Ireland, in a recent audience with the Pope, presented him with a purse of over $40,000.

—Over three hundred people annually commit suicide in Berlin, and in Prussia the number is rapidly increasing. Another proof of the work infidelity does for mankind.

—Congress proposes to devote a little over ten millions to the improvement of rivers and harbors in the United States. This may seem like a large sum, but this is a large country.

—The Franklin Beet Sugar Factory, Franklin, Mass., uses about one hundred tons of beets per day in making sugar. The factory covers nearly two acres. The beets yield ten per cent of sugar.

—The negro laborers in the Virginia tobacco belt are forming a league, which prohibits the members from hiring to white planters, the object being to force the land-owners to work tracts on shares.

—30,400 signatures were obtained to the petition asking the President to pardon the Mussel Slough settlers recently convicted in the U. S. District Court. The petition has been sent to Washington.

—Governor Murray, of Utah, has been paying General Garfield a visit at Mentor, and claims to have evidence that the Mormon question will have early and vigorous treatment by the next President.

—It is stated that Victor Hugo is presently to issue a manifesto favoring Home Rule, much to the indignation of his friends, who claim that Parnell "has taken undue advantage of the old man's political dotage."

—Seventy-five boys connected with the Massachusetts State Reform School at Westborough, objected to being reformed any more last week, and skedaddled. But fifteen of them were captured. So says a New York paper.

—The New York Herald, in reviewing the late census statistics, finds that while the increase of the black population of the fifteen Southern States during the decade preceding 1870 was only 5½ per cent, the increase during the last ten years was more than 33 per cent.

—The movement in the Christian church to erect a new house of worship at Washington in honor of Gen. Garfield's election, is advancing so satisfactorily that instead of the $35,000 asked for, it is expected that double that amount will be raised, and the sum may amount to $100,000.

—The English alphabet has 26 letters, the French 25, the Italian 20, Spanish 27, German 26, Slavonic 42, Russian 35, Latin 23, Greek 24 (16 until 406 B. C., when the 24 Ionic characters were introduced), the Hebrew 22, the Arabic 28, Persian 82, Turkish 28, Sanscrit 44, Chinese 214.

—It may interest some people to know that America consumes about one-sixth of all the champagne made. Russia and England are the principal consumers, then comes France, and next America; Germany is the smallest consumer, preferring her own wines, and Italy takes comparatively little to us.

—Fully one-half of the 30,000 newspapers of the world are published in English. The United States alone publishes 9,500, or about one-third of the whole, while Great Britain and Ireland have one-third of that many, or about 3,000. No other city in the world has as many newspapers as New York, viz., 500.

—A telegram from Ottawa, Canada, Feb. 20, states that "while in a procession of Sunday-school scholars at Hull, a girl, named Garrett, was abducted by her brother-in-law, aided by over 100 French Canadians, who attacked the procession. The whereabouts of the girl is a mystery. The girl's conversion to Protestantism is the only known reason for the act."

—It is said that the monopoly of land in Scotland is even greater than in Ireland. Scotland contains 19,000,000 acres, most of which is sterile and stubborn land. Of that which is worth claiming, one man holds 1,358,000 acres; another, 500,000; a third, 424,000; a fourth, 373,000. Twelve persons hold the bulk of the arable land in Scotland, and its population of something over 3,000,000 includes 350,000 paupers.

—The Methodists have given the people of North India the novelty of a camp-meeting. It is stated that there were over eighty tents and huts in the grove, and over eight hundred campers. All the services were in Hindustani. "The exercises closed," says an eye-witness, "by marching out into the grove, which had been lighted up at nine o'clock at night, and forming a circle, with joined hands, to make an unbroken ring, thereby representing that we are one in Christ—no nationality, no caste, no class, no color,—all one in Jesus our Saviour. In this land of caste and prejudices the scene was intensely impressive. All who retained enmity or caste spirit in their hearts were told to break the ring and step out. The responses came from all parts of the circle: 'There are none such now.'"