ITEMS OF NEWS AND NOTES.
By Editor
-Cadet Whittaker has been granted a furlough for an indefinite period. -California has 865,747 inhabitants. A gain of 305,500 in ten years. -Five murders occurred in St. Louis last week, within forty-eight hours. -A barber was recently fined $20 in Ithaca, N. Y., for shaving two customers on Sunday. -Twenty-two of the Belfast rioters have been sentenced to six months' imprisonment. -A roundhouse and five locomotives were recently burned at Ogdensburg, N. Y. Loss, $100,000. -Two iron tanks of oil, each holding 25,000 barrels, were set on fire by lightning, the 19th, near Bradford, Penn. -Fourteen hundred and fifty weavers, of Bolton, England, have struck against a reduction of 5 per cent in their wages. -A fire in the ropewalk of the Charlestown navy yard, Aug. 21, caused a loss of $70,000 to the building and machinery. -In compliance with the desires of President Hayes, the Sultan has decided to retain the Turkish Legation at Washington. -A young lady was walking with a gentleman near Mount Joy, Penn., when a spark from his cigar set fire to her dress, and she was fatally burned. -A man who firmly believes that a second flood will come next November, to cover the whole face of the earth, is building an ark at Helena, Texas. -There was frost in the interior river counties of New York on the night of the 16th. At Samford, Delaware county, ice formed. Temperature, 62. -It is reported that a Russian transport has arrived at Rutschuk with munitions of war, and that 16 Russian officers and 370 soldiers landed from the transport. -The American Baptists have two churches in Stockholm, Sweden, and are about to form a third. There was an increase of 200 members the past year. -It is estimated that there are four thousand more persons engaged in the various branches of the liquor traffic in this country, than in preaching the gospel. -Queen Victoria under no circumstances allows a lady whose name has appeared in a divorce court, either as complainant or otherwise, to appear in one of her drawing-rooms. -The Department of Agriculture says the potato crop shows an average percentage of 98, against 97 the previous year. Buckwheat shows a slight decline from the preceding year. -The State of Virginia hires out five hundred and twenty-five of her convicts to work on her railroads and other public improvements, for whom she receives twenty-five cents net each per day. -Reports from the "corn belt" of Illinois, state that the protracted drought will greatly reduce the anticipated yield of corn in that region. In some places the stalks are drying up in the fields. -At Downpatrick, Ireland, in a fight between the Catholics and Orangemen, the 15th, fire-arms were used incessantly from 11 P. M. Sunday, until 3 A. M. Monday. Several persons were severely wounded. -The reply of the Porte to the collective note, in reference to the Montenegrin question, has been delivered to the Ambassadors. It asks that the term allowed for the cession of territory be prolonged three weeks. -A tornado or water-spout recently swept across the southern part of Cass county, Dakota, damaging all the buildings within a range of two miles, destroying a great deal of grain, and seriously injuring several persons. -An Athens special says, "England has finally accepted the task refused by France of drawing up a note in regard to the Greek question, on the basis approved by the Powers, rejecting the Porte's suggestions." -There are about eighty employes in the dead letter office at Washington, and about eight thousand letters are daily received there. In general, the most valuable inclosures are found in letters which are not directed at all. -Eureka, Nev., has again been visited by a terrible fire, which swept over nearly the same ground as last year, destroying many prominent institutions and private residences. The loss is estimated at about $1,000,000. -Aug. 17, the Yaeger flouring mill, the largest in St. Louis, was burned. The fire is supposed to have caught from over-heated machinery, as the mill was in operation at the time the fire broke out. Loss, $300,000. Well insured. -Reports from the German flooded provinces are worse daily. Not only has Silesia suffered terribly, but also East and West Prussia. The harvest is almost totally destroyed. It has rained incessantly for three weeks in some parts of the country. -The Board of Trade has resolved to send commissioners to Mexico and Guatemala to endeavor to extend commercial relations. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and the C. P. R. R. Company, are to be urged to reduce their rates on coffee. -The amount of personal property amassed by twenty-four bishops who died during the fifteen years preceding the appointment of the Ecclesiastical Commission, and the three subsequent years, is stated by Albany Fonblanque to have amounted to nearly an average of $350,000 for each bishop. -Sixty-seven Russian immigrants, some survivors of a party of 330 which left Russia in 1877 for Brazil, have arrived at New York, sick and destitute. They found the South American climate unsuited to them, and after losing nearly all their funds decided to leave the country where they had experienced so many hardships. -The present Pope feels acutely his lack of means, and has done all he can to reduce expenses. The Vatican itself must be a dreadful incubus. To keep 300 staircases and 13,000 rooms merely from going to pieces requires a large revenue. Imagine what it would be to have to maintain 600 furnished city houses of 20 rooms! -During the riot at Dungannon, Aug. 15, many policemen were wounded. Their ranks were several times broken. They finally fired buck-shot into the crowd. The firing was returned from revolvers, and showers of stones fell. Many of the rioters almost rushed on the points of the bayonets in the eagerness of attack. The physicians are treating twenty-eight persons who were wounded by bayonets or balls. -A dispatch from Bismarck, Dakota, dated Aug. 18, says: "A good opportunity is now offered to capture Sitting Bull. He is at the Poplar River Agency, above Fort Buford, and is as hungry as Tanner. He threatens Agent Porter with 'heap trouble,' if his informal requisition for flour, bacon, and coffee is not regularly filled. He saunters in and out of the agency buildings, and his talk has at least scared the agent's family, who arrived here to-day." -A messenger from Candahar brought a letter from General Primrose, dated the 11th, which stated that the enemy had opened fire with Armstrong guns at a distance of 3500 yards from the city. The damage so far is slight. In the morning a heavy musketry fire was opened at the walls from villages on three sides of the town; but few troops were wounded. The water for the garrison for 45 days. The exact strength of the garrison is 1243 effective Europeans, 3386 natives, and 382 sick. General Primrose estimates Ayoob Khan's force at 10,000. -We find the following advertisement, quoted from the Quebec Morning Chronicle: "The Lottery for the Rimouski Seminary will be held on the 10th of August next and following days. Tickets, $1.00 each. 250 prizes—lots of ground, horse, carriage, banners, Way of the Cross, silver-plated vases, bouquets, albums, illustrated volumes, silver watch, model of a schooner, pair of wheels, framed chromos, etc., etc. Six hundred Masses for the Living and the Dead will be at the disposal of holders of tickets. Address the secretary of the Bishop of Rimouski. June 16, 1880." -The English Gospel Union of New Haven has had a religious census of the city taken for the purpose of systematizing its work. Here are the results of the census: There are 11,562 families; 46,114 persons in these families over four years of age; 25,575 church members, 40,593 persons who attend church, 5,521 persons who do not attend church; 7,899 Congregationalists, 5,609 Episcopalians, 2,471 Baptists, 5,379 Methodists, 1,806 Lutherans, 354 Universalists, 16,918 Roman Catholics, 1,045 Jews; 9,194 children of school age in Sunday-schools, 2,650 of school age not in the Sunday-school; 8,807 families have Bibles, 2,785 have no Bibles.