News of the Day

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Mar 4, 1880

IN an inquiry into the cause of the Tay Bridge disaster, now being held at Dundee, painters who worked on the bridge last summer, testified at that time the bridge was in bad condition. Iron bars were loose, bolt holes were empty, and nuts were unscrewed, and during windy weather the oscillation of the bridge was so great that they were fearful it would fall. Molders employed by the contractors testified that the quality of iron used was very inferior; that columns were frequently cracked, and that cracks and holes were filled with putty, and painted over.

M. PASHKOFF has become the instrument of an important Protestant evangelization movement in St. Petersburg, Russia. At first he attempted to gather together the droschky drivers and hackney coachmen of the capital, many of whom were converted. Thence his work has gradually extended until now he has at his house, every morning and evening, public reunions, at which people of all ranks of society are to be met, and the Prefect of Police has authorized him to distribute the Scriptures and tracts in the streets of the capital.

THERE are between ten and twenty thousand domestic slaves in the British city of Hong Kong, and upon a decision by the Supreme Judge, that this slavery must be done away with, one hundred Chinese merchants of the highest class unite in a memorial arguing that domestic slavery is so interwoven with the structure of Chinese society that they cannot do without it.

REV. MR. MATTHEWS, of Onarga, Ill., the good Christian worker among prisoners, has distributed 2,300,000 pages of reading matter during the last year in the prisons of Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, California, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The railroads give free transportation both to him and what he carries, and the great good he does is evinced by the gratitude of the prisoners. There is room in this country for more such men.

THE Chinese Religious Tract Society has determined to publish twelve tracts of about twenty pages each of uniform size, and treating of doctrinal and practical subjects.