Your ShelfYour Projects

ITEMS OF NEWS

2%

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Feb 17, 1881

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

Read the full edition

ITEMS OF NEWS.

-The improvement of Oregon's harbors is soon to be commenced.
-One hundred and forty-seven ocean steamers were lost last year.
-A Ladies' Branch Land League has been organized in Claremorris, Ireland.
-Eighteen thousand cattle have been lost by floods in the Province of Seville, Spain.
-Baltimore is having a new custom house and post-office, which will cost $2,000,000.
-Stanley Matthews is nominated for Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
-The Germans in St. Louis have held a large meeting to protest against the anti-beer legislation.
-The Jews in Cincinnati number 8000; in Ohio, 15,000 according to the enumeration just completed.
-The subject of dividing California into two States is being discussed by the press in the southern part of the State.
-Nineteen thousand acres of land in Lyon county, Iowa, have been purchased at $5 per acre for an English colony.
-The correspondence of the Land League has been intercepted by the Government, and many dangerous schemes thereby discovered.
-Five hundred and sixty-eight miles in six days is the greatest walk on record. This has been accomplished by John Hughes in New York.
-The Michigan-avenue Baptist church in Chicago was burned the night of the 12th. Loss, $50,000. The janitor has been arrested on suspicion.
-Pennsylvania is having a serious time trying to elect a U. S. Senator. Twenty-six ballots have been taken, and no one elected yet, Feb. 12.
-Samaconaz, Mexican Minister to Washington, is en route for the capital with his wife, two daughters, and six members of the Mexican Legation.
-A bridge to span the Missouri at Bismarck is projected by the Northern Pacific. The plans contemplate a structure of iron to cost $2,000,000.
-Havana is very unhealthy again. The death-rate last year amounted to 40 in 1,000. It will doubtless raise a heavy crop of yellow fever this year.
-It is said that the 12,000 dentists of the United States annually pack half a ton of beaten gold, worth half a million dollars, unto the teeth of the people.
-Prince Gortchakoff has now permanently retired from managing the foreign affairs of Russia, on account of his great age and consequent physical infirmities.
-The Christian Queen of Madagascar has liberated 50,000 slaves at one stroke. They were allowed land, and one of them was raised to the dignity of a crown officer.
-The Chinese Legation is the largest at Washington. It consists of a Minister and Assistant Minister, three secretaries, three interpreters and translators, and five attaches.
-Dr. George M. Beard, New York, claims that teeth can be extracted and limbs taken off while subjects are under the power of mesmerism without their knowing anything about it.
-The death-rate in New York City is about five per cent higher than in other large cities of the United States. Last year it was over 26 to 1,000. This from a New York paper.
-Although six hundred jurors have been summoned in the Kalloch trial, only nine, up to the 12th, had been sworn in. The case has already been before the Superior Court twenty-days.
-The interest that William H. Vanderbilt yearly receives on his United States bonds is $1,904,400. He is believed to own more than $100,000,000 of railroad securities, and is the richest man in the world.
-The citizens of Oakland and San Francisco are being visited to obtain subscriptions toward the expenses of the military company to be sent to Washington to witness the inauguration of President Garfield.
-The St Patrick's Society, Brooklyn, have invited Parnell to be present at their annual dinner on the 17th of March, when it is announced that there will be "an intelligent discussion of the land question in Ireland."
-The Iowa State Teachers' Association last week adopted a resolution declaring that scientific instruction on the effects of alcohol on the human system should be made a part of the course in the public schools.
-Thirty years ago California shipped bread and flour from the East. Last year it yielded 300,000,000 tons more wheat than in 1879, and exported more than any other State in the Union. Is not this a growth to be proud of?
-Since 1870 there has been an increase in the population of the United States of eleven and one-half million. Of this increase about twenty-five per cent is due to immigration, the rest being the natural growth of our population.
-A dispatch from Walla Walla, W. T., Feb. 12, states that no mail had been received from Portland for three weeks. Navigation on the Columbia river has been practically suspended on account of high water and floating ice.
-The manufacture of cotton is an industry of comparatively recent date in the South, and of the entire 230,223 looms in the United States, 16,386 are in the South, and they consume 240,682 of the 1,586,481 bales of cotton consumed.
-The World's London dispatches of last Saturday state that "a meeting of the leaders of the Land League will be held in Paris next Monday, after which it is understood that Parnell will sail direct from France to the United States."
-There is considerable talk of an extra spring session of Congress among Representatives of both parties, since it is regarded as almost impossible for Congress to finish the work that is awaiting action before March 4. Many important bills have hardly been referred to as yet.
-We are paying $100,000,000 a year to foreign ship-owners for transportation, and we have fewer ships each year. Our commerce is dying out, and nothing is being done to restore it. The statesmanship of the country has few problems so important as this to grapple with.
-A Dublin correspondent of the London Herald thinks that one result of the coercion bill will be increased dividends to the transatlantic steamship companies. Parnell and Egan have gone to Paris, John Walsh to Australia, while minor local luminaries have sailed for America.
-Spain has at last taken steps to prosecute our Government for "the Florida claims," which amounts to almost $4,000,000. Stanley Matthews and C. B. Collier, of Philadelphia, have been employed to represent the Spanish Government. The claims are for injury during the war of 1812.
-Floods and hurricanes in Spain are reported to have raged the entire peninsula for ten days. The inundations have destroyed half the crop of oranges and lemons, and a loss of over $40,000,000 to other crops. The loss to shipping on the coast is supposed to exceed one hundred vessels.
-Among the statistics of work accomplished by foreign missions during the past century, are these: Converts from heathenism, 1,500,000; languages into which the Bible has been translated, 226; copies of the Bible circulated, 148,000,000; barbarous languages endowed with grammar and literature, 70.
-The Government of Florida has just given out a contract for draining Lake Okechobee and the marsh surrounding it, comprising in all about 12,000,000 acres of the best sugar land in the world. The territory will include the celebrated Everglades, and be in extent twice as large as the State of New Jersey. This is the largest contract on record, and, when completed, Florida can produce more sugar than the United States now consumes.
-The following item is going the rounds of the press: "The Commissioner of Public Lands has made the startling discovery that within the limits of the United States, north of Texas, between Indian Territory and New Mexico, is a parallelogram of nearly four million acres, 200,000 cattle, and a large number of outlaws, without any form of government. It was overlooked when public surveys were made, and is reckoned one of the finest regions in the West."