ITEMS OF NEWS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 9, 1880

ITEMS OF NEWS.

All difficulties in the negotiations between Russia and China have not yet been removed.

Dr. C. O. Crosby, inventor of machines for making needles, pins, fish-hooks, shoes, and tatting, died in Brooklyn last week.

The Mexican President, Gonzales, has been duly inaugurated. The former President, Diaz, has accepted a position in the newly formed Cabinet.

According to the late census of Alaska, that country contains about 30,000 human beings, only about 300 of whom are supposed to be whites.

Owing to a sudden breaking up of the ice in the Volga, five steamers and thirty barges were destroyed, and large quantities of grain, naptha, and fish were lost.

A party of armed men near Drales, Ireland, broke into a house from which tenants had been evicted, and slit open the ears of the man who had charge of the house.

During the last month over fifty wheat-laden ships sailed from San Francisco for Europe, being the largest number within the same space of time for many years.

The gist of the new treaty with China is intimated by government officers in the terse words, "We do not want them to come, and they do not want them to go."

The heaviest foreign mail that ever left the New York post-office was despatched Dec. 1, by the outgoing steamers. It contained 106,578 letters and 192 bags of papers.

Several thousand pilgrims returning from Mecca are detained at Bagdad, owing to the Kurds having attacked the last three caravans and killed and wounded over 500 pilgrims.

Prohibition clubs are being formed in Nebraska to secure the adoption of a constitutional prohibitory amendment. A vigorous effort will be made to have it pass the Legislature this winter.

Secretary Schurz, in his report, recommends the establishment of boarding-schools for Indian youths, and a more liberal appropriation for encouraging agriculture among the tribes.

A Shanghai correspondent of the Boston Herald telegraphs that the second treaty drawn up by the U. S. Commissioners and the Government at Peking provides that Americans shall not import opium or carry the products coastwise or sell it.

Bismarck evidently understands how to cure one poison by the use of another. It is thought that he rather favors the present oppression of the Jews in his kingdom, simply to divert the attention of the Socialists from their opposition to the Government.

During the last week there has been a heavy fall of rain throughout the State. In Washington Territory and Oregon, and on the mountains the rain turned to snow. Latest reports state that the Columbia river is filled with ice, and boats only run to Astoria.

The fastest Russian mail-steamer on the Caspian sea is run by gas. It is made from refuse petroleum carried in an iron tank, and blown into spray inside the furnace by a jet of steam, where it forms a continuous sheet of flame. This liquid fire makes no ashes and the smoke is free from sulphur.

The Pacific Christian Advocate regrets that the secular press has not more generally called attention to the striking fact that at the late election in Kansas, a constitutional amendment prohibiting forever the manufacture and sale of liquors in that State was adopted by at least 20,000 majority : "In all the cities and many small towns the ladies electioneered for the cause of temperance in a most effective manner. The Governor-elect, St. John, told the people they must take him with prohibition or not at all."

The most quiet event of the season was the real Presidential election Dec. 1. The Presidential electors then met in their several State capitals, and cast their votes for President and Vice-President. Congress is directed by law to open and count these votes on the second Wednesday in February, and to declare the result.

The overland trains were much delayed on account of a land-slide near Alta, Thursday. The slide was fifty feet long and ten feet deep and was composed of a conglomerate mass of trees, mud, and rock. Experienced railroad men say that the recent storm is the most severe ever experienced in the mountains at this season of the year.

It is said that a number of wealthy, enthusiasts in New York have purchased land in Mexico to the extent of half a million acres and intend colonizing it by judicious selections of negroes from the Southern States. The land is to be sold to them at government rates and they are to be aided in various ways in developing its resources.

The statue of Alexander Hamilton just unveiled in Central Park is of granite, and with the pedestal stands eighteen feet high. It represents Hamilton standing bareheaded, in the act of speaking, a roll of manuscript in his left hand. The face is pronounced a faithful likeness by his aged son, John C. Hamilton, who makes a gift of the statue to the city.

It is probable that the Montenegrins are beginning to comprehend that they have won a loss. The Albanians have signalized their opposition to the change of masters of their late possession, by "lifting," as the telegram expresses it, which means stealing, sixteen hundred sheep from the Montenegrins. The latter, having applied to the Turkish authorities for redress, the Turks decline to assume the responsibility.

In pursuance of the act passed at the last session of Congress, an invitation has been extended to the foreign maritime States to join in a Sanitary Conference in Washington, beginning the 1st of Jannary. The acceptance of this invitation by many prominent powers gives promise of success in this important measure, designed to establish a system of international notification by which the spread of infectious or epidemic disease may be more effectively checked or prevented.

It is understood that when Mrs. Hayes steps out and Mrs. Garfield steps into the White House on the 4th of March next there will be no abrupt turning in the course of the Presidential, or rather the Mrs. Presidential, social customs and decrees. Whether the diplomatic corps has its delicate palate tickled with lemonade and water at state dinners or not, we may be sure that whisky and the White House divorces four years ago will not be reunited in unholy bonds during Mr. Garfield's administration.

The great work of reconstructing the famous railway suspension bridge across the Niagara river has just been completed without interruption of traffic. The task was undertaken some months ago by Engineer E. A. Buck, and though many prominent engineers doubted the feasibility of the plan, he has carried it out, making an iron and steel bridge out of a wooden bridge, by a process of substitution which has not occasioned the slightest interruption of trains. The casual observer would never have suspected that anything more than a little repairing was going on.

The Hawaiians are enjoying fireworks on a grand scale. At last accounts a stream of lava between one and two hundred yards wide and twenty feet deep had extended for thirty miles, and a molten lake fifteen miles in circumference had formed on the plateau between Mauna Loa and Manna Kea. The Gazette says columns of smoke and steam ascending from two separate streams of lava unite in an arch overhead, forming an avenue through which can be seen for miles the molten mass boiling and seething, here and there throwing up immense cones to be suddenly burst asunder; and in some places great columns of lava are thrown to a height of 200 feet.