ITEMS OF NEWS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1880

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 44.

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ITEMS OF NEWS.

—General Garfield has started for Washington.

—Two Nihilists were hung in St. Petersburg the 16th.

—The land agitation continues to spread in Ireland.

—The first rain of the season in Oakland fell last Monday night.

—Bret Harte is reported seriously ill at Newstead Abbey in England.

—Eight hundred and fifty Chinese sailed from this port on the Oceanic last week.

—Harper & Brothers announce their intention of establishing a branch house in London.

—The activity of Mount Vesuvius increases. Lava flows abundantly on the side toward Naples.

—British Parliament has been called for the first month in January, one month earlier than usual.

—The M. E. church and its branches will hold an ecumenical council in London, in September, 1881.

—A society of ladies has been organized in San Francisco, having for its object the promotion of silk culture in the State.

—A decree has been issued by the Czar for the construction of a railroad across Siberia to the Pacific, a distance of about 2800 miles.

—An explosion of fire-damp occurred in a coal pit near Mons, Belgium, the 19th. Twenty-seven men were in the pit at the time, of whom fifteen have been rescued, more or less injured.

—It is reported from China via London, New York, and Washington, that a treaty has been concluded between the United States and China. The terms of the treaty have not yet come to hand.

—Cardinal Manning does not fancy the influx of French Jesuits into England. He has written to the Pope protesting against their proposed purchase of Monseigneur Capal's mansion at Kensington. Even the majority of Catholics will be apt to sympathize with the Cardinal.

—It is proposed to build a ship canal from Chicago to the Mississippi, widening the Illinois and Michigan Canal to La Salle, and improving the Illinois river.

—The experiments of cotton-raising in Kern Co., Cal., have proved a success; the fiber produced is said to rival in quality the best upland growth of the South. Haggin and Carr have determined to plant a thousand acres next season.

—The Baptist pastors' Conference of New York City has passed a resolution protesting against the appearance of the Passion Play in that city. It is said that the play is looked upon with disfavor by nearly all the clergymen.

—A French editor has been sentenced to three months' imprisonment and a fine of 2,000 francs for insulting President Grevy. If American journalists were punished in like manner for similar offenses, about half the papers would have to be edited in jail.

—The steamer Oceanic which sailed for China last week carried two more Baptist missionaries for that field. This makes thirty-eight Baptist ministers, ordained and unordained, now at work in China. There are also several belonging to the Seventh-day Baptist mission there.

—Bishop Samuel Crowther, of Africa, in 1821, was captured by a slaver, but was rescued by the English, placed in the mission school at Freetown, and afterward became a missionary. At one of his preaching stations he discovered his mother, brother, and two sisters in slavery, and redeemed them.

—Abraham Lincoln's widow has returned to this country after a quiet residence of about three years in Europe. She was met at New York by their only surviving son Robert, and will spend a portion of the winter in Florida. Her mind has not been quite clear for many years, but her health is reported to be pretty good.

—The Porte has prepared a reply to the note of the Powers demanding the execution of the assassin of Comeroff, a Russian officer, in which he declares that every sovereign has a right to extend clemency to his own subjects, and states that the assassin having asked of the Porte, the sentence has been commuted to penal servitude for life.

—The French government is not only executing the decree authorizing the expulsion of Religious Orders from that country, but it is also prosecuting the vendors of obscene literature. Seven publishers have been tried and condemned. Paris has led the world in obscenity; and the world has been willing to follow. Will it be as willing to follow in reform?

—Here is an interesting item for butter-lovers. It has been discovered that there are fifteen factories in Chicago where so-called butter is manufactured from a variety of materials, among which may be reckoned soapstone, lard, tallow, and other fatty substances, sometimes the most unwholesome. It is estimated that about thirty thousand pounds of this horrible compound are made daily.

—The recent cold weather has extended over a wide range of country and far southward. At Denver the mercury fell 14 degrees below zero, and in the mountains from 25 to 29 degrees, with heavy snow. At Chicago the mercury was near zero, nearly as cold as the coldest winter weather; and the center of the snow, mercury below the freezing point; an inch of snow at Little Rock, an unprecedented event there.

—On the night of the 15th a large part of the insane asylum at St. Paul, Minn., was destroyed by fire. The building contained at the time about 600 inmates. The scene is described as heart-rending. Many of the patients ran screaming up and down the stairs, but could not be persuaded to leave the building, and perished in the flames; while others, half-clad, rushed out into the biting cold, flying in wild fright from those who attempted to save them. Thirty-two bodies have been found in the ruins, and several of those who escaped have not yet been found.

—A New York Herald's dispatch states that a large number of Nihilist placards have just appeared upon the walls of St. Petersburg, proclaiming in flaming characters the beginning of a fresh revolutionary movement. The ominous warning is given that the throne of Alexander will be vacant before the dawn of another year. Vigilant search has been made by the police authorities to discover the source of these placards, and many houses thought to contain secret printing establishments have been visited. Several arrests have taken place and more are expected. The people live in constant fear of falling under the ban of suspicion, and between the plots of the Nihilists and the descents of the police, they are in a state of exaggerated terror.

—On the 15th of June, 35 Buddhist priests were initiated at the Kushan Monastery. There were 300 priests in attendance. The "ordination" service was conducted by the Abbot, a solemn-visaged, but by no means unprepossessing, old gentleman. The principal feature of the ceremony consisted in burning several small holes varying from three to nine in number on the clean-shaven cranium of each of the candidates. Some of the novices winced, but the most of them submitted without any outward show of repugnance. One of the "newly ordained" monks, the top of whose skull was a mass of fresh-burned sores, explained that if the heart were only true, Buddha would protect from acute pain, but that bad men could not endure the torture.