News and Notes by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 17, 1882

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 8, No. 31.

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News and Notes.

By Editor

—The city of Paris is suffering from a scarcity of water.

—The city of Honolulu, Sandwich Islands, is to be lighted with electricity.

—A dispatch from Tangier states that a holy war is being preached throughout Morocco against the Christians.

—The destruction of vineyards in Europe by the phylloxera is estimated at 3,000,000,000 francs within ten years.

—The Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad Company has sold to an English syndicate 1,000,000 acres of land, at $4.50 per acre.

—Rear Admiral David S. McDougal, of the U. S. Navy, died in San Francisco, Aug. 6, aged nearly seventy-three years.

—The army worm is making heavy ravages in the vicinity of Pine Plains, New York. Farmers are compelled to harvest their oats before they are ripe.

—The yearly product of the pearl fisheries on the coast of Lower California is about $500,000. There are no less than 1,000 divers engaged in this pursuit.

—The Hardy Powder Works, near Vallejo, Cal., exploded Aug. 11. Two men were instantly killed, and two others have since died. The loss was complete.

—The people of Geneva, Switzerland, expend more money for wine than they do for bread, the average amount spent by each person for this article being 300 francs yearly.

—A large portion of Gardiner, Me., was destroyed by fire, Aug. 7. About sixty dwellings and many manufactories were burned. Between 300 and 400 men are thrown out of employment.

—Governor Colquett, of Georgia, now a candidate for the United States Senate, in a recent speech, planted himself squarely upon the platform of temperance, and against the manufacture of whisky in Georgia.

—Judge Rives, in charging a jury in the United States Court at Danville, Va., said he attributed the distress in Patrick County in part to the large consumption of grain by the distillers in making whisky.

—The consumption of tobacco in Mexico, where everybody smokes, is immense. In the principal factory of Orizaba more than 11,000,000 packages, containing thirty cigarettes each, were manufactured last year.

—The Mississippi River steamer Gold Dust blew up and burned to the water's edge near Hickman, Ky., Aug. 7. One hundred passengers were on board, of whom seventeen were killed. A large part of the remainder were wounded.

—A very important decree has been published in France which allows commercial, educational, and financial associations authorized in the United States to have a legal status in France, and the full exercise of their rights in the French Courts.

—A council of the leading military authorities at Alexandria, has been sitting to investigate the effects of the bombardment of the forts. The evidence of naval and military officers is that masonry is useless against modern guns, but that earth-works turn up every shot.

—The checkers and callers of the Pennsylvania Railroad who struck with the freight handlers have unanimously decided to return to work. The officials of the company stated that it was very doubtful whether the strikers would be taken back, as the present employes are giving the utmost satisfaction.

—Rufus Hatch and a party of New York and English capitalists have purchased 750,000 acres of grazing lands from the North Pacific Railroad, in Montana. As the grant to the road takes only alternate sections, they will practically have 1,500,000 acres of pasturage, as they will use the intervening sections of Government land.

—The Sultan has very reluctantly complied with the demand to declare Arabi Bey a rebel. In addition to this, he has declared that unless he submits, he acts contrary to the precepts of the Koran. Importance is attached to this declaration, but it is just possible that Arabi will consider his rendering of the Koran as good as the Sultan's.

—The San Francisco Alta, in an article espousing the whisky cause, speaks for the Republicans as follows: "The liquor interests know that they will never suffer wrong in this State at the hands of the Republican party." If this means that the Republican party will pander to the liquor interest, then that party may suffer at the hands of an outraged people.

—The Republican State Convention of Kansas has nominated Gov. St. John for a third term. The following is the prohibition plank of the platform: "Resolved, That we declare ourselves unqualifiedly in favor of the prohibition of the manufacture and sale or interchange of liquor as a beverage, and we pledge ourselves to rigid enforcement of the constitutional amendment upon this subject in all parts."

—Coral builders work after this fashion: After a cruise of a few months in the South Pacific, a French man-of-war was recently found to have specimens of living corals growing upon her hull. The interesting discovery has thrown some light on the question of the rapidity of growth of corals. The evidence tends to show that the vessel, on passing a reef of the Gambier Islands against which she rubbed, had picked up a young fungia, which adhered to the sheathing, and grew to a diameter of nine inches and a weight of three and a half pounds in nine weeks.

—It has been learned by Government officials that a secret organization of 1,200 men has been formed in Arizona, who are bound by oath, in case any more raids are made and murders committed by Apaches, to enter the reservation and slaughter men, women, and children. Governor Tritle, appreciating the gravity of the situation, has had orders issued for troops to be removed from the fixed posts to the passes usually traveled by Indians after leaving the reservation, so as to head off any hostile bands. Heretofore it has been customary for Government officers to grant permits to leave the reservation on passes for the alleged purpose of hunting. It is said that most of the murders committed in Arizona, have been by Indians bearing these passes. Through the efforts of Governor Tritle, the issuing of such passes has been revoked for a period of six months.