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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 6, 1881

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 7, No. 1.

Read the full edition

ITEMS OF NEWS.

-There were 99 deaths in San Francisco last week.
-There are twenty-three branches of the Irish land-league in California.
-The population of Berlin, Prussia, is 1,118,630, having doubled since 1860.
-The California Legislature convened on the 3d inst., for a session of sixty days.
-The National Temperance Society has called a convention for June 21, at Saratoga.
-The king of Belgium is said to have subscribed for $2,000,000 worth of Panama canal stock.
-At a recent heathen festival in India, the offerings to the idol were valued at $1,000,000.
-A dearth of coal in Nebraska, where the weather is severely cold, has caused much suffering.
-The 260th anniversary of the landing of the May Flower was celebrated at Plymouth, Dec. 21.
-The persecution of Christians in Macedonia, continues with severity. Large numbers are exiled to Asia and Africa.
-The London Times says: "The finances of the United States may excite the envy, not only of England, but of Europe."
-There is to be a "Congress" (not a "Conference," as some papers have it), of all branches of Methodism in London, next September.
-San Francisco reports 16 rainy days in December, and a rainfall of 12.33 inches. The highest temperature was 61°, and the lowest, 42°.
-There are 230,000 Jews in the United States, and California has 18,500 of them—a greater ratio to population than any State in the Union.
-Sarah Bernhardt, the famous and infamous French actress, played twenty-four nights in Booth’s theater, New York, and the receipts were $98,000.
-The State Horticultural Society is considering the matter of destroying noxious insects, and the Legislature will be memorialized on the subject.
-Congressman Page has introduced a joint-resolution, to make the anniversary of the discovery of America, by Columbus, a national holiday.
-The average production of the mines of the United States during the last seven years has been $40,000,000 in gold and $38,750,000 in silver per annum.
-The Esquon ranch, Butte county, containing 16,000 acres, has been purchased by Leland Stanford for $350,000. It is to be used for a stock farm.
-The N. Y. Tribune says of Mrs. Southworth’s forty-two novels, that, "put up in a dry goods box, they would make a fine present to a gentleman of leisure."
-"Mark Twain," author and humorist, is said to be losing his reason. He is subject to strange illusions; sometimes he imagines he is an editor, sometimes a church deacon, and recently he was found standing on a box, fancying himself an Egyptian obelisk.
-The extraordinary calls for English troops in Ireland and Africa, have necessitated calling out the militia, for the first time since the Crimean war.
-In Berlin, Dec. 19, a meeting of 2,000 persons passed resolutions in favor of suppressing the liberty of the Jews, and to buy nothing from Jewish shops or firms.
-The Supreme Court of California has decided that a railroad company is not responsible for goods accidentally destroyed by fire while deposited in its warehouse.
-The total issues of the American Baptist Publication Society, for the past year, were equal to 364,635,000 pages—nearly a million of pages per day, Sundays and all.
-The British Columbians are getting very indignant at their treatment by the Dominion government, and the Victoria Colonist boldly talks independence or annexation to the United States.
-The Parker Memorial Chapel, Boston, which cost $110,000, is to be sold to a leading Spiritualist for $15,000. The reason assigned is the rapid multiplication of Unitarian churches in that city.
-The Supreme Court of California holds that, if parties will engage in betting, they must rely upon the honor of their adversaries, and not look to the courts for relief in the event of its breach.
-On Monday morning after Christmas, 168 persons were arraigned in the San Francisco Police Court for drunkenness. And this number includes only those who exposed their condition on the streets.
-A Dublin correspondent says that the revolver has superceded the spade as an agricultural implement in Ireland. Tenants, who are willing to pay rent, are afraid to do so for fear of their neighbors.
-Unusual cold weather, during the past week, is reported from the Eastern and Southern States. As far south as Florida the orange trees were badly injured by frost. During the same period, unusually warm rains have visited California.
-Riotous conduct at the most prominent public universities, is becoming so common as to be merely paragraphed by the newspapers as something to be expected as a matter of course. There was recently an affray at the University of Pennsylvania, in which thirty policemen took part, and were defeated.
-The virgin soil of America this year has produced 500,000,000 bushels of grain,—the largest yield that America has ever produced. Of this amount fully 300,000,000 will be required for home consumption, and 200,000,000 will go abroad.
-In September, October and three weeks of November there were over one thousand cases of diphtheria in New York City, with the large proportion of four hundred and thirty-one deaths. In one week there were one hundred and fifty cases.
-In the proposed new criminal code which will shortly be debated in the Spanish Chambers, there is a provision for punishing dissent from the Roman Church with imprisonment. This looks toward a resurrection of the persecution which Protestantism formerly received in Spain.
-An artful way of concealing small-pox cases, was recently discovered in San Francisco. One Chinaman died of consumption, and another of small-pox. Two certificates were procured from different physicians as to the cause of death of the consumptive, one of which was used to get a permit to bury the small-pox victim in the cemetery.
-From the Newspaper Annual for 1880, we learn that there are published in the United States 10,100 papers and magazines, of all classes. Of these, the Western States, with Ohio and extending to the Pacific coast, have 4,855, almost one-half of the whole number. The Southern States have 1,730; New England, 818; and the remainder belong to the Middle States.
-The London Economist estimates that the immigrants coming to this country during the current year bring with them $35,000,000 in specie, while the average value to the United States of each person in adding to the productive resources of the country is $940, so that the number landing this year constitute an "actual or potential addition to the wealth of the country" of $100,000,000.
-The acquittal of Schroder, the slayer of Dr. Le Fevre, in Oakland, continues to excite popular indignation. The Times says it is in order "to prove that Cain was a victim of transitory mania," and that if he were to be tried before an Alameda county jury, he would certainly be acquitted. It is unfortunate for the patriarchs of old, that there were no physicians among them who could explain the peculiar nature of this mania."
-A New York paper states that "Italy has 29,500,000 acres of uncultivated lands. Her people are not specially addicted to hard work. Agricultural improvements have not been introduced into the country. They are strangers to our modern farming inventions. But now a law has been passed compelling owners of real estate to cultivate it. With compulsory education and compulsory farming, Italy may yet take her place by the side of France as one of the most prosperous nations on the continent."