ITEMS OF NEWS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 17, 1880

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 23.

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ITEMS OF NEWS.

—It is proposed to tunnel the St. Lawrence river at Montreal.

—Gen. Burnside has been re-elected U. S. Senator in Rhode Island.

—It is reported that entire herds of sheep have died of starvation in Modoc Co., Cal.

—A freshet on the Upper Mississippi has caused great loss of property, especially in logs and lumber

—B. F. Crary, D. D., was elected by the M. E. General Conference editor of the California Christian Advocate.

—A Philadelphia schooner was fired into by the Spanish man-of-war Mincio, fifteen miles from shore off Guanatamata.

—The Quakers of England have 85 mission schools in Madagascar, with 2,860 pupils. They have also missions in Syria and India.

—Arkell, Tufts, & Co., shipping and commission merchants of New York and London, failed June 9; liabilities supposed to be $500,000.

—The melting snows have produced as great floods in California as the heavy rains of April. Considerable damage has been done in some places.

—Buddhism is stronger in Siam than in any other country. It is the established religion, and is maintained at an annual expense of $25,000,000.

—The colored people of Raleigh, N. C., own over $200,000 worth of real estate, besides a great deal of other kinds of property, and throughout the State they are doing well.

—The difficulty over the question of the public schools, for some time growing between the Pope and Belgium, has resulted in the suppression of the Belgian legation at Rome.

—In the second day's meeting of the National Greenback Convention "the confusion was so great that several Sergeants-at-Arms were appointed with Denis Kearney at their head."

—There is remarkable unanimity of feeling among Republicans over the nomination of Gen. Garfield. The Democrats concede that Garfield is an honorable man, and the ticket a strong one.

—During the last eleven months the national debt has been reduced about $75,000,000. An excellent showing. The financial management of the present administration has been complete.

—One thousand feet of snow sheds, 250 feet of wood-sheds and 250 cords of wood at Coldstream, three miles west of Truckee, were burned on the 7th. The fire is thought to have caught from engine sparks.

—Charles A. Hill, a lawyer, formerly a resident of California, and a prominent Greenback speaker, was arrested in St. Louis with a complete counterfeiter's outfit and appliances for "raising" his greenbacks.

—One man in Santa Clara, Cal., reports that he will lose $500 in strawberries, because he cannot get enough Chinose to pick them. Others also lose in the same way. The "unemployed" still cry "The Chinese must go."

—A very heavy storm visited South-eastern Minnesota on the morning of June 10. The wind blew hard, and the water fell in a flood, inundating the village of Stockton. Business was suspended in a large section about Winona.

—Speaking of short sermons, the Baptist Weekly says: "The consciences of many professors of religion would not be altogether at ease in any entire neglect of public worship; but the briefer the period they spend in the sanctuary the better they are pleased."

—Gladstone proposes to replace the malt tax by a tax on beer, to increase the income tax two-pence for the half year, and to re-adjust and increase the rates for licenses for the sale of liquors. He estimates that the changes will produce a surplus of $381,000.

—Now it is said that Tucson, Arizona, is the oldest settled city in the United States. For the benefit of those who have struggled hopelessly with the Roman alphabet, we will add, that c is silent in this name, and the accent is on the second syllable, pronounced Tooson.

—The Captain of a bark is just arrived in New York who encountered a great number of icebergs. He says he believes an arm of icebergs is stretching across the path of the ocean steamships directly off the Newfoundland Banks. Fifty icebergs were passed in latitude 45 degrees, longitude 50 degrees.

—Another fire has occurred in the Pennsylvania oil regions. Lightning struck a 20,000-barrel iron tank of oil on a hill above Titusville. The fire reached other tanks, and finally the city. The buildings burned were the poorer class, on the outskirts of the city. The loss on the stills, refineries, &c., of the Acme Oil Works is estimated at half a million. No estimate of the total loss is yet made.

—The steamers Stonington and Narragansett collided in Long Island Sound, near the Connecticut river, on the night of June 11. The night was dark and foggy; the Stonington cut into the Narragansett, which took fire and soon sank. The scene was appalling; the accounts of the sufferings and loss of women and children is heart rending. The number lost is not known; the officers express a hope that it is not over twenty-five or thirty.

—A terrible tornado passed through Pottowattamie Co., Iowa, the evening of June 9. The track of the storm was about half a mile in width, and swept everything before it, demolishing farm houses, barns and other buildings, and carrying some of them bodily for hundreds of feet, and then dashing them to the ground in pieces. There were from fifteen to twenty persons killed outright, and many wounded, while others cannot be found.

—A meeting of the San Francisco Produce Exchange was held June 11 to consider the subject of the deterioration of California wheat. When first introduced in England it commanded a premium of two shillings per quarter; now it is at a discount of two shillings per quarter. It is estimated that the loss, on this difference, on the entire quantity exported amounts to $3,000,000. The reason assigned is the slovenly way of securing the crop, especially of storing the "headings" on the ground, and mixing the soil with the grain in threshing.

—The Northern Christian Advocate feels humiliated, and gives as a reason that "the whole great Methodist Episcopal Church in America, numbering almost 2,000,000 of members, after nearly a round hundred years of toil and giving, boasts of assets to the amount of only $63,000,000, in personal and real estate, devoted to church work." It regards this as a very poor showing, when a single man in New York has amassed a fortune of $75,000,000 in his lifetime. His son to-day could buy up the whole Methodist Episcopal Church and have an independent fortune left.

—The Examiner and Chronicle, Baptist paper of New York, is caustic in its strictures on certain Baptists in California. It says: "The character and conduct of the murdered man have nothing to do with the guilt of young Kalloch's crime, and are not to be taken into the account in determining what his punishment is to be under civil or ecclesiastical law. But Dr. Kalloch seems to have no such ideas as these, and it may be that his knowledge of San Francisco and the churches with which he is affiliated justifies the expectations attributed to him. But it may be well for him and them to know that the Baptist denomination cannot be too soon relieved of the deep humiliation of having a predetermined and cold-blooded murderer among its accredited ministers."