News and Notes | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 16, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 36.

Read the full edition

News and Notes.

RELIGIOUS.

—The Baptists have ten chapels in Rome.

—There are thirteen classes of Baptists, who number in all, 4,078,589 communicants.

—It is stated by a German paper that 363 Jews were converted to Christianity at Vienna last year.

—The Pope of Rome has received 60,000 telegrams of condolence and sympathy over the Bruno monument affair.

—There are 10,000 sons and daughters of Protestants in the United States who are pupils of Romish educational institutions.

—There are three Protestant churches in Lisbon, Portugal, and the pastors of all three were formerly Roman Catholic priests.

—Of the 799 men who have been educated at Spurgeon's Pastors' College during the thirty-six years of its history, six hundred are active pastors.

—The king of Siam has recently donated one of the royal palaces, together with its extensive grounds and buildings, to the use of the American Presbyterian Mission.

—A Methodist church in Denver, Col., has in its audience room two boxes, similar to those in theaters, for the special convenience of invalids and those who take small children to church.

—In fourteen years 700 Protestant chapels have been built in Madagascar, making the present number 1,200. There are 250,000 communicants, and nearly 1,000 schools, with 100,000 native children attending them.

—Good work beyond doubt must be credited to the Medical Missionary Society of China. In Canton, during the past year, the society attended to 39,442 cases and performed 2,839 surgical operations, at an expense of only $4,637.

—How well the orthodox Friends, "says the Philadelphia Ledger," attend to educational interests is shown by their report that of 791 children of school age in the Yearly Meeting, more than 600 are educated in Friends' schools.

—A census was lately taken of the attendance at Episcopal and Non-conforming churches in Wales, with the result that 86,438 were found in the churches of the Establishment and 317,078 in the various Non-conformist places of worship.

—The Baptist churches in Rangoon, India, having seen an account of the need of a chapel in Hammerfest, Norway, near the Arctic Circle, took up a collection for their European brethren and sent $66.38 as their contribution to Norway.

SECULAR.

—Since June 3, the national debt has increased $7,094,003.

—The Pennsylvania Railroad has just let a contract for 5,000 freight cars.

—Work has been begun in China on the railroad from Peking to Hankow.

—An unknown woman committed suicide by going over Niagara Falls, September 5.

—In the United States the telephone is used 595 times, the telegraph 136, during each minute of the day.

—The full-rigged British ship Bay of Naples loaded with petroleum burned in New York Bay the 3d inst.

—It has been definitely decided by the President and his cabinet not to call an extra session of Congress.

—Of 1,850 arrests made by the police of San Francisco, Cal., during the month of August, 875 were for drunkenness.

—T. B. Musgrave, a prominent broker of New York City, failed September 3. His losses will reach $1,000,000.

—Cholera is raging at Bagdad and Bussorah. Orders have been given to place military cordons around the towns.

—In Montenegro a famine is threatened, owing to the failure of the crops, an endemic disease is now extensively prevalent.

—It is rumored that an alliance between France and Russia will be formally announced sometime during the coming spring.

—It is reported that foreign scientists have discovered minute diamonds in meteorites found in Siberia.

—The government of San Salvador has obtained a loan of $1,500,000 in London, for the purpose of extending its railway system.

—The African Methodist Church is advising the colored people of the South to make a general exodus to the Northwestern States.

—The proposed State constitution of Wyoming Territory is modeled after that of Pennsylvania, but grants women the right of suffrage.

—The London strike has caused several hundred men at Boston to be thrown out of work on account of light cargoes by returning vessels.

—The whole value of the yearly exports and imports of Africa is estimated at the enormous sum of $375,000,000, and it is rapidly increasing.

—A man in Tennessee recently, who had never been in a railroad car before, became so excited over his first ride that he fell dead in his seat.

—There are 3,200,000 bushels of peanuts consumed in this country every year. They come chiefly from Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.

—The circulation of the Paris Figaro of August 31 was suppressed throughout Germany on account of an article insulting to Emperor William.

—There are no laundries in Paris, the clothes being sent by train loads into the country and washed in the rivers by the unaided hands of women.

—The Mount Morgan mine, Queensland, is now paying dividends at the rate of $500,000 per month, with a probability of a continuance for a long period.

—The town of Tlacolula, Mexico, has been entirely destroyed by floods. Telegraphic communication is suspended, and there is great distress all through the flooded district.

—A severe shock of earthquake was experienced in Erzeroum, Asiatic Turkey, September 1. The village of Kentzork was ingulfed by lava and 136 persons lost their lives.

—It is reported that dispatches recently received by the Canadian Government state that England refuses to allow her Pacific squadron to interfere in the Behring Sea difficulty.

—A terrible explosion is reported from a coal mine in Mid-Lothian, Scotland, under date of September 5. More than sixty miners were at work in the pit at the time, and none escaped.

—The national flag will hereafter be hoisted daily upon every Federal building in the United States, from the hours of nine o'clock in the morning until three o'clock in the afternoon.

—In the cases of fifteen men arrested at Kansas City, Mo., for violating the Sunday law, Judge Boland decided on the 26th ult., that the law was unconstitutional. The city attorney appealed.

—The northern as well as the southern embankments of the Yellow River have given way again, and about half of the lowland on both sides of the river from Chinan-fu to the sea is under water.

—The State of Virginia holds a mortgage of $120,000 against the White House at Washington, D. C. Although the pledge was given in the time of George Washington, the government does not deny the debt.

—Phillipopolis exports rose water and other perfumes to the value of $275,000 yearly. Rose-leaf jam is a favorite preserve in all the Danubian countries, but especially in Roumania, where roses grow by the million.

—Several lives were lost in the recent forest fires in Montana, and the village of Barker was entirely consumed. Fortunately a heavy rainstorm extinguished the flames in the mountains and the danger is now past.

—Brooklyn can boast of having the largest bread bakery in the world. It employs nearly 400 men, and turns out 70,000 loaves of bread per day. This represents a consumption of 300 barrels of flour besides other ingredients.

—The great London strike still continues at this writing, and it certainly looks as though the dock owners must eventually yield. The demands of the strikers are eminently just, and should have been granted as soon as made.

—The cotton crop of the present season is estimated at 8,000,000 bales, worth nearly $400,000,000, or five times the value of all the gold and silver produced in the United States in one year.—The Rand-McNally Bankers' Monthly.

—Legitimé, the deposed Haytian president, arrived in New York the 5th inst. He gave a full account of events which led to the late war in Hayti, and said that he retired from the country in order to avoid further bloodshed.

—The largest gold bar ever cast in the world was recently turned out at the branch United States Mint at Helena, Montana. Its weight is nearly 500 pounds avoirdupois, and its value is over $100,000.

—Laird, Norton & Company's lumber yard at Winona, Minn., was destroyed by fire the 5th inst. 22,000,000 feet of lumber and 7,000,000 shingles were burned, together with warehouses and other property. The total loss is over $300,000.

—The reports of the heads of the different departments of the New York City Post-Office show that the total receipts of the office during the past year were $5,430,170 and the total expenditures, $2,033,187, giving a net revenue to the government of $3,396,983.

—The steamship Ancon, the last of the side-wheel steamers on the Pacific Coast, ran upon a reef in Naha Bay, Alaska, August 28, and was totally wrecked. The passengers were saved, together with most of the cargo. The vessel was valued at $100,000. No insurance.

—Morales, the noted outlaw who has been committing such depredations on the Pacific Coast, was slightly wounded by an officer at Santa Ana, Cal., the 5th inst., but managed to make his escape. He was subsequently captured five miles from the town of Long Beach in Los Angeles County.

—A terrible wind and thunder-storm passed over North Dakota and portions of Minnesota the night of the 3d inst., leveling telegraph wires and doing other damages. A decided fall in temperature resulted and quite wintry weather with occasional frosts has been reported from the Northwest since then.

—The Pacific Mail steamer City of Rio de Janeiro arrived at San Francisco September 7, bringing Hongkong news to August 12 and Yokohama advices to August 21. There has been a constant succession of earthquake shocks in Kumamota, the chief scene of the great disaster in July, as many as 200 being recorded in one week.

—John L. Sullivan has, it is stated, announced his intention to run for Congress. It is his ambition to represent the Boston district. He will run as a Democrat. His election would be a lasting disgrace not only to the party which should espouse his cause and to the district which should elect him, but to the country at large.

—Graham, who successfully made the trip through the Whirlpool Rapids in a barrel of his own construction recently, is reported to have gone over Niagara Falls the 2d inst., in the same apparatus. The story is discredited by many, although a number of people testify to it as witnesses. Graham says he will go over again if anyone will raise a purse large enough to justify him in doing so.

—September 7 a great fire occurred in Antwerp, Belgium. The fire was occasioned by an explosion in a powder magazine belonging to a merchant, who had recently purchased 40,000,000 old cartridges, intending to sell the powder. His work people, over one hundred in number, more than half of them being women, were occupied in the task of opening these cartridges when the explosion took place. To what it was due there is very little hope of discovering, for not one of the employees has as yet been found alive. Almost every window in the city was broken by the force of this explosion. Probably over two hundred lives were lost. The catastrophe is said to have been indirectly due to political spite, the Clerical Provincial Council having permitted the fatal cartridge factory to be set in operation in the city merely because the Liberal Town Council objected.