p. 189 | NEWS AND NOTES

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 20, 1900

NEWS AND NOTES

—British troops, under Colonel Plumer, are now within forty miles of Mafeking. It is expected that the town will soon be relieved.

—A National Danish Rat Extermination Society has been organized in Copenhagen, which has built a crematory for the rats it kills, it being found unhealthy to bury them.

—Bloemfontein, capital of the late Orange Free State, surrendered to Lord Roberts, March 14, and the British flag now floats over the capital building. The British met with no opposition in entering the city. On the contrary, members of the late Orange Free State government, “the mayor, the secretary of the government, the landrost, and other officials,” says Lord Roberts in his dispatch, “met me two miles from the town, and presented me with the keys of the public offices. The enemy have withdrawn from the neighborhood, and all seems quiet. The inhabitants of Bloemfontein gave the troops a cordial welcome.” Lord Roberts will “establish a temporary military government for the queen’s new colony.”

—The Creusot French cannon factory, which supplied the Boers with guns, burned, March 2.

—March 12 President Gates, of Iowa College, Grinnell, Iowa, resigned on account of the state of his wife’s health.

—March 13, by a vote of 166 to 120, in the House of Representatives, the gold standard in finance was made the law of the land.

—March 8, 1,000 Mexican troops had a hard fight with 300 Maya Indians, and captured all their guns, killing thirty-seven Indians.

—Speaking of the Puerto Rican tariff bill, ex-President Harrison says: “I regard the bill as a most serious departure from right principles.”

—The bill passed by the Kentucky Legislature, offering a reward of $100,000 for the apprehension of the assassin of the late Goebel, became a law the 7th inst., by the approval of Democratic Governor Beckham.

—The recent discovery of Russian and Polish nihilist plots has led the Russian government to renewed police precautions. The routes of the czar’s visits are double patrolled by secret police, and the guards about the winter palace are particularly numerous.

—February 28 the Robert Smith Printing Company, of Lansing, was awarded the contract for binding for the State of Michigan, for two years, from July next. The contract for printing was previously given to one of the strikers of the company, who transferred it to a firm of New York printers.

—The Boers of Orange Free State have retreated from Bloemfontein to Winburg, and have removed to the latter place their seat of government, calling Winburg the new capital of the Orange Free State. It lies sixty miles to the north and east of Bloemfontein, and is the birthplace of President Steyn.

—A dispatch from Washington, dated March 13, states that “ten Republican senators are slated to-night as being ready to cast their votes against the Puerto Rican tariff bill. Should they do so, the bill will be defeated. Ten votes against the bill would defeat it by a majority of four, as the combined opposition is a unit against the tariff provision.”

—After a recent snowstorm, New York City spent $90,000 in two days in removing the snow from only a part of the streets in the borough of Manhattan. Commenting upon this, the Episcopal Recorder very sensibly remarks: “Accustomed as New York is to large figures, this amount seems considerable in view of the fact that from the changing weather, which is always probable at this season of the year, the gentle hand of nature removed the whole accumulation in the remainder of the city, without cost.”

—March 12 President Kruger requested all the foreign consuls at Pretoria to transmit to their respective governments his request for peace. The United States responded, by offering to Great Britain its friendly offices to bring the war to a conclusion. The United States merely transmitted to the British government, at the request of Presidents Kruger and Steyn, “the proposals that they wish to make for a cessation of hostilities.” Six other nations made representations to Great Britain, in response to the appeals made by President Kruger to the consuls at Pretoria. Needless to say, the British government declined to listen to any of the proposals.

—The New Orient, a Manila newspaper, in a recent issue, declares that the killing of General Lawton was the result of placing a price upon his head by wealthy natives of Manila. Continuing, the same paper says: “When the news of General Lawton’s death reached Manila, there was great rejoicing in certain native circles. It was at once proposed to raise a purse to reward the man who slew him, and within twenty-four hours more than $100,000 had been raised. After consultation it was deemed that this was too large a sum to be given to the slayer of one man, and the reward was fixed at $25,000. The man who did the deed was a second lieutenant of the Guardia Cavite, named Garcia.”

—Lord Salisbury’s reply to Presidents Kruger and Steyn was couched in the following words: “At two-days’ notice, after issuing an insulting ultimatum, the South African republics declared war upon Her Majesty. A large portion of Her Majesty’s dominions was overrun, with great destruction of property and life. . . . This great calamity has been the penalty Great Britain has suffered for having, of recent years, acquiesced to the existence of the two republics. In view of the uses to which the two republics have put the position which was given them, and the calamities their unprovoked attacks have inflicted on Her Majesty’s dominions, Her Majesty’s government can only answer your honors’ telegram by saying that they are not prepared to assent to the independence either of the South African Republic or of the Orange Free State.”

—The following is the text of the letter sent by Presidents Kruger and Steyn, to Premier Salisbury: “This war was undertaken solely as a defensive measure to maintain the threatened independence of the South African republics, and is only continued in order to secure and maintain the incontestable independence of both republics as sovereign international states, and to obtain the assurance that those of Her Majesty’s subjects who have taken a part with us in this war shall suffer no harm whatever in person or property. On these conditions, but on these conditions alone, are we now, as in the past, desirous of seeing peace re-established in South Africa; while, if Her Majesty’s government is determined to destroy the independence of the republics, there is nothing left to us and to our people but to persevere to the end in the course already begun.”

—Indian Territory has a population of fully 500,000.

—A trust, with a capital of $20,000,000, will develop the iron industry of Nova Scotia.

—Ten thousand miles of railway are in operation, or under construction, in Africa to-day.

—Within a year nineteen free public libraries have been established in the State of Wisconsin.

—The wife of President Steyn, of the Orange Free State, is with relatives in Aberdeen, Scotland.

—The United Fruit Company, of Boston, has purchased 198,000 acres of land on the Bay of Nipe, Cuba.

—Edinburgh University (Scotland) has conferred the degree of doctor of laws on American Ambassador Choate.

—The Order of the Golden Fleece has been bestowed on the German crown prince, by the queen regent of Spain.

—The new suspension bridge over the Niagara River, at Lewiston, is about completed, and electric cars will soon be crossing it.

—Brussels is planning to have a “world’s fair” in 1905, to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of Belgian independence.

—Herman Jude, a Berlin, Germany, provision dealer, has been sentenced to four-months’ imprisonment for selling condemned American ham.

—The international peace office at Berne, Switzerland, has received a petition of 16,370 Swiss, asking President McKinley to mediate in the Boer war.

—The Salvation Army has taken a hall in Paris, near the Exposition buildings, where services will be conducted daily for the benefit of visitors.

—A seven-per-cent reduction in grain rates between Chicago and New York has been made by the railroads, making the rate sixteen cents for a hundred pounds.

—A Filipino envoy will arrive in Paris this month, going also to Berlin and London, to seek funds for the continuation of the war against American supremacy.

—In Japan there is a Buddhist temple for every 540 of the population, and a Buddhist priest for every 400 Japanese. About $10,000,000 is spent each year in this idolatry.

—The crown prince of Japan, who is to be married soon, will make a tour of the United States, with his bride, visiting New York, Washington, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

—In Germany, the sale of the French comic paper Le Rire has been prohibited for two years. The reason given is its “slandering public institutions and personages in Germany.”

—Aubrey Thomas de Vere, the oldest living English poet, recently celebrated, in good health, his eighty-sixth birthday. It is nearly sixty years since his first book of verse, “The Waldenses,” appeared.

—The year 1809 is a famous birth year. Among the great names dating from that year are Gladstone, Tennyson, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Darwin, John Stuart Blackie, Lincoln, Edgar Allan Poe, and Oliver Wendell Holmes.

—The German minister to China says he has succeeded in getting a guaranty that Chinese rioters interfering with railway building will be dispersed. Troops are on the border to afford protection to German interests.

—It is announced that Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austrian throne, secretly married Countess Sofia Chotek, and, in consequence, forfeits succession to the throne on the part of his heirs, should there be such.

—Letters from the Philippines support the charge that the United States warship “Charleston” wreck was due to the drunkenness of the officers, who did not know where the ship was. The crew nearly mutinied when asked to sign an exoneration.

—Harry Cooper, said to be the tallest man in the world, has just died. He was born in Cleveland, in Yorkshire, England. He was eight feet eight inches in height, and at one time was a member of Barnum’s troupe. He died in British Columbia.

—Count von Buelow, German minister of foreign affairs, has assured the Reichstag that “the government is in perfect harmony with The Hague Peace Conference, so long as nothing is done to jeopardize public safety and the right of Germany to protect her own interests.”

—The gross earnings of all the Pennsylvania railroads, east and west of Pittsburg, for 1899, were $152,169,106; operating expenses, $106,506,988; and net earnings, $45,662,118. Compared with 1898, the gross earnings increased $16,038,835, and the net earnings, $4,202,703. The gross earnings of all the lines east of Pittsburg and Erie, for 1899, were $72,922,984; operating expenses, $50,344,633, and net earnings, $22,578,351.

—A dispatch from Jackson, Miss., says that “an official report made by the Hinds County board of supervisors reveals a frightful condition of affairs on account of smallpox, in the neighborhood of Jonesville. In the course of six weeks the mortality has been nearly 100, and deaths are so numerous that it is impossible to make interments within any reasonable time. Many patients are in a critical condition, and without medical attention.”

—The British government has ordered five automobiles in Paris, for use in South Africa.

—Queen Victoria will visit Ireland in April, the journey being undertaken by her to express her appreciation of the bravery of her Irish troops. Her last visit to Dublin was in 1861.