Notes of News | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 20, 1879

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 53, No. 12.

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Notes of News.

—Haiti is suffering from an insurrectionary movement.

—There is a proposition before the Missouri Legislature to divide that State.

—The agitation of the Chinese question will be resumed at the opening of Congress.

—The value of the annual importation of food into Great Britain is about $800,000,000.

—Connecticut proposes to make the Land of Steady Habits uncomfortable for tramps.

—3,000,000 bushels of wheat were sold in Chicago the other day in accordance with a forged telegram.

—The wealth of England is computed at $34,200,000,000; the wealth of France at $30,000,000,000.

—The French Chamber of Deputies has voted 225,000 francs for participation in the Australian International Exhibition.

—All the cotton grown in North Carolina will not pay her liquor bill, which amounts to $8,500,960 a year, by more than a million dollars.

—During 1878 about 5,000 books were published in England. In 1877 nearly 14,000 works, comprising over 20,000 volumes, appeared in Germany.

—Bismarck's parliamentary discipline bill has been rejected by the German Reichstag. This is said to be an ignominious defeat for the government.

—A photographic picture taken at midnight of the room in the mill at Willimantic, Connecticut, in which the electric light is used, is said to be clear and distinct.

—Still another famine is reported. This time it is in the most fertile portions of Bolivia. In one small town 200 persons died from want of food in 20 days.

—King Humbert has devoted a special room at the Quirinal for the preservation of the votive crowns offered to his father's memory by Italians in all parts of the world.

—The Old Man of the Mountain will be saluted by the locomotive whistle next summer, as the railroad from Bethlehem, N. H., to the Profile House will be finished in June.

—Marash in Central Turkey has a Y. M. C. A. of 144 members with a library of 137 Turkish, American, and English books, and with Committees who are earnest and vigilant in personal religious work.

—Elihu Burritt, “the learned blacksmith,” died at his residence in New Britain, March 7. He was the author of “Sparks from the Anvil,” “Miscellaneous Writings,” “Olive Leaves,” and other works.

—A short time ago a London officer seized a number of sacks of flour containing 78 per cent of plaster of Paris; and it was proved that a baker had made and sold 114 loaves of bread therefrom.

—A test of Mr. Edison's carbon telephone has been made in England, by which a conversation almost in a whisper, between persons in London and Norwich, 115 miles apart, was carried on without difficulty.

—The beautiful village of Meiringen, one of the most picturesque in the Bernese Alps, has been almost entirely destroyed by fire, a third of its 2,800 inhabitants having lost their homes and all their property.

—Measures are being taken by the Brooklyn Board of Health to prevent the introduction of diseased meat into the market. The cattle brought to the slaughter-houses are to be examined by an inspector or veterinary surgeon.

—Japan, according to the geologists, has a supply of coal equal to the annual yield of Great Britain for a thousand years. It would not be surprising if these coal resources should figure largely in the future of that country.

—Telegrams of March 10 give accounts of English reverses in Afghanistan. In Zululand, however, the British arms are triumphant. It is rumored that the Zulus desire terms of peace on the condition of tribal independence.

—A private letter to the Pall Mall Gazette from a high London official says that the people of Cashmere are dying like flies, and that at the present rate of mortality the province will be nearly depopulated by the end of the year.

—On the evening of March 12, an accident occurred at Gilmore's Garden, N. Y. A long section of the gallery suddenly sunk, while there were 10,000 people within the building. The panic was very great, and many were severely injured.

—On the 12th of March an ice-gorge near Lock Haven, Pa., gave way, doing immense damage. The Philadelphia and Erie Railroad Company have sent 500 men to clear the track. In many places both track and road-bed are washed away.

—The burning of infected houses in the plague districts of Russia has begun in earnest; but most of the houses of the Russian peasants are mere shanties, and it is also likely that the inhabitants will be indemnified by public subscriptions or by the government.

—The announcement of the death of Shere Ali, Ameer of Afghanistan, was followed by great disorder and bloodshed. Three rival parties—one headed by the Ameer's son, the second by his brother, and the third by his nephew—contended for the throne. Shere Ali's son, Yakoob Khan, was the successful contestant.

—Some swindlers operating in Washington and New York have been circulating bogus pledges for a monument to Bayard Taylor. The names of John B. Astor and Peter Cooper were forged to give the public confidence in the enterprise. The swindlers evidently expected to make something, as the circulars are tastefully printed on expensive paper.

—It is proposed in Ohio to obtain legislative permission for a lottery, the proceeds thereof to be applied to the payment of Archbishop Purcell's debts. This would be swindling the people outright, and it is to be hoped that the scheme may be dropped. Bad banking is a serious evil, yet is not necessarily criminal; but plundering the people by a lottery is a crime.—Harper's Weekly.

—A fire broke out at St. Louis, Mo., between 1 and 2 o'clock in the morning of March 9, and consumed 1 brick and 5 frame buildings, entailing a loss of about $10,000. Five persons were burned to death, and another, in jumping from a window, was probably fatally injured. The fire is supposed to be the work of an incendiary, and the husband of one of the ladies burned to death is among the persons arrested for the deed.

—On Monday, March 10, the 25th anniversary of the organization of the Atlantic telegraph company, Cyrus W. Field received at the hands of the Hawaiian Minister a concession granting permission to land on the Sandwich Islands a cable connecting the United States with Japan. Mr. Field also said at his jubilee reception that it was only within a few days that ocean dispatches had been sent both ways at the same time through both cables.

—In consequence of the efforts of the Brooklyn Board of Health, the Governor of New York has prohibited the sale of the milk from several hundred cows confined in stables connected with distilleries at Blissville, Long Island. These stables had been visited by inspectors. The cows were diseased, and yet every day thousands of quarts were retailed to unsuspecting customers. It is believed that much of the prevailing sickness and mortality among children is due to the use of this poisonous milk.

—The Brooklyn Presbytery have decided to try Rev. T. De Witt Talmage in the following charges: Deceit and falsehood in statements regarding his withdrawal from the editorship of the Christian at Work; in stating that sittings in the Tabernacle were free; in accusing J. W. Hathaway of dishonest practices, and then denying it; of falsehood in collecting subscriptions for the payment of the church debt; of deceit in the difficulty concerning the organist of the Tabernacle, and of stating that he was to be arraigned for heterodoxy, when he knew such was not the case.

Calcutta, March 10.—Affairs in Mandalay cause grave anxiety. The garrisons in British Burmah have been doubled. The Burmese have interrupted the telegraph line between Rangoon and Mandalay. The situation in Upper Burmah is regarded as very serious for the European residents. It is stated that the recent massacres at the instance of the king only amounted to forty, but the killing was attended by every possible atrocity. The victims were kicked, and the women shockingly and shamefully abused. The Royal Princes were reserved to the last and made to witness the torture and death of their families.—Inter-Ocean.

Heathen Japan.—Professor Edward L. Morse, who holds a professorship in the university at Yeddo, has delivered a lecture on the manners and customs of that people, in which he alludes to their careful treatment of children, the invariable cleanliness of their houses, resulting in the entire absence of diseases such as scarlet fever, diphtheria, and other affections so common in this country. The people are of gentle manners and particularly kind and careful of their animals. During his residence there he never heard a cross word uttered by a native, saw no fighting, and heard no profanity.—Scientific American.

—On the 12th of March, Szegedin, the second commercial town in Hungary, was destroyed by a flood caused by the overflow of the river Theiss. The river burst its last dam, and the waters rushed in with great force, destroying the town and rendering 80,000 people homeless. The suffering is terrible. A hundred square miles in the neighborhood of the town are flooded, and the crops in the district are destroyed. It is not known how many lives have been lost, but several thousand persons have been drowned. The towns of Csongrad and Szentes, one of 16,000 and the other of 26,000 inhabitants, are also fighting the flood.