Notes of News | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 8, 1879

Notes of News.

—A RAILROAD is to be built to the top of Vesuvius.

—THERE are 5,173 inland lakes in Michigan.

—PRESIDENT HAYES has vetoed the army bill.

—APRIL 26 was the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

—A BERLIN dispatch says that advices received by way of Warsaw represent that bombs are exploded in St. Petersburg daily.

—THE mills at Manchester, N. H., have shut down, owing to a rise in the Merrimack River, and 2,000 operatives are temporarily out of work.

—A CIRCULAR has been issued to the governors of the various Russian provinces which virtually puts the whole empire under military rule.

—A CONVENT in Belgium has recently been declared bankrupt, one of the largest bills being for cigars for the sisters!

—NEW JERSEY cattle are prohibited from being imported to New York on account of disease prevalent among them.

—THE last sheets of the Bible translated by Drs. Riggs and Williamson into the Dakota language, have passed through the press.

—THE National Reform Association, whose object is to secure the religious amendment of the Constitution, is to hold its annual meeting at Pittsburg, Pa., May 6, 7.

—THE indefatigable and destructive Mr. Krupp has just completed a steel rifled cannon that throws a 1600-pound shell fifteen miles. At such a range he would scarcely shoot at an object smaller than a first-class city.

—THE British defeated the Zulus in a recent engagement; but a dispatch from London dated April 29, says the Zulus have recovered from its effects very rapidly. Sickness is more or less prevalent among the British forces.

—PRINCE ALEXANDER of Battenburg has been elected to the princedom of Bulgaria. It is said on good authority that the Prince stipulates that the Russians employed in Bulgaria shall retain their posts five years, and afterward be naturalized if they so desire.

—As a young lady was recently about to be admitted into one of the religious orders in the hall of the Saidi Palace of Sulmona, Italy, several government officers appeared, and put a stop to the proceedings on the ground that those orders are prohibited in Italy.

—CANADA is threatened with an immigration a thousand times worse than that of the Chinese or potato bugs; for the French Jesuits have written to their brethren in Montreal, asking if they can be received there, as they expect to be expelled from France within the next six months.

—SIXTEEN members of the House of Representatives are Methodists, 11 are Presbyterians, 10 are Christians, 7 are Baptists, 4 are Catholics, 3 are Universalists, 3 are Quakers, 1 an Episcopalian, 1 an Israelite, 1 Unitarian, 1 Independent, 1 Congregationalist. We don't wish to be understood, however, as considering it a religious body.

—A SYNDICATE composed of nineteen banks and banking firms of New York and Boston, on Thursday, 17th inst., subscribed to $150,000,000 four per cent bonds, and $40,000,000 funding, which closes the ten-forty loan certificates. This is the largest single subscription ever made to a government funded loan in this or any other country.

—ACCORDING to the fourth annual report of the British Workmen Public House Company in Liverpool, the receipts of their 34 coffeehouses are about $5,000 a week; they accommodate 3,500 persons, and serve 10,000 gallons of coffee, 4,000 of cocoa, 3,000 of tea, and 400 of pea soup weekly. The profit last year was $16,500.

—A MERCHANT in Allegheny City, Pa., named Russell, is preaching the doctrine that the world will come to an end in 1914, the “forty years of trouble” to precede that event having commenced in 1874. Russell has made 150 converts, some of whom are extravagant in their religious behavior, and a great deal of excitement has been caused in that region.

—THE editor of a North Carolina paper, writing on the consumption of drink, grimly observes: “If the population of the State is 1,070,120 souls, our people pay $8,500,960 for liquor, about $1,000,000 for education, and for their religion $269,830. That is, they think eight times as much of whisky as of Christian faith.” Such reflections will strike home in other places besides North Carolina.

—In the news column of the Christian Weekly of May 3, we find the following significant and interesting item: “The Jewish Messenger repeats the rumor that a prominent Jewish synagogue in this city proposes to hold its services on the Christian Sabbath, and expresses its trust ‘that no congregation will so lose its self-respect as to consent to a course so utterly at variance with Judaism.’ Sincere Jews lament the growing decay of reverence for their Sabbath.”

—THE panic in Russia grows more intense daily. A great fire at Orenburg, one of the great market towns on the Ural River, to which many have been banished, is ascribed to political incendiaries, while the most extraordinary precautions are taken to protect the Czar from assassination on his travels, the whole route to Livadia having been taken possession of, traffic suspended, and the line fringed with soldiers during his journey thither. A guest caught with a loaded revolver on his person at a reception is seized and suspected of some fearful design. In short, all classes seem to be in some such frame of mind as though they were standing on a mine which they expected every moment to be exploded.

—THE European Messenger presents some valuable facts in relation to the National Church of Russia. The number of persons in holy orders is about 100,000; there are 420 cathedrals, 38,502 churches, and 12,408 chapels. The total annual revenue of the Church is 20,000,000 rubles. The translation of the Bible into Russian was finished in 1877. The first edition of 24,000 copies has been sold, and a second is in preparation. There are 532 monasteries and convents; in these are 10,500 monks and 16,000 nuns. The schools connected with the churches and monasteries are 6,321 in number; the universities, gymnasia, and scientific schools number only 363.

—The Christian Weekly, in its issue of May 3, says: “The self-asserting supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church over the laws of the State is manifesting itself in Missouri, where the priests willfully evade the requirement to file a record of every marriage performed, and are determinedly opposing the passage of a Marriage License bill, on the ground that their church laws made in Rome are all that they shall obey. They not only openly threaten disobedience, but dare the Legislature to pass laws infringing on their liberty. They know their political power, and defiantly threaten to use it against the party that opposes them. Shall Rome rule America?”

—ST. PETERSBURG, APRIL 29.—The police are openly arresting the people by batches at all hours of the day. Hitherto the arrests were made at night. On the slightest suspicion against any person his whole family are arrested, and domiciliary visits are paid to all their acquaintances, these leading to further apprehensions on the most frivolous grounds. There are few pedestrians or carriages on the streets, but an endless line of porters are seated on stools at every door, with stout sticks. Covered prison-vans regularly pass with a police officer mounted beside the driver, and General Gourko drives round in an open drosky, escorted by Cossacks cracking their whips. The inhabitants are not accomplices of the Nihilists, but apathetic spectators.

—THE emigration of the colored people from the Southern States has attained such large proportions that the churches are assuming the duty of giving aid. A national emigration society has also been established, of which Senator Windom is president, and the Hon. Edward M'Pherson secretary. A committee of the citizens of Wyandotte, Kansas, announce that they will send men with the emigrants, to find unoccupied government lands suitable for settlement. Trustworthy men will also go with them to assist in their first labors. It is now said that the freedmen have had their attention directed to Kansas since 1869, and that numerous families have been settled there for several years. The movement is not so precipitate as was first believed. Some system of help covering the whole country is very much needed.

—THE Mormons have just been in conference at Salt Lake City. The statistics show a grand total of 11 apostles, 2 counselors, 50 patriarchs, 4,260 seventies, 3,241 high priests, 9,615 elders, 1,347 priests, 1,515 teachers, 2,097 deacons, 52,555 members, 75,556 officers and members, 33,661 children under eight years of age; total, 109,218; 20,308 families, 531 marriages, 1,186 male births, 1,150 female births, 2,209 children blessed, 1,826 members received, 1,400 removed, 1,298 baptized, 484 female deaths, 103 excommunicated, 1,041 receiving support. In his address before the Conference, George Q. Cannon appealed to the principles of religious liberty which actuated the founders of our government. The Constitution, he declared, needed no amendment. It was broad enough for all. “No man or woman properly constituted fails to respect people who have been persecuted as we have been. But we have not suffered in vain. The time will come, and that soon, when we shall be in power.”