News and Notes

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 13, 1900

—Wang Wen Shao, imperial treasurer of China, died November 1.

—There are at present in Germany 400 glass factories, giving employment to 35,000 men.

—The daughter of Lord Roberts is sick, and he has taken her to Johannesburg, leaving Lord Kitchener in command.

—The Pittsburg and Lake Erie Railroad has issued orders to its employees, forbidding the use of alcoholic liquors, whether on or off duty.

—The general elections in Canada were held on Wednesday, November 7, the liberals winning a great victory over the conservatives. Sir Wilfrid Laurier is thus re-elected premier.

—For his part in the defense of Mafeking, Major Baden-Powell was promoted over the heads of 200 officers, to the rank of major general. He is but forty-three years of age, and is the youngest major general in the British army.

—No boy who smokes cigarettes will be employed hereafter in Chicago’s post-office.

—Mr. Kruger will arrive at Marseilles, France, November 17, and at Paris the 19th.

—There is now a complete telegraph line between Seattle, Wash., and Skagway, Alaska.

—During the last week 18,282 tons of coal were shipped abroad from Newport News, Va.

—In proportion to the population, the United States uses more sugar than any other nation in the world.

—Because of threatened Carlist uprisings, many clubs throughout Spain have been closed, and Carlist leaders exiled.

—It is reported that Peking, China, has “resumed its normal aspect, except for the vast quantity of flags displayed by the allied army.”

—About 400,000 tons of the 2,000,000 tons of steel rails needed for 1901 in this country, have been ordered at the pool price of $26 per ton.

—General Miles, as lieutenant general of the United States army, is allowed to prescribe his own uniform. He may wear what he pleases.

—More than 30,000 men who had registered to vote at the coming general election in Porto Rico, were disqualified by the property qualification.

—It seems that “the United States, at the end of last quarter, had, next to Great Britain, the largest tonnage in shipping under construction.”

—As the result of an explosion in the Berryberg coal mine at Philippi, W. Va., twenty persons are missing. Twelve bodies have been recovered thus far.

—Five hundred acres of marl beds near Schoolcraft, Mich., have been purchased by a syndicate, which will at once erect a cement plant costing $400,000.

—November 5 a bull moose weighing 812 pounds was shot in the Adirondacks, near Long Lake, being the first killed in that region for twenty-three years.

—Prof. C. R. Eastman, of Harvard, was recently indicted for a murder committed several years ago, and will be placed on trial between December 1 and 15.

—The Colombian government printing office, at Bogota, has been robbed of $1,000,000 in paper money, and also of the plates from which the money is printed.

—The Dutch women of Northern Cape Colony, South Africa, have protested against the burning of property and eviction of families from their homes by the British.

—A recent explosion of gas in the United States submarine boat “Holland” caused no damage whatever, the crew not being obliged to leave the hold of the vessel.

—Valuable pearls having been found in the clam beds of the Mississippi River, near Prairie du Chien, diggers are crowding the banks, and the river is full of house-boats.

—Headquarters for the Salvation Army in America will hereafter be in Mount Vernon, N. Y., Commander Booth-Tucker and other officers having purchased homes there.

—The board of army engineers recommend “the rehabilitation of all the Galveston fortifications, and the repairing and raising of the jetties,” which will cost about $3,500,000.

—It is said that the trustees of a Methodist church in Alabama have “introduced a tax of ten dollars per annum upon every member of the congregation who chews tobacco.”

—Major Gibbons and party, just returned from an African expedition of over two years, report that they discovered a tribe of bushmen, with almost white skin, and whose food consists mainly of snakes.

—November 3 a Boer commando captured a British outpost of ninety men, held up a Cape Town mail train, looting carriages and passengers, and destroying the mail, before the British armored train arrived on the scene.

—The raisin crop in California is larger this year than ever before, being estimated at 73,000,000 pounds. This industry has grown up during the last twenty-five years. Fifteen years ago Eastern grocers would scarcely deal in California raisins, but now they are driving out the foreign product.

—An exchange is authority for the statement that “the late Cyrus H. Hamlin, for more than twenty years a missionary in Turkey, in an article published since his death, gives abundant evidence that Russia is, and has always been, the greatest opponent to the entrance and work of Protestants in Turkey.”

—It is stated upon good authority that “a glass of cold water slowly sipped will produce a greater acceleration of the pulse for a time than will a glass of wine or spirits taken at a draught. In this connection it may not be out of place to mention that sipping cold water will often allay the craving for alcohol.”

—The presidential election of Tuesday, November 6, resulted as follows: electoral votes for William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, 295; electoral votes for William J. Bryan and Adlai E. Stevenson, 152. The total number of electoral votes in the United States is 447, and the number necessary to a choice is 224. Thus McKinley has a majority of 143 electoral votes, and is elected to the presidency for a second term.

—During the month of October, 112 vessels were built in the United States.

—A syndicate of Austrian financiers will exploit the rich new petroleum fields of Galicia.

—After Jan. 1, 1901, no coal will be used on railroad locomotives in California; oil will be used instead.

—Aguinaldo is reported to be in Cavite, forty miles from Manila, rousing the insurgents to greater activity.

—The officers and men of two French cruisers are being royally entertained by the city of Baltimore, Md.

—The Fairhaven, Wash., salmon canneries have closed, having packed 225,000 cases, or 100,000 less than last year.

—It is reported that “the favorite wife of Emperor Kwang Su, of China, was recently drowned by order of the Empress Dowager.”

—The most valuable grain cargo ever shipped on the Great Lakes—260,000 bushels of flaxseed, valued at $468,000—is being loaded at Duluth, Minn.

—It is said that heavy rains have caused great damage in Minnesota, farmers complaining that the unthrashed grain is sprouting in the stacks.

—George Washington Green, a servant of George Washington at Mount Vernon, died in Hempstead, N. Y., November 1, aged nearly 123 years.

—November 9 the proprietors of the Denver Post telegraphed William J. Bryan an offer of $10,000 a year if he wishes to become a member of its editorial staff.

—Emperor William, of Germany, and Count von Buelow alone negotiated the Anglo-German agreement regarding China, excluding from their counsels Prince Hohenlohe.

—The four young men of Paterson, N. J., charged with the abuse and murder of a young woman, were indicted by the jury, November 3, but their trial will not occur until the January term.

—It is stated that “the Romish archbishop of Louisville, Ky., has forbidden his people to send their children to the public schools,” basing his prohibition on “a resolution of the Plenary Council of Baltimore,” which until now was “practically a dead letter.”

—During the month of October the British lost, in South Africa, 167 men killed in action, including 15 officers, 71 who died of wounds, 367 who died of disease, 22 who died of accidents, and 97 captured or missing—a total almost equal to the monthly average for the duration of the war.

—Dispatches from Berlin, Germany, under date of November 9, state that “the United States embassy is crowded with applications for redress against the German government, made by natives of Alsace-Lorraine, who are now American citizens, and who, after the Paris Exposition, visited their old homes, only to be curtly expelled by the authorities. Under the provisions of the treaty of 1868, Germany refuses to recognize them as entitled to protection.”

—The home coming of British volunteers to London, from South Africa, October 29, was marked by scenes of wild license and violence, ten persons being killed and 200 injured, in the street crushes. Dispatches from London, under that date, state that “this afternoon and to-night this metropolis has been at the absolute mercy of a howling, drunken mob of thousands, who, under the guise of patriotism, have improved the exceptional opportunity to give full license to all forms of depravity. Despite the fact that 4,000 police and 22,000 troops were on duty along the line of march, there was no check on the lawlessness.”

—Miss Anna Gould, daughter of the late Jay Gould, and who inherited about $15,000,000 of her father’s fortune, was married in 1895 to Count de Castellane, of Paris. The couple made Paris their home, and the count soon began to play spendthrift—so much so that his wife’s income of $600,000 a year was not sufficient to meet expenses. Besides spending that large income, Castellane incurred a debt of $4,400,000. At this the Gould family became alarmed, and finally secured a judicial decision under French laws, making Mr. George Gould, Anna’s brother, trustee of the latter’s property. However, it has been so arranged that the debt of over $4,000,000 may be paid from the $600,000 yearly income, without touching the principal of her inheritance.

—And now there is serious talk of the Catholics in the United States organizing a “centrist” party, to control the balance of power in politics. It seems that “this is to be done openly [Catholic participation in politics]. No denials henceforth. No longer diplomacy, the silken glove, but the mailed fist. Bishops, priests, and laymen have openly expressed their belief during the last few months that the time is ripe for the entrance of the church into politics. An American center party is advocated, similar to the obstructionist Center Party of Germany, which, not through its intellectual and numerical strength, but mainly through its policy of exacting concessions as the price of aid to other parties in times of close vote, attains some measure of success.” So says W. A. Curtis, in the Christian Advocate, November 1. Continuing, he says: “The church is wise, unutterably wise, and the time is not ripe. It will not do it to-day, under present conditions. But this contains no promise for the morrow. Some national crises may arise when the nation’s extremity will be turned to the church’s advantage, and the center party, only a threat to-day, become an actuality.”