News and Notes

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 8, 1900

—A terrific tornado and hailstorm did great damage in Alabama, May 1.

—Forest fires are doing great damage in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

—Eight thousand Paris (France) washerwomen have struck for higher wages and shorter hours.

—Admiral Dewey spent May 1, Dewey Day, at Chicago, where great demonstrations were made in honor of the hero of Manila Bay.

—News has been received from Colonel Baden-Powell, the British commander at Mafeking, saying that all was well there. The dispatch was dated April 20.

—Ottawa, the capital of Quebec, and Hull, across the river, were devastated by a fire April 26, causing a loss of nearly $20,000,000, and rendering more than 12,000 people homeless.

—Nine persons were killed, and nine seriously wounded, by the collapse of a bridge in the Paris Exposition grounds, April 30. The bridge had been condemned, and the public had been warned not to cross it.

—The Gillette-Herzog Manufacturing Company, of Minneapolis, Minn., has deposited a $50,000 guarantee bond to erect the new hall at Kansas City, Mo., in time for occupancy by the National Democratic Convention on July 4.

—May 2, by a vote of 225 to 35, the United States House of Representatives passed the bill providing for the construction of “a protected but not fortified Nicaragua Canal by the United States government.” It is said that the announcement that the bill was passed “was followed by hearty applause on both sides of the chamber.”

—The wife of Major General James H. Wilson, military governor of the Department of Matanzas, Santa Clara, Cuba, died on the afternoon of April 28, from the effects of burns accidentally received while driving with her daughter. While alighting from her carriage, Mrs. Wilson stepped on a match, which ignited her dress. She was terribly burned; and although everything was done to relieve her sufferings, she died about 3 P. M.

—Nine culprits were publicly whipped in Dover, Del., April 30.

—President Dole has been selected as the first governor of Hawaii.

—April 27 twenty-three lives were lost by the explosion of a Turkish torpedo boat in Beyrout, Syria.

—May 1 the Transvaal government ordered all British subjects to leave the Republic within forty-eight hours.

—The sultan of Turkey has purchased 240,000 new rifles, sixteen batteries of artillery, and ninety-six quick-firing field guns.

—Nine tons of nitro-glycerine were used to blow up a rock in San Francisco (Cal.) harbor, May 2. The rock menaced navigation.

—Thomas Harland, the practical framer of the existent patent laws of this country, died in New York April 28, aged seventy.

—A jury of one Gentile and seven Mormons, heard a case against Brigham Roberts, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and disagreed on the verdict.

—Before leaving Dublin for England, Queen Victoria conferred baronetcies on the mayors of Dublin and Belfast, and gave $5,000 to Dublin hospitals.

—During the latter part of April the Pekin (China) government dismissed twenty-five Japanese, Russian, and German military instructors from its colleges and provincial armies.

—One million pounds of tinned bacon recently left Chicago, being consigned to American soldiers in the Philippines. To haul them it took two special trains, each hauling thirty-eight refrigerator cars.

—The Transvaal government has asked Lord Roberts to be allowed to send a clergyman to St. Helena, and also a neutral consul to watch the interests of the Boer prisoners, in the same manner that Adelbert S. Hay guards the interests of the British, at Pretoria.

—A dispatch from St. Paul, Minn., dated May 3, says that “United States District Judge Lochren to-day, in this city, decided that the ratification of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain, made Porto Rico American territory and subject to the Constitution of the United States, without any further act of Congress.”

—A terrible explosion occurred May 1, in the Pleasant Valley Coal Company's mines Nos. 1 and 4, near Scofield, Utah. Already “more than 200 corpses have been taken from the mines.” It is estimated that “of the 398 men at work in the mines when the explosion occurred, less than a hundred escaped alive.” Every house in the little town is a house of mourning.

—The South African situation is as follows: General Roberts wishes to leave the Free State and enter the Transvaal as soon as possible, as he does not think the Free Staters will fight outside of their territory. On the other hand, General Botha is blocking Lord Roberts, and is bent on carrying on the war as long as possible in the Free State where the forces of the two republics can be kept together.

—The Boer envoys sailed for New York, from Rotterdam, May 3. A dispatch from Washington says that the Republican leaders there are “scenting trouble in the coming of the Boer peace commission,” and that it is “apparent to them that a vigorous effort is to be made by the Democrats to capitalize the South African war in the coming campaign.” If the Republicans in Congress pronounce themselves in favor of Great Britain, the Democrats will make good use of any such declaration, especially if it be made in the form of a resolution.

—A dispatch from Rock Island, Ill., dated May 2, says that “the newly formed United Christian party launched its national ticket and formulated its platform here to-day. Rev. S. C. Swallow, of Harrisburg, Pa., is the nominee for president, and John G. Wooley, of Chicago, is his running mate.” Among other things, the platform declares for “the initiative and referendum, and for political, social, and economic equality of the sexes,” and “urges daily reading of the Bible in the public schools and institutions of learning controlled by the state,” and “declares for government ownership of public utilities,” and “favors the election of president, vice-president, and United States senators by popular vote of the people.”

—A dispatch from Bonn, Germany, dated May 1, says that “Michael Munkacsy, the celebrated painter, died in an asylum here to-day. He will be buried at Budapest. The real name of the great painter was Michael Lieb. This he changed to Michael von Munkacsy, from the little Hungarian village of Munkacs, where he was born, Oct. 10, 1846. His parents were very poor, and the boyhood days of the future artist were spent at his bench, where he learned the trade of a carpenter. His attention was first directed toward work with the brush by his observation and admiration of the glaring pictures on the sides of the big chests in which Hungarian peasants are wont to keep their clothes. The boy began by imitating these daubs.” In 1874 he was married to the widow of Baron de Marches. The alliance brought him “fortune as well as inspiration.” Among his most celebrated paintings are “Christ Before Pilate,” “The Crucifixion,” “The Wrestlers,” “The Last Moments of Mozart,” “Condemned to Death,” “Christ Before Pilate,” his most famous work, is now the property of John Wanamaker, of Philadelphia.

—Governor Tanner, of Illinois, is critically ill.

—Fifteen cases of the bubonic plague occurred in Manila, Philippines, within one week.

—British agents are securing a trainload of bronchos in Colorado, for shipment to South Africa.

—Seven hundred men are reported to have left Dawson City for Cape Nome during last winter.

—On account of scarcity of pig iron, mills at Troy, N. Y., have been closed, affecting 1,000 employees.

—The New York police commissioners have decided that no prize fights shall be allowed in that city hereafter.

—Russia has compelled China to consent to the construction of a railroad from Pekin to Kiahta, in Eastern Siberia.

—The last Alaskan winter was the coldest on record. The temperature at Dawson was from seventeen to fifty-nine degrees below zero.

—Floods in Wisconsin recently caused great damage, blocking railroad traffic. The Wisconsin River is the highest it has been for twenty years.

—The striking Italians arrested at Croton Landing, N. Y., declare that they will appeal to King Humbert, through their consul and ambassador.

—Governor Roosevelt, of New York, has signed the bill to “secure equal rights to colored children in the public schools, and abolish separate schools.”

—It is reported that “Lieutenant Whipple, U. S. A., found a pearl valued at $2,000 in a baked oyster he was eating at the Waldorf Astoria hotel,” in New York.

—Forest fires are devastating a large tract of country in Manitoba, along the line of the Southeastern Railway, and lumber campers have had narrow escapes.

—The citizens of Austin, Tex., in a mass meeting, have decided to build a steam plant to cost $250,000, to take the place of the dam and water system wrecked by the flood a week ago.

—The fear of hydrophobia has caused the British board of agriculture to enforce the old order forbidding the temporary entrance of foreign dogs into England. Tourists will be obliged to leave their dogs at home.

—A Washington dispatch states that “the House committee on military affairs to-day (April 24) directed a favorable report on the bill establishing four permanent camps in the four main sections of the country, for use both by federal troops and the national guard.”

—An anonymous donation to the Aero Club, of Paris, offers $20,000 to the aeronaut who will start in a balloon, from Longchamp, go around the Tower Eiffel, and return to the starting point, a total distance of eleven kilometers (nearly seven miles) in thirty minutes. This competition is international.

—A dispatch from Constantinople, dated April 24, states that “in view of the steps taken by the United States government in regard to the claims arising out of the Armenian massacres, the embassies of Great Britain, France, Austria, Italy, and Germany have asked their governments for instructions as to their similar claims.”

—It is said that Mayor Jones, of Toledo, Ohio, has “given up the socialistic scheme he inaugurated in his business a few months ago. It is explained that he found that some of the men employed in the establishment were not so anxious to work as others, and he decided that they should not, therefore, have the same compensation or profits that went to the industrious employees.”

—Rev. Rockwell Clancy has been all through the famine district of India, and has the following to say: “When the famine set in, the people began to sell everything they had in order that they might get a little grain for food. They took doors from their houses and sold them, and sold their furniture and farming utensils. When they had no longer anything to sell, they sold their children. Boys don't sell; traffic is largely in girls. I saw girls in one town sold for thirty cents apiece, just before I came away. They were bought up by Mohammedans for harems. The condition of famine-stricken India is awful to contemplate. I can not tell anything about the number who are dying, but when I left Bombay last February, there were some 60,000,000 people suffering from famine, and over 30,000,000 were in dire distress. Of these but 5,000,000 were receiving government aid.”

—Concerning the report that Mrs. Dewey has renounced Catholicism, Rev. Richard Burke, of Buffalo, N. Y., who gave Mrs. Hazen (now Mrs. Dewey) her first communion when she was received into the Roman Catholic Church, says: “I am afraid Mrs. Dewey was not well grounded in the faith. I have no doubt that she has deserted the church for political reasons. It has been reported to me that she ceased attending the church nearly two years ago; in fact, shortly after Dewey's victory at Manila. As I understand it, Dewey was engaged to Mrs. Hazen when he went to the Philippine station. Mrs. Dewey realized that such a national hero might aspire to the presidency. To a woman of such ambition the thought probably came before it occurred to Dewey himself. About that time Mrs. Hazen began to be remiss in her church attendance, and now she seems disposed to give up the faith, lest it might be regarded as an obstacle to her husband's candidacy. I hardly think she will make votes by it. Yet such women as Mrs. Leland Stanford and the wife of ex-Governor Campbell, of Ohio, have told me they would have joined the Catholic Church if they had not feared the effect on the political careers of their husbands.”