Fires | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 31, 1871

Fires.

NEW YORK, Oct. 25.—A special from Niagara Falls states that the woods in Tammarack Swamp, seven miles southeast of Lockport had been burning since Monday. A number of houses, barns, crops, and stock, were destroyed. It is feared that the fire will spread to Batavia. Farmers are fleeing with their stock and furniture. The fire at East Albion is reported as subdued, but another broke out five miles north of that place. The loss since Sunday, at Albion, is $50,000. Ten houses, two flour mills, and 1,500 cords of wood were burned there.

A special from Washington states that information received there reports large fires in the woods, radiating in all directions from Cumberland. The mountains are enveloped in smoke. South Kittaling and other mountain ranges in that vicinity are subject to frequent fires, which often do immense damage. The bituminous coal fields are threatened.

CHICAGO, Oct. 25.—Geo. M. Pullman, treasurer, reports the following as the receipts for the relief of the Chicago poor: Cash received in direct remittance . . $509,276 Total amount for which drafts have been drawn and to be forwarded for collec- tion, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 896,709 Aggregate receipts . . . . . $1,486,986

Of the above sum $34,490 have been distributed, and the balance is remaining on hand. The committee estimate that they will require $1,975,000 for the next thirty days.

The banks are running smoothly. They have few calls for loans, and deposits are abundant.

Many of the Eastern and European companies are paying their losses promptly, and these funds furnish our merchants with money to purchase goods, and to capitalists who are preparing to build.

THE first of the Utah adultery cases, against Hawkins, a Mormon elder, has concluded, resulting in a verdict of guilty. The punishment is imprisonment for a term of not less than three years, nor more than twenty years, or a fine of not over one thousand dollars, or both, in the discretion of the court. The court may, therefore, if the judge thinks it best to do so, let the culprit off with only a fine. But it is likely the punishment of the leading Mormons will be somewhat severe. The stigma of imprisonment will go a great way toward breaking up the practice of polygamy. Beside, Judge McKean's disposition will not, probably, be any more merciful on account of the Mormon threats. The Mormons have threatened that they will resist any attempt to imprison or lay hands upon the persons of their chiefs; and they have boasted that the United States officials dare not imprison their elders and priests. It becomes, therefore, a sort of necessity as a test of the power of the national government in Utah—a question whether the authority of the United States or that of the Mormon Church is supreme—to show these defiant Mormons that the penalties of the law, however severe, can be, and will be, executed in Utah, and that they must humble their proud heads before the higher authority of the Republic.—Detroit Post.

A PETITION was received at the executive mansion to-day, five feet long, signed by the women of Utah, protesting against polygamy and urging effective measures to suppress the practice in that territory.

THE wild animals in the burned forests of Michigan are without a home, and many of them were victims of the devouring flames. The squirrels, who always take to a tree when danger is apparent, only hurried to the branches of the trees to be caught in a flame of fire. Many can now be seen with scorched feet and singed bodies roaming over a desolate forest. The deer, which were very numerous in this section, have been badly burned, especially their feet, and wander about as lonely, homeless creatures.

A HORRIBLE epidemic has broken out in Kurdistan. Its symptoms closely resemble the plague. Tumors under the armpits, a characteristic of the London infection of 1665, purple stains on the skin, bloodshot eyes, and almost unexceptional fatality are the prominent signs.