News and Miscellany by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jun 10, 1875

News and Miscellany.

By Editor

—Sunday evening, June 6, Mr Simmons, formerly a missionary to China, spoke in Chinese to a large number of the "heathen" in the Baptist church of Oakland. After the sermon three converted Chinamen were baptized by Rev. McLafferty, pastor.

—Further details of the recent earthquake in Asia Minor show that several villages were destroyed. Two thousand persons perished.

—Calculation, based on the recent observations of the transit of Venus, makes the earth about seven millions of miles nearer the sun than it was supposed to be.

A FORTY-SEVEN thousand dollar robbery has lately occured in the treasury department, which will probably result in the exclusion of visitors from certain parts of the treasury building.

—Although many of the strikers in the pennsylvania coal regions have given up the strike and commenced work they are quickly overpowered and driven away by the remaining rioters. June 3, in Mahanoy City about one thousand men were marching from colliery to colliery compelling the miners to suspend work.

NEW YORK, June 1.—Forest fires have again broken out in the mountains of Delaware and Sullivan counties, New York, doing much damage. The village of Bethel, Sullivan county, was surrounded by fires for two days, and were only saved after a hard fight.

—W. Corbin, a wealthy farmer of Delaware county, was surrounded by fire while fighting the flames and burned to death. Two other men narrowly escaped. In Sullivan county 1,000 acres of valuable timber and 300,000 feet of lumber were destroyed. The conflagration is so fierce that families have been obliged to leave their houses to save their lives, leaving everything to be destroyed.

FASHIONABLE RELIGION.—Rev. Dr. Hall's church, in New York City, cost one million dollars. Half the pews were disposed of at an aggregate bonus of $77,000. The pews are valued at from $300 to $6,000 apiece, and the total valuation of 352 pews is $800,000.

—The Roman Catholic bishops of Prussia have decided to dissolve even the religious orders which the State tolerates, being unwilling to see them subjected to governmental supervision.

—A terrible massacre of Protestants on one of the Loyalty group of islands in the South Seas, is reported. Twenty men and fourteen women were killed and horribly mutilated. Priests were the instigators.

—The largest wooden bridge in the world caught fire a few nights ago, and is now a heap of charcoal and ashes. It was the Portage Bridge on the Erie Railway, spanning the Genesee River and Falls, at a point about sixty miles this side of Buffalo. A new bridge of iron will at once be erected in place of the ruined structure.

—After more than three weeks spent in consultation among themselves, and conference with the government commissioners, the nineteen Indian chiefs have prepared to leave Washington without having accomplished any arrangement for the sale of the Black Hills. They must talk with their people about it. They were anxious to see the $25,000, offered for a part of their territory, before they returned, so that they could assure their people that the government had the money. Some expressed great dissatisfaction at not being presented with guns, horses, and saddles.

—The Governor of Missouri issued a proclamation calling on the people of the State to observe Thursday, June 3d, as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer. Information comes to him from all sources that the State is threatened with a grasshopper pestilence to be followed by a failure of crops, great distress, and possible famine. Nothing but the interposition of Providence can save from the pest, and the Governor recommends that supplications of the people be raised for Divine relief and protection.