p. 168 | News and Miscellany

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 7, 1872

News and Miscellany.

“Can ye not discern the signs of the times?”

AFFAIRS IN THE SOUTHWEST.

WASHINGTON, April 28.—The report of Attorney-General Williams, in response to a resolution of the House, gives the details of measures for the enforcement of the Ku Klux act in the Carolinas, and says all lawless combinations are broken up in Kentucky by the force of public sentiment and prompt prosecution, but still he cannot say there is as much protection for life and property as is to be desired. Crime is fearfully increasing in the Indian country, where every effort is being made to break up illegal traffic in spirituous liquors, which is one of the chief causes of disorder. Life and property are as secure in Arkansas as in the average of States, and also in the thickly settled portions of Texas, but on the frontier of the latter State the people suffer indescribable woes from robberies and murders. Whole families are murdered, and their corpses mutilated in a manner too horrible to mention. Houses are burned, farms destroyed, cattle driven off, little boys and girls carried into a captivity worse than death, the country impoverished, and all settlement and progress prevented. But with the influx of immigration from Europe and the States of the Union it cannot be long before all lawlessness and violence growing out of political differences, radical antagonisms, and social distinctions, will be a thing of the past.

NAPLES, April 29.—Morning.—A sound as of thunder accompanied discharges from Mount Vesuvius. The wind is blowing in this direction to-day, carrying dense clouds of smoke and ashes over the city. Ashes are falling in the streets like snow, and have already reached a depth of two or three inches. The rumbling inside the volcano continues, but no fresh craters have opened, and the lava has ceased flowing.

2 P. M.—Showers of sand have succeeded the rain of ashes which was falling this morning. The eruption is now accompanied by fearful electric phenomena. Lightning darts incessantly from the summit of the volcano, and the quakings of the mountain are more violent and frequent. The thunder is continuous. Burning cinders, stones, and scoriæ are falling fast and thick in the town of Massi Somma, which is entirely deserted.

MADRID, April 29.—Everywhere throughout the country the Republicans and progressists are announcing their intention to support the government in the present troubles. Senor Zorilla, the well-known Radical, is in command of a column of Government troops in Navarre. His appointment had a good effect.

THE INSURRECTION SPREADING.

Fifteen hundred Carlists are under arms and many skirmishes have taken place. The city of Pampeluna is menaced. The insurrection is spreading enormously, and troops are demanded everywhere.

THE SITUATION AT VESUVIUS.

NAPLES, April 29.—The view of Vesuvius from this city is the grandest that has been witnessed since 1863. Many persons have taken advantage of the panic among the people of the towns threatened with destruction, to take whatever goods they could find, and the government has been compelled to order the troops at those places to prevent the stealing of abandoned property in the city. The Bourse is closed, and business almost entirely suspended. The people use umbrellas to protect them from the falling ashes. Rain is badly wanted, else the crops will be destroyed. The worst is now believed to be over, and the anxiety of the people is considerably lessened.

One of the most significant and interesting agitations in Europe is that of the workingmen. Nearly the whole laboring population of Berlin seems to be on a strike, while the strike of the agricultural laborers is spreading from Warwickshire, where they are badly treated, to other districts, where they receive better wages. The next twelve months are likely to develop some interesting if not exciting events.