News and Notes by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 5, 1883

News and Notes.

By Editor

—The estimated reduction of the public debt for March is, $9,500,000.

—Additional outrages by the Apaches are reported from Arizona and New Mexico.

—A Pittsburg pawnbroker has discovered that 99 per cent. of the money he lends is spent for strong drink.

—Of the forty-seven prisoners in the jail at Portland, Or., six are boys under twenty years of age, and five are charged with murder.

—A cloud-burst occurred in the hills near Merced, Cal., during the recent storm, and a large number of sheep were carried off by the torrent.

—A conductor in Massachusetts has been found guilty of manslaughter for disobeying orders and causing a collision that resulted in the death of three persons.

—A land-slide on the Cincinnati and Southern Railroad, near Mason, O., March 30, threw a passenger train from the track, injuring sixty persons, some of them it is feared fatally.

—A number of coal barges got adrift at Pittsburg, Pa., the 31st ult., and were swept down the river. Several other barges and boats containing grain and coal were sunk by them.

—An unprecedented amount of snow fell in North Carolina last week. The snow was reported, March 26, as over two feet deep at Greenboro, and three feet at Henderson, with no abatement in the storm.

—Ogden, U. T., is said to be so full of gamblers and roughs from the North and West that it is dangerous for the citizens to go out on the streets after dark, the police being powerless to arrest the offenders.

—There are now 6,000 men at work on the Panama Canal, and work is said to be progressing satisfactorily. It is estimated by engineers that the entire canal, forty-six miles in length, will be completed in seven years.

—Quite a severe earthquake was felt the morning of the 29th ult., in many parts of this State. There were three distinct shocks, of sufficient force to shake plastering from the walls. As usual, many persons were very much frightened.

—The study of Latin has been made compulsory in the high school of Charleston, S. C. Instead of the attendance diminishing, as was feared, it has increased, and the principal reports that the change has had a good effect on the mental development of the pupils.

—It was decided in the courts in New York that policemen should be allowed full pay during sickness, since which time sickness has increased to an alarming extent. The Police Commissioners say that immediate legislation is necessary to save the force from demoralization.

—The Geographical Society of Germany advocates the resumption of Polar expeditions. And we would further suggest that the Geographical Society of Germany be sent out on the next expedition. If the members should ever return they would know vastly more about the Polar regions than they possibly can from reading the published accounts, or listening to the stories of returned explorers.

—A conversation was recently carried on by means of the telephone, between two persons, one of whom was in New York, and the other in Cleveland. As these places are 600 miles apart, the promise that conversation will yet be carried on between New York and San Francisco or London, seems not improbable.

—A New Jersey boy who started West to exterminate Indians, was armed with four dime novels. Dime novels may be more destructive to human life than toy pistols and bowie knives, but the trouble would be for a boy to get an Indian to hold still long enough to read him several chapters of the blood-freezing fiction.—Ex.

—President Chadbourne, of the Massachusetts Prison Commission, when visiting the State Reform School at Westboro, inquired how many of the young criminals came from farms. The Superintendent after making investigation reported to him: "There is not a single boy here whose father is or has been a farmer." Comment is unnecessary.

—A morning paper has in one dispatch the account of the killing of five children by being shot through "sport." There should be a lunatic asylum for the special accommodation of those who don't know that guns are not toys with which children are to be amused; and until such asylum is built the penitentiary would serve `admirably as a substitute.

—A socialist manifesto is in circulation in the southern part of Russia, inviting people to avail themselves of the coming fetes on the coronation of the Czar to pillage the houses of the nobles and the Jews. A deputation of nobles has gone to St. Petersburg to ask Count Tolstoi, Minister of the Interior, to provide for the protection of their property.

—From a London cable dispatch of March 31, we extract the following: "The infernal machines seized at Liverpool on Wednesday were of a very formidable character. Each consisted of a well-make tin cylinder containing two gallons of explosive material, the whole covered with an outer casing of canvas, neatly stitched. The throwing of the package against the ground would have sufficed to explode it quite as effectively as a fuse, which was also provided. The police authorities say this capture frustrated two attempts to blow up Government buildings, one in Liverpool, the other in Manchester. Both explosions were to have been effected this week, and experts assert that the machines are identical in power with the one used at Westminster. These occurrences and the threats to blow up the post-office keep the Dublin military on sentry duty in London, and menacing letters received in every direction make the public feverish. There is no calm, temperate consideration of the subject. Whatever danger really exists is exaggerated, and the people are in a condition of thorough scare."