News and Notes | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 20, 1883

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 9, No. 35.

Read the full edition

News and Notes.

—Delmonico, the great New York restaurateur, has become insane.

—Key West, Florida, has eighty-one cigar factories, which turned out 75,000,000 cigars last year.

—From Montana Territory we have reports of extensive forest fires, with great destruction of timber.

—It is reported now that famine is completing the havoc in the stricken island of Java.

—Heavy frosts are reported in parts of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, New York, and New Jersey.

—A Committee of the California Cotton Mills Company are looking up a factory site in Oakland.

—Dakota Territory is looking to Statehood, and the Constitutional Convention is in session at Sioux City.

—The Exchange Bank of Montreal has gone into liquidation, with liabilities amounting to $2,000,000.

—Yellow fever prevails at various places on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, including Guaymas and Mazatlan.

—On the Austrian railroads women are hereafter to be employed as switch-tenders and guards, on the same terms as men.

—A Moscow paper deprecates an alliance between Russia and France, and remarks that the French Government is not certain for a single day.

—Last week one steamer brought from Europe 682 Mormons, most of whom were unusually well supplied with money. They went directly to Utah.

—Three men were buried in a mine at Deadwood, D. T., on the 7th inst., and one of them escaped by blasting his way to the surface with giant powder.

—Prince Bismarck is said to be failing fast—a few months having apparently added years to his age. He now speaks of his ailments, a weakness which he never before exhibited.

—A polygamous sect known as the Pilgrims, had built a new church at Erwin, Schuyler County, Illinois, when, on the night of the 9th inst., it was blown up with blasting powder.

—Rev. M. L. Mott, Episcopal clergyman, died suddenly at his home in Modesto, during the night of the 10th inst., and two doctors give the opinion that nightmare was the cause.

—An aged German rag-picker, named John Heffner, was recently killed on the railroad at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He was the father of forty-two children, only five of whom survive him.

—One hundred and twenty million dollars in United States Government bonds are held in England by three persons—the Duke of Sutherland, Sir Thomas Brassey, and the Baroness Burdett-Coutts.

—The National Prison Association has been organized at Saratoga, New York, with ex-President R. B. Hayes as President. Papers were read on the "Prevention of Crime," and "Prison Reform."

—At Livermore, on the 12th inst., a man named Harrington killed his adopted daughter, aged 14, and then took his own life. The reason for the deed was that the girl had circulated evil reports concerning him.

—A London dispatch says the trial of O'Donnell will take place in November. American detectives will be present, who claim to have discovered a connection between O'Donnell and certain American societies.

—At the consecration of a Russian chapel at Copenhagen, recently, there were present—the Czar and Czarina of Russia, the King and Queen of Greece, the Princess of Wales, and all the Danish royal family.

—Among some troops which passed through Swatow, recently, there was a giant (a Kiang Chu man) eight feet five inches in height. He had received a bounty of $300, and great faith is put in him as a body-guard for General Fang.

—At Foochow recently a native was summarily punished by decapitation for the offense of adultery, the adulteress being stabbed to death by her husband. The execution took place a couple of hours after the commission of the offense.

—The life of Lord Lansdowne, Governor-General of Canada, is not considered safe in the capital, and a strong guard is kept around his residence while in the city (Ottawa). The cause is the alleged ill-treatment of his land tenants in Ireland.

—Through the exertions of Cardinal Manning and his Secretary, 600 Irish children have found homes in Canada this season, for which the Dominion Secretary of the Department of Agriculture has estimated that two dollars per head would be allowed.

—A foreign hotel of Shanghai was attacked by a band of twenty armed men, August 5th. One of the servants was murdered outright, the master and his dependents put to flight, and the place itself, after being sacked, set fire to and completely destroyed.

—Russian officials have been very forward in Bulgaria, and it is thought that the Czar designs to replace the governing prince by one of his own choosing. It is supposed to be on this account that Roumania has formed an alliance with Germany and Austria.

—The Irish National League held a demonstration at Waterford last week, at which 30,000 people were present. They passed a resolution demanding a Parliament for Ireland, denounced the Land Act as entirely inadequate, and transacted other routine business.

—The crown prince of Portugal has visited Vienna, and, it is said, is to marry the Austrian Emperor's daughter, and that Portugal will enter the Austro-German alliance. This rumour of alliance also includes Spain, whose king has lately been cordially received at Vienna.

—The Dominion Government of Canada finds it impossible to reduce the rate of postage to conform with the new rate (2 cents on letters) soon to take effect in the United States. The expenses of the Canadian postal service last year was twenty-one per cent. in excess of the receipts.

—The gambling tendency of the age, as indicated by the attention given to horse-racing, base-balling, wrestling, prize-fighting, yachting, and kindred contests, would be a serious cause of alarm for the rising generation were it not for the persistent assurance that "the world is growing better."

—The reciprocity treaty between the United States and the Hawaiian Islands proves to be decidedly in favor of the latter. The value of sugar imported under the treaty has been about $30,000,000, while the value of exports to the islands for the same time has been but little over half that amount.

—It used to be said that the history of a nation was simply a record of its wars. It might be said now that the daily news budget is little else than a catalogue of the crimes committed in the land. A mere mention of the atrocities recorded in the newspapers during the week would more than fill the space we have allotted to "news."

—The same daily paper that announces the acquittal of Frank James, the notorious Missouri outlaw, gives also a long record of depredations in which he was engaged. An unaccountable maudlin sympathy had been aroused in his behalf, which finally worked out his release, the jury standing eleven for acquittal on the first ballot.

—Track-laying on the Northern Pacific Railroad was completed on the 9th inst., thus completing a third overland railway route between the Atlantic and Pacific. The last rail was attached to the telegraph wire, and as President Villard drove the spikes the blows were repeated on the instrument in the Broad Street office, New York City.

—It is reported that in Philadelphia a den of counterfeiters has been discovered, where the money of Brazil and other South American countries was being extensively counterfeited. The Brazilian Government notified the Treasury Department at Washington last winter of suspicions that such a work was being carried on in this country.

—The illicit distillers in the Indian Territory claim that internal revenue officers of the Government have no jurisdiction over them, and have assumed a threatening attitude toward legal proceedings against them. The question is awaiting the decision of the Secretary of the Treasury, as there is some doubt regarding the proper construction of the law.

—Henri Rochefort wrote articles in a Paris paper, charging the King of Italy with pocketing funds sent from France to the Ischia sufferers, and great indignation throughout the Italian kingdom is the result. In consequence of this insult to their king, survivors of the great catastrophe resolved to return to Paris a munificent donation for their benefit.

—Eleven archbishops of the Catholic Church in the United States have been summoned to Rome. One of them told a news correspondent that the principal subjects to be discussed will be the school question, and matters relating to the advancement of the church in this country; and it is hinted that the conference may result in a pilgrimage of Pope Leo to America.

—A rival of the Suez Canal between the Mediterranean and Red Seas is proposed by Mr. Martin, an English engineer, via the Jordan. It would consist of a cut from the Bay of Acre to the northern end of the Jordan Valley, and another from the Dead Sea via the Wady Arabah, to the Red Sea. On account of its great depression, nearly the whole of the Jordan Valley would be flooded.