— M. Waldeck-Rousseau, premier of France, is seriously ill.
— The bubonic plague is spreading in Cape Town, South Africa.
— There are over 160,000 church edifices in the United States.
— Cecil Rhodes, of South Africa, is reported to be seriously ill.
— Botha, the Boer general, declares that General De Wet is insane.
— France is arranging to resume diplomatic relations with Venezuela.
— A $6,000,000 glass lamp trust has just been formed in Pittsburg, Pa.
— Louisville, Ky., has an anti-cigarette league composed of over 500 boys.
— The largest vessel ever built (680 feet long) has been launched at Belfast.
— J. Pierpont Morgan has obtained control of New York City’s largest retail dry-goods stores.
— About one week ago a white man was taken from the jail at Osceola, Ark., and lynched.
— The recent election in Denmark resulted in “an overwhelming defeat of the government party.”
— Wayne County, N. Y., is said to have oil wells which equal the best to be found in Pennsylvania.
— The Supreme Court has decided that Countess Castellane is to receive her full income of $800,000 per annum.
— The Russian and Italian consulates in Geneva, Switzerland, were mobbed the 6th inst., by anarchist sympathizers.
— There are in Scotland 30,000 idle miners at the present time. They are striking for an eight-hour working day.
— M. Veniselos, foreign minister of Crete, has been dismissed, because he said the island should be independent.
— One hundred and fifty-five municipal physicians of Leipsic, Germany, have struck for higher pay and better treatment.
— Sir George Murray Smith, an English publisher, and founder of the Cornhill Magazine, died in London the 10th inst.
— The Cuban Constitutional Convention rejected the Platt amendment the 6th inst., by a vote of twenty-four to two.
— A firm in Hoboken, N. J., has cornered the peanut market, advancing the price seventy-five cents on the bushel.
— The rebels in Colombia have won in several engagements with the government troops, and are about to move on Panama.
— The International Kindergarten Union, embracing seventy organizations, is holding its eighth annual convention in Chicago.
— The United States and Canada have arranged to have postal money orders pass at the domestic rate, between the two countries.
— The St. Louis Elevator and Storage Company’s elevator (foot of Biddle Street) was destroyed by fire the 8th inst. Loss, $650,000.
— Members of the Anti-Saloon League, accompanied by the police, recently compelled the closing of all the saloons in Schenectady, N. Y.
— According to the Paris Figaro, an attempt is being made, by shop clerks and other employees in that city, to have Sunday observance enforced.
— It is thought that service on the new trolley line between the Michigan cities, Benton Harbor, Paw Paw, and South Haven, will begin the first of July.
— Because the United States is opposed to the dismantling of Chinese forts and the furnishing of troops to garrison points selected for permanent occupation, a number of the Powers in China desire to have her eliminated from the international concert in settling affairs with China. The United States “is determined not to be side-tracked by any such scheme,” and will refuse to withdraw from active participation.253
— The defection of French Roman Catholic priests to Protestantism is on the increase.
— Owing to their dilapidated condition, a portion of the walls of Avignon, France, will be destroyed.
— After twenty-six years of service, Col. A. K. McClure, the veteran editor of the Philadelphia Times, has resigned.
— In the Church of England there are said to be 100,000 converts from Judaism, and 300 ministers who formerly were Jews.
— The Havana (Cuba) newspaper La Discussion has been suppressed by Governor-General Wood, “for publishing a cartoon hostile to the United States.”
— Emperor William has issued an order that “school children should learn by heart 291 Biblical verses, and 193 verses of hymns, in addition to the catechism.”
— China has agreed to permit the island of Ku-Lang-Su, in the harbor of Amoy, to become “a foreign settlement, a valuable concession long desired by the Powers.”
— An Italian paper, the Fischietto, of Turin, thus summarizes the situation in South Africa: “(1) The Boers repulse the English; (2) the English repulse the Boers.”
— The Great Salt Lake of Utah is said to be receding on account of the drain upon it, due to irrigation. It is proposed to connect it with the Snake River, by means of a canal.
— The London Religious Tract Society sends out each year over 50,000,000 copies of its publications, which are issued in over 200 languages, and go to all parts of the world.
— A Roman chariot was recently found near Philippopolis, Bulgaria. It seems that “all the metal parts of the chariot and the harness were found, as well as arms, and human remains.”
— Samuel P. Thrasher, of New Haven, Conn., has invented a clock that tells the exact time, to the minute, by means of Arabic figures, on the same principle as the bicycle cyclometer.
— The czar has made Adj.-Gen. P. S. Vannovsky minister of public instruction, and in a rescript addressed to him “announces his intention to renovate and reorganize Russian schools.”
— A Jewish exchange says that “the punishment known as the double buckle, to which Captain Alfred Dreyfus was subjected while a prisoner, has been by decree abolished in French convict prisons.”
— The leading Protestant paper of Germany bitterly complains that “the so-called Christian science has been imported from America,” and that it is making rapid progress among the higher classes.
— The German emperor recently caused to be suppressed a Polish hymn-book “containing revolutionary matter, and advocating Polish freedom.” The book had been widely circulated in western Prussia.
— The Supreme Court of Indiana has decided that “a physician is not bound to answer a call for his services, even though he is the physician of the family and a fee for his services is tendered him in advance.”
— It is reported that the British have secured “a concession in the provinces of Shan-si and Honan, containing China’s most valuable mineral land. It includes a coal belt exceeding 3,000 miles, besides great fields of iron and petroleum.”
— A new type of five-inch naval gun for United States cruisers was recently tested at the Indian Head proving ground. It developed sufficient power to pierce “seven inches of Krupp armor at the muzzle, and five inches of Krupp armor at 2,000 yards.”
— A few days ago a bill was before the Massachusetts Legislature, to “permit such form of recreation on the Lord’s day as does not trespass upon private rights or disturb the peace of public worship.” The bill was defeated by a vote of fifty-five to ninety-eight.
— Dispatches state that “after mature deliberation, 10,000 Catholic members of the Federal party, citizens of the district of Binondo, in Manila, which is the headquarters of the party, have resolved to separate from the Vatican, believing that the doctrines of Rome are detrimental to the progress of the country.”
— Of nearly 7,000 children who have been carefully taught kindness to animals, in one of Scotland’s public schools, it was found that “not one has ever been charged with a criminal offense in any court.” On the other hand, among about 2,000 convicts in American prisons, but twelve were found who had any pet animal during childhood.
— “The sizes of anthracite coal and the screens through which they are made, are as follows,” says Steam Engineering: “Coal which runs through a screen having a mesh of 3-16 of an inch is called barley; 3-8, rice; 9-16, buckwheat; 7-8, pea; 1 1-2, chestnut; 2, stove; 2 3-4, egg; 4 1-2, grate; 7, steam. Coal beyond this size is known as lump coal.”
— Prof. Frederick Wright, geologist of Oberlin College, and just returned from a trip around the world, “has photographs which he claims will prove beyond doubt that the Biblical account of the escape of the children of Israel through the Red Sea was not only accomplished, but is possible, under certain conditions, to-day.” Some will go to great lengths to try to prove that there never were any miracles.
— While passing through Galicia, Austrian Poland, some Jesuit priests “sold to the peasants lots of saints’ pictures, printed like postage stamps, and told them to eat them because they were blessed remedies for hunger, colic, and the like. The Polish peasants devoured the Jesuits’ stamps by the handfuls, and the fathers pocketed dimes by the handfuls.” Such gullibility on the part of ignorant peasants is more than equaled by the blind faith which intelligent Americans place in the curative (?) properties of patent medicines; for the Jesuit stamps are less expensive, and infinitely less injurious.
— King Edward and Queen Alexandra, of England, now reside in Buckingham palace, occupying a suite known as the Belgian. All court functions, however, will be held in the throne-room of St. James’ palace. In June, 1902, will occur the coronation ceremonies.
— The British government proposes to furnish King Edward with $330,000 a year more than Queen Victoria ever received; and “this increase will go into court splendors, which smart society in England yearns for so ardently, and which it had to go without during the years of the late queen’s widowhood.” It is expected that Edward VII will have the most brilliant court in Europe.
— It is much safer for persons with weak hearts to walk up or down stairs than to make use of the modern swift elevator. Commenting upon what it terms “elevator disease,” a London paper says: “Lift [elevator] attendants have died sudden deaths; people with weak hearts have noticed ominous sensations when in the elevator. We are told the sudden transition from the heavier air at the foot, to the lighter air at the top, is extremely trying to the constitution. Most people have experienced singular sensations of internal collapse when the lift floor sinks beneath their feet, but none suspected that the results might be so serious.” The matter is certainly worthy of careful consideration.
