News and Notes by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 18, 1883

News and Notes.

By Editor

During the year 1882 there was an average of two murders a day in the United States.

Arrangements have been made for holding an international exhibition in Calcutta this year.

A severe storm raged at Vera Cruz last week, wrecking several vessels, and destroying warehouses and harbor improvements.

The Cunard Steamship Company has decided to supply the sailors with coffee instead of grog. A step in the right direction.

A system of drill that will hasten the egress of the children in case of fire is to be introduced into the Brooklyn public schools.

Three hundred persons are reported to have perished on the 13th inst., by the burning of a circus in Berdicheff, Russian Poland.

The public schools of Roanoke County, Va., are closed, and business is at a standstill, on account of the small-pox epidemic. It is also stated that 2,000 cases are reported in Baltimore.

On the 12th inst. the last spike was driven on the railroad which is known as the "Sunset Route," by which there is direct communication between New Orleans and San Francisco.

In the town of Easton, Pa., there are three manufactories of "mineral pulp," the smallest of which produces fifteen tons per day. This mineral pulp is used for the adulteration of flour and sugar.

A Belgian physician, in an investigation made at the request of the Government authorities, has ascertained that the main cause of color blindness in his country is the very general use of tobacco.

During 1882 record was made of 1,705 fires in the United States, where the loss was $10,000 and upwards, and several thousand less destructive fires. The loss to the United States and Canada, during the year, was $92,250,000. The greater part of this loss is probably due to carelessness.

The Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Justice, have been investigating the office of the Clerk of the United States Supreme Court. The clerk himself testified that his receipts last year were $44,477, and that the expenses of his office amounted to only $15,000, leaving a net profit of $29,447.

Nails are now being manufactured quite extensively of steel. A company with $750,000 capital has recently been organized in Pittsburg for this purpose. The steel article is stiffer and tougher than the iron nail, and so much lighter that the added cost per pound will be more than balanced by the increased number.

The steamship City of Brussels, that was recently sunk by a collision, had on board forty-one bags of letters and eighty-six bags of newspapers for delivery at Queenstown, England. There were 30,604 letters, 2,419 of which were registered. Everything was lost, and the passengers barely escaped with their lives.

There are some excellent things in the Penal Code lately adopted in New York. One feature is the law to punish dishonest plumbers. A plumber who left the ends of several pipes open in the cellar of the house, was fined $50. The Judge intimated that if another case of the kind came before him, he would send the offender to the penitentiary.

Although the floods in Europe have subsided, the distress occasioned by them has not, and appeals are being made for help for the sufferers. The Emperor of Germany has granted 600,000 marks of the Imperial Treasury funds, and large sums have been sent from the United States. Over 20,000 people have been rendered homeless by the floods.

The reports of an early rising of the Mussulmans of the mountain districts of Eastern Roumelia are confirmed. The authorities have received several cases of Martin rifles, sent by the "Young Turkey Committee" of Constantinople to the committee in Philippopolis. Turkish troops are clandestinely massed on the Eastern Roumelian frontier.

The Interior Department will soon open up for settlement the reservation in Washington Territory now occupied by Chief Moses and his Indian tribes. The reservation contains 3,000,000 acres of land, much of which is said to be exceedingly rich in mineral deposits, and will doubtless be "grabbed" as soon as it is declared open for settlement.

The London Economist estimates the cost of all the great wars of the world for twenty-five years, from 1852 to 1877, including the Franco-German war and our own civil war, over $12,000,000,000. The cost of intoxicants in the United States for the same period is more than $15,000,000,000, or $3,000,000,000 more than all the wars of the world.

The burning of the Newhall House at Milwaukee, Wis., Jan. 9, was most terrible in its results. The hotel was a six-story building and was crowded with guests, of whom no less than seventy are supposed to have perished. The means of escape were very meager, and a thorough investigation is promised, which it is to be hoped will result in legislation that will compel hotel managers to provide sufficient means of escape from burning buildings.

It is almost sickening to read the accounts of crime chronicled in the daily papers. The most brutal "sport" of which we have any knowledge, was engaged in by two brutes in human form, in Camden, N. J. It consisted in kicking each other's bare shins, each combatant being shod with heavy boots. All the disgusting details of this affair were telegraphed across the continent, and will doubtless appear in every newspaper in the land. The fact that such things are printed at all is evidence of a depraved taste on the part of those who read, for newspaper managers know what the people want. And the worst of it is that those whose character is forming, very soon acquire a taste for just such stuff. And yet we are on the eve of the millennium!