NEWS AND NOTES

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 10, 1900

— Queen Victoria has added an automobile to her stables.

— A New Orleans man has bought 1,000,000 tickets to the Paris Exposition, for speculation.

— Lord Roberts has cleared the kopjes near Brandfort, of the Boers, driving them back.

— The Kentucky republican secretary of state is being examined on the charge of abetting the assassination of Wm. Goebel.

— It is said that Lord Salisbury has apologized for the British censor's opening the mail of ex-consul Macrum, at Pretoria, South Africa.

— It is reported that it is “the intention of Great Britain to land troops at the Port of Beira, and send them through Portuguese African territory, into Rhodesia.” Portugal is willing.

— A dispatch from Pretoria says that General Piet Joubert, commander-in-chief of the Boer forces, died at his home in Pretoria, Tuesday evening, March 27. The cause of his death was peritonitis.

— Thieves took $1,300 from the safe of a New York restaurant, March 27, while over forty persons were breakfasting in the same room, and returned $500 worth of checks, through the post-office, later.

— Messrs. Frick and Carnegie have come to an agreement, and the lawsuit started by Mr. Frick has been withdrawn. Frick receives $15,000,000 worth of stock, instead of $6,000,000, the amount Mr. Carnegie contemplated giving him.

— The firm of D. Appleton and Company, New York City, has failed, and is in the hands of a receiver. Liabilities, $1,110,000. The reason assigned is “too many sales on the installment plan, at least $900,000 being due at present from customers.”

— In conversation with United States Ambassador White, at Berlin, the German emperor referred repeatedly to the “open-door” policy in China, which he emphatically espoused, saying, “We must all do our best to establish and maintain an open door there.”

— A dispatch from Quincy, Ill., dated April 4, says that “Charles Schnellbacher, while spading his garden to-day, unearthed a copper kettle containing $2,000 in coin. It is supposed that it was buried by his mother, who died recently. She left $3,000 in the bank, but would not trust all her savings to the banks.”

— The Boers are putting forth every effort possible to surround Lord Roberts, at Bloemfontein, cutting his line of communications to the south. Kruger has “warned the women and children to leave Bloemfontein within five days, as he intends to bombard and destroy the city, and shoot the burghers whom he captures there.”

— A London dispatch states that “renewed trouble between Russia and Japan in Corea is imminent. The movements of the Russian fleet indicate the probability of the seizure of a Corean port. The war office officials at Tokio are holding conferences, and there has been considerable military and naval activity in Japan this month.”

— Admiral Dewey is a candidate for the presidency of the United States. “He is not only willing, but eager. He even goes so far as to intimate that he will, if necessary, run as an independent candidate, without a party nomination.” Mrs. Dewey is back of the proposition. Dewey says that his platform will be “the American flag.”

— A French inventor says that he has solved the problem of sending a number of dispatches simultaneously on a single wire. His system, which was explained on March 20 before the Academy of Sciences, was recently tried with success between Paris and Pau. Twelve independent currents were sent on the circuit at once, in either direction, making a total of twenty-four telegrams.

— A sixteen-year-old anarchist, Sipido by name, attempted to assassinate the Prince of Wales at Brussels, Belgium, April 4. Four shots were fired, all going wide of the mark. As the prince's car was leaving the city, “he begged that the culprit might not be treated too severely.” The prince and princess, with their retinue, were on their way to Denmark, to celebrate the birthday of King Christian on April 8.

— General Botha succeeds the late General Joubert, as commander-in-chief of the Boer army.

— At a cabinet council at Paris, March 27, at which M. Loubet presided, it was decided to officially inaugurate the Paris Exposition, Saturday, April 14, instead of Sunday, the 15th.

— March 30 the Columbia Theater of Chicago was burned. It was insured for $100,000, and the insurance was divided among thirty-eight different insurance companies. Total loss, $175,000.

— The decrease of the public debt of the United States during the month of March, was $6,629,701. On April 1 the net cash balance in the treasury, including the reserve fund, was $306,192,995.

— Webster Davis, Assistant Secretary of the Interior of the United States, has resigned, that he may lecture throughout the country, in behalf of the Boers, as a private citizen. His resignation has been accepted.

— The Honolulu board of health recently decided that the plague had run its course. Quarantine restrictions will soon be rescinded, allowing the shipment of merchandise from Honolulu, except merchandise from Asiatic ports.

— Governor Pingree, of Michigan, has designated Friday, April 27, as Arbor Day. He “recommends that all who can should plant a tree or shrub on that day, and desires the people to co-operate with the recently created Forestry Commission.”

— The antarctic exploring steamer “Southern Cross,” bearing C. E. Borchgrevink and the survivors of the south polar expedition fitted out in 1898 by Sir George Newnes, of London, arrived at Campbell Town, near Bluff Harbor, New Zealand, April 1. Mr. Borchgrevink reports that the south magnetic pole has been located.

— The Lewis bill, repealing the Horton law in New York, was passed by the New York Senate at Albany, March 28, by a vote of twenty-six to twenty-two. The passage of this bill kills professional boxing in the State after Sept. 1, 1900. Last year 252 prize fights were held in the State, at a profit of $750,000 for their promoters.

— Superintendent Merriam, of the United States census, has written a letter to the members of Congress, requesting each Republican member to “select six women, and each Democratic member three women, to operate tabulating machines after June 1, in the census work. It is explained that during the last census it was demonstrated that women are far superior to men on this class of work.”

— Even more than the $2,000,000 required to be raised for the University of Chicago to insure the conditional gift of the same sum by John Rockefeller, was contributed before the expiration of the time limit, on April 1, 1900. Thus the entire assets of the institution are about $11,000,000, placing it in the same class with Harvard, Yale, and the Leland Stanford University, so far as endowment is concerned.

— April 3, by a vote of forty to thirty-one, the United States Senate passed the Porto Rican bill, providing a civil government and a fifteen-per-cent tariff for Porto Rico. Six regular Republicans voted against the bill. By the bill passed, citizenship is withheld from the inhabitants of the island, and it amounts simply to “taxation without representation,” or the governing of the possessions without the Constitution of the United States.

— Dispatches from South Africa say that a British force consisting of the “Household Cavalry, the very flower of the British army, the Tenth Hussars, two horse batteries, and a force of mounted infantry,” walked into a Boer trap, March 31. “Seven guns and all the baggage were taken by the Boers, and the British casualties number 350, including 200 missing. The disaster occurred within a few miles of Bloemfontein, where Lord Roberts is situated, with 40,000 men.”

— The United States War Department has furnished a comparative statement of the “total value of merchandise exported from the port of San Juan, Porto Rico, during the months of February, 1899, and 1900. During February, 1899, the total exports were $279,004, while the total amount of merchandise exported in February, 1900, was only $78,212. In 1899 eight per cent of the total exported went to the United States, while in 1900 there was shipped to the United States only one per cent of the total exported.”

— The authority of General Otis in the Philippines will hereafter be subordinate to that of the new Philippine Commission. “President Taft, of the commission, will be the personal representative of President McKinley in the Philippine Group, and he and his colleagues will fully represent American sovereignty. The army is to be wholly subordinate to their orders; and General Otis, if he elects to remain in the Philippines, will find the commission taking the place of the President of the United States and the Secretary of War, as his immediate superiors.”

— The Swiss arbitration tribunal announced its Delagoa Bay railroad award March 29. Portugal is condemned to pay $3,600,000 for the seizure of the railroad, the owners of which had failed to complete it within the time specified, or had made what the government regarded a serious attempt to do so. Portugal will have to pay “to the government of the United States, and to Great Britain, the claimants, altogether, in addition to the £28,000 paid on account in 1890, the sum of 15,314,000 francs in legal Swiss money, with simple interest on this sum at the rate of five per cent per annum from June 1, 1889, up to date of payment of said sum.”

— The St. Petersburg (Russia) press asserts that Persia is now under Russian protection.

— The two ships that constituted the navy of Liberia were recently destroyed by accidents.

— The United States War Department has shipped fifty tons of candy to soldiers in the Philippines.

— It is reported that “the boycott of the cigarette-smoker by the leading business men of Chicago and other cities, is likely to prove a successful as well as a beneficent reform.”

— The Iowa Senate passed the Lister anti-prize-fight bill on March 28, by a vote of forty to two. The bill is sweeping in its terms, and will stop prize fighting in the State. A fine, not exceeding $300, and ninety days' imprisonment, is provided for any person having any connection whatever with a fight.

— Comparing the slum portions of Chicago and New York, Jacob A. Riis, an authority on the subject, said: “The best street I saw to-day in a tour of several hours in Chicago, was worse than the worst street I ever saw in New York. In every block I saw conditions that, if they existed in New York, would cause the prompt arrest and prosecution of the owners of the property.”

— About forty-six years ago three pairs of enterprising rabbits were introduced into Australia. To-day the increase of these six immigrants may be counted by the millions. They became a pest to the country, and fortunes have been spent to exterminate them. “Wire fences many feet high and thousands of miles long have been built, to keep out the invaders; but the rabbits have finally outwitted man. They have developed a new nail—a long nail, by which they can retain their hold on the fence, while climbing. With this same nail it is said that they can burrow six or eight inches under the netting, and thus enter the fields that mean food and life to them.”