News and Miscellany

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 26, 1871

News and Miscellany.

“Can ye not discern the signs of the times?”

The Eastern question promises to become prominent again in European politics. Germany and Austria want the valley and mouths of the Danube. Russia wants the Hellespont and Constantinople. When either party is ready to strike, we shall see another tremendous war.

The German army is to be reduced to a peace footing of four hundred thousand men. This is a reduction. Four hundred thousand men is such a mere squad—particularly as this four hundred thousand will be kept constantly drilled to the highest point of perfection, and will be composed of the flower of German youth, armed with the best weapons known to military science, and handled by such generals as Von Moltke, the Crown Prince and his cousin, and others of high fame—that, of course, the surrounding nations must feel perfectly easy. It may be mentioned, as a trifle which the neighbors of Germany might otherwise overlook, that this four hundred thousand will receive about two hundred thousand fresh men each year, to be drilled into veterans, discharging an equal number who are already drilled, under a system so perfect that Germany can swell her four hundred thousand to a million and a third of drilled soldiers at any time, on two weeks’ notice, and this is only her “peace footing.” As a provision for war, it is reported that she has made a secret treaty with Austria, by which Austria agrees to back her with a million additional drilled soldiers.

The report of the agent, Mullen, of Philadelphia is a very suggestive one. It shows that there are in that city three hundred and sixty-six churches, three hundred and eighty school-houses, and eight thousand dram shops. It also shows, by the analysis of Dr. Hutchings, that in a large amount of liquors there is a gallon of strychnia solution, belladonna solution, or stramonium solution to every fourth of the liquor. Tobacco is added; digitalis is added; oil of vitriol is added; opium, aconite, Indian hemp, etc., etc., are added. To give color, calomel, or burnt sugar, or molasses, or red saunders, or oil of almond, is added. To give it the taste of age, gravestones or oak sawdust is added. Query: What amount of these “bitters” should a man take to get rid of the dyspepsia?

Another terrible calamity has overtaken the unfortunate Island of St. Thomas. A hurricane and earthquake prostrated nearly all the houses on the island, and made nearly six thousand persons homeless. No more dreadful commotion of the elements can be imagined than the disturbance which has thus afflicted St. Thomas. The island has been so frequently devastated by earthquakes and storms that it may be considered well nigh uninhabitable. Certainly it is an undesirable place of habitation, and not to be coveted even as a naval station.

Advices received from London state that Bismarck has commenced a vigorous campaign against the papacy, and as the first blow has directed the Parliament and his official gazettes that he regards the ultramontane church as hostile to the State, and has broken off all relations with it not purely political, and has dissolved the Catholic department of the ministry of worship. He is intriguing for the establishment of an orthodox Catholic party, which is the name applied to the opponents of infallibility, and is actively supporting Dr. Dollinger, of Munich, who, though excommunicated, has just been elected by a vote of 54 to 6 as rector of the University. It has been announced by ultramontane organs that the State will treat as Catholics those who are in the habit of rejecting the infallibility dogma.

It is an illustration of the value at which the different kinds of service are estimated, that the salary of the president of Harvard College is but $3,000, while that of the chief cook at the Parker House, one of the principal hotels in Boston, and distant from Harvard about forty minutes’ ride by the horse-cars, reaches the handsome figure of about $4,000.

Not long ago, we observed on the way to his pulpit, in this city, a Dr. of Divinity who, at every few steps, squirted from his mouth a dirty stream of tobacco juice. Comment is unnecessary. But such a mouth, we thought, was not fit to speak a pure word, or utter a beautiful truth. When will preachers learn to be decent?

Fuseli, the painter, had a great dislike to what is known as “tatting.” Once, when sitting in his room among some trifling visitors, who were discussing the weather and such like interesting subjects, he burst forth with a—“We had pork for dinner to-day!” “Dear! Mr. Fuseli, what an odd remark!” exclaimed one. “Why,” replied he, “it’s as good as anything you’ve been saying for the last hour.”