p. 24 | News and Miscellany

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 4, 1871

News and Miscellany.

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

LONDON, June 29.—The delegates of the American Evangelical Alliance, to confer with the Czar of Russia, were banqueted at Richmond last evening by the Evangelical Alliance of England. Thos. Hughes, M. P., gave them a reception to-day.

GALESBURG, June 29. The hail storm of last Friday, in the township of Brady, and Pavilion, and part of St. Joseph County, Mich., was the severest ever known in this part of the country. Some farmers have not got a stalk of corn, or wheat, or blade of grass left standing in their fields—all is ruined. Mr. Boughton, a farmer of Brady, reports here that he saw ice nine inches square fall, and pieces near a foot long and some 10 inches in circumference. The range of the storm was some three miles wide, and destroyed all crops where it went.

BUENOS AYRES, May 22. At last the dreadful plague with which this unhappy city has been smitten during the past four months has been stayed, and the mortality has diminished to an average of about 15 or 20 daily. A few stores are already opened for the first time in many weeks, occasionally ladies may be seen in the streets, business men are returning slowly to inspect the probability of soon resuming traffic, and altogether the prospects are that we shall in a week or two at most be industriously at work in the reparation of the havoc of death.

Dexter E. Clapp, United States consul here, gives me his opinion to the effect that he believes the deaths will not fall short of 50,000, and he bases his estimates in some degree upon the expressed opinion of many of the most eminent foreign physicians.

NEW YORK, June 22. Wall street was yesterday a scene of panic such as few of its oldest frequenters have ever witnessed. Thirteen large firms were broken almost in an instant! Millions were involved, and the stock exchange was transformed, as it were, into a menagerie of wild beasts. Snarling, howling, wailing, and cursing added their charms to the attractions of the scene, and altogether, the day is one which will be memorable in the annals of stock-gambling.

When it became known that there had been a collapse in the market, as the exchange opened, the building was immediately thronged with a wild, unwieldy crowd, that swayed here and there in the utmost disorder. The air was suffocating. Many threw off their coats and wandered about in their shirt sleeves. All were discussing in the wildest language the extraordinary turn which the market had taken. Knots of three or four were gathered together in places. Others were rushing frantically about, seeking to sell at a sacrifice that which nobody would buy until something definite could be known of its actual value.

THE losses entailed on the bankrupt firms will reach millions, while those of individuals who have been imprudent enough to dabble in the affair cannot of course be estimated.

The catastrophe has had its natural effect upon other branches of the stock market. North-western stock fell five per cent within five minutes after the panic had spread. Since the bursting of this huge bubble all confidence in stocks seems to have been lost. Twenty-nine thousand seven hundred shares of Rock Island were sold yesterday “under the rule” for what they would bring.

The failure of the following firms has been announced: R. Waller, Earle & Saltonstall, W. A. Bowron, J. W. Gillespy, James Austin, Dater & Timpson, H. A. Dennison, A. G. Wood, W. E. Tunis & Co., A. M. Judson, J. J. Hoyt, Fanshawe & McDougal, and W. S. Woodward.

THERE are 60,000 white adults in Georgia who cannot read, yet they think that the Negroes should not be allowed to vote because they are illiterate.

THE International Society seems to be getting into trouble in various places. After its great failure in Paris, one would suppose that a little common-sense would be beaten into the heads of its leaders; but it has been rioting in Brussels, and a large number of its active members are in prison; and it is reported to have concocted a conspiracy to assassinate the pope, besides issuing in the night fresh inflammatory proclamations in Paris.