News and Miscellany

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 30, 1867

News and Miscellany.

Can ye not discern the Signs of the Times? Matt. xvi, 3.

☞ Some foul disease has taken possession of the chicken tribe in some parts of Kendall county, Ill., and chickens are dying by the dozens.

☞ More pork disease has been developed in Springfield, Mass., from eating ham, but no deaths as yet.

—It is said of Senator Wade that he has not eaten dinner for twenty years, believing that two meals a day are enough for any one to eat, and that he always feels better when he only eats twice.

—At the royal palace in Berlin forty thousand wax-candles are instantaneously lighted by a single match. The wicks are previously connected by a thread spun from gun cotton, on lighting one end of which all the candles are lighted simultaneously, and thus the whole of the seven hundred apartments are illuminated at once.

—There are in the Paris Exposition between 42,000 and 43,000 exhibitors. Pocket-compasses are sold in great numbers to assist the wanderers through the vast labyrinth. These compasses have their dials inscribed with a plan of the national divisions of the building, and thus the visitor perceives by his compass the exact direction from his position of any part he may wish to reach.

—Since the 1st of January last 144,336 emigrants from Europe have landed in New York.

—The lower branch of the Connecticut State Legislature has passed a resolution submitting to the people an amendment to the state constitution striking out the word “white.”

—The report that the Osage Indians are on the war-path is confirmed. Col. Leavenworth, Indian agent, has received orders from Washington not to distribute annuity goods until Indian affairs assume a more definite and peaceful shape. A train was recently captured by the Indians, near Fort Larnard. Bishop Lamy, ten priests, and six sisters of charity were of the party. The men were killed, scalped, and horribly mutilated, and the women were carried off as captives by the savages.

—The work of recovering the great desert of Sahara, in Africa, is steadily going on in Algeria under the patronage of Napoleon III., and is accomplished by boring artesian wells. About one hundred wells are now flowing, reclaiming the desert wherever they are, and making the barren wastes blossom into fertile gardens. In the district of Oued Rir, stretching far southward into the desert, there are now thirty-five wells, around which two thousand gardens have been formed and one hundred and fifty thousand date-trees planted. The conquest of the desert is steadily pushed, and with almost universal success, by four military boring brigades, thoroughly equipped and provided with necessary implements.

Impeachment.—In the House, a resolution was adopted instructing the Judiciary Committee to report forthwith all the testimony which has been taken with reference to impeaching the President, and that the same be printed; but before the yeas and nays could be called on an amendment instructing the committee to have printed with the testimony the reports of the majority and minority, the Speaker’s gavel fell, indicating the close of the session.

At half-past four o’clock P. M. on Saturday, both houses of Congress adjourned to the 21st day of November next, at noon.

The Supplemental Reconstruction Bill.—The President having vetoed the Supplemental Reconstruction bill passed last week, the bill was passed over the veto by a two-thirds vote in both houses, and is now a law.

The Reconstruction Appropriation Bill.—The Senate amended the Reconstruction Appropriation bill, reducing the amount from $1,475,000 to $1,000,000; which amendment was concurred in by the House. The bill was vetoed by the President, whereupon both houses passed it over the veto by the constitutional majority.

War Between France and Prussia Again Imminent,—London, July 26—Evening. Much caution is shown by capitalists and business men here, the feeling having become general that the war between France and Prussia is imminent. A private dispatch from Berlin received this evening makes mention of a general opinion there that the war is certain, and adds that Prussia is actively urging forward her preparations for such an event.

Paris, July 20—Evening.—Late Russian journals received here evince the utmost dissatisfaction at the verdict in the case of Berezowski, and the leniency of the sentence imposed upon the attempted assassin of the Czar. Napoleon still continues to buy large numbers of horses for the use of the French army, and the military workmen in the shops in France are overtasked with work.

Frankfort, July 20—Evening.—The remarkable degree of activity noticed in French military workshops, and the continued purchase of horses for the use of the French army have created a great deal of distrust in financial circles here, and fears that war is approaching are openly expressed.

London, July 21. Advices from the Island of Candia, via Athens, report that the Cretans are preparing a squadron of five fire ships with which they intend to attempt the destruction of the Turkish fleet which is supporting the army of Omer Pacha.

Immense Thoroughfares.—The reports of the twelve street railroads in the city of New York show that, during 1866, there were carried upon their roads the immense number of 93,907,682 passengers; being an increase of 11,635,659 over the previous year, and over four times as many as were carried by the four roads in operation in 1857. The average annual increase of the past three years is about 18,000,000. These returns are calculated from the cash receipts; but as it is estimated that from two to five per cent. of the money paid by passengers is absorbed by the employees, over one hundred millions of passengers must have been carried on the street cars last year.

Returning Good for Evil.—In 1792, George Washington, President of the United States, wrote a private letter to Francis II., Emperor of Austria, earnestly pleading for the release of General Lafayette, who had been confined for several years in a loathsome dungeon in the citadel of Olmutz, and entreating that he might be permitted to come to this country. This request of the President was not even replied to, but was treated with contemptuous indifference. Recently the present emperor of Austria appealed to our government to interpose its good offices in favor of his brother Maximilian, emperor of Mexico, whose life was in imminent peril, which appeal was promptly and courteously responded to.

☞ A lady applied to Reynolds, the philanthropist, in behalf of an orphan. After he had given very liberally, she said: “When he is old enough, I will teach him to name and thank his benefactor.” “Stop,” said the good man, “thou art mistaken; we do not thank the clouds for rain. Teach him to look higher, and thank Him who giveth the clouds and the rain.”

☞ The best thing to be done when evil comes upon us, is not lamentation, but action; not to sit and suffer, but to rise and seek the remedy.

An Unanswerable Question.—The credulous infidels who, unwilling to receive the inspired account of the creation of man, attempt to believe that the human race is developed from the monkey, will have hard work to answer a pertinent question of Professor Agassiz. This distinguished naturalist, in his interesting account of his recent scientific expedition to South America, in noticing the fact that there is no end, not only of monkeys, but of kinds of monkeys, asks, “Why, if as some will have it, man is descended from the monkey, have we not as many races of men as we have of monkeys?”

America at the Paris Exposition.—Notwithstanding the unattractive and meagre display which the United States made at the Paris Industrial Exposition, it appears that in proportion to the number of articles exhibited she has drawn a larger number of first prizes than any other nation; and the greater proportion of the prizes awarded have been on articles of universal utility and importance. A Kentuckian received the reward for the best “harness for the lightning;” a New Jersey firm for “the most complete, rapid, and durable iron-horse;” one Yankee was rewarded for inventing the “best mower;” and another for building the “best reaper.” America furnished not only the best sewing-machine, but the most complete ambulance for practical use on the actual field of battle, and carried off from a thoroughly musical people two prizes for pianos.

Steam Transportation in War.—The wonderful part which railroads play in modern warfare was first manifested in the Crimean campaign, though it was the subsequent Italian war which brought out the fact in its astonishing significance. The Danish hostilities re-iterated the lesson for Europe, and the Prussian war of 1866 crowned the commentary. Yet it is in America, after all, that steam transportation, both by land and sea, has won its greatest triumphs. The recently published report of Gen. Parsons, the chief of rail and river transportation, exposes a marvel of achievement in his department during the war. Take, for example, the transfer of the 23d Army Corps, in January, 1865, from Eastport, Mississippi, to Washington. Twenty thousand men, with all the corps’ artillery and over 1,000 animals, were carried by rail and river from the Tennessee to the Potomac, a distance of nearly 1,400 miles in the dead of winter, over rivers and mountains blocked with snow and ice, in an average time of 11 days—less than 17 days being occupied both by advance and rear guard—and all without the loss of life or property. Such a feat is probably unexampled in history, and it illustrates the enormous influence hereafter to be exerted by the question of transportation in war. This is but one of a numerous series of triumphs recorded in the document just quoted.