p. 71 | News and Miscellany

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 27, 1876

News and Miscellany.

—Dyptheria is causing alarm in different parts of the State.

—The peaks of the hills surrounding Berkeley are covered with snow.

—Kansas has expended $3,989,085 in school-houses, and has a school fund of over $1,000,000, and constantly increasing.

—Nineteen car loads of material with which to erect the Japanese Department of the Centennial Exposition, have passed over the road to Philadelphia. About one hundred cars of Japanese articles destined for the Exposition, are expected.

—Tweed’s attorneys and bondsman have begun a suit against the city and county, Jackson S. Schultz, Keyser, Garvey, Connolly, Ingersoll, &c., asking that a receiver be appointed, and all the other participators in the “Ring” spoil be compelled to refund.

—Petitions are being circulated in Michigan, asking Congress to appropriate $150,000 for the survey of a ship canal from the mouth of the Kalamazoo river to Detroit, eighteen miles, and estimating that $800,000 will complete this great work. With this improvement wheat or corn can be delivered in Liverpool for fifteen cents per bushel.

—Hon. E. P. Smith, late commissioner of Indian Affairs, has been invited by the American Missionary Association to visit Africa and inspect Missions of the Society; there to inquire into the best method of enlarging its work, and to find the most hopeful field for its further missionary operations among the Africans. The Trustees of the Howard University have granted leave of absence for this purpose, without salary, and Mr. Smith will sail in a few days.

—The palace expenditure of the Sultan has been £2,000,000 a year ever since his accession. His servants number 5,500—the kitchens employing 500, the stables 400, the menagerie 200, while there are 400 Caikdjis, 400 musicians, 300 door-keepers of the 21 palaces and kiosques, and 100 porters. The harem has 1,000 inmates. The stables cost at least £40,000 a year, and the harem £160,000, while the pensions to the imperial family amount to £1,821,600, and repairs to the palaces and kiosques, £80,000, not to speak of the Sultan’s passion for building, which since his accession must have swallowed up at least £560,000.

—At a meeting held on December 7, of the Regents of the University of California, a communication was received from Mr. Lick, apprising them of his bequest of the sum of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, to be expended under his direction in the construction of an astronomical observatory and the purchase and erection of the largest and best telescope that art and science can produce. The spot selected for the placing of this telescope is upon the summit of Mount Hamilton, in the county of Santa Clara. This mountain is some 1,400 feet higher than Mount Diablo, and is said to be free from fogs at all times, of the year. The county of Santa Clara has charged itself with the building and maintenance of a good road to the summit; and the Regents of the University have made application for a section of the land, to be listed to the University, with a view of devoting it to the purpose for which it is designed by the generosity of Mr. Lick. It is estimated that the purchase and placing of the telescope and other scientific apparatus will cost about $300,000, leaving a fund of $450,000 for its maintenance and for instruction in this department of Science.

AN EXPENSIVE UNIVERSITY.

—The Solano Republican makes a startling statement concerning the management of the State University. It says, as a measure of economy, the University is a signal failure. For tuition alone it costs the State $100 per month for each student. At McClure’s Academy, Oakland, students are furnished with tuition, board, room, lights, fuel and washing for $30 per month. At the Napa Collegiate Institute students are furnished with tuition in higher mathematics, ancient and modern languages, book-keeping and natural sciences, for $6 per month. This same paper says it is informed upon good authority that there is not a college or university in the United States supported by a church or private enterprise, in which the total expense for tuition exceeds $20 a month, while in State institutions of the same grade the cost is all the way from $30 to $100 per month. However, the cost of each student at the University is becoming less every year as the attendance increases. The State has founded an institution capable of receiving one thousand students, and it would cost but a trifle more to instruct that number than the 237 of the past year. The attendance is becoming greater every year as the following will show: Number of students attending in 1869–70, 40; in 1870–71, 78; in 1871–72, 153; in 1872–73, 185; in 1873–74, 191; in 1874–75, 237.—Solano Times.