News and Miscellany

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 12, 1875

News and Miscellany.

—Reverdy Johnson, who is in his eighty-first year, astonished the Baltimore bar a few days ago, by standing and arguing a case in court for a whole day without apparent fatigue.

—The Turkish government has issued a proclamation, offering general amnesty to the insurgents of Herzegovina, and their submissions are continually being received by the Turks.

LONDON, August 6.—Eighteen additional cotton mills are involved in the Oldham strike. They have closed their doors, and the number of operatives idle is increased to twenty thousand.

LONDON, August 7.—According to accounts from Damascus, dated July 22; the cholera was then raging there. Four hundred cases were reported daily, but the real number was concealed. The Christian quarters were deserted. Sudden deaths were occurring in the streets. There are no physicians nor medicines to supply the patients.

The disease is also bad at Antioch, Deerhems, Hamah, Homan, and Salijah, and among the Druses. The Mission Schools are closed and the children dispersed.

THE FLOODS.

—Alternating with earthquakes and great fires, come the accounts of great floods in different parts of Europe and our own country. A few weeks ago the overflow of the Garonne reduced twenty thousand French citizens from comfort to beggary.

—In Calcutta disastrous floods are reported. Many dwellings have been destroyed and it is feared that serious loss of life has occurred.

—England is suffering from heavy rains, and extensive inundations. A great deal of grazing land is flooded, and large numbers of cattle are deprived of pasturage.

August 5.—A water-spout burst over Kirm, in Rhenish Prussia, to-day, inundating that place and doing a great amount of damage. A bridge and several houses were swept away, and thirteen persons drowned.

—The inundations in Silesia, in Lower Prussia, caused by excessive rains, have been serious and alarming. Bridges have been swept away and roads rendered impassable, and the inhabitants have been compelled to seek the upper stories of their dwellings for shelter. Crops suffered greatly.

—Dispatches from various parts of Missouri report immense damage to crops. In the Spring River bottom lands, the damage is estimated at $1,500,000. Streams are overflowing, causing great destruction. Railroads are seriously damaged, and trains are delayed.

ST. LOUIS, August 2.—The damage by the rainstorm was very severe in Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois. The railroads east are considerably damaged by floods, and trains cannot run on time. The roads in other directions are also greatly damaged. The rivers in this section are rising rapidly. The heavy rains have been very disastrous to crops.

MEMPHIS, Aug. 6.—The river here is rising steadily at the rate of two inches in 24 hours. The weather is cloudy and threatening. The levees below here, as far down as Friar's Point, are still reported good, the only break being at the cut in the old town levee, through which the water is pouring, threatening the plantations below from the rear. At St. Francis, Almadson, Arkansas, the river had risen four feet at midnight last night, and was rising rapidly.

TERRE HAUTE (Ind.), Aug. 2.—A disastrous flood is raging in the vicinity of this city and various other localities throughout the State. The river opposite the city is fully three miles wide, and is still rising. Millions of bushels of wheat in stacks and shocks have floated past; a large quantity of hay has also gone down. There is little driftwood afloat, or the bridges could not possibly remain. Over 6,000,000 bushels of corn is reported drowned out. There is very little corn and no wheat left in the township of Sugar Creek. Every house in Bloomington is inundated. The Markles Dam, five miles west, has broken away, and seven houses at Reelsville, together with three miles of embankment, have been washed away. Not a train on any of the railroads has left the city, except to Vincennes, and returned with no communication. The rivers are yet rising.

—The trial of John D. Lee for participating in the Mountain Meadow Massacre, has proved a failure. Eighteen years ago a company of one hundred and thirty emigrants were refused the privilege of buying food at Salt Lake City and other Mormon towns, but were directed by a Mormon leader to Mountain Meadow as a place where they might rest, even that privilege being denied them at the Mormon towns. They camped there, and on the third day were suddenly fired upon by a band of Indians (Mormon Allies). They repulsed the Indians. Soon Lee, a Leader of the Mormon troops, appeared with a flag of truce. He agreed to lead them out in safety if they would give up their arms in order to pacify the Indians. The Mormon troops formed two lines and the unarmed and unsuspecting emigrants were led between them, expecting only protection. When fairly in the trap the order was given to shoot and in a few moments every one of the company was a murdered corpse. While the Mormons shot the men, the Indians killed the women and children.

And while the strongest evidence of these facts was brought before the court, the result of the trial is “no verdict”; because there were Mormons on the jury, and every Mormon is pledged to do the “Prophet’s” will, and in this case it was of course, for the advantage of the Mormon Church that Lee should not be convicted.