News and Miscellany

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 28, 1875

News and Miscellany.

—There are about three hundred and twenty-three American colleges.

—The recent rains have swollen the English rivers and streams, and caused disastrous inundations in Leicestershire and Warwickshire. The destruction of property is very heavy, and some lives are reported lost.

—Instead of using machinery in the vinting of wine, many of the Los Angeles manufacturers employ (so the papers say) clean-limbed, strong-muscled Indians to tramp out the purple fluid from the luscious fruit.

London, October 14.—The European powers interested in the Turkish bonds have been in communication with a view to some action respecting the edict of the Turkish Government announcing its inability to redeem the bonds, and proposing to compromise by their payment, half in cash and half in new five per cent. bonds. It is now announced that the powers interested refuse to make any concessions to Turkey regarding its financial position.

—The Observer says: “If we have spoken rashly of the danger of college students giving too much times to boats and ball playing, let us make amends by saying it is stated in one of our monthly magazines, that a graduate of one of the first colleges in the land, of the class of 1875, already has secured a position of trust at a salary of $3,000 a year. It is as pitcher of a professional base-ball club. What a splendid career of usefulness and honor must await this aspiring young man!”

Mr. Southworth in his new work, Egypt and its Future, gives us a sight at some of the horrible features of the slave trade. He estimates that 25,000 slaves are captured annually in the country lying between the Red Sea and the Sahara Desert. To obtain these 25,000 slaves and sell them in market, more than 15,000 are annually killed, and often the mortality reaches the terrible figure of 50,000. He says it is a fair estimate to say that 50,000 children are stolen from their parents every year.

—In answer to certain criticisms made that the number of high schools established for freedmen in the South under the auspices of the American Missionary Association is larger than necessary, the Missionary promptly states that the reverse is true, as every one at all conversant with the Southern situation must know it to be. As to the attendance at the higher institutions, like Fisk University, it is estimated that there is but one colored person out of every 40,000 in college at present, and that for years to come a large majority of the freedmen must depend entirely upon the whites for their education.

—Another report of the probable recovery of the long lost Charley Ross, is read with almost as much interest as if we had not been disappointed a score of times. A dispatch dated Philadelphia, Oct. 23, says: A man named Baker has received from Nelson Booth a letter stating that he assisted to abduct Charley Ross, and indicating that he is in the hands of a man known as Guste, whose real name is Sam Hurlburt, and who is now in England. Booth says he gave the boy to Hurlburt as his own son, pretending that he had separated from his wife and wanted the child out of the way. Baker has obtained Booth’s order on Hurlburt for the child, and starts for England to-day, by aid of his friends, to see if he can find Charley. While there is no certainty but this is another hoax, there is some hope Baker will succeed.

—The Boston Traveler, of October 5, says: The mammoth guns with which England is experimenting are not inappropriately termed “peace-makers,” since it is difficult to see how nation will contend with nation when either is possessed of so terrible weapons. A series of experiments recently made with the 81-ton gun proved the terrible character of the “Woolwich Infant.” With 170 pounds of powder the gun drove a shot weighing, with the gas-check, 1,273 pounds, 45 feet into a sand bank 200 feet distant. This gun is intended for the Inflexible, which is to carry four of these weapons, the second of which is now constructing. A prominent engineer has said that before long England will possess a 160-ton gun firing a one-ton shot, which at one mile range can tear the strongest ironclad all to pieces.”

What Ladies Can Do.

Three years ago two young ladies, one a teacher in the Kindergarten school, the other a student in the Senior class of the University, removed to Los Angeles for their health. They there conceived the idea of becoming independent bee farmers, but had no capital. Both were excellent teachers, so they entered the schools, earned enough money to buy 200 stands, got possession of some of the bee pastures, and then bid good-bye to the schools and took possession of their bee farm. They do their own work, even to making their own hives, and last week one of the firm came up by steamer with 2,500 pounds of white sage honey for the San Francisco market. If one-half of those who are harping upon a “higher sphere for women” would pitch into some such useful employment, it might be with great profit to themselves and to the intense relief of others.