p. 179 | News and Notes by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 12, 1883

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 9, No. 15.

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News and Notes.

By Editor

—Ten men were killed, the 3d inst., by the explosion of a boiler in a mill at Moss Point, Miss.

—A powder depot at Rome, Italy, exploded April 5, killing forty persons, and injuring many others.

—An Eastern paper aptly characterizes the destruction of a distillery by fire as a "burning shame."

—The President has appointed Judge Walter Q. Gresham, of Indiana, to the office of Postmaster-General.

—On the 7th inst., one hundred cottages were burned in the village of Valorbe, Canton of Vand, Switzerland.

—Two fishing steamers have returned to St. John's, N. B., from the ice fields, having together 52,500 seals.

—Gray, the defaulting secretary of the California Harbor Commission, has been arrested in Guaymas, Mexico.

—The Ohio Legislature has agreed to submit to the people a proposition for a prohibitory amendment to the Constitution.

—An expert swindler has succeeded in setting afloat about $13,000 worth of counterfeit silver coin in Arizona and New Mexico.

—Southern Louisiana has been visited by a very heavy rain, and the town of Goldsboro is flooded to a depth of from three to six feet.

—A boy threw a lighted match into the manhole of a sewer in Baltimore, causing an explosion which damaged buildings to the extent of $20,000.

—About 3,000,000 acres of Texas lands, in that portion of the State known as the Pan-handle, has been sold for $10,000,000 to a London syndicate.

—It is reported that business is suspended in the towns of Empire City and Galena, Kansas, on account of small-pox. In the latter place there have been fifty deaths.

—Fifteen persons were killed by the falling of the wall of a rickety hotel in Greenville, Texas, April 7. The ruins took fire, and several of the bodies were roasted.

—A new Government dock is to be built at Sebastopol, to take the place of the one destroyed twenty-five years ago by the allied armies. The estimated cost is $20,000,000.

—This time it was in Georgia, and the story runs as usual. A nine-year-old boy, while playing with an old gun, accidentally killed an old lady, and wounded her daughter and child.

—Advices by steamer from Panama state that on the 10th of March one thousand houses, including the churches and railway buildings, were burned at Iquique, Peru. The loss is estimated at $10,000,000.

—There was a severe storm in central and southwestern Arkansas, April 6, which did much damage to buildings, and in many places so covered the roads with fallen timber as to make them impassable.

—The king of the Sandwich Islands has asked permission to have the money for his kingdom coined at one of the United States mints. The request will probably be granted, and the work done at San Francisco.

—The Canadian Government has decided to deepen the channel of the St. Lawrence, between Montreal and Quebec, to twenty-seven and a half feet. It is now twenty-five feet. The undertaking will cost $1,500,000.

—The coronation of the Czar has been postponed on account of the threats of the nihilists. This time there is no date set. If it ever take place it will probably have to be done in secret, without announcing the time. The Czar is evidently frightened this time.

—Peter Cooper died, at his home in New York, on the morning of the 4th inst. He was in his ninety-third year, but was quite active in his business until a few days before he died. His large fortune, which was made in legitimate business, was largely used for really charitable purposes.

—The Halifax garrison, the last remnant of the British army in Canada, will be withdrawn in November next. As there are no fears entertained of an invasion of Canada by the United States, and the Government of the country is strong enough to maintain peace within its own borders, foreign troops are not needed.

—As workmen were reparing the main gas-pipe, under the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, last week, a light was brought too near the escaping gas, and an explosion followed. Over thirty men were severely injured, and one fireman was killed. The building was shaken somewhat, but the damage to property was slight.

—As the results of experiments in telephonic communication, conversation, in sentences of three or four words each, can now be carried on between New York and Chicago. It is quite probable that very soon conversation can be carried on between the people of these two cities as easily as between those but a few miles distant.

—Twenty-five years ago there were in this country some 1,418 cigar and tobacco factories, employing 14,236 persons; to-day there are 7,674 establishments, which give employment to 54,587 hands. Estimates show that the American people pay more for smoke than fuel, and that the use of the weed costs more than bread and potatoes.—Christian Secretary.

—England is at present but little better off than Russia. The difficulty may be exaggerated, but the effect is the same. But it is not all rumor. Half a ton of nitro-glycerine, and a factory with apparatus for making the explosive in the most approved manner, have been discovered in London. Several arrests have been made, public buildings are strongly guarded, and all packages entering the city are examined.

—The Christian Union recently published the statements of several prominent men, on the temperance question, nearly all of whom, while avowedly temperance men, do not favor prohibition. The Lever now suggests, that that paper interview some of the wives and mothers who are suffering from the rum traffic. Their opinion would certainly be worth considering, but then it must be remembered that they would not give the kind of testimony that is desired.

—It is rumored that there is a defensive alliance between Germany, Austria, and Italy, against France, and the Italian papers are out-spoken in their hatred of France. The Journal de Rome says that from the Baltic to Sicily the French Republic has none but enemies, who are ready to attack her if she but moves a finger. She is at the mercy of her enemies, if there is the slightest cause for war, and Italy will not fail, when the chief of the alliance gives the smallest sign, to find such cause on a few minutes' notice.