News and Notes by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 4, 1883

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 9, No. 1.

Read the full edition

News and Notes.

By Editor

--There are twenty-five deaths daily from cholera in Tehuantepec.

--The English army of occupation in Egypt is to be reduced one-half.

--In New York City the births last year exceeded the deaths by 10,500.

--Seventy-six deaths from small-pox occurred in Baltimore the last week in the year.

--The Mayor of New York City has refused to grant a license for the performance of the Passion Play.

--Efforts are being made to get Congress to require the street railroads of Washington, D. C., to adopt the cable system.

--The Mormon Smith, who killed his son near Los Angeles, claiming to be inspired, has been found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

--There have been 5,636 buildings erected in Chicago during the past year, at a cost of $25,000,000. The frontage of the new structures is about fourteen miles.

--Gambetta, the famous French Statesman, died early in the morning of Jan. 1. His death produced a profound sensation throughout Europe, and is a great loss to France.

--By order of the education department, the school-books in French Government schools are to be printed in large type, on account of the recent great increase in short-sightedness.

--Mr. Gladstone has just completed his fiftieth year of public service, and on account of his age and want of strength has withdrawn from the duties of Chancellor of the Exchequer.

--The San Francisco courts granted 366 divorces during the past year. This is two more than in 1881, and 14 per cent. of the whole number of marriages contracted during the same time.

--During the recent transit of Venus, Professor Young, of Princeton College, discovered with the spectroscope unmistakable evidences of vapor of water in the atmosphere of that planet.

--The floods in Germany have revived, and the rivers are higher than ever. There has been great loss of life. In one place twenty persons were drowned by the falling of a bridge. Five villages have been destroyed.

--Citizens of California have presented a memorial to Congress, for the abolition of labor on Sunday, in the post-offices throughout the country. There is no probability that it will have any effect on Sunday work.

--During the four months before the bill restricting Chinese immigration went into effect, there were 18,400 arrivals in San Francisco, from China; but in the four months following, there were only 236 arrivals from China, and nearly all of these were Europeans.

--By the falling of a chimney at Bradford, Eng., thirty persons were killed, and fifty others injured. Three thousand persons were thrown out of employment, as eight mills that had flue connection with the chimney, were obliged to stop. The damage to property was over £60,000.

--During the President's reception, Jan. 1, the Hawaiian Minister, Hon. Elisha H. Allen, dropped dead in the White House. Mr. Allen was a native of Massachusetts; he was appointed Consul to the Hawaiian Islands in 1851, and soon after connected himself with that Government.

--The Ford brothers, who were the companions of the James brothers, one of whom they killed, were advertized to appear in Hartford, Conn., and give an illustration of their murderous methods. When the time came, however, only two dollars had been received, and the exhibition was not given. It is gratifying to know that there is one city that will not pay a premium on crime, or make heroes of cut-throats.

--Eastern cities are alarmed over the increase of crime. The state of affairs in Chicago, and Des Moines, Iowa, is such that the citizens have contemplated forming a Vigilance Committee. In Cleveland, ladies have been attacked early in the evening, on the principal streets. Eleven persons were robbed within a week. In Keokuk, Iowa, there were thirty-eight burglaries in four nights, without a single arrest.

--A remarkable statement was made recently before a scientific body in London—the statement given as on the authority of Mr. Veitch, the well-known author of Coniferae—that the cones of many of the species on the Pacific Coast never open and permit the seed to escape unless opened by a forest fire, they then fall out and replenish the burned waste. "They hang on the trees for many generations—even for thirty years."

--Chicago has become so infested with thieves and cut-throats, and the police force is so small and incompetent, that the business men are talking of forming a vigilance committee. The police records show that in three weeks of December seventeen persons were assaulted and robbed in the streets, and some of them dangerously injured; and it is not probable that more than one-third of the cases are reported to the police. Our paper says that life and property were safer in San Francisco prior to the organization of the famous vigilance committee, than they are to-day in Chicago.

--Herr Most, the Socialist, is in Chicago. In a speech he said that the only thing to be done is to kill. "The trouble in the French Revolution was that when the people got the upper hand they stopped killing, when they should have kept on. The people here must kill, must open banks and stores and help themselves to anything they wanted. The bankers and capitalists must be set to work on the streets." His remarks are of no consequence, except that they show the feeling which actuates a certain class which is increasing in this country as well as in Europe. The speech was uproariously applauded.