News and Notes by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 19, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 12.

News and Notes.

By Editor

RELIGIOUS.

—March 2 was the seventy-fifth birthday of Pope Leo XIII. —An American church costing $250,000 has just been consecrated in Dresden, Germany. —The Inquisition punished 342,000 persons in Spain alone, 32,000 of whom were burned alive. —The pastor of St. Vincent de Paul's Catholic Church at Mount Vernon, Ohio, has declared war against the skating rinks. —In the Sunday-school of the Ninth Presbyterian Church of Troy, N. Y., are five scholars who have been present at every session for four years. —By the first census of Japanese Christians made by the Government, they are numbered at 80,000, including Roman Catholics and Greek converts. —The Theater Services Committee, in London, have thirteen theaters and halls, in which, week after week, mission services are held. The attendance is large. —It is roughly estimated that there are about 200,000,000 Mohammedans, more than half being in Asia, and the rest in Africa, except 6,000,000, who live in Turkey in Europe. —It is estimated that the sum of $50,000 will still be necessary to complete Bishop Vertin's Cathedral at Marquette, Mich., a like amount already having been expended on it. —On Sunday, March 8, the New York Avenue church, Washington, was literally packed in every part with people who went to see President Cleveland, and to the president did not appear. —Sunday morning, March 1, Dr. Talmage received 189 persons into the membership of the Tabernacle church, Brooklyn, N. Y. The pew rents in the church foot up $22,000 for the present year. —There are at present in Lisbon, Portugal, seven native Protestant congregations,—one Presbyterian, two Independent, and four Episcopal. In Oporto there are three,—one Methodist and two Episcopal. —Some fanatics at Concord, N. H., have set May 19 "for the Lord to come." It is too bad that people will make such fools of themselves. But even when May 19 passes they will be no wiser than they are now. —The first meeting of the American congress of churches will be held in Hartford, Conn., early in May. The congress is announced as intended to embrace all the Christian denominations, and to be participated in by representative ministers and laymen. —The M. E. Churches of the Pacific Coast are to establish an Episcopal residence in San Francisco, for Bishop Fowler. The house and grounds are to cost $15,000; $5,475 of which was raised at one meeting of representatives in San Francisco last week. —No less than thirty-three distinct missionary agencies are at work in Africa. In South Africa there are 450 Protestant missionaries, 95 native ministers, 40,000 communicants, and 45,000 scholars. On the west coast, 190 missionaries, 33,000 communicants, 250,000 under instruction, and probably 1,000,000, more or less, under the influence of Christianity. —It is stated by the Philadelphia North American, that the sale of the Revised New Testament has fallen flat; that the demand ceased in a week after the curiosity died out, and that wagon loads of them have been sent to the auction houses, where one dollar volumes sold for nine cents. It is estimated that over $300,000 has been lost in such "dead" stock. —The sales of books and other publications by the Methodist Book Concern last year, in New York, amounted to $988,654, and the sales in Cincinnati were nearly as large. The value of the real estate belonging to the Methodist Book Concern in New York City amounts to $700,000, and in various cities in the West the real estate owned by the concern is valued at about $300,000 more. —An English clergyman reports that a part of his income is derived from the interest on $1,610 in consols in chancery. Lately the half-yearly interest, twenty-five dollars, fell due, and by the time that he had gone through all the process required by the Court of Chancery, he had to pay twenty-one dollars to get his twenty-five. The preacher's income from that source is nothing to boast of, surely.

SECULAR.

—San Francisco consumes 900,000 bananas a month. —There is a serious strike on the Missouri Pacific Railroad. —War has been declared between Nicaragua and Guatemala. —Thirty horses were burned in a stable in Providence, R. I., on March 8. —England has invested $100,000, for the benefit of General Gordon's family. —Opium joints are abundant in the fashionable circles of New York City. —It is said that El Mahdi captured 15,000 Remington rifles at Khartoum. —Governor Pierce, of Dakota, vetoed the bill giving women the right to vote. —For more than a week, rumors have been rife of war between England and Russia. —Applications for office go into the departments at Washington at the rate of 200 a day. —Inspector-General Sackett, of the United States Army, died at Washington, D. C., March 8. —A nitro-glycerine factory at Howard Junction, Ohio, exploded March 10, killing three men. —Telephone connection direct from New York to Chicago, is being used for business purposes. —A Chicago grand jury has found bills of indictment against 249 of the judges of the last election. —Whole families in the interior counties of West Virginia are wholly dependent on charity for their food. —El Mahdi has issued placards proposing to lead his hosts to Mecca, and to expel the Turks from Arabia. —Maine paid $2,745 last year in bounties for bears killed within its boundaries, the number being 549. —Italy pays $6,000,000 for the maintenance of its penal system, and only $5,400,000 for educational purposes. —Lieutenant Austin, treasurer of the Salvation Army at North Adams, ran away with all the money last week. —Freight agents report an average daily shipment of twelve car loads of oranges from Los Angeles, Cal. —The largest Catholic Church in Washington, D. C., was burned March 12. Loss, $75,000; insured for $50,000. —Two attempts were made to burn the Ohio Institute for the Blind, at Columbus, Wednesday night, Feb. 25. —Rumors of war between England and Russia caused almost a panic in the London Stock Exchange last week. —A son of one of the professors of the Columbian University, Washington, D. C., died last week from smoking cigarettes. —Julius K. Cobb, about eight or nine years old, and heir to $1,000,000, was stolen from his guardian in Cleveland, Ohio, March 11. —Cincinnati is talking of building an elevated belt railroad round the city. It will be seventeen miles long, and will cost $5,000,000. —The schooner F. J. Collins, from Galveston to Boston, was burned March 1. Loss, in vessel and cargo, $70,000. The crew all landed safely. —Three children were burned in a house at Durant, Miss., March 7; and the day following three others were burned in a house at Pearlington, Miss. —The Governor of Mississippi has appointed E. C. Waltham to the U. S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by Senator Lamar's going into the president's cabinet. —The Supreme Court of California has sustained the decision of the Superior Court, that Chinese children must be admitted to the public schools the same as any other children. —Mrs. Niher, of Silver Lake, W. T., died March 13, of trichinosis, and her child is in a critical condition with the same disease, from eating pork. Why is it that people cannot let that filthy, deadly stuff alone? —After more than eighteen years of effort, Birkenhead and Liverpool, England, have been joined by a tunnel under the Mersey River. The mayors of the two cities joined hands in the middle of it, when the last portion of dirt was knocked down on Feb. 13.

—The Government has already supplied $1,000,000 to help the New Orleans Exposition, and it is asked to send $300,000 more. The Exposition is certainly a success in one thing, if in nothing more; that is, in getting away with United States gold and silver coin. —Three of the oldest and most competent engineers, to whom was committed the running of the fast trains on a certain railroad, not long since asked to be relieved. They declared that the mental and nervous strain was literally destroying their lives, and they could stand it no longer. —Two men were killed and another man was badly injured last week, by the bursting of the boiler in a saw-mill at Finksburg, Maryland. And another near Kounitz, Texas, exploded, killing two persons and injuring fifteen others. It was feared that six of the injured could not recover. —In a village in Saxony, 961 of the 1,300 inhabitants were attacked with trichinosis from eating pork, fifty-seven of whom died; the remainder survive with their muscles filled with the living parasite, and it is only a question of time when they, too, will have to die of the terrible disease. —Leoni, the "King of the Air," was killed at a tight-rope performance at Stockton, Cal., March 14, by the breaking of a rope that held the wire upon which he was walking. We suppose the large crowd that were assembled to see the performance, had their morbid curiosity thoroughly satisfied. —The city council of Wheeling, West Va., has unanimously resolved to ask the State Legislature to allow the annexation of Brooke, Hancock, and Ohio Counties to Pennsylvania. As Wheeling is in Ohio County, and is at the same time the capital of the State, the city council is asking a pretty big thing. —A physician connected with one of the hospitals in New York where children receive special attention, says that many of the cases of spinal trouble brought to his notice are the direct result of the careless handling of baby carriages. The matter of how nurses and others handle these little vehicles is one to which parents may well pay attention. —Certain officers of the army and navy, by influential means have for years been allowed to spend their time in Washington, on what is called "special duty," but really doing nothing. Since the change in affairs at the capital, these pets have been ordered to active duty, and in consequence there is a good deal of commotion. Clear them out, Mr. President. —The Record, of Boston, is exposing the evils that most abound in that city. It says they are drunkenness, licentiousness, and gambling. It shows the streets filled with saloons, several of whose keepers sit in the board of aldermen, and gambling chambers, thronged with patrons, close by the City Hall, and in the most crowded streets. Persons and property are insecure; men are unsafe in the streets at night; and murder is rife. Business men say it is no use to apply to the police, for they will do nothing when they are appealed to. The criminal class, including the liquor-sellers, govern the city through the city council, and all the powers that be bow down to these unclean idols. So says the Springfield Republican.