News and Notes

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 13, 1898

FOREIGN.

—It is reported from Kuram, India, that the Afridis are assembling in tribal council with a view to concluding peace with England.

—China has yielded to Germany’s demand and dismissed the commandant of the garrison at Tsao Chau for using insulting language to the German missionaries stationed there.

—The English in British Borneo are now dealing with a small rebellion in that province led by Matsalleh, one of whose subordinates recently captured the government station of Limbawang.

—Confirmation has been received from New Guinea of the murder of the German governor and police by natives, which was reported some time ago. The bodies of the victims were cut into small pieces.

—A French physician has discovered that by connecting the X-ray apparatus with the ground by a metallic circuit, the evil effect which usually ensues from its application to patients is entirely prevented.

—The gold production of the whole world for the year 1897 will amount to nearly $240,000,000, the United States leading all other nations in the output of the precious metal, while Africa, Australasia, Russia, Mexico, Canada, and India follow in the order named.

—It is reported that England and Russia have compromised the matter of superintending the Corean customs, and that the British agent and Russian agent will work the customs together. The British war ships were at the port of Seoul to give moral support to the demands of England in the matter.

—A murderous gang of youths, numbering thirty-three, the oldest of whom is only twenty-one, has been captured by the police of Paris. Within three months the bodies of fifty-three murdered persons have been found in a small section of the River Seine, and it is believed that the most of these murders are traceable to this gang.

—The annual scene of wild debauchery welcomed the new year in London. A crowd of fully 25,000 people assembled in the vicinity of St. Paul’s Cathedral, most of them in a drunken condition, and the police were unable to cope with the mob, which is reported to have given itself up to “the wildest orgies and licentiousness.”

—Clipperton Island, a guano island upon which the American flag had been raised by the American Guano Company, was visited recently by the Mexican gunboat Democrata, the American flag hauled down, and the Mexican raised in its place. The French now come forward with a claim to this island, which they say has never been controverted.

—The Indian girl known throughout northern Mexico as Saint Teresa and who exerts such wonderful influence over the Yaqui Indians by her claims to divine healing power, is again among the Indians of northern Mexico, inciting them to rebellion against the government. A force of government troops is on its way to the scene of threatened trouble.

—The natives in British New Guinea are becoming so hostile as to call for immediate action by the military authorities. Many native servants of the whites have been killed by the blacks, and all trace has been lost of many mining and trading parties which began operations there several months ago. It is believed that they have been murdered by the natives.

—The threatened advance of the Dervishes to the northward is causing renewed activity in the movements of the British troops in Egypt. The English gunboats are patrolling the Nile in advance of the expedition. It is reported that King Menelek is marshaling his forces, with the intention of assisting the French expedition on the upper Nile, and annexing an adjoining province to his own domain.

—At a mass-meeting in the city hall of London, Ontario, on January 3, the floor gave way, precipitating a large portion of the audience to the room below. A heavy safe and other articles fell in upon the struggling men, and twenty-five were killed outright, while a large number were more or less seriously injured, some of them being the recently elected city officials in whose honor the meeting was held.

—Events in the Orient have not changed to any great extent during the past week, with the exception of the “lease” of Kaiouchau Bay to Germany, with the rights of sovereignty over the same and the privilege of taking more if she should find it necessary. What China gets in return for this concession does not appear. It is reported that England has declared to China that she must be granted the same concessions that are accorded to any other power in the Orient, and she is still strengthening her fleet in Chinese waters. Japan, it is rumored, has made a similar declaration to the Chinese foreign office, and will act in accord with England in this particular.

—The positions taken by the “higher critics” in regard to the Bible are being assailed by some of the most prominent archaeologists and Orientalists, such as Professors Sayce and Hommel and M. Halevy, the French Hebrew scholar. The latter in a recent meeting of the International Congress of Orientalists made a strong defense of the essential truths of Mosaic history, as against the positions taken by the radical “higher critics.”

—Dissatisfaction is rapidly spreading in the ranks of the Canadian branch of the World’s W. C. T. U., over the re-election of Lady Henry Somerset as vice-president of that organization. Mrs. Josephine Butler, superintendent of the Purity Department, and Mrs. Cole, superintendent of the Department of Systematic Giving, have resigned their respective offices on account of Lady Somerset’s re-election. The latter’s position on the Contagious Diseases Act is the occasion for this disaffection.

—According to the New York Tribune collections of money are being made among the followers of Mohammed, including the 30,000,000 Mohammedans in China and the 23,000,000 Japanese who profess the same faith, for the purpose of inaugurating a Pan-Islamist movement against the encroachments of the “powers” of Europe. That journal suggests that the European concert, by its policy toward the Porte, has produced a monster which is destined to become a source of dread and terror to its shortsighted creators.

—Emperor William has solicited the aid of the pope in support of the naval bill which the German Reichstag had refused to adopt. This is being done on the strength of the protection which the emperor is giving Catholic missionaries in China. The pope, while refusing to interfere directly in German politics, has signified his intention of using his influence with the Catholic members of the Reichstag for the accomplishment of the object which the emperor has in view. Thus is the influence of the pope becoming more and more marked in the politics of the world.

—The Cuban autonomous government was established in the island on January 1, 1898, the secretaries and president of the Cuban cabinet taking oath of fidelity to Spain, the queen, and Spanish institutions. At the conclusion of the ceremony mass was celebrated in the chapel of the palace by the bishop of Havana. All present knelt at the elevation of the “host” excepting the British and German consuls. General Pando’s military operations against the insurgents in Santiago de Cuba province have been brought to a standstill by his inability to procure supplies from headquarters on account of the activity of the insurgents, who are in virtual control of that province. The editor of the Madrid Herald, who has been studying conditions in Cuba, is returning to Spain, and it is reported that he will advise Spain to give up the island. General Segura has left the field and declares that he will no longer fight against the insurgents or be responsible for the “disgraceful Spanish rule in Cuba.” The insurgents are preventing the grinding of cane in Cuba and are setting fire to cane-fields from one end of the island to the other.

DOMESTIC.

—Captain Rich, an American, has been appointed to the position of director of railways in the empire of China.

—A less number of railroads went into insolvency in this country during the year 1897 than during any year since 1887.

—The steamer Corona, from Alaska, arrived at Port Townsend, Wash., on January 2, with $627,500 in Klondike gold-dust and nuggets.

—Amid a grand celebration the city of Greater New York was inaugurated on New Year’s eve, becoming the second city in size in the world.

—Two avalanches recently swept down Chilcoot Pass, Alaska, burying a newly-constructed tramway and many tons of provisions and miners’ supplies.

—Winnecke’s periodic comet was rediscovered at the Lick Observatory on January 2, and was very near the place at which it was predicted it would appear.

—The War Department has purchased 500 trained reindeer in Norway for shipment to the United States, to be used in conveying supplies to the relief of the miners at Dawson.

—The reduction of wages proposed in some of the cotton mills of the Eastern States, following close upon the declaring of a dividend by the mill owners, bids fair to inaugurate a strike of thousands of mill hands.

—The members of a certain religious sect of Lyme, Connecticut, known as the “Holiness Band,” have been arrested for attempting to cast out devils from an old lady of that place by torturing the woman herself.

—It is reported that the commander of the U. S. cruiser Oregon has unearthed the identity of the one who wrote the letter which appeared recently in the press charging the captain with attempting to Romanize the American navy. It seems that the letter was written by a deserter who wished to arouse the sympathy of his relatives and make a protest for his desertion.

—A call has been made for a national conference of Prohibition workers, which will be held at Cincinnati, Ohio, on January 26. The object of the conference is to arrange plans for future work and develop enthusiasm in the temperance cause.

—Mrs. Hannah Gould and sixty-four other women, including trained hospital nurses and a dozen missionaries, sailed from New York recently on the steamer City of Columbia, for the Klondike. Mrs. Gould will build a hospital and mission house at Dawson.

—The United States War Department and the Canadian mounted police will work together in the relief expedition which is soon to start for the Klondike regions. No duties will be charged by the Canadian authorities on provisions taken in by this expedition.

—A check for $8,500,000 was deposited at the Sub-Treasury on January 5 by the Reorganization Committee of the Union Pacific Railway. This completes the payment of $58,000,000 to the government, and entitles the reorganized company to take possession of the road.

—Two large warehouses at Stockton, Cal., in which were stored 12,000 tons of wheat, were burned to the ground on January 3. The loss on the wheat and the buildings in which it was stored will amount to nearly $500,000, and will fall mostly upon the farmers who owned the cereal.

—With the coming of the new year the most destructive frosts which the State of Florida has experienced in many years visited that State, and it is reported that the orange and pineapple crops will be almost a complete failure, while the truck farmers see nothing but starvation this winter.

—The colony of the unemployed at Soledad, Monterey County, Cal., under the auspices of the Salvation Army, was formally dedicated by Commander Booth-Tucker on January 1, 1898. Five thousand men, women, and children were fed at the Salvation Army barracks in San Francisco on the day of the dedication.