News and Notes

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 18, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 7.

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FOREIGN.

—A serious epidemic of smallpox is raging in Japan.

—There are 11 Japanese evangelists laboring among the 10,000 Japanese in the Hawaiian Islands.

—Five men and seven horses were overwhelmed by an avalanche near Engad, Switzerland, on February 6.

—Japan now has 365 Protestant churches, but in that government there are over 72,000 Buddhist temples.

—A treaty of commerce and amity between Japan and Peru was ratified by the Japanese emperor on January 7.

—About 750,000 patients were treated last year in the Dufferin hospitals of India and other hospitals in charge of women.

—A report from Paris, dated February 5, states that fighting has occurred between the French and Siamese on the frontier of Siam.

—The British chancellor of the exchequer has announced that the English army will make another advance toward Khartoum next season.

—The British steamer Agra, outward bound from Glasgow, was wrecked on February 5. Her passengers and all but eleven of her crew were rescued.

—The governor of Durango, Mexico, died very suddenly on February 7, having partaken of a feast given in his honor, but a few moments before his death occurred.

—The war ship Merengo, which six years ago was the flag ship of the French navy, was recently sold for old iron, so soon do the models of war vessels become obsolete.

—The Portuguese ministry, finding itself unable to grapple with the present economic and financial situation, resigned as a body on February 5, whereupon the king immediately took steps to appoint a new cabinet.

—A St. Petersburg despatch of February 8 states that a serious strike has occurred in the Moscow district, which has been accompanied by rioting, considerable damage to property, and the loss of a number of lives.

—The inhabitants of Porto Rico are becoming more and more dissatisfied with the reforms granted them by Spain; and there are no indications that the reform measures recently signed by the queen regent will be even recognized by the struggling Cubans.

—The attention of the European powers for the past two weeks has been focused on affairs in the island of Crete. The Mussulmans and Greek “Christians” have taken up arms against each other, and the latter in various places on the island have been fighting under the flag of Greece and demanding annexation to that country. The king of Greece, yielding to the demands of his people, is preparing to take a hand in the conflict, and has despatched a number of war vessels to the island. It is stated that Prince George, the commander of the Grecian fleet, has orders to prevent the landing of any Turkish troops in Crete. A Constantinople despatch states that a Greek war vessel has landed arms and ammunition on the island at Retimo. In view of the condition of affairs, the whole Italian fleet has been concentrated at Naples, with the intention of departing for Crete if the reports of the situation are confirmed.

—In view of the agitation caused by the Young Turks party, the street patrol of Constantinople has been quadrupled, and the approaches to the Yildiz Palace are guarded by a cordon of troops.

—The British expedition in west Africa against Benin, “the city of blood,” reached Bida, twelve miles from the capital, on January 25, and it was expected that the city would be bombarded on January 27.

—Following the collapse of the recent Hamburg strike of dock laborers, the disappointed strikers attacked the laborers as they emerged from the docks, February 6, using knives and revolvers. In the mêlée a large number were seriously injured. Over one hundred arrests were made by the police.

—A fanatical revolution is now in progress in Brazil. The rebels have 6,000 well-armed men concentrated at Bahia, and have burned and pillaged several towns, and destroyed a large number of rich plantations. The federal troops in an attempt to dislodge the “fanatics” have been themselves defeated.

—The empress dowager of Japan died on January 11, and the Diet authorized an expenditure of $500,000 to make her funeral imposing. A special car was built for the transportation of her body. All public entertainments were prohibited for a period of two weeks as a tribute to the memory of the departed.

—Sir Lepel Griffin states authoritatively that the people of India (who wear their savings upon their person in the form of silver ornaments) have suffered a loss of $470,000,000 on account of the depreciation in silver, and lays at the door of England’s financial policy the real cause of much of the destitution among the East Indian peasantry.

—A despatch from Bombay states that the bubonic plague is getting beyond all control. Even the vultures of the “towers of silence” are dying. The plague has also broken out in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Dr. Yersin, of the Pasteur Institute, has sailed for Bombay to fight the plague with blood serum. It is confidently expected that his remedy will effect a cure in nearly every case.

—At Rossland, B. C., on February 10, James Hemsworth, a miner, threw his arm into the revolving cogs of a windlass to save the lives of his two comrades at the bottom of the shaft, who would otherwise have been crushed by the rapidly descending bucket. The crank of the windlass had broken when the bucket of ore was near the top, and nothing but this heroic sacrifice could save the lives of those below. It is not known whether the hero will survive the terrible mangling to which he voluntarily subjected himself.

—The news of the week from Cuba comes to us with little variation. There has been the usual slaughtering of pacificos on the part of the Spanish; the burning of Cuban hospitals, with the murdering of their sick and wounded inmates; the exploding of dynamite mines by the Cubans, to destroy railroads or terrorize the Spanish troops; marches and countermarches, with ambushments on the part of both armies. General Weyler had two very narrow escapes from death at the hands of Cuban sharpshooters. Two aids were shot down at his side, and a horse was shot under him. The Cubans have made a number of daring raids, in one of which a stone fortress was captured with a large supply of arms and ammunition. The rainy season having set in, the Spanish will soon have to leave the field and wage another fearful battle with smallpox and yellow fever.

DOMESTIC.

—Jack McDonald, captain of a notorious band of outlaws, was captured at El Paso, Texas, on February 5.

—A bill was introduced in Congress on February 5, declaring the “Star-spangled Banner” to be the national song.

—President Eliot, of Harvard University, has offered to Secretary Olney the professorship of international law at that institution.

—A number of manufacturing firms on the Monongahela River have resumed work this week, one of these giving employment to 4,000 men.

—Fire at the railroad shops at Evansville, Indiana, on the morning of February 8 caused a loss of $200,000, and as a result 200 men are thrown out of employment.

—The Nicaragua Canal Bill was formally withdrawn in the Senate on February 10, with the expectation that it will be taken up by the next administration.

—Sylvester Scovel, correspondent of the New York World, was arrested by the Spaniards in Cuba on February 5. It is believed that he will be compelled to leave the island.

—American contributors to the Egypt Exploration Fund are taking steps toward establishing a committee of their own in order that they may receive their share of the Egyptian antiquities, the claim being made that the antiquities are not distributed in proportion to the contributions sent in.

—During the year 1896 over $60,000,000 worth of bicycles were sold in the United States, and it is estimated that the capital now invested in the business amounts to $125,000,000.

—Two Oklahoma families living near Stroud, according to reports, attempted to settle a long-standing feud by force of arms, which resulted in the death of three of the participants.

—Rich ledges of ore have been discovered in the Wichita Mountains, Indian Territory, but government soldiers discovered the miners and drove them out, arresting a number of the party.

—The Northwestern National Bank, of Great Falls, Montana, closed its doors on February 5, announcing as the cause for this action the defalcation on the part of the cashier of $180,000.

—The Senate and House in joint convention on February 10 counted the electoral votes for President and Vice-President, and the present Vice-President declared the result of the official count.

—It is estimated that there are thirty thousand people starving in the State of Louisiana. The State has already expended $85,000 for corn and provisions for the sufferers, and calls have been issued for funds.

—Toru Hoshi, Japan’s envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to this country, is now making a tour of the United States for the purpose of satisfying himself in regard to the condition of trade in this country.

—As the result of a family quarrel Mrs. Robert Cort, of Big Timber, Montana, threw her three children into the Yellowstone River on February 6, and then followed them. None of the bodies have been recovered.

—The west-bound Santa Fé train was “held up” by robbers near Nelson, Arizona, on the night of February 8; one of the robbers was shot dead by the express messenger, and the other escaped with a few packages of registered mail.

—On February 8 there was shipped from Barre, Vt., to New Orleans, what is claimed to be the largest stone ever shipped or quarried in the United States. Its weight is 40 tons, and a special car had to be constructed to carry the mammoth monolith.

—The American filibustering steamer Three Friends was seized at Jacksonville, Florida, on February 6, and charged with piracy, because while landing an expedition in Cuba, she mounted a Hotchkiss gun on her deck and fired at a Spanish gunboat.

—Dr. Perrine, of Buffalo, N. Y., stepfather of Mrs. Grover Cleveland, has been granted a land patent to 23,000 acres of valuable land in southern Florida, which was colonized by the Perrines before the Seminole war, but had never been legally transferred to the heirs.

—Quite numerously signed petitions are being sent to Congress from citizens of Delaware, asking that a joint commission be appointed to inquire into the political conditions in that State, averring that they are not those of a republican form of government as contemplated by the Constitution of the United States.

—The new Immigration Bill passed the House on February 9 by a vote of 217 to 37. The educational test was changed so as to admit any male immigrant, otherwise qualified, who can read and write the English or some other language. It also provides for the admission of the wives and children of such persons, even to illiterate.

—Five vessels of the United States Navy, with which Admiral Bunce is to blockade Charleston harbor, arrived at that place on February 8, having experienced a terrific gale in which four men were lost and fourteen injured. The vessels also sustained considerable injuries and a number of the boats were smashed or lost.