p. 14 | News and Notes

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 20, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 33.

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News and Notes

FOREIGN

—The queen of Sweden has joined the Salvation Army.

—Advices from Abyssinia state that King Menelek is again preparing for war.

—Molla Rega, who assassinated the shah of Persia, was hanged at Teheran on August 12.

—Baroness Tennyson, widow of the late poet laureate of England, died at her home August 10.

—There are 10,000 Spanish soldiers in the hospitals of Havana, 2,000 of whom are suffering from yellow fever.

—Two Japanese have purchased 300,000 acres of land in Mexico, and expect to establish a Japanese colony there.

—A French chemist has discovered seven different species of fish from whose eggs a fine quality of silk can be made.

—M. A. De Gerlache, the Belgian explorer, will start on an expedition to the Antarctic regions about the middle of September.

—The International Socialists Trades Congress in London declares in favor of free education from kindergarten to university.

—The International Congress for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals resolves to bring about the legal prohibition of vivisection.

—The French Government has demanded of Korea a franchise for the building of a railroad by French citizens from Seoul to Mokupo.

—Farmers in the Fraser River valley, B. C., are suffering from a plague of mosquitoes, some of them having been compelled to abandon their farms.

—A flood on the River Kistna, in Bombay, August 14, has rendered thousands of people homeless. By the capsizing of a river boat 200 were drowned.

—An Italian man-of-war has captured and taken to the prize port of Masowah the Dutch steamer Doelwyk, which was carrying 34,000 rifles to king Menelek, of Abyssinia.

—The cholera outbreak in Egypt has now spread so that it is entirely beyond the control of the sanitary authorities. The record of thirteen days shows a death list of 2,000.

—The Romish priests of Ecuador have no love for President Alfaro or the liberal reforms conducted by him, and the revolution now in progress there is said to be due to their influence.

—Two enterprising Americans in Guatemala have been buying up fifty-cent dollars and coining them into American dollars, and it is stated that the fraud has already reached the sum of $2,500,000.

—On the occasion of the marriage of Princess Maud she received a gold antique bracelet from the pope, which is interpreted as a proof of the wish of the vatican to be on friendly terms with the Anglicans.

—The Yaqui Indians of Mexico are on the war path, the outbreak being due to the work of Señorita Teresa Urrea, who is regarded by the Yaquis as a saint, and who is claimed to have wonderful powers as a divine healer.

—A rebellion has broken out in the island of Formosa, due to the alleged cruelties of the Japanese officials. It is claimed on good authority that the Japanese are conducting a most cruel war of extermination in the island.

—Prof. Otto Lilienthal, the well-known flying-machine inventor of Berlin, was hurled to the ground on August 11 by the collapse of his flying apparatus, and sustained injuries from which he died twenty-four hours later.

—The Cretan revolutionists, despairing of European diplomacy and Turkish bad faith, have dissolved their reform government and established a provisional revolutionary government, with Geromostaros, who is 92 years old, as president.

—The man who stole a $12,600 gold brick from the bank of Ensenada, Mexico, and was acquitted for lack of evidence, was caught on August 8 in the act of digging up the treasure; and, altho the authorities secured the brick, they were compelled to release the culprit, as he could not be brought to trial twice for the same crime.

—Spain has filed a claim for damages against the United States in consequence of filibustering expeditions sent to Cuba from American ports. This is believed by many to be a ruse for provoking war with the United States, as it is well known that no American congress would ever appropriate a dollar in the payment of such a claim.

—A Sunday newspaper has been started in Honolulu, and as a result the advocates of Sunday observance are seeking to revive a class of religious legislation, which for a long time has been a dead letter, in order that the paper may be suppressed.

—An English syndicate has made arrangements with the Mexican Government for finishing and leasing the Tehuantepec Isthmus Railway, and will enter into sharp competition with lines now plying between San Francisco and eastern and European ports.

—Evidences of a prehistoric race have recently been discovered near Quatsino, on the island of Vancouver, in the shape of footprints in a rocky hillside, which are twenty-nine inches long and nine feet apart. It is estimated that this giant of other days must have been nearly twenty feet tall.

—A Cuban train carrying passengers and troops was wrecked by an explosion of dynamite recently, in which a number of train hands, soldiers, and passengers were injured, one mortally. It was the work of the insurgents, who have frequently warned the inhabitants against riding on trains conveying troops.

—News from Kansu, China, is to the effect that the famous Tung Tuhsiang, in obedience to the imperial command, has begun a systematic massacre of all Mohammedans he may come across. At Hsining he slew 3,000 men and sold their wives and female children. The Mohammedans across the Russian border have promised assistance to their Chinese brethren, and it is feared that the spark lighted near the Thibetan border may grow into a great conflagration, embracing central Asia and India.

—Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, who started on Aug. 3, 1893, in a specially constructed ship, the Fram, to explore the regions of the north pole, has returned to civilization, having reached a higher latitude than any previous polar explorer, 86 degrees and 14 minutes, or within 225 miles of the yet unreachable pole. Nansen and one of his lieutenants left the vessel in order to make independent explorations, and after making the high latitude mentioned, met the “Jackson Harmsworth” expedition at Franz Josef Land, and returned to civilization in the English ship Windward. The result of the expedition seems to disprove the theory that there is an open polar sea.

—The Turkish Government has finally rejected the demands of the Christians of Crete, except so far as the provisions of the convention and general amnesty to the insurgents is concerned. The Macedonian insurgents fought a battle with the Turkish soldiers on August 11, and routed them, with a loss of fifty killed. The powers are urging Greece to put an immediate stop to all relief or filibustering expeditions to Crete. The Grecian Government replies that this is impossible, on account of the popular excitement, and further adds that it would be inhuman to leave the Cretans a helpless prey to Turkish ferocity. There is great discord among the powers with reference to the course which should be pursued, as Russia shows a disinclination to allow a very great pressure to be brought to bear upon the sultan.