News and Notes

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 6, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 31.

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FOREIGN.

—Yellow fever has broken out at Vera Cruz and Acapulco, Mexico.

—Ex-Queen Liliuokalani has been sprinkled and confirmed by an Anglican bishop.

—On account of drought the province of New South Wales has lost 9,500,000 sheep.

—It is reported that throughout the most fertile region of Russia the harvest is a failure.

—Kilauea, the great Hawaiian volcano, has entered upon another period of violent activity.

—It is proposed to lay a submarine cable from Germany to Spain and thence to the United States.

—Many thousands of Bibles and Testaments were destroyed by the Turks during the Armenian massacres.

—Russia’s request for a loan of 1,000,000,000 francs ($200,000,000) has been met by the Rothschilds.

—As a result of a railroad collision in Delhi, India, on July 26, fifty persons were killed and injured.

—The Montreal Exhibition building was destroyed by fire on July 30, the loss being placed at $150,000.

—Prof. Folb, of Vienna, announces that the earth will come in collision with a comet on November 13, 1899.

—The Germans are seriously considering the advisability of discontinuing the cavalry branch of their military service.

—The Socialist Labor and Trade Congress opened in London on July 30, after three days of stormy preliminary wrangling.

—Two of the largest ship-building yards in Belfast were destroyed by fire on July 27, the loss amounting to $1,600,000.

—According to the British Catholic Year Book recently published there are 15,750,000 Catholics under English jurisdiction.

—Violent storms occurred in the vicinity of Paris on July 26, doing much damage to property, and flooding portions of the city.

—It is reported that Abdullah Pasha, commander of the Turkish forces in the island of Crete, is arming the native Mussulmans.

—It is stated that the widow of Baron Hirsch has donated $20,000,000 to promote the emigration of Jews from Russia to Argentina.

—The German cruiser Iltis was sunk by a typhoon off the coast of China on June 23. Only ten of her crew of eighty-three men were saved.

—A column of English soldiers who attempted to capture the stronghold of the Matabeles on July 26 was repulsed, with considerable loss.

—The Germans have invented an ingenious device for testing the purity of air in factories or rooms where a number of people are employed.

—The English Government is considering a proposition to construct a railway from the Zanzibar coast, in East Africa, to Berkeley Bay, on the north-east shore of Lake Victoria Nyanza.

—Belgium’s revenue from the drink habit has grown in forty years from 4,000,000 to 33,000,000 francs, crime increasing 200 per cent. during the same time, and insanity 128 per cent.

—The Lee-Metford rifle, which has been adopted by the English army, has proved ineffective in stopping the onrush of a foe, the Dervishes and Matabeles wounded by it fighting on as furiously as before.

—The leaders of the Jameson raid in the Transvaal have been found guilty of violating the foreign enlistment act, and have been sentenced to imprisonment, the terms varying from five to fifteen months.

—The president of the Cuban republic has issued a decree forbidding the manufacture of sugar in Cuba, and suspending all judicial and administrative proceedings relating to credits of any kind, until independence is gained.

—The English are reported as barely holding their own with the Matabeles in Africa. Reinforcements are being sent to the assistance of the defenders of Bulawayo, and it is proposed to build a cordon of forts around the Matabele stronghold, with a view to starving them out.

—Dr. Kenner, an American missionary from China, announces that a political upheaval is imminent in the Chinese Empire, which will overturn the present dynasty. The masses are attending the missions in large numbers and are seeking for greater freedom in thought and action.

—The Italian armored war ship Roma was struck by lightning on July 29, and it was found necessary to sink her by a torpedo in order to keep the flames from reaching and exploding her magazine.

—The House of Commons has appointed a committee to investigate the administration of the British Chartered South Africa Company and the origin of the circumstances of the Jameson raid.

—On July 27 the Cretan insurgents engaged the Turkish soldiers in a hotly contested battle, in which the latter were worsted. The English men-of-war’s men witnessed the fighting and cheered the Cretans on to success. In connection with the unsettled state of affairs in Armenia and Crete comes the report of two armed invasions of Macedonia.

—Interesting discoveries have recently been made in Cairo, bearing upon the history of the early Christian church. The three manuscripts unearthed are entitled, “The Gospel According to Mary,” “The Wisdom of Jesus Christ,” and “The Practice of Peter.” The second mentioned consists of questions which the disciples addressed to the Saviour, and his answers to them.

—Generals Gomez, Garcia, and the successor of José Maceo are mobilizing forces in Camagüay for a concerted attack upon the province of Havana, which they expect to overrun by the middle of September. Captain General Weyler has issued a proclamation prohibiting the exportation of fruit from Cuban seaports, which is an indirect blow at one of the resources of the insurgents.

—A tidal wave five miles in length swept in from the Yellow Sea upon the Chinese coast on July 26, destroying 4,000 lives, and ruining the rice crops in that section, so that a famine is almost inevitable. It is also reported that a number of the rivers on the eastern coast of the island of Yezzo, Japan, have overflowed their banks, flooding 3,000 houses and spreading destruction over a large area of country.

DOMESTIC.

—Over 20,000 tailors are now out on a strike in New York City.

—A Milwaukee steel company recently shipped to Japan 500 tons of light steel rails.

—At Oswego, New York, on July 15, was celebrated the centennial anniversary of the evacuation of Fort Ontario.

—Scientists interested in the study of earthquakes propose to establish a line of seismological observatories around the world.

—A monument is being erected to the memory of Robert Burns overlooking the fields where he labored and wrote his poems.

—The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union will soon send forth its seventh round-the-world missionary, Miss Clara Parish.

—A succession of tidal waves occurred on Lake Michigan, July 27, supposed to have been due to an upheaval in the bottom of the lake.

—The Greek citizens of New York have organized a society for the purpose of raising funds and creating sympathy for the Cretan revolutionists.

—There has recently been incorporated at Albany, N. Y., the United States and Hayti Telegraph Cable Company, with a capital of $1,800,000.

—A severe wind-storm struck the village of Homer, Mich., on the evening of July 26, blowing down trees and overturning barns and houses in its path.

—The transcript on appeal in the famous Durrant murder case has just been completed, and makes one of the largest ever printed, containing 2,481 pages.

—Edwin Lord Weeks, an American artist, and Francis Viele Griffin, an American author, have been appointed chevaliers of the French Legion of Honor.

—The Spanish consul at Philadelphia, Penn., has offered a reward of $10,000 for information that will lead to the capture of filibusters within Cuban waters.

—During the last fiscal year 343,267 immigrants arrived in the United States, 3,037 of whom were returned to their native countries, being either paupers or contract laborers.

—A gigantic trust has been formed whose object is to control the lumber trade of the entire Pacific Coast from San Diego to the ports of British Columbia, but so far is entirely ineffective.

—On July 30 the wife and two children of W. E. Burt, of Austin, Texas, were found in an empty cistern, having been killed and thrown there by the husband and father, who is now at large.

—A. H. Isham has purchased the summit of Mt. San Miguel, eighteen miles east of San Jose, upon which he proposes to construct the largest astronomical observatory in the world. It is to be known as the World’s Proctor Memorial Observatory, and it is to be provided with a telescope carrying a compound lens 120 inches in diameter.

—A bicycle ambulance is in process of construction by a bicycle manufacturer in New York. It is to consist of two elongated bicycles braced together side by side, with a stretcher swung between them.

—The steamboat Paul Tulane was sunk in the Mississippi River on July 22, by running upon a submerged snag, fifty miles above New Orleans. The vessel, valued at $50,000, will be a complete loss.

—On July 27 a daring stage robbery was committed near Lacey, O. T., supposedly by the reorganized gang of “Bill Doolin,” the murderer and outlaw who recently escaped from the jail at Guthrie.

—Negotiations are now in progress between the United States and Great Britain looking to the establishment of a general arbitration committee for the settlement of all controversies between the two nations.

—Fifty prostrations and ten deaths by sunstroke is the result of the hot wave which St. Louis experienced on July 30. Twenty-nine prostrations, with five deaths, are reported from Cincinnati on the same date.

—A terrible wreck occurred on the Pennsylvania Railroad, near Atlantic City, N. J., on July 30, in which one train crashed directly through another at right angles. Forty-seven deaths have resulted and many more were seriously injured.

—A contemporary reports that there are one thousand Mormon elders at work in eastern Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia, visiting from house to house, distributing literature, and preaching in schoolhouses, churches, and groves.

—The national confederation of colored women met in Washington, D. C., on July 20, to perfect plans for a union with the national league of colored women, in order that they may the more effectually labor for the elevation of their race.

—A section of a granite sleeper used on the first American railroad has recently been made the corner-stone of a monument to the memory of Abigail Adams, erected on the spot where she and her son, John Quincy Adams, stood while watching the battle of Bunker Hill.

—A hail-storm visited Iowa and South Dakota on the night of July 26, ruining standing crops and strewing the ground with the dead bodies of young cattle, hogs, and poultry. The damage to buildings in Sioux City is placed at $200,000, and it is estimated that the damage to crops and buildings in South Dakota will amount to $100,000.

—During a severe thunder-storm in the vicinity of Pittsburg and Allegheny, Penn., on July 27, eighteen persons were killed and eleven seriously injured by lightning. The heavy wind unroofed a number of churches, and did considerable damage to other property. On the next day eight persons were drowned in the flood at Pittsburg.

—A temperance saloon has been started in Rochelle, N. Y., which is designed to counteract the influence of the liquor saloon. The new saloon has a regular bar, billiard table, reading-room, lunch-room, and bath-room, and other things to make the place an attractive and popular resort for men, the line being drawn only at gambling and intoxicating drinks.