NEWS AND NOTES

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 30, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 30.

FOREIGN.

—The fact has just been brought to light that the island of Madagascar is rich in gold.

—A statue of Li Hung Chang was recently unveiled on the private grounds of Herr Krupp.

—The inhabitants of Crete have formally decided to fight for their rights unless the sultan accedes to their demand.

—Mount Kirishimo, Japan, turned into a volcano on the night of June 22, sending forth great quantities of ashes and small stones.

—The Spanish Patriotic League, of Argentina, offers to present the Spanish Government with an armed cruiser of 4,500 tons displacement.

—The Canadian Government is taking precautions to prevent the shipment of munitions of war to the Cuban insurgents from any point within the Dominion.

—The Japanese have decided to run a line of steamships from Yokohama to San Diego, California, and another line to some point in Washington or Oregon.

—A museum in Berlin has secured possession of Luther’s Bible which he used in his study. Its margin is covered with notes in the Reformer’s handwriting.

—Spain is complaining to the English Government that munitions of war valued at $400,000 have been shipped to the Cuban insurgents from the port of Liverpool.

—One of the newest and most ingenious inventions of the day is an apparatus for measuring the intensity of odors, recently perfected by M. Eugene Mesnard, of France.

—It is officially reported that Gen. Jose Maceo, of the Cuban insurgents, was killed in a fierce encounter with the Spanish, and not by order of court-martial, as reported.

—The island republic of Costa Rica has adopted, during the current month, an absolute gold basis for its currency, and has declared out of circulation all foreign and domestic silver.

—Frederick Shroeder, of the East African Plantage Company, has been arrested for crushing the hands of his negro employees in a copying press, as punishment for trivial offenses.

—A body of American filibusters, landed in Cuba by the steamer Three Friends, fell into the hands of a Spanish column, and twelve were killed, the rest escaping to the mountains.

—The English and Matabeles met in the Matopo hills on July 21, and a spirited conflict ensued, in which fifty Matabeles were killed and their position captured. The English lost three killed and seven wounded.

—A missionary writing from southern Formosa declares that the Japanese are rapidly exterminating the Chinese in that island, and that over sixty villages have been burned and thousands of persons put to death with revolting cruelty.

—The Turks in attempting to gain possession of a strategic point in Crete on July 20, met with such a determined resistance on the part of the Cretans that 200 of the former were killed and 600 wounded. The Cretans lost 88 in killed and wounded.

—Gallais, the man who started last summer to wheel his wife around the world in a wheelbarrow, has returned to Paris. He says they were attacked by wolves in a forest of Croatia, and his wife was so badly hurt that she died soon after at Belgrade.

—News from Constantinople confirm the report that forty villages of the Armenians were destroyed by the Turks on June 25, and at least 12,000 persons massacred. The Armenian relief societies have once more appealed to the public for funds.

—M. Faux, a Swiss engineer, has discovered a process for hardening steel by electricity. The tests of his experiments show that it is possible to harden tools to such a degree that they will work metal as an ordinarily tempered tool works wood.

—The Spanish police of Havana claim to have discovered and taken possession of large quantities of ammunition, rifles, and dynamite bombs belonging to the insurgents. It is supposed the dynamite was to have been used in carrying out the threat of the rebels to blow up the city.

—A missionary in Yokohama recently applied to the chief of police for permission to distribute Bibles among the policemen. The permission was granted, and the chief, much to the missionary’s surprise, said: “Its teachings are good, and if they were followed, it would lessen my work very much. I myself have one which I study secretly.” He then advised the missionary to distribute the Scriptures among the “lost women” of his city and adjacent towns over which he had jurisdiction.

—Imperial Chinese troops to the number of 6,000 were recently annihilated by the insurgent Mohammedans of Lanzhou, whom they had been sent to subdue. The rebels are now marching through the country pillaging and murdering officials on every hand. It is claimed that it will take 50,000 troops to restore order.

DOMESTIC.

—A monument is to be erected in Chicago to the memory of Eugene Field.

—A monument to the memory of John Brown was unveiled July 21, at his old home, North Elba, New York.

—Mounted bandits robbed the post office at Separ, New Mexico, on July 21, and carried off a considerable amount of money and stamps.

—The Cook’s Inlet mining boom is falling through as fast as the disappointed miners can obtain passage back from the bleak Alaskan diggings.

—An insane farmer at Attica, Mich., on the morning of July 21, murdered his three children, set fire to the house, and then shot himself.

—Chicago astronomers have perfected an instrument with which they will be enabled to study the sun’s corona without waiting for an eclipse.

—The sailing vessel City of Philadelphia, with crew of twenty-six men, went down on May 13, while rounding Cape Horn. All hands were lost.

—Immense forest fires are raging in the mountains near Spokane, Wash., and it is estimated that millions of dollars worth of timber has been destroyed.

—A flood near Frankfort, Kentucky, on the night of July 20, resulted in the loss of nine lives. Many bridges were washed away, and hundreds of acres of crops destroyed.

—The United States has again called upon the Government of Colombia to make an apology for an outrage committed upon the American vessel Whitford in March last.

—The county of Fresno, Cal., was visited by a heavy thunder-storm on July 25, which burned out telegraph and telephone wires, and did considerable damage to property along its route.

—Wm. J. Bryan, Democratic nominee for President, was nominated for the same office by the Populists in convention at St. Louis, with Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia, for Vice President.

—New York bankers are taking steps to prevent a further reduction of the gold reserve in the national treasury: $23,000,000 will be turned into the subtreasury in exchange for legal tender notes.

—A large party of excursionists, without a guide, are lost in Sulphur Cave, near English, Indiana. They entered the cave on July 19, and at last accounts had not been found, altho a well-equipped party is searching for them.

—The Standard Oil Company of America has effected its long desired combination with the Russian Oil Company. This makes the largest trust in the world, and one of the most dangerous, practically controlling the oil market of the entire world.

—An incorporated company, with a capital of $2,000,000, is laying plans for a mammoth electric plant to be situated in the hills of Tuolumne County, Cal. The company proposes to furnish the cities of Stockton and San Francisco with electric power by wire.

—Postal officials claim that the government has lost a revenue of $250,000 annually on account of the practice of railroad companies in carrying their own mail unstamped. This practice being contrary to law, a war is now on between the postal authorities and the railroad companies.

—A cloudburst on Bear Creek, Colorado, on July 24, drowned twenty-nine persons, who were camping along the stream, destroyed bridges, and ruined a great amount of property. A heavy storm struck Golden, Colo., at the same time, in which three lives were lost and much property destroyed.

—By the spreading of the rails on the coast division of the Southern Pacific Railway Company in Niles Canyon, on July 26, a freight engine and four cars plunged down a steep embankment to the bed of the creek, seriously injuring three train men. A number of campers narrowly escaped being crushed by the derailed cars.

—The barkentine Herbert Fuller, of Boston, put into Halifax, N. S., on July 21, flying the signal of “Mutiny on board.” It was found that Captain Nash, his wife, and second officer Bramberg had been murdered in their bunks. The mate was ironed by the cook on suspicion, and on landing, the entire crew was placed under arrest.

—It has been authentically announced that steel bullets and steel-jacketed bullets may be deflected from their course by the use of electricity, the extent of deflection depending upon the strength of the current employed. So important is this discovery considered by military men that it is feared armies will be compelled to go back to the old large-bore rifles, carrying lead balls.