NEWS AND NOTES

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 23, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 29.

Read the full edition

FOREIGN.

—Henry M. Stanley is seriously ill.

—The room in which Napoleon I. died is now a stable.

—Another Spanish victory is reported from Cuba, with a loss of 200 on the part of the insurgents.

—Monsignor Diomede Talconis is to succeed Cardinal Satolli as papal delegate to the United States.

—The Italians have decided to discontinue aggressive operations against Menelik of Abyssinia.

—Smallpox, yellow fever, and cholera form the triple scourge of “bleeding Cuba” at the present time.

—Another terrible massacre is reported from the Diarbekir district in Armenia, in which 4,500 persons were killed.

—In view of the strained relations between Greece and Turkey, Grecian troops are being sent to the Turkish frontier.

—The pope has granted permission to Roman Catholics to reside at the English universities, under certain conditions.

—There are said to be 11 Japanese evangelists laboring among 10,000 of their countrymen in the Hawaiian Islands.

—The Japanese Government is now figuring on establishing a line of steamers between Yokohama and Santa Cruz, Mexico.

—Cuban advices report the death of Jose Maceo, who was court-martialed and shot for insubordination, by order of Calixto Garcia.

—Japan will soon enter upon the construction of a ship canal across one of her peninsulas, the estimated cost of which will be $3,000,000.

—In the wave-stricken districts of Japan thousands are said to be starving, in spite of the emperor’s best efforts to send them relief. It is greatly feared that an epidemic of cholera will break out in the flooded districts.

—A statue of Queen Victoria has just been unveiled at the Royal Exchange, London, representing her as she appeared in 1846, when she ascended the British throne.

—Extensive forest fires are raging in British Columbia along the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway, destroying much valuable timber, and threatening railway trestles.

—Captain General Weyler has issued a decree compelling all foreigners in Cuba to inscribe their nationality in a register provided by the Spanish Government for that purpose.

—At the coronation ceremonies of the czar of all the Russias, Li Hung Chang refused to bare his head, as he only performs this ceremony in the presence of his emperor and his joss.

—Two Jews of Bagdad have purchased all of Babylon, thus securing possession of the land on whose willows their captive ancestors hung the harps they could not strike in servitude.

—By monopolizing the tobacco business, the Government of Spain expects to raise $100,000,000 for war expenses. She also expects to raise a large sum of money by subsidizing her quicksilver mines.

—Another Egyptian pyramid, the Abou-Roach, has been entered by the director general of Egyptian antiquities, and a passageway was discovered giving access to thirty-three rooms, but no inscriptions have yet been found.

—It is estimated that 800,000 persons now hold the Babi doctrines, some of which have been borrowed from Christianity. They claim to hold themselves in readiness to abandon any opinion when proved contrary to the Bible.

—The London Missionary Society estimates that it costs $165 to convert each heathen. The society has been in existence 100 years, has raised $33,000,000 for foreign mission work, and as a result of its labors, 200,000 have been converted from heathenism to Christianity.

—Reports are still rife of trouble between Chinese and foreigners in the interior of China. A serious rebellion is said to have broken out on the borders of the Kiang-Su and Shan-Tung provinces, causing much suffering to missionaries of all nationalities who are laboring in that vicinity.

—As a result of the rule requiring students in Copenhagen to bathe three times a week in the school building, many of the parents are raising a vigorous complaint, on the ground that the practice makes the children dissatisfied with their dirty clothes and the filth of their dwellings.

—The Winter Palace at St. Petersburg is the largest residence building in the world. It has 700 rooms, in some of which it is said the White House at Washington could be erected, with plenty of space for porticos. The storerooms of this palace are filled with the china of the czars as far back as Catherine the Great.

—Spain has concluded the purchase of two more cruisers for use in subduing the Cuban rebellion. She has already lost 60,000 soldiers and expended $200,000,000 in the prosecution of the war. This great drain of money and able-bodied men from the mother country is adding hundreds daily to her army of paupers.

—A memorial has been presented recently to the emperor of China, asking that the same liberty be granted Christians in carrying on their work in the Chinese Empire as is now enjoyed by Buddhists and Mohammedans. The petition is now under consideration, and it is expected that favorable action will be taken in regard to it.

—It is reported that the Spanish soldiers under General Inclan sustained a crushing defeat at the hands of Antonio Maceo on July 15. By a feigned retreat on the part of the insurgents, the Spanish were drawn into an ambush and lost over three hundred men. Antonio Maceo was wounded in the heel, and General Inclan was taken prisoner.

—Emperor William’s special envoy to Crete reports that civilized people can scarcely imagine the outrages which the Turks have perpetrated on the Christian women and children of Crete. He declares that the powers must intervene, and that the only course is to turn the Turks out of Europe. The Christian insurgents intend fighting, and are receiving a plentiful supply of arms and ammunition.

—Recent discoveries in Egypt have proved what critics and skeptics have long claimed could not be proved, that the children of Israel were mentioned in the official records of the Egyptian dynasties. The name of Israel appears prominently in the records of Amenhotep III., where are rehearsed his exploits in the subduing of other nations. A large black granite slab which had been stolen from Amenhotep’s temple, was built into the wall of a temple erected by Meremptah, and upon its back had been inscribed the records of the doings of Meremptah. Thus Amenhotep’s records could not be read until the temple of Meremptah crumbled in ruins; but when the opportune time comes, God’s voice speaks from the crumbling ruins of idolatrous Egypt to silence the boisterous skeptical acclamations of the despisers of his word. Thus will it ever be.

(Continued on page 15.)

NEWS AND NOTES.

(Continued from page 13.)

DOMESTIC.

—Fire at Galveston, Texas, on July 12, destroyed property to the amount of $150,000.

—Carlos Ezeta, ex-president of the republic of Salvador, is now visiting San Francisco.

—A compound of carbon and boron has been discovered which will readily cut diamond.

—A company has been incorporated in New York for the purpose of manufacturing non-illuminating fuel gas.

—Fourteen men were drowned near Cleveland, Ohio, on July 16, by the sinking of an overcrowded ferry-boat.

—James W. McDonough, of Chicago, claims to have successfully solved the problem of photographing in colors.

—Wong Chin Foo, a St. Louis Chinaman, has started a movement for the enfranchisement of his fellow-countrymen.

—A rowboat was swept over a dam on the Kaw River, in Kansas, on July 12, and four of the occupants were drowned.

—A fire in Denver, Colorado, on July 12, destroyed the buildings of the Consolidated Electric Light Company, valued at $130,000.

—There was a disastrous cloudburst on Pipestone Creek, Montana, July 13, which was attended with great destruction of property.

—The Baptist Young People’s Union of America held its annual meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from July 16 to 20 inclusive.

—A half-million-dollar fire occurred in St. Louis on the morning of July 13, destroying the buildings of the Merchants’ Terminal elevator.

—The entire town of Wenatchee, Washington, is to be moved two miles from its present location, by the ordinary means of house moving.

—A new insect has been discovered in Pennsylvania, the end of whose existence seems to be the extermination of the Colorado potato bug.

—A wreck on the Wisconsin Central Railroad, on the evening of July 12, resulted in the death of five persons, and serious injury to three others.

—William E. Russell, ex-governor of Massachusetts, was found dead in his bed on the morning of July 16, at a little fishing station in Quebec.

—Justice Field, of the United States Supreme Court, has been compelled to give up his work and seek rest on account of mental and physical infirmities.

—An almost unparalleled hot wave has swept over southern California, particularly over the Mohave Desert, where fourteen have fallen victims to sunstroke.

—An agreement has been signed by which the troops of both Mexico and the United States will hereafter be at liberty to cross the border line in pursuit of criminals.

—The United States Government has authorized the expenditure of $5,000,000 during the present year, beginning July 1, for constructing coast defenses along the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts.

—Troops were ordered out to subdue a riot at the Brown Company’s works in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 17, and a number of the rioters received serious or fatal wounds from the bayonets of the militia.

—Two Chinese members of the Salvation Army of San Francisco will visit London, to take part in the great Salvation Army meeting at that place, and show the English what salvation can do for the Chinaman.

—A new potato bug has been discovered in several of the eastern states, which bids fair to be a much more dangerous enemy to the farmer than the Colorado beetle ever has been, being a much more lively bug and harder to exterminate.

—A heavy storm, amounting practically to a cloudburst, visited the cities of Allegheny and Pittsburg, Pa., on the night of July 15, bursting sewers, flooding houses, tearing up railroad tracks, and washing away a part of the cemetery. The total loss is estimated at $500,000.

—The Pacific mail steamship Columbia, on her way from Panama to San Francisco, was wrecked on Pigeon Point, thirty-five miles south of the Golden Gate, on July 14. No lives were lost, and most of the cargo will be saved, but the vessel herself, valued at $680,000, will be a complete loss.

—The officers of the New York Central are experimenting with a new motive power, namely, hot water under pressure. Experiments have thus far been satisfactory, and it is believed that hot water will largely take the place of steam and electricity in the future, on account of its cheapness.

—Prof. Francis A. March, LL.D., one of the principal editors of the “Standard Dictionary,” has lately received the honorary title of D.C.L. from the University at Oxford, and Lit. D. from the University of Cambridge. Only six persons have been honored with these degrees by these universities.