News and Notes

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

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 18.

FOREIGN.

—Baron de Hirsch, the celebrated Hebrew philanthropist, died near Komorn, Austria, on April 21.

—The British Admiralty has given orders to increase the naval strength with twenty new torpedo destroyers.

—Nicaragua is still in the throes of internal strife. The city of Momotombo has been taken four times by the government forces.

—The Canadian Parliament was dissolved on April 24. General elections will take place on June 23, and a new Parliament will convene on July 16.

—A report from Athens states that fifty persons have been killed in a two days' fight between Turks and Christians, on the island of Crete. The report failed to name the nationality of the professed Christians.

—Walter Dygert, the young American who has been imprisoned in Moro Castle for several weeks on suspicion of assisting the insurgents, has at length been released through the intervention of the U. S. State Department and the Spanish Minister.

—The German Reichstag on April 21 unanimously adopted a resolution asking the federal government to energetically combat the practice of dueling in Germany by all the means in their power. Reforms in this direction have proceeded slowly in Germany, where the practice has always been in favor for the settlement of affairs of “honor.”

—News is rather meager from Cuba, but what there is shows a slow gain for the insurgents. More expeditions carrying arms and ammunition to the Cubans are continually being fitted out, and the forces are thus becoming better armed and can meet the Spanish on a more equal footing. The possession of machine guns especially enables them to do destructive work.

—By the last census of India the total population is 287,223,431, or about one-sixth the world's population. Of these, seventy-two per cent., or 207,000,000, are classified as Hindus, 57,000,000 are Mussulmans, 7,000,000 are Buddhists, and 2,000,000 Christians. Of the 15,000,000 who are returned as “literate” and “learned,” approximately three-quarters of a million only are females.

—The Chancellor of the Exchequer, England, in his recent budget sheets, emphasizes the importance of trifles by the statement that a careful estimate shows that there is thrown away in the streets and gutters of London annually no less than $5,000,000 in cigar and cigarette ends. The illustration shows as forcibly what a foolish and harmful waste is constantly going on the world over by the use of tobacco in various ways.

—A terrible disaster is reported from the Santa Eulalia silver mines, near Chihuahua, Mexico. These mines have been worked for 200 years, and it is stated have yielded $300,000,000. In this time, numerous drifts have been made to great depths, the roofs being supported by pillars and walls of ore left standing. New contractors have recently taken hold of the place, and in their greed took out these supports. The result was a cave-in, resulting in the death of about fifty men.

—It is announced from St. Petersburg that France has finally consented to permit the Russian Red Cross detachment to cross the Obok territory on its way to the succor of wounded Abyssinians. This detachment consists of about eighty surgeons, assistants and officers, but from the time the first request was made for permission to cross French territory, the expedition has been looked upon with suspicion. It is quite freely talked that the personnel of the party is in reality Russian officers going to the assistance of the Abyssinians in their fight with Italy.

—The situation in Bulawayo, Matabeleland, at the present writing, is extremely critical. As noted last week, the whites are protected in the place by a garrison of only 900. On April 24, a sortie was made with 300 troopers, and a severe engagement was had between them and the natives, who are entrenched about four miles from the place, and have nearly surrounded it. The British were defeated, and compelled to retreat, badly used up. Reinforcements are on the way from Mafeking, but it is feared they will arrive too late, as the Matabeles, flushed with this victory, may make a rush, and by overwhelming numbers capture the fortified kraal in the city. Massacre will be the end of this move if successful. But this trouble is looked upon generally as only the first mutterings of a storm really to break out all over south Africa, with the Boers as the central figures, backed by Germany, for the supremacy of the country. President Krueger has declined finally to accede to Secretary Chamberlain's “invitation” to visit England, and it is known that the Dutch have not lost a moment since Jameson's raid in arming and preparing for the critical moment. With the Transvaal will very likely go all the Dutch in South Africa. So, first here and then there, the war rumor flies, and the wars break out. The end of it all can not be far distant.

—At present the Italians are at a standstill in Abyssinia. Negotiations have been making for a peace treaty, but the king, Menelik, absolutely refuses to accede to the wishes of Italy, which demands more territory. It now looks as though the natives were in some manner being backed by Russia. Nevertheless, the latest expression of plans from Rome is to continue the campaign. In view of the victories of the Abyssinians thus far, it appears that the whip is in the hand of the African, and terms will be dictated from that quarter, rather than from the Quirinal.

—The Bourgeois Cabinet, of France, as it is called after the French premier, has at last been obliged to resign. It will be remembered that a short time ago the Cabinet refused to resign when the Senate failed to support it, claiming that the Senate had no constitutional power to force such a move. The Cabinet was supported in its stand by the Chamber. It now gives as a reason for the present move the impossibility of securing proper military relief for Madagascar, and still holds to its position in relation to the Senate. Under the French system, President Faure must select a new Cabinet.

DOMESTIC.

—The students of Chicago University, by consent of the faculty, have invited Eugene V. Debs to speak to them on the labor question.

—The New York Legislature has passed a bill compelling railroads in that state to carry bicycles as baggage, one machine to a full ticket.

—There are still nearly 600,000,000 acres of vacant public land in the United States, the largest amount being in Nevada, and the smallest in Alabama.

—A despatch says the Committee on Text-books of the Omaha Board of Education has decided to introduce a book of Bible selections into the public schools.

—The first Jewish congregation to give women a full voice in its affairs is the Orthodox Hebrew congregation, Mickve Israel, of Philadelphia, which has recently done so.

—Harvard University has just received $100,000 from a Boston donor for the establishment of a department of comparative pathology. This will be the first step in this direction in any great American university.

—Pastor C. O. Brown, of the First Congregational Church of San Francisco, whose trial for ungentlemanly and unministerial conduct we noted a few weeks since, has been suspended by the Bay Conference of his church, pending proof of his innocence of the charges.

—The Indian Appropriation Bill was disposed of in the Senate on April 22 by an amendment declaring it to be the settled policy of the government to make no appropriations for sectarian schools after July 1, 1898. Thus two years will be given in which to ease off the plan at present in vogue.

—Paderewski, the noted pianist, has just completed his American tour, and in leaving has placed the sum of $10,000 in the hands of certain New York gentlemen as an endowment fund for annual prizes to be awarded to American composers. And now musicians are persuaded that he loves America.

—Another fiend has left his trail of blood, this time at Rockville, Ind., where a man by the name of Egbert on April 25 killed Mrs. Haschke and her two children, two officers who attempted to arrest him, and himself. His sister, sick with typhoid fever, hearing of the news, died immediately from the shock.

—On April 25 a fire in Cripple Creek, Colo., burned over some eleven blocks, destroying several churches and the post office, besides stores. The loss is estimated at $1,000,000. Very little could be done to check the flames, as only one engine, of the chemical type, is owned by the city. What assistance was rendered was by destroying buildings in the path of the flames by dynamite.

—The strike of fishermen on the Columbia River still continues. The trouble began with the opening of salmon fishing, on April 9, when the powerful union, numbering about 5,000 fishermen, demanded five cents a pound for fish at the canneries, which offered only four. Not only do the striking men not work themselves, but, as usual in strikes, refuse to permit any one else to fish.

—The Legislature of New York has passed the bill for the “Greater New York” over the vetoes of the mayors of New York and Brooklyn, and as the governor approves the bill, it will without doubt become operative. This will bring these two great cities, with several smaller ones, into one great corporation, with a population for a start of over 3,000,000. The law will go into effect Jan. 1, 1898.

—Rather a strange item appears on the schedule of supplies for Indians under governmental control this year. The item is 8,000 boxes of shoe blacking, and the fact of a demand for this special commodity is referred to by the press as the effect of civilization on the Indian. The amount of freight on the list to be transported from Chicago, is 2,800 tons of dry goods, clothing, and groceries, and 3,000 tons of bacon, sugar, and hardware.

—The idea that Japanese competition will cut seriously into the home trade of this country has been scouted by many. But it seems that at least one large firm has seen the drift of competition and taken time by the forelock. A great straw matting firm of Milford, Conn., has moved its entire plant to Kobe, Japan, where advantage can be taken of the cheap help that can be obtained in that country, and the duties for foreign shipment.

—The condition of things behind the scenes at the national capital may be imagined from a remark made by Senator Platt on April 23, on the floor of the Senate. The senator declared that he had never during his senatorial service known of the use of so much money by lobbyists to defeat legislation. He might have added, to secure also desired legislation. The same state of corruption exists everywhere where gain can be had from the use of money in this way.

—The largest trust of modern times is the gigantic pool of steel manufacturers, which includes twenty-one steel companies of the United States. The new combination represents a capital of $300,000,000, and its sole object is to advance prices. It is already reported that the price of steel billets has been advanced three dollars a ton. Billets are the first form of steel, and an increase in price here affects every form of steel in use, from builders' beams and railroad rails to knife blades and needles.

—Strange causes for insanity appear these days. One it seems is the fact that a person should ring the doorbell of a millionaire's house, and ask for aid in securing work. At least the doctors of Bellevue Hospital, New York, so decided in the case of a young woman consigned to them on April 22 by a police court judge for having disturbed the peace of W. K. Vanderbilt's household in that manner on the morning of said day. Thus it appears that it is safer and saner to ring the bells on poorer people's doors.