NEWS AND NOTES

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 14, 1895

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 45.

SINCE OUR LAST ISSUE.

FOREIGN.

—The discoverers of argon, an element in air, Lord Rayleigh and Prof. William Ramsey, of England, have just been handed a check for $10,000 by the Smithsonian Institute for a prize paper on the discovery.

—Kiamil Pasha, grand vizier of Turkey, has resigned. His successor is Hali Rifat Pasha. Affairs in that country are still in a precarious condition, the powers demanding with greater urgency that the Porte quiet the rioting, which seems to be widespread.

—A despatch is published in which General Campos, commanding the Spanish forces in Cuba, advises his government to grant home rule to Cuba. In any other event, if the war continues much longer, he believes the United States will interfere with the present program.

—An Australian has invented and introduced a mica cartridge for guns. Both shell and wadding are of this material. Being transparent, any chemical change in the charge can be detected at once. As mica has the property of resisting intense heat, the barrel of the gun is kept cool, and acids or fumes having no effect upon it, the wad cleans the barrel.

—The court which has been taking testimony at Rotterdam, in the case of the North German Lloyd steamer Elbe, sunk in collision with the British steamer Crathie on January 31, involving a loss of 335 lives, has rendered a final decision, holding the Crathie wholly responsible for the disaster, and condemning her owners to pay the North German Lloyd Company's claims for the total loss of the Elbe, with interest at 6 per cent, and ordering the sequestration of the Crathie pending payment.

—An official investigation of bakeries, hotels, and restaurants in England recently revealed the fact that large quantities of shelled eggs in tin cans are shipped to that country for use in such places, from Russia and Italy. An analysis also developed the fact that these products were not always in the best condition, owing to spoiled eggs being introduced through carelessness or otherwise. The contemplation is not pleasant for those who are obliged to patronize unscrupulous establishments for prepared foods.

—An interesting expedition has just been entered upon by Prof. W. J. McGee, chief anthropologist of the United States Bureau of Ethnology, and a fellow-member of that body. It is a trip to Tiburon Island for the purpose of studying the Seri, the Indian inhabitants. But very little is known of the tribe, save that they are cannibals, and in disposition ferocious. This island is situated in the Gulf of California. No doubt valuable information for the bureau will be obtained, if the gentlemen are not devoured by the savages.

DOMESTIC.

—Six persons met death by suffocation in a tenement fire in New York, November 7.

—Two men near Foxboro, Wis., attempted to trap three bears that had broken into a shed on the night of the 5th inst., but were attacked by the brutes and almost instantly killed.

—On the 5th inst. a fire which started at the corner of Bleecker and Crosby streets, New York, destroyed property estimated at $3,000,000. A notable feature was the burning of “fireproof” structures.

—The New York Bible Society has distributed, during the past year, 86,311 Bibles and Testaments in that city. For facilitating this work there have been established in different parts of the city twenty-four depositories, and visitors are employed in house-to-house work. The distributions have been in twenty-five languages.

—The surveying ship Penguin has recently found a deeper place in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Japan, than any previously known. The deep-sea-measuring apparatus was lowered to a depth of 4,900 fathoms, or about six miles, when the wire broke. A similar accident befell a previous attempt at the same place, at a depth of 4,300 fathoms. The deepest cast heretofore was 4,655 fathoms.

—On the 6th inst. the five-story building occupied by the Detroit Journal in that city, collapsed, owing to the explosion of the boilers in the basement. In the building was also a bindery in which were employed a number of hands. In the mass of timbers, brick, and iron were buried over forty persons. As usual in such catastrophes, fire added to the horror of the scene. Thirty-seven bodies have been recovered.

—During the past week a strike on the Northern Pacific Railroad has been pending. The efforts of the leaders in the movement have not, however, been crowned with much success, the principal demonstrations being the killing of several engines and the setting fire to a bridge at Kalispell, Mont. Although the move was begun similarly to the great strike of eighteen months ago, it is not believed that anything so serious will result at present.

—The elections of the 5th inst., held in thirteen states and one territory, showed a general sweep by the Republican party. The woman suffrage question was defeated in Massachusetts by 75,000 majority. Another feature of the day was the success of Tammany in New York City, while the balance of the state went Republican. This is a reversal of the last election in that city, and is thought to be due to the efforts of the saloon element, which has been so rigorously dealt with by a reform government. The police of that city have been notified by Commissioner Roosevelt that not the slightest relaxation in the enforcement of the Sunday laws will be tolerated during his administration.

—Among other subjects discussed by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union at its recent convention in Baltimore, were the following: Direct legislation in governmental affairs; election of national presidents, vice presidents, and senators by direct vote; equal suffrage without distinction of sex; national or state ownership of industries which become a monopoly in the hands of a few; no land tenure without use and occupancy; prohibition of the liquor traffic for beverage purposes and governmental control of its sale for other uses; all money—paper, gold, and silver—to be issued by the national government only, and made legal tender for all payments, and in amount adequate to the demands of business, and the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the ratio of sixteen to one. A number of leading journals have strongly criticized the tendency of this body to bring into its deliberations almost every imaginable topic, but this position is defended by the secretary on the ground that as “each evil is allied with all other evils,” “therefore each reform should be allied with all other reforms.” It has been suggested that if the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union proposes to extend its operations to the prosecution of all “reforms,” it would be eminently proper and consistent to change the name of the organization. A glance at the above-mentioned topics, which constitute a part, at least, of its platform, shows that the present title of the body is a misnomer.