NEWS AND NOTES

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 7, 1895

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 44.

SINCE OUR LAST ISSUE.

FOREIGN.

—A severe earthquake shock visited Rome on the morning of November 1. It is reported that considerable damage was done, several palaces and the Bank of Italy being so severely wrenched as to make occupancy unsafe.

—England will now have a very plausible excuse to declare war against Venezuela, or demand heavy indemnity, if the report is true that Venezuelan cruisers have fired on British traders. Late advices state that such attack has been made, and the captain of the British ship killed.

—The French Cabinet on October 29 resigned in a body, the impelling cause being charges preferred against certain members of complicity in the unsavory affairs of the South of France railroad. The ministers could not deny the charges, and so resigned. M. Bourgeois was appointed by President Faure to form a new ministry, which, we are notified, has been successfully accomplished.

—The report that a Russian fleet was making for Korean or Gulf of Pechili ports has been confirmed by the arrival of thirteen Russian war vessels at Port Arthur. The uneasiness aroused by the news has in nowise abated, and it is now wondered what England is going to do about it, while very little sympathy is felt for her. It is further strongly hinted that a treaty has been formed between Japan and Russia. Perhaps the only real certainty lies in the fact that Russia is determined to make her presence felt in the Orient as she has not before.

—An extraordinary piece of news comes from Texacopa, Mex. The auxiliary judge of that town, claiming to be acting under directions received in vision from the Virgin of Guadalupe, thrust into jail ten persons accused of being heretics and leading evil lives. Following instructions (?) the building was set fire to and the heretics burned. The district authorities immediately arrested the fanatic, with twenty others, but it is reported that the leader persistently justifies his course, and is upheld by the ignorant and superstitious people of his town. Did the quiet Spirit of Christ, who judged no man for not believing on him, actuate this fiend in his work?

DOMESTIC.

—Rev. T. De Witt Talmage has accepted the co-pastorship of the First Presbyterian Church of Washington, D. C., preaching his first sermon in his new position October 27.

—Patrick Callahan, seeking fame by jumping from the Poughkeepsie bridge into the Hudson River, a distance of 212 feet, made the leap October 27, but, in the gaining of his object, lost his life.

—The pope has announced his intention to advance Mgr. Satolli to the cardinalate. The preliminary ceremony, or conferring of the beretta, the red cap of a cardinal, will be performed by Cardinal Gibbons.

—A New York magistrate has decided that the repairing of a punctured bicycle tire on Sunday is a work of necessity. This judgment was given in the case of a man arrested for violating the Sunday law by doing such work. This is only an illustration of the many like religious decisions the civil magistrate must make under Sunday laws.

—On the morning of October 31 a severe earthquake was felt in the Middle States, the center of the disturbance being Missouri. In some places chimneys toppled off the houses, brick walls were sorely wrenched, and plate-glass windows broken, while in what is known as the volcanic region near Charleston in that state, sand and water were forced out of fissures made in the ground.

—On October 27 a mob at Tiffin, O., attempted to take a murderer from the county jail for the purpose of lynching him. The jail was broken into, but the mob was met by several shots from the guard, killing two of the number. They fled, vowing vengeance upon—not the murderer, but the guards, thus showing the spirit prompting such lawless work. Protection was afforded the sheriff by Governor McKinley, in the shape of state troops.

—Miss Flagler, the Washington lady who shot and killed Ernest Green, a young colored boy, on August 2, has been indicted by the Grand Jury for manslaughter, the penalty for which may be a fine of $1,000, or imprisonment not to exceed ten years. It is generally believed that Miss Flagler can not be convicted on this charge, as the shooting was due, it is claimed, to recklessness and not to malice. The trial will not take place probably for several months.

—The trustees of Chicago University have been made happy by a gift of $3,000,000 from John D. Rockefeller. One million of this is in cash, unconditional. The balance will be given provided the trustees can raise a like amount before January 1, 1900.

—Decisions have been reached in two criminal trials that have been given wide publicity. One is the case of H. H. Holmes, the wholesale murderer of Chicago, who has been found guilty of the murder of Benjamin Pietzel. The other is the case of Theodore Durrant, of San Francisco, who was found guilty, on the first ballot, of the murder of Blanche Lamont in the Emmanuel Baptist Church on April 3. Durrant must now stand trial for the murder of Minnie Williams in the same church. Appeals will probably be taken by both parties.

—According to the Scientific American, the proposed North River bridge will overshadow the seven wonders of the world at every point. The report of the engineers appointed by the Secretary of War is based on a structure having a clear span of 3,200 feet between towers. Sixteen cables, each 21½ inches in diameter, will be necessary to sustain the immense weight and provide the strength needed. When loaded to its full capacity, the bridge can carry, at a height of 150 feet above the water, 17 loaded freight trains, weighing 26,000 tons. The two masses of masonry comprising the substructure will contain more material than the great pyramid of Gizeh, and from these will rise four steel towers over which the cables will be strung, higher than the Washington monument. The total weight of the steel and wire works will be about 109,000 tons, and the cost of the bridge is estimated at $22,186,540.

—On October 29 a mob at Tyler, Tex., in the presence of thousands of citizens gathered to witness the sight, burned a negro at the stake. True, the wretch had committed a crime which would have given him the death sentence in a court of justice, and which would have been his fate had not a mob assumed the office of executioner. Such scenes of bloodthirstiness are becoming more and more frequent, and, we are sorry to say, reveal the fact that the perpetrators of them and their sympathizers are still governed by a spirit of savagery and barbarism supposed to belong to a past age or to uncivilized people. Such an exhibition manifests, not so much a distrust of the effectiveness of the law, as is sometimes urged, as it does a spirit of lawlessness, a disregard of all law, so growingly characteristic of the times. In the eyes of the law, every lyncher is a murderer, but will they be so dealt with? This occurred, too, in a state whose governor a few weeks before stirred his commonwealth from center to circumference in his zeal to pass a law to prevent a prize fight. We understand he administered a mild rebuke to the sheriff of the county where the above lynching occurred, after the burning. We can not say the criminal did not deserve the punishment, nor that the people of Texas are worse than other people. There can be no sympathy for murderers, but we do say the occurrence shows a deplorably benumbed condition of respect for the law, and a low realization of individual and public attitude in relation to it and its claims.