News and Notes

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 24, 1895

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 42.

SINCE OUR LAST ISSUE.

FOREIGN.

—On October 16 the steamship Kung Pai was sunk by an explosion of the boilers, near Ke Chow, China, and 400 soldiers were drowned.

—It is now stated that Sir Mackenzie Bowell, Canada’s new premier, will probably order a general election for the people to decide by their votes the vexed question of separate schools in Manitoba.

—The information is given out from the British foreign office that the Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Said Pasha, has accepted the scheme drawn up by Great Britain, France, and Russia concerning reforms in Armenia. Turkey’s inconstancy is so well known that very little confidence will be placed in her professions of reform until the fruits are seen.

—Queen Min, of Korea, has been assassinated. The deed is said to have been done by Japanese Soshi, the anarchists of Japan. According to a story told by Prince Pak, a Korean official now in this country in exile, the late queen ruled the affairs of the country with an iron hand, hesitating at nothing to secure her ends, which were all opposed to progress and reform. In this light Korea may well be rid of an unworthy and cruel ruler.

—Hiram S. Maxim, the inventor of the Maxim rapid-fire gun, as well as the flying machine which bears his name, is again to the front with a process of cannon manufacture which will reduce cost and time one-half. Heavy rifled ordnance is now built up from a central core, the successive surrounding layers being shrunk on. The process is slow and expensive. By Mr. Maxim’s method, which he has demonstrated by building a high-class rifled cannon, the cannon is made in one piece, and by special treatment the metal next to the bore is tempered to the desired hardness, and the adjacent metal contracted by cooling until the tension throughout is equivalent to the jacket method now used.

—It has been officially announced by Spanish authorities that since the beginning of the campaign against the insurgents in Cuba the Spanish forces have lost 1 brigadier general, 26 superior officers, 159 other officers, and 1,811 soldiers, who have either died of disease or have been killed by the enemy. There are now on the island, stationed at various places, 80,000 troops, yet the war seems no nearer an end than ever. The Cubans, not being so well armed, nor having large forces at any one point, pursue a guerrilla warfare, which, however, is very effective in a wild country with which they are familiar, while the Spanish forces are not. The end can not yet be seen. Politically, Spain is involving herself in debt so heavily that it is believed the stability of the government is threatened. A heavy war debt means heavy taxation.

—It is announced that the work of providing a drainage for the great Mexican Valley, in which is situated the City of Mexico, has at last been accomplished. The valley is a basin, surrounded by mountains, in which are several lakes, the surfaces of which are several feet above the pavements of the City of Mexico. This city was originally built on islands in the midst of a lake whose waters have receded. Immense dikes and other works still testify to the engineering ability of the former inhabitants of the land. The work of providing a suitable escape for sewage and overflows has been attempted at different times for 300 years, but not until the last few years has the work been prosecuted successfully. Now a canal, with lake and city connections, is practically completed through the mountains. The cost is estimated at $20,000,000.

—As this paper goes to press, the announcement is made that Great Britain has presented an ultimatum to Venezuela over the boundary line dispute between the latter and British Guiana. It is also stated that both countries have given orders to arm the frontier. This action interests the United States to the extent that it has been hinted by the latter that an advance by England would be a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. England pretends that this question would not be involved. The fact that Great Britain refuses to submit the boundary dispute to arbitration that might set the line further to the east than what is known as the Schomberg line shows that she is not certain of her right to even that much, and in such refusal shows her real attitude in the matter. This line the British claim was run in 1840. The Venezuelans say they have positive proof that no such survey was made. Lately rich gold fields have been discovered to the west, and England puts in a claim for these. So the annoyances between the countries have brewed, with very little sympathy in the outside world for England, whose delay is interpreted as making an opportunity for grabbing more territory. The tenor of the alleged ultimatum of Salisbury to President Crespo seems to indicate a crisis. The outcome will be watched with interest.

—An exchange says that a ukase has been issued at Saint Petersburg forbidding any Hebrew to embrace the Christian faith unless his wife, children, brothers, and parents do so as well. This curious law is designed to circumvent the Jews, who had the habit of sacrificing one of the family to the Russian Church, and thereby of acquiring for all the other members a right of earning a living, on the ground that they are all employes in a business conducted by the convert. They are also forbidden to join either the Roman Catholic or the Protestant church. This is based on the theory that the Greek is the only true church, and also that the legal privileges that the Jews are to get as a result of joining it should not be conferred by joining an opposition church. Russia will do as it pleases, without regard to the sentiments of the rest of the world.

—Hereafter Catholics may not meet on the same platform at parliaments of religions with other religions. The pope has spoken, to the effect that such action is equivalent to acknowledging the equality of those religions with the Roman Catholic faith, which must not be done. Catholics may participate in such parliaments, but must conduct their sessions in a separate hall, from which others will not be excluded, but to which they may come as to an inner shrine, to the fountain of truth. In this position Rome is consistent with her claims. She sets herself up as the true and only church of Christ, and claims the homage of the world. It will, too, place her a notch nearer her cherished hope to be recognized as a sovereign temporal power. A scheme has been even suggested looking towards a representation of this kind, for Catholics to exhibit, by symbols, relics, histories, etc., the progress of the church from the earliest times in different countries through the centuries, at the coming Paris exposition in 1900 in a mammoth building prepared especially for that purpose. Such a panorama, portraying the true facts of history, would indeed be an enlightener to the world.

DOMESTIC.

—The shipments of tea received at Tacoma thus far this season have been 47,000 tons, valued at over $17,000,000.

—A new canal, St. Mary’s, has been recently opened for traffic between Lakes Superior and Huron by the Canadian Government. The cost was $3,750,000.

—An agent of the Sultan is now in this country securing bids on several armored cruisers, and with power to purchase arms and ammunition for the Turkish Government.

—A band of thirty Mormon elders has just sailed from Philadelphia to Europe, to make converts to their faith. They will traverse England, Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

—The state veterinarian of Wisconsin claims to have discovered the cause for a deadly disease which attacks horses, in the golden-rod flower, which is widely distributed in the northern states. The disease resembles consumption, and does its fatal work quickly. The only remedy is to destroy the flower.

—The U. S. battle ship Indiana has had a trial speed trip, the speed developed being above the contract limit of fifteen and one-half knots per hour. This makes her the fastest boat of this class afloat. The vessel is also the most powerfully equipped of any war ship in the navies of the world, only two in the English navy ranking close to her in this respect.

—A petition signed by nearly all the judges of circuit and district courts of Illinois, and by many prominent men besides, has been presented to President Cleveland, urging that prompt measures be taken by the government to secure the release and compensation of ex-United Consul Waller, now in prison in France under a twenty-year sentence for alleged complicity with the Hovas of Madagascar against the French Government.

—The best-laid plans “gang aft aglee,” and the saying has found a sad working with a remarkable find lately made by Professor Wortman, of Columbia College, and the consequent proof adduced therefrom to show the truth of the evolutionist theory. The find, as will be remembered, was made on Bitter Creek, Wyoming, and consisted of the bones of an animal said by the professor to be the missing link, or prehistoric man. But it now appears that the momentary satisfaction felt by the scientific world has been wasted. Two cow boys come forward and aver that the bones are the remains of a pet monkey, whose companionship during his lifetime had entitled him to a respectable burial at the spot indicated, a year or two since.

—The Congregational Home Missionary Society has been refused further credit by the banks that have been supplying it with funds for salaries of home missionaries. The society is debtor to the banks for loans amounting to $179,000, only $70,000 of which is secured. The salaries will have to wait until regular receipts are sufficient for the purpose. One religious paper well hints that such a condition of affairs would not exist if Christian people would faithfully bring their tithes into the Lord’s treasury.

—The Salvation Army on this coast is just now in a state of special fervor, the actuating cause being the visit of Mrs. Maud Ballington Booth. The Army reports as work done here during the past three years the establishment of 25 new stations, commissioning of 150 new officers, and addition of 100 to the garrison. The circulation of the War Cry has been increased by 6,000, and is now 14,000 a week, nearly all of which are street and house-to-house sales. Fifteen thousand “penitents” have been brought to the “form” and $20,000 distributed to the poor.

—Chicago’s post office has recently received a shaking up by the general Post Office Department. Forty secret service agents were sent to that city to investigate the workings of the local post office system, and for nearly a month followed the 1,093 carriers in their work. As the result 800 carriers were reported for breaking the rules, and 173 of these cases received attention individually from headquarters. A number of these will be discharged, while others will be placed on the substitute list or suspended for a time. It is said the same method will be followed in other large cities.

—By a recent ruling of Judge Roger A. Pryor, a liquor license in New York is declared to be not property in a legal sense, and therefore can not be transferred. A very large majority of the licenses held by saloon keepers in that city have been paid for by the big brewers, and the brewers hold liens on the licenses for their money. Should Judge Pryor’s decision stand, these liens, carrying with them the control of the saloons conducted under the licenses, would be wiped out, and the brewers allege that property of theirs worth over $5,000,000 would be virtually taken from them by the courts.

—The Revision Committee of the Episcopal Convention at Minneapolis has made a report on the canon on marriage and divorce. The canon, as reported, forbids any minister to solemnize the marriage of any person who has been divorced unless that person was the innocent party in a divorce granted by the court for unfaithfulness. If any minister knows or believes that any one has married otherwise than allowed by the discipline of the church, he may not administer baptism or communion to that person unless a death be imminent and the person be penitent, without the consent of the bishop.

—It is estimated that 265,000 tons of garbage are turned into the Mississippi River annually, and to this is soon to be added the immense sewage of Chicago, by means of the Drainage Canal. The prospect is not enjoyable to several large cities on the Mississippi, which not only add their sewage to its waters, but depend upon it for drinking water supply. At the American Public Health Association meeting in Denver, a note of warning was sounded over this and similar conditions in various parts of the country, attention being called to the fact that such rivers are liable to become pestilential. A similar condition grew into notice in England, and efforts were made as early as 1865 to check river pollution. This was opposed by municipalities and corporations, but in 1888 a law was put into operation under heavy penalties, and a stop put to the practice. Other means of disposing of waste and garbage were devised, chief and most effectual and satisfactory among which has been the furnace, where such matter is burned. No doubt the subject will eventually require legislation in this country.