NEWS AND NOTES

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 17, 1900

—General Buller reached Pretoria, July 7.

—The Ninth United States Infantry reached Taku, China, July 7.

—The steamship “Rolasia” has reached Seattle, Wash., with $600,000 in Klondike gold aboard.

—The transport “Lennow” sailed from Portland, Ore., with 500 mules and horses for United States troops at Chinese ports.

—The inventory of the personal estate of the late United States Vice-President Hobart, filed in Paterson, N. J., amounts to $2,638,941.

—The China Merchants’ Company has transferred fifteen of its steamers to the British flag, five to the American, and three to the German.

—The Mexican government has named October 22 as the date for the convention, in the City of Mexico, of the International Congress of American Republics.

—Emperor William of Germany telegraphed the commander of the German squadron and viceroys, offering 1,000 taels—$750—to anyone delivering a foreigner of any nationality from Peking. He also offered to pay for the publication of this offer in Peking.

—Twenty-seven deaths from heat occurred in one week in Chicago.

—It is reported that at Kumassi 30,000 Ashantis await the British troops.

—Governor-General Allen, of Porto Rico, arrived in New York City, July 7.

—The British House of Lords has passed the Australian Commonwealth bill.

—Another steamer has left New Orleans, with 1,000 mules for the British army.

—The Chinese army is said to number 1,725,000 men. They have about 900,000 Mauser rifles.

—President Kruger has moved his headquarters to Nelspruit, on the Delagoa Bay Railroad.

—The Kansas wheat crop this year is the largest on record, 37,000,000 bushels having been gathered from ten counties.

—The Silver Republican Convention, in session at Kansas City, Mo., also indorse the nomination of Bryan and Stevenson.

—The czar of Russia has recently signed a decree providing in a large measure for the abolition of banishment to Siberia.

—Dr. Charles F. McDonald, United States consul at Hamilton, Ontario, who died July 10, was the deviser of the postal-money order.

—The British War Office reports the casualties in South Africa since the beginning of the war, exclusive of sick and wounded, to have been 29,706.

—Henry Barnard, one of America’s pioneer educators, and United States Commissioner of Education from 1867-70, died July 6. He was born in Hartford, Conn., Jan. 24, 1811.

—According to London dispatches, Lord Roberts “does not believe the Boer war has ended, and has put a stop to the return of civilians, and ordered mining men back to Bloemfontein.”

—Thirty-five persons were killed, and eighteen injured (nine fatally), by the recent wrecking of a trolley car at Tacoma, Wash. The car left the track on a curve, at full speed, rolling down an embankment.

—It is said that “the sultan of Turkey will this summer celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession to the throne. The occasion will be ‘an official jubilee, and the European sovereigns are already being sounded on the subject.’”

—The Finnish Senate has addressed a memorial to the czar of Russia, “declaring its inability to promulgate the imperial rescript regarding the Russian language in Finland, the limitation of the right of public meeting, and granting the right of Russians to carry on trades prohibited to the Finns.”

—A Chicago man by the name of Peter Nissen successfully went through the whirlpool rapids of the Niagara, July 11, in a boat of his own construction, called the “Foolkiller.” His boat was twenty feet long, four feet deep, and four feet wide. He narrowly escaped being engulfed by the furious waters of the rapids.

—Salvage claims have been filed in the United States District Court of New York, against the steamship “Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse,” for $900,000, for towing her from the burning piers, June 30. What a vast difference between these claims and the small amount that it really did cost to tow the steamer to safety!

—London dispatches report “a considerable Boer success eighteen miles from Pretoria, the capture of a squadron of the Scots Greys and a part of five companies of the Lincolnshire Regiment, and two guns.” This occurred at Nitral’s Nek. Lord Roberts’ dispatch says: “A list of the casualties has not been received, but I fear they are heavy.”

—The ceremonies in connection with the unveiling of the statue to the memory of the Marquis de Lafayette were held in the Garden of the Tuileries, at Paris, July 4. The statue is the gift of the school children of the United States. It was presented to the French nation by Ferdinand W. Peck, and was accepted by M. Loubet, president of the French Republic. Archbishop Ireland also delivered an oration upon the occasion.

—The new Hamburg-American liner “Deutschland,” a few feet shorter than the “Oceanic,” the largest steamer afloat, broke the record on her maiden trip. She crossed from Plymouth to New York in five days, fifteen hours, and forty-six minutes, a record-breaking average of 22.42 knots an hour. She arrived in New York, July 12. The fastest trip hitherto was made by the “Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse” (Cherbourg to New York), in five days, seventeen hours, and twenty-four minutes.

—William J. Bryan was unanimously nominated for president by the Democratic National Convention at St. Louis, Mo., July 5. The platform adopted by the convention “declares imperialism to be the paramount issue; it also declares for the free coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one, and that the Constitution follows the flag; condemns gold-standard legislation, private monopolies, the Dingley tariff, Republican policy in dealing with the new possessions of the country; expresses sympathy with the Boers; calls for the election of United States senators by direct vote of the people; demands reduction of war taxes,” etc. The following day Adlai E. Stevenson was nominated for vice-president, by the Democratic convention.

—The United States battle-ship “Oregon” is successfully floated, and will be docked and repaired in the Japanese port of Kure.

—In 1899 there were built in the United States 2,196 railway locomotives, valued at about $25,000,000; and 480 of them were shipped to foreign countries.

—United States exports to Asia, Japan, Australasia and other islands of the Pacific, in the fiscal year ending June 30, will exceed $100,000,000. In 1893 they were only $27,421,000.

—In the recent religious census of Toronto, “only four persons out of 143,000 wished to be enrolled as freethinkers, two as infidels, five as atheists, and one as a Universalist.”

—According to Bradstreet, the number of failures in business in this country, during the first six months of the present year, was the smallest of any recorded in a corresponding period for eighteen years.

—It is feared that the rye crop in Germany will be almost a total failure this season, and also that the yield will be poor in Austria-Hungary. Last year the rye crop of the two empires was 376,000,000 bushels, and the wheat crop was 288,000,000 bushels.

—A New York weekly says that “as the result of the lynching in Darien, Ga., last summer, twenty-seven negroes are now in the chain-gang, but not one white man; and the town has greatly decayed in population and business, and is not likely to recover for many years.”

—June 30 the public debt of the United States, less cash in the Treasury, amounted to $1,107,711,258, a decrease for the month of $14,897,553. The annual statement of the receipts and expenditures of the United States, for the fiscal year ending June 30, shows receipts of $568,988,948.21, and expenditures of $487,759,171.98.

—The Associated Jewish Charities of Chicago have decided to abolish henceforth all balls, fairs, and charity bazaars, as methods of swelling their funds. They “have resolved to give of their means according to their ability, and promise that their already magnificent philanthropies shall not suffer by the change.” That is both religion and sense.