News and Miscellany

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 5, 1872

News and Miscellany.

“Can ye not discern the signs of the times?”

San Francisco Statistics.

Population, 165,000; area, 36 square miles; wharf frontage, 10 miles; paid in tariff duties last year, $8,000,000, internal revenue, $5,000,000; coinage by her mint since its establishment, $321,000,000; public schools, 87; cost $700,000 a year, and accommodates 20,000 children; private schools, 63, with 7,000 pupils; deposits in savings banks, $35,000,000; debt, 3,500,000; annual expenses, about $2,750,000; streets paved with wood, 10 miles, with cobble-stones, 23 miles, with planks 35 miles; steam fire engines, 10; police, 104, costing $160,000; expended for street improvements in 15 years, $10,500,000; shipments of tea East by railroad in September and October, 7,500,000 pounds; sewerage and improvements contemplated; too many wooden buildings; and pretty much determined to build a bridge across the bay, so as to bring the railroads directly into the town.

The above is a fair sample of the rapidity with which cities spring up and resources are developed in the United States.

The Dollinger Reform in Spain.

The Dollinger movement has reached Spain. The Lutheran Reformation also penetrated the Peninsula, but was extinguished. Times have changed, however, and we may hope for the new reform. It is organized in Madrid. Its Central Committee there consists of a president, secretary, and a number of priests. They have a newspaper entitled the Spanish Church, and an office, or headquarters. They have issued an able manifesto, which declares that they aim not at schism, but reformation, by conforming the Church to the Holy Scriptures and the exigencies of the times. While they avow themselves not Protestants, their scheme is thorough-going Protestantism. It is as follows:

“1. Purity of doctrine according to the New Testament, to the exclusion of all decrees of councils, Papal bulls, decrees with encyclicals.

“2. The separation and independence of Church and State.

“3. Election to all ecclesiastical offices by universal suffrage.

“4. Abolition of the use of the Latin tongue in all the services of the Church; abolition of the forced celibacy of the clergy; the abolition of all payments for the sacraments and services of the Church.

“5. The self-government of the Church by periodical assemblies and councils.”

The latest request for “annexation” to the United States comes from the people of the Samoan group known as Navigator’s Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, the papers, which have reached the Secretary of State at Washington, being signed officially by all the chiefs and many foreign residents of the islands. These are the only valuable islands in the Pacific Ocean not absorbed by France, England, Germany or Russia, and the natives say they are more favorable to the United States than any other country, because they believe the American religion is the same as theirs. The request would thus seem to be based on high moral grounds, but there may be a “job” in the scheme for all that. The islands in question contain 3,600 square miles, and a native population of 30,000. The people are copper-colored, and the productions are cotton, coffee, sugar-cane, dyewoods, and every species of tropical fruits and plants. The Australian mail steamers have selected the islands as a port of call for coaling purposes, and men have gone there to erect buildings and construct wharves. The natives are friendly and Christianized, American missionaries having been there twenty years.—Springfield Republican.

Our European Relations.

WASHINGTON, March 1.—The result of the inquiry is, that there are no such serious complications with European Powers as some of the newspapers and members of Congress imagine or assert, on what appears to them to be substantial grounds. The most important of the pending questions is that between England and the United States with regard to the interpretation of the Treaty of Washington. The note of Earl Granville has been answered in amicable terms, so as to leave no doubt in the English mind of the friendly feeling of our Government and of its desire to have a full, perfect, and final settlement of all the claims through the means specified in the treaty, viz.; either by the arbitrators, who may award a sum in gross, or by assessors, who are required to make a solemn declaration that they will impartially and carefully examine and decide to the best of their judgment, and according to justice and equity, all matters submitted to them. Thus the United States Government adheres to its position as heretofore indicated, and sees no occasion to modify its statement of the case, and having in good faith submitted the questions involved to arbitrators or assessors, it will, as required by the treaty, abide by the result.

Assault on the Queen.

LONDON, March 1.—Morning.—The assault upon the Queen yesterday by O’Connor is a theme of universal comment and condemnation in the journals. Previous to the attack, O’Connor scaled the iron railing, 10 feet in hight, which surrounds the courtyard of Buckingham Palace. When he approached the carriage of the Queen he first saw Lady Churchill, lady-in-waiting, who was riding with Her Majesty, and was about to assault her, but he soon discovered his mistake and turned upon the Queen. Her Majesty’s groom, Jno. Brown, who was riding behind her carriage, upon witnessing the action of O’Connor leaped from his horse and arrested and disarmed the assailant.

John Brown, Her Majesty’s groom, Col. Hardinge, equerry to the Queen, and Prince Leopold testified to the circumstances of the assault, of which they were eye witnesses. Their statements do not differ materially from the accounts already telegraphed to the Associated Press. One of the policemen into whose custody O’Connor was delivered, swore that the prisoner said that the reason he had not loaded the pistol was because it was broken, and that he repeatedly exclaimed, “I wish to God I had succeeded.”

At the conclusion of the examination the prisoner was committed for trial at the Assizes, and taken back to jail under a strong escort. It is evident that the papers found on the prisoner are his own work, and the impression of all who heard them read is that they are the product of a deranged mind.