News Briefs: Congo, Diphtheria, Cholera, and Explosions
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News Briefs: Congo, Diphtheria, Cholera, and Explosions
—The House Committee on Foreign Relations has prepared a resolution censuring Secretary Frelinghuysen for sending representatives from this country to the Congo Conference. —Diphtheria is making fearful ravages in the towns of Eastern Connecticut and Western Rhode Island. In Norwich, New London, and Westerly two days of last week deaths were so numerous that hearses had to be hired from neighboring towns with which to bury the dead. —In Georgia, dealers in revolvers and pistols, or in cartridges for such fire-arms, have to pay a license of $100 for the privilege, and it is estimated that nine-tenths of the traders have dropped that feature of their business. We wish every State would tax the traffic out of existence. —The Quarantine Commissioners of New York harbor have sent a communication to the State Legislature, stating that in all human probability the approaching summer will find cholera in their midst, and asking an appropriation of $24,000, with which to make needful preparations for the protection of the city and harbor. —A fearful explosion occurred on Feb. 26 at the royal school of gunnery, Shoeburyness, England, while a number of artillery officers and scientists were testing a new patent fuse. Three men were killed and several fatally wounded. Among the latter were some of the most prominent Government officials of Woolwich Laboratory. —The New York Legislature is about to abolish imprisonment for debt in that State. It is surprising that this heritage from barbarism should at this day be found among the statutes of any civilized people. Yet it was only recently that a man was released from Ludlow Street Jail, after an imprisonment of five years for a debt of eighty dollars. —The District Commissioners have decided that no freight trains shall enter Washington until March 6, on account of the inauguration ceremonies, and in consequence there threatens to be great scarcity of food in the city, as it depends upon the daily freights for its supplies. It is hoped, however, that the courts will interfere. If they do not, board will be extremely costly there during the inaugural festivities. —A congress of dynamiters was held in Paris, Feb. 23, at which resolutions were passed advising the vigorous prosecution of the dynamite war on an extended scale; to cause explosions in all the towns and villages in England; to send two members of their faction to the camp of El Mahdi in the Soudan, to instruct him in the art of war; and condemning an informer to death. Several delegates plead in favor of innocent women and children, but without avail.