Events in the East

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 24, 1876

Events in the East.

Roumania, heretofore owing a sort of allegiance to Turkey, and paying an annual tribute to the sultan, has found that “In the course of human events,” etc., and has declared herself independent. Her alleged grievance is that Turkey has failed to carry out her agreement to defend the soil of Roumania from foreign invasion. Roumania was already practically independent, but her connection with Turkey of course forbade her giving any aid to her insurrectionary neighbors. As an independent country Roumania may be the nucleus of a large Christian kingdom to be hereafter formed of the northern Christian provinces of Turkey.

A few days after the above was published in the Detroit Evening News, the following additional item of news appeared:—

As was expected, the rebellious subjects of the sultan have refused to accept the terms of Andrassy’s compromise. Their blood is up, arms in their hands, a fair number of German tacticians to drill them, Roumania strong and almost ready to help them, and, all things considered, they think the present as good a time as any to strike for freedom. So the diplomates may not be able to prevent a row over the matter after all.

Something new in guns has been invented, or rather perfected, by an ingenious mechanic named J. R. Haskell, of Passaic, New Jersey, by means of which the bullet is driven from the gun with greater velocity than has hitherto been attained. The result is obtained by having additional charges of powder in pockets ingeniously arranged along the line of the barrel in addition to the cartridge at the base. The cartridge is exploded in the usual way, and the ball, as it rushes from the barrel, ignites the loose powder in the pockets, and receives a new impulse from their successive explosions. The force of the ball is so accelerated by these subsequent explosions that, upon recent trial, the inventor drove a steel missile directly through a target made of boiler iron, four inches in thickness. Subsequently, he drove a similar bolt of steel through nine thicknesses of boiler iron securely bolted together, and the ball cut through them as if it were pasteboard. By estimate, the velocity of a ball is increased five or six times, and the inventor is confident that he can throw a shot from fifteen to twenty miles.