News and Miscellany by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Jul 1, 1875

News and Miscellany.

By Editor

-A Philadelphia paper manufacturer intends putting up a mill on the line of the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad for the purpose of manufacturing the fiber of the cactus into paper pulp. The experiment has already been tried, and an excellent quality of paper is the result.

-The Palace Hotel, now nearing completion in San Francisco, is the largest hotel in the world. It covers 96,250 square feet of ground, and is seven stories high; 24,661,000 bricks were used in its walls; 3,000 tons cast and wrought iron, and 4,561,524 feet of lumber and timber. It contains 1,060 windows, 377 of which are bay-windows; 926 rooms, none of less size than 16 by 16 feet; and 388 bath rooms. It contains over three miles of halls; there are five passenger elevators, and seven grand stairways; there are 4,540 doors, 9,000 gas burners, and 32 miles of gas and water pipe. It requires 50,000 yards or 28 miles of carpet. It can accommodate 1,200 guests, besides 360 servants and employees. And best of all there is not a dark or windowless room in the house.

-In the annual report of the Bureau of Statistics of labor in Massachusetts, we notice the following:-

1. Fathers rely, or are forced to depend, upon their children for from one-quarter to one-sixth of the total family earnings.

2. Children under 15 years of age, supply, by their labor, from one-eighth to one-sixth of the total family earnings.

3. More than one-half of the families save money, less than one-tenth are in debt, and the remainder make both ends meet. They are not the debtor but the creditor class.

4. Without children's assistance, other things remaining equal, the majority of families would be in poverty or debt.

5. The average saving is about three per cent of the earnings. "The recipient of a yearly wages of less than $600 must get in debt."

-Some people may not know that the legend, "In God We Trust," has disappeared from the latest United States coinage. Yet such is the fact. The Congregationalist newspaper ascribes the change to the irritating actions of the banded zealots who demand that God shall be put into the Constitution.

-Late dispatches from Mesopotamia state that thousands are dying of the Bubonic plague. In three localities the numbers were 500, 800, and 1000 respectively. Those who are struck with the disease generally succumb on the second or third day.

-The body of John Blackford, the American actor, who lost his life three years ago in attempting the ascent of Mount Blanc, was found in a huge block of ice which lately fell from the mountain, perfectly preserved like a fly in amber.

A GREAT FLOOD IN FRANCE.-The flood has destroyed the crops in the valleys of the Garonne and Adour, has carried away all the bridges of Toulouse, and demolished scores of houses. Hundreds of lives were lost. A dispatch from Paris, June 25, says: "The damage to property and the loss of life by the flood in the river Garonne is greater than previously reported. At Toulouse the bodies of hundreds of persons who were drowned were found in the houses which were flooded but left standing. Many other people perished and their bodies were carried off in the houses that were swept away.

-At a meeting of the New York Academy of Science, Prof. Thomas Eggleston of the School of mines gave a brief account of his experiments with M. La Bastie's new elastic glass. The process which removes the brittleness of ordinary glass consists in immersing it at red heat in a bath of fatty substances, which the inventor keeps secret, and in slowly cooling the glass therein. The lecturer threw three pieces of prepared colored glass on the floor, as well as some watch crystals, neither of which broke, although thrown vigorously ten or twelve feet.