NOTES OF NEWS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 2, 1879

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 53, No. 1.

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NOTES OF NEWS.

—Krupp has made a sixteen-inch gun.

—General Fremont is very popular in Arizona.

—London spends yearly $75,000,000 for alcoholic liquor.

—During 1877 the Russian debt was increased by about $325,000,000.

—A great London draper is said to sell twenty times as much American long-cloth as he does English.

—The American Bible Society is daily putting in print 550 copies of its agate Bible.

—It is estimated that 1,721,000 gallons of wine will be made in the Napa Valley this season.

—In India 33,000 Hindus have renounced idolatry and became professed Christians during the year 1878.

—Bayard Taylor, American Minister to Germany, died at Berlin, Dec. 19, in the 54th year of his age.

—The American Board of Foreign Missions has expended about $5,000,000 in its various missions in the Turkish empire.

—There is a fearful prospect for the winter in Lancashire, Eng., 12,000 hands in 120 mills having struck for higher wages.

—A dispatch from St. Petersburg says the Chinese are continually murdering and pillaging the inhabitants on the Russian frontier. Will war result?

—A weekly paper is to be published at the Vatican, inspired directly by the pope. It is to be published simultaneously in five different languages.

—Two of the Socialist leaders recently banished from Berlin by the authorities have already arrived in New York City, and others are known to be on the way.

—Excavations have been made of the Sacra Via in Rome from the Arch of Titus to the Temple of Romulus, bringing to light many structures of the old Roman and the Mediæval days.

—With the exception of a few towns on the coast of China, there are in all that empire scarcely a dozen Hebrew families. The Jews are hardly known in China, and only the learned are aware of their existence.

—There is every prospect for good crops in China the coming season, and China no longer needs the aid of the charitable. The famine has been terrible, but the aid afforded by Christians has done much to break down the iron walls of prejudice.

—A wail comes from the home missionaries of the Northwest, who are suffering great straits through the inability of the American Home Missionary Society to pay their overdue salaries. Absolute want and starvation, and the suspension of religious services, are painful facts which many faithful men and struggling churches are compelled to face.

—“Jack” Kehoe, the leader of the Mollie Maguires, was executed at Pottsville, Pa., Dec. 18. He was guilty of many murders, had planned many bold and bloody deeds. When arrested, he defied the law, trusting that his political influence would shield him from punishment for his many crimes. The case caused great excitement in Pennsylvania.

—The Christian Weekly warmly commends the course of “one of the queens of song,” who decidedly refuses to sing on Sunday. In a card to the Herald, in which she gives her reasons for refusing to sing at a Sunday-evening concert for which her name was announced, she says, “The seventh day is a day of rest and devotion.” That is what we believe; but will she tell us how the “seventh day” applies to Sunday?

—A bill to prevent possible complications and controversies in deciding the results of election for President and Vice-president of the United States has passed the Senate. The bill proposes that the election shall be a month earlier than now, and the meeting of Presidential Electors a month later; thus giving the States ample time to settle all disputed electoral questions without leaving them to Congress.

Recent reports show that there are 25,000 colored emigrants from the United States in Liberia, doing well as farmers and artisans. There are 750,000 native inhabitants who are being brought under the influence of civilization. The four States of Liberia are Montserrado, Grand Bassa, Sinoe, and Maryland. The constitution is modeled after that of the United States, but Attorney General Davis explains that none but colored men are allowed to vote.

—The financial suffering in France last year, in consequence of political agitation and stagnation in trade, is shown by the fact that the pawnshops of Paris made nearly $8,000,000 of loans on almost 2,000,000 objects—a greater amount than for years before. So much furniture and so many heavy articles were pledged that great warehouses had to be rented to store them in. An unusual number of articles were abandoned, and when sold they brought over $200,000 more than they had been pledged for.

—The Advance of Dec. 19 says, “English letters represent the financial distress and apprehensions in that country as a more serious matter than the English papers like to proclaim.” Of the hard times in Europe, the Religious Intelligencer says: “In Europe, political economists are tracing the hard times to the immense standing armies, which are sustained mainly through the military influence of Germany. It is estimated that the European nations now have 7,500,000 men under arms. These men are non-producers, and are taken from their legitimate spheres of daily toil. The average cost of supporting them is $200 per annum for each man, or about $4,000,000 a day, or $1,500,000,000 per annum, expended for the services of men who do not add one penny to the productions of the country. The United States maintains no such army, and the people do not have taxes to pay to support it, for which they should be truly thankful.”

—Scarcely has one marvelous invention been recorded, when we are startled by another of equal or greater promise. It is affirmed on unquestionable authority that Mr. Edison has made possible the use of the electric light in cities and dwellings, and that the cost will be slight compared with the exorbitant charges of the gas monopolies. A correspondent of the Boston Journal of Commerce, writing from this city, tells of another invention which has been kept secret pending the procurement of patents, and which, with power derived from a spring like that of a clock, furnishes an electric light of great brilliancy. It is said that the whole apparatus occupies no more space than an ordinary lamp, that it can be sold for six dollars per lamp, and that the light itself will only cost half a cent per hour.

Meanwhile, Miss Harriet Hosmer, the American sculptor, claims to have invented a machine which, drawing upon the earth as a great magnet, supplies power without expense. The invention has been granted provisional protection under the patent laws of England and the United States, so that the world will soon know the exact truth concerning its claims.

—The unfavorable influence of the Roman Catholic Church on public morals is a painful fact to which we have frequent occasion to advert. Another example of it has just fallen under our notice. The great fair with which the opening of the vast new cathedral in New York is being celebrated, like the notable Jewish fairs of last winter, is, to a large extent, a gambling school. The Catholic Review says: “Times are hard and money is scarce, but almost every one appears to have enough to go to the fair and to purchase something there, or to ‘take a chance’ in one of the many fascinating opportunities offered for a big prize.” These proceedings are not a whit different in their essence or in their tendency from the delusive ventures of the lottery or the maddening excitements of the card table. We could speak with a great deal more of virtuous indignation on this topic if we had not just heard of a fair which is still in progress in this city, where nearly everything, however small, is “chanced” or raffled away, and the Sabbath-school children are employed to canvass the streets with the invitation: “Take a chance, won’t you? A penny for a chance!” Facts like these, and we could give more of them, quite abate our indignation against our Roman Catholic neighbors, and fill us with anxiety and shame.”—Christian Statesman.