NOTES OF NEWS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 9, 1879

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 53, No. 2.

Read the full edition

NOTES OF NEWS.

—The bishop of Hong Kong has ordained 3 Chinese clergymen.

—Scotland, owing to its recent failures, is rated as £15,000,000 poorer than it was a few weeks ago.

—The lives of the King of the Netherlands and the Emperor of Austria have recently been threatened.

—On Tuesday, Dec. 17, for the first time in 16 years, the paper dollar was worth 100 cents, and gold lost its premium.

—The Government of Spain have decided to expel all foreigners belonging to the International Society from that country.

—Railroads pay $5,000 for killing a man; but the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company have paid $12,555 for killing a trotting horse!

—Two of the Russian men-of-war built at Philadelphia for the Russian Government, sailed Dec. 22, and two others will leave in a few weeks.

—The recent sudden thaw has caused numerous floods in England and Scotland; at Nottingham the flood is the greatest for 14 years.

—One of the northerly provinces of Brazil is suffering from famine and pestilence of the most horrible character.

—Severe storms are raging on the north and central Atlantic coast of Europe. The storm was predicted by the Herald weather bureau with remarkable accuracy.

—The British forces are concentrating for a final attack on Candahar. It is said that Candahar is defended by only three or four weak Afghan regiments and a few hundred irregulars destitute of artillery.

—A grand national exhibition will be held in Moscow in 1880, which will probably be accompanied by great festivities, as it will be the 25th anniversary of the Emperor’s accession to the throne.

—The Christian Weekly says that an Italian medical society has requested the papers to cease reporting suicides, convinced that the publicity tends to increase the number of self-murderers. And adds: “We have little doubt that it is also true in this country.”

—The Cincinnati Commercial publishes a list of murders and homicides in the United States during the year 1878, as reported in the papers from day to day. According to this list, there were during the year 1,268 murders in this country.

—In Russia, ladies are to be permitted to study surgery and medicine, and take degrees in the universities. The Russian Minister of War has officially declared in favor of educating lady physicians for army practice, and the Czar is said to be greatly interested in the movement.

—At 6:52 on the evening of Dec. 31, a very large aerolite was seen at Bayard, Ohio. It came from the east and disappeared below the western horizon. When almost directly overhead, it exploded with a distant, thundering noise. Two flashes accompanied the explosion. It was seen in neighboring towns.

—It illustrates the apprehension excited by the recent attacks on European sovereigns that there is an organized conspiracy against all crowned heads, that several London detectives have been added to the police at Windsor Castle. Even the good and honored Queen Victoria may not escape an assassin’s attack.

—A correspondent of the Presbyterian Journal, speaking of the poverty of the poor of Egypt, says, “I have seen children hunting for stray grains of raw beans among the refuse of the thorny provender where a camel had been feeding, as eagerly as we used to hunt for chestnuts among the grass on a frosty autumn morning.”

—Jenny Lind made $1,000,000 in America, and her husband, Mr. Goldschmidt, invested it so successfully that it has doubled itself. She has a grown-up son and daughter. Sir Julius Benedict, the composer, Jenny’s old teacher, says the daughter would have been as great a singer as her mother ever was had she not been rich.

—News of nocturnal arrests, general destitution, and apprehended riots, comes from Constantinople. It is believed that the cry of alarm has been raised by officials who think their interests are threatened or injured by the present ministry. There has been a further enormous depreciation of Turkish paper money, and, as a consequence, numbers of bakers’ shops have been closed.

—Seventeen specimens of common table sirups were recently examined by R. C. Kedzie, A.M., Professor of Chemistry in the Michigan State Agricultural College. Fifteen of these proved to be made of glucose; one of the fifteen contained 141 grains of sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) and 724 grains of lime to the gallon; and another, which had caused serious sickness in a whole family, contained 72 grains of sulphuric acid, 28 grains of sulphate of iron (copperas), and 363 grains of lime to the gallon.

—Liquor-drinking Scotland has been told a blunt truth by the Lord Provost of Glasgow, that the loss of £5,000,000 which has fallen on the shareholders of the City of Glasgow Bank represents but its six months’ expenditure for strong drink. He then indicates to his countrymen, who are devising means to relieve the calamity, that they could wipe it off by reducing their liquor bills one-half for a year. What if they should make a clean sweep, and with heroic self-sacrifice give up the other half!—Christian Weekly.

—Dec. 2, the heaviest gale known for years raged on the coast of New York. The storm record for November and the first eleven days of December, as given in the Maine State Press of Dec. 26, shows 28 stormy days in that time. These were severe storms of wind, snow, and rain; some of them were simultaneous on both the American and the European coast of the Atlantic, some were on the ocean, and one was a violent hurricane north of St. Thomas.

—The young king of Siam is showing enlightened enterprise in his movements for establishing a system of education for his people, and also in his advanced ideas on the subject of religious toleration. When a case of persecution against some of his Christian subjects was recently brought before him, he promptly replied that the people must not be molested on account of religion, and instructions were forwarded to the authorities that the people had perfect liberty to follow the religion of their choice.

—Southern Russia bids fair to rival Pennsylvania in the production of petroleum. The discovery of oil indications near the Caspian Sea was made public some time since, and on boring wells in that vicinity it has been found in abundant quantities. One well yields 10,000 barrels a day, and the oil, free from dirt, is forced seventy-five feet into the air. A Pittsburgh manufacturing firm recently shipped an improved drilling and refining outfit to Russia to be used there, and companies are rapidly forming for the further development of the territory.

—Long Branch is proposing another great attraction in the shape of an iron pier extending into the ocean 660 feet, the extremity resting on tubular piles sunk in calm and untroubled water 450 feet beyond the breakers. At the pier-head, where steamers from this city will land, will be a two-storied observatory and saloon. About midway will be a music pavilion and café. An extensive sea-wall and breakwater form part of the plan, which is to be carried out, as sufficient capital has been subscribed to insure the construction of the great work.

—While Mr. Talmage was giving “Night Scenes” in Brooklyn, Dr. John P. Newman was giving statistics in New York on “The Bright Side and Dark.” He said there were in the city 8,000 licensed drinking-places; 30,000 paupers; 10,000 neglected children; 20,000 women without character; 400,000 foreigners out of 1,000,000 population; and 30,000 transient daily. On the other hand he said there are 300 public schools and $4,000,000 spent on them yearly; 490 churches with accommodations for 375,000 people; 400 Protestant churches with a capacity for holding 275,000 hearers, and having 80,000 members; 520 Sabbath-schools, and 120,000 children. The city supports 27 charitable institutions, which annually receive 140,000 people. To her benevolence there is no end, and its blessings find their way into cellar, attic, and “Homes,” and to fever-stricken cities.

Uranine.—This is the most recently discovered, and perhaps the most remarkable, of all the coal tar or aniline group of coloring substances, now so extensively used for the adornment of the finest fabrics. Uranine is said, by chemists, to be the most highly fluorescent body known to science. Its coloring power is astonishing; a single grain will impart a marked color to nearly five hundred gallons of water.

A most interesting experiment, which anybody may try, consists in sprinkling a few atoms of Uranine upon the surface of water in a glass tumbler. Each atom immediately sends down through the water what appears to be a bright green rootlet; and the tumbler soon looks as if it were crowded full of beautiful plants. The rootlets now begin to enlarge, spread, and combine, until we have a mass of soft green-colored liquid. Viewed by transmitted light, the color changes to a bright golden or amber hue; while a combination of green and gold will be realized, according to the position in which the glass is held. For day or evening experiment nothing can be prettier than these trials of Uranine, which are especially entertaining for the young folks. We are indebted for examples of the color to the editors of the Scientific American, who are sending out specimens, free of charge, to all their readers. The subscription to the paper is $3.20 for a year, or $1.60 half year; and a better investment for the money could hardly be named.