Notes of News | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 16, 1879

Notes of News.

—There is a prospect of war between France and Tunis.

—The Presbyterian Board of Relief for Disabled Ministers has distributed during the last 26 years over $1,000,000.

—At Jonesborough, Ark., Professor Henry Dierk, in attempting a balloon-ascension recently, fell a distance of 1000 feet.

—In New York City there are 1,739 rum holes less than there were a year ago. This speaks well for the excise laws of that city.

—The four western counties of Massachusetts suffered damage to the extent of over $850,000 by the terrible storm in the second week of December.

—The Duke of Edinburgh has been nominated by the Czar to the princedom of Bulgaria. The object is the peaceful solution of the Eastern Question.

—The recent storms have seriously affected France. The Seine is rising and several towns are partially flooded. The Loire is also rising, and great alarm is felt along its banks.

—Jan. 8 and 9 mail matter delayed by the recent storm arrived at the Chicago post-office in a perfect rush,—7 carloads Wednesday and 2 on Thursday. The bulk weighed not less than 80 tons.

—The South-western Advocate says that “500 Catholic ecclesiastical teachers and 2000 sisters of charity are at work among the colored people of the South, visiting from cabin to cabin.”

—A Hartford librarian asserts that as a rule our boys and girls read too much. He says that in 6 months one boy drew 102 story-books from the library, and a girl 111 novels. During the quarter ending Dec. 1, 71 per cent of the books drawn by Young America were fiction.

—In Brazil the ravages of small-pox are terrible. It is said that in Ceara it is impossible to make coffins to supply the demand, and the people dig ditches and tumble into them the unshrouded corpses, 8 or 10 at a time. As many as 500 or 600 die daily in the city of Ceara alone.

—R. W. McCall, who has done so much in establishing evangelical missions for the workingmen of Paris, has commenced similar efforts in Lyons. His opening meeting, on Nov. 17, was crowded. Lyons, with its 350,000 inhabitants, is not only the headquarters of ultra-Romanism, but is as well a hotbed of skepticism and atheism.

—The plague has appeared among the Cossacks of Astrakhan, Russia. During three days from Jan. 1-3, 143 persons died out of 195 attacked by it. The plague has now increased to a panic in Astrakhan and Saratow. The people die like flies and lie unburied in the street. General anxiety prevails throughout Russia.

—The regular annual sale of pews took place in Beecher’s church, Jan. 7. H. B. Claflin, as usual, bid in the first choice pew for $620. The total premiums amounted to $27,978, which, added to the fixed rentals of $12,743, makes the total of the sales $40,721, an excess of $3,817 over the sales of last year.

—The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad is negotiating with the Chief of the Signal Service at Washington for a supply of the midnight weather indications, or predictions. These will be reproduced in manifold, and sent along the line to the various stations, though in advance of this the news will be telegraphed.

—The war between England and Afghanistan is probably over. England has the situation completely in her hands. General Roberts has formally announced to the Afghans that the authority of the Ameer has forever passed away, and that they are henceforth to be subjects of the Empress of India. The Ameer has fled.

—Louisville, Ky., is to have a library. The city concluded to raise the necessary funds by lottery. The enterprise was widely advertised and extensively patronized, and resulted in the receipt of $6,250,000,—no mean sum. But half of this money is to be distributed in prizes, $424,396 is to be appropriated to the library, and the question to be settled is, Who has the remainder?

—Professor Nordenskjold, an adventurous Swede, has succeeded in making a voyage from Hammerfest, near the North Cape of Europe, through the Kara Sea around the North Cape of Asia to the Lena River, a feat never accomplished before, although daring explorers have attempted it from the early days of extended voyages. This establishes the fact of a northern passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

—A religious drama—nay, more, a strictly Biblical one—has been played in Music Hall, Boston. “The title of the play is ‘Saul,’ and the subject is that portion of the Hebrew king’s life following his first interview with David.” We agree with the Christian Union’s Boston correspondent that “it is certainly a sign of the times that such a play should be presented at all;” but we are not hopeful of “the reformation of the stage from within.”

—The Supreme Court of the United States has decided that polygamy is a crime against the laws of the United States; and that the law prohibiting bigamy, or polygamy, is Constitutional. Mr. Cannon, Mormon delegate from Utah, thinks his people will accept this decision as final; but he hopes that those who had contracted polygamous marriages before this decision was given will be allowed to continue these relations undisturbed, as to break up these marriages would destroy homes and leave women and children helpless and without protection.

—The interior of Greenland is an unknown territory. Three Danish scientific gentlemen who were exploring the coast, undertook, the past summer, to penetrate the mystery, and to ascend a mountain 45 miles from the coast. They started July 14 on their toilsome journey of twenty-three days over the ice, encountering fogs and snowstorms on the way. The weather cleared July 31, when they ascended the mountain, which was 5,000 feet high. As far as the eye could reach, only ice-sheets and glaciers could be seen, and not the smallest speck of land free of ice.

—During the first week in January, a heavy fall of snow obstructed trains in some of the Middle and Western States. Business on all trains centering at Buffalo was completely suspended. The weather was intensely cold, in some places the coldest known for 14 years. Some were frozen. There was almost contemporaneously a similar snow-fall in Europe. In Scotland the trains were generally stopped; in some places the drifts are reported to have been 12 ft. deep. In Switzerland and parts of France and Germany the storm was almost equally severe; the heaviest snow-fall for 30 years.

—Herzegovina and Bosnia having been given over politically to Austria are about to be handed over religiously to the Vatican. The inhabitants are of course generally of the Greek Church; but all Greeks are pagans to the Vatican, which is accordingly arranging a Catholic hierarchy for the religious edification of those countries. Curiously, its interests make it at the same time in Italy an advocate of universal suffrage. The recent cabinet crisis in Italy depended on the question whether the suffrage should be given to every citizen who can read and write. So far as we can judge, the present cabinet is a temporary one, without policy on this issue, therefore certain to be without permanent existence.

—A French engineer has made a report on the project of a railroad across the Desert of Sahara. The projected line would run from Algiers to Timbuctoo, a distance of some 1,300 miles, and would rest mainly on layers of sand, and toward the end on primitive volcanic rock, granite, etc. No mountainous obstructions would have to be encountered, and the average heat does not exceed 75° Fahrenheit. The proposed tunnel between Spain and Africa is still before the public. This tunnel, according to the plan at present contemplated, is to extend from within a short distance of Algeciras, on the Spanish side, to between Tangier and Ceuta, on the African side. The length of the submarine tunnel will be nine miles, with an inclination of one foot per hundred. The greatest depth of the sea is 3,000 feet; and as it is intended to have a thickness of some 300 feet of rock left between the roof of the tunnel and the sea bottom, the greatest depth of the tunnel will thus be 3,300 feet below the level of the sea.—Christian Union.