Items of News

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 4, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 42.

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—There were in the German army 110 suicides during the first eight months of the present year.

—Two fires in London on the 25th ult. destroyed property to the value of about a million of dollars.

—A collision on the Thames, England, one day last week, resulted in the drowning of seven persons.

—An incendiary fire at Pocahontas, Va., on the 27th ult., destroyed sixteen houses, including two hotels.

—The chiefs of the Sobranje have decided to ask the Czar to name a candidate for the Bulgarian throne.

—Advices from Braila, Roumania, say that feverish preparations for war are being made in Southern Russia.

—More than 20,000,000 sheep are said to have died during the recent drought in the Argentine Republic.

—The Bartholdi Statue of Liberty, in New York Harbor, was dedicated on the 28th ult. with imposing ceremonies.

—Senor Juarez Celman has been installed as President of the Argentine Republic, and has appointed a Cabinet.

—In St. Petersburg, the police can at any time enter any dwelling to search for Nihilists, and there is no habeas corpus.

—Germany's exports to this country during the year ending September 1, were $20,000,000 in excess of the previous year.

—On the 26th ult., an express messenger on the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad in Missouri was robbed of over $81,000.

—A boiler explosion in a Pennsylvania saw-mill, a few days since, severely, if not fatally, injured five men employed in the mill.

—The report which was current last week that France would insist upon the withdrawal of the British from Egypt, is now denied.

—Severe and prolonged shocks of earthquake occurred in Serinagur, Cashmere, recently. There were brilliant meteoric showers during the night.

—There is some talk of a republic in Bulgaria; but such a consummation is not at all probable. A state of siege has been proclaimed at Sophia.

—The statement is made that as many as 30,000 shawls are made annually in the Vale of Cashmere, which are worth, on an average, $1,000 apiece.

—The type-writer was first patented in England in 1714, but it was not until 1867 that it was really made practicable. Many thousands are now in use.

—The estimate of the expenses of the postal service for the next fiscal year aggregates $55,342,150, while the appropriation for the current fiscal year was $54,365,863.

—A fifteen-year-old boy recently died in Oakland from diphtheria contracted by chewing gum which was given him by a companion who had just recovered from the disease.

—It is said that hereafter Mormon emigrants will be landed at Philadelphia instead of at New York as heretofore. On the 27th ult., 307 new converts were landed at that port.

—On the 26th ult., a "wild" engine collided with a passenger train at Pine Bluff, Wis. One man was killed and two others were fatally injured, while several were severely hurt.

—The amount of land devoted to agriculture in Germany is 78,405,000 acres, or about 122,508 square miles. The holdings number 5,276,344, and average about fourteen acres each.

—The question of the disestablishment of the Church of England, in Wales, is being called for; and the opinion is also expressed that disestablishment would be a good thing in England.

—It is estimated by those who have made the subject a study, that the losses occasioned by insects injurious to agriculture in the United States reach the enormous sum of $400,000,000 every year.

—The Moscow Gazette says that the project of connecting the White Sea and Lake Onega by means of a canal will be realized much sooner than was expected. The total cost of the work is estimated at 7,000,000 rubles.

—There is war in East Africa between two of the native kings. A late report states that the king of Inhambara twice repulsed King Muzilla at the head of 30,000 men; and in the third attack the latter was defeated by 16,000 Portuguese and natives, under command of the Governor of Mozambique, assisted by European military and naval officers.

—A German architect has contracted with the Japanese Government to erect at Tokio a large palace for the Imperial Parliament, a palace for the Ministry of Justice, and another for the police administration.

—October 26, a party of Crow Indians, camped near Fort Custer, M. T., were attacked by a party of Sioux, and a fierce battle ensued, in which five of the Sioux were killed and several on both sides were wounded. The Crows were victorious.

—The last steamer from Honolulu brings the news that the activity of Kilauea is steadily on the increase. A stream of molten lava thirty feet in width was flowing in one part of the crater, while several smaller fires can be seen in other places.

—Some time since, the British invaded and conquered the kingdom of Burmah, and now that the people of that country are somewhat restive under foreign rule, it is announced that "the rebellious natives in Burmah are giving much trouble to the British troops."

—An Eastern paper says: "The lesson of the great strike of the pork packers in Chicago, is the loss of $320,000 in wages to the men who struck, and the loss of employment to 2,000 of the strikers, whose places have been filled by men who were before unemployed."

—October 27, the San Francisco Anarchists passed the following resolution, relative to the dynamiters now under sentence of death in Chicago: "Resolved, That should the condemned men not receive a new and just trial, we shall regard it as an attempt on the part of Government to force us into the horrors of a forcible revolution."

—General Kaulbars, the Russian military agent, has addressed a note to the Bulgarian Foreign Minister, in which he says: "In view of the arrival at Varna of Government emissaries, who are spreading reports that the presence of the Russian gunboats there is without importance, I am compelled to inform you that those gunboats will vigorously affirm their importance if events render it necessary."

—The most horrible railroad accident which ever took place in the Northwest occurred thirteen miles east of Portage, Wis., on the 27th ult. An express train, running at a high rate of speed, struck an open switch and ran into a freight train, which had just been side-tracked to allow the express to pass. All the passengers in the sleepers got out uninjured, except for slight bruises; but in one day-coach thirteen persons were pinned in and literally burned to death. The total number killed was twenty-two. Many others were injured."