News and Miscellany by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Jul 29, 1875

News and Miscellany.

By Editor

—Lady Jane Franklin, wife of Sir John Franklin, died in London, July 18.

—The legislature of Panama has voted $200,000 for the sufferers by the earthquake at Cucuta.

—Six Chinamen were ordained deacons at a late meeting of the East Maine Methodist Episcopal Conference.

—In England a gentleman was appointed second secretary of the British Legation at Rome, but upon the discovery that he was a Catholic the government required him to resign.

—Donaldson and his companion, the aeronauts who, several days ago, ascended from Chicago in Barnum's great air ship, have not been heard from since. They were caught in a storm, probably, over the lake. Who tries next?

—A pleasant touch of human nature was revealed in the Wisconsin State Prison a few days ago. One of the convicts was mortally wounded by an accident in one of the shops, and his fellow-prisoners, out of their earnings, obtained by extra work, contributed $45 for his widow and children.

—The caterpillars are making terrible ravages in the State of Maine. They have completely stripped the foliage from many orchards, cutting off all prospects of fruit, and often killing the trees. This is a serious loss to the farmers, as many of them depend largely upon their fruit-harvest for a livelihood. Thus curses are multiplied: caterpillars in the East, grasshoppers West, and potato bugs through the Middle States.

—The Colorado potato beetle has reached New York. This pest, which in 1868 crossed the Missouri river, and in 1870 reached Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, have now pitched their tents in New York, Pennsylvania, and States still farther east. Previous to the last ten years this bug was very little known except as a native of the Rocky Mountains, living upon a wild relative of the potato. When the emigrants began to cultivate the potato in the Territory the beetle left its native food and chose the more tender domestic plant. Their numbers greatly increased and dissatisfied with the scanty supply of food, they followed back upon the trail of the emigrants to the broader fields of Missouri, Iowa, and the Eastern States. In eight years they have traveled about two thousand miles, or about two hundred and fifty miles a year. At that rate two more years will carry them through the Atlantic States.