News and Notes | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 6, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 17.

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News and Notes.

RELIGIOUS.

—The Baptist anniversaries will be held in Boston May 15 to 21.

—The world's Sunday-school convention will meet in London in July.

—Out of 600 native newspapers in India only six are favorable to Christianity.

—The Society of Christian Endeavor is said to be making steady progress in England.

—Calvin's old church, the Cathedral of St. Pierre, in Geneva, is, it is said, to be restored.

—The present year is the centennial year of the introduction of Methodism into New England.

—Four hundred and eighty-two works on theology were published in the United States during the year 1888.

—A Young Men's Christian Association for French-speaking young men is to be established in New York.

—England has paid a ransom of £1,000 for the three missionaries who have been held captives at Zanzibar.

—The Advance says that "three-fourths of the population of Chicago never enter a Christian Church of any kind."

—The Sultan has granted a charter for a railroad from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The estimated cost of the road is $250,000.

—Palestine now has 500,000 inhabitants, not as many as the city of Chicago. Of these only 7 per cent. are Jews.—Jewish Times.

—The total number of children in the Protestant Sunday-schools of Baltimore is 58,046. It was in that city that the first Sunday-schools in this country were organized.

—It is said that the evangelist, Sam Jones, received about $2,000, all told, for his recent month's labor in San Francisco. The San Francisco papers estimate that the amount realized by him in the State was about $6,000.

SECULAR.

—Baltimore is to have a $1,000,000 sugar refinery.

—A telegraph line between France and China has been agreed upon.

—Leopold, king of Belgium, contemplates a trip into the heart of Africa.

—The empress of Austria has been attacked by insanity, the family malady.

—Lyman E. Knapp, of Vermont, has been appointed Governor of Alaska.

—The Navajo (N. M.) Indians grow and market 1,000,000 pounds of wool yearly.

—The Yokohama Specie Bank has declared a dividend of twenty per cent. per annum.

—Great suffering and many deaths are reported from Queensland, Australia, as the result of the terrible drought and heat prevailing there.

—Dispatches from India say 15,000 persons are rendered homeless by a great fire at Surat. To add to the prevailing distress, cholera has broken out in the town.

—France, Austria, and Germany have adopted smokeless gunpowder for their armies, and are conducting experiments to get an explosive also as nearly noiseless as possible. A fair degree of success has been reached.

—According to the annual report of the Canadian Fisheries Department recently issued, the value of the fisheries of Canada for 1888 amounted to only $17,418,510, being a decrease of nearly a million of dollars over the preceding year.

—The Farmers' Alliance, representing 80,000 men in the South, has unanimously resolved to make an effort to break up the jute bagging monopoly, by using nothing but cotton bagging for the purpose of baling the cotton crop of that section.

—The direct use of electricity as a labor-saving machine has been applied at the great steel works, Cleveland, Ohio, where a large electro-magnet is used, suspended from a crane, to pick up 800-pound billets, and drop them where wanted by the touch of a key, the movement of the crane being done by steam.

—New York had a $3,000,000 fire the 19th ult.

—Murat Halstead is recovering from his recent severe illness.

—Jay Gould has been elected president of the Texas Pacific Railroad.

—H. B. Spofford, the historian, died at Rutland, Vt., on Thursday, April 25.

—The Post-office Department at Washington will hereafter be closed on Sundays.

—Preparatory work has already begun on the eleventh census of the United States.

—It is now practically certain that the Panama Canal will not be completed by De Lesseps.

—A Samoan relief fund of 20,000 marks has been forwarded to Prince Bismarck from Hamburg.

—The Pope has issued a brief to the American bishops, formally sanctioning the Catholic University at Washington.

—The railroads of New York have made a reduction of fifty per cent. in freight rates between that city and Mexico.

—A bill was introduced in the Michigan House of Representatives, April 25, restoring the death penalty for murder.

—It is estimated from present prospects that the wheat crop of California for this year will amount to 2,000,000 tons.

—The Czar is said to be suffering from extreme nervousness and excitement, being in constant dread of attempts on his life.

—A terrible storm recently destroyed all the crops in the Goerlitzen District of Silesia. Five persons were killed by the lightning.

—The Inman line's new steamer, City of Paris, recently crossed the Atlantic from New York to Queenstown in six days and six hours.

—Sir Julian Pauncefote, the new British Minister to the United States, arrived at Washington the 22d of April, accompanied by his secretary.

—The Spanish Government is soon to sell at auction $40,000,000 worth of State forest lands to obtain necessary funds for governmental purposes.

—Prince Ferdinand, nephew of King Charles, of Roumania, has been selected as heir to the throne of Roumania. He is a lieutenant in the Prussian Guard.

—The Pilgrim, the largest passenger steamer on the Atlantic Coast, ran into a freight steamer near Hell Gate, April 22, injuring herself and sinking the other steamer.

—Boulanger has left Belgium, and is now in London, where he has received a hearty reception from society, although in official circles he is being considerably ignored.

—The two great trans-continental lines of the Union Pacific and Northern Pacific Railroads have a serious quarrel on hand, and an overland rate war is being talked of.

—It is now practically settled that the Union Iron Works, of San Francisco, will receive the contract for constructing the new coast-defense vessel recently authorized by Congress.

—It seems that the rumors of peace in Hayti were only rumors after all, and the revolution is still progressing. Legitime has sent to New York to purchase another war vessel.

—Dr. Frederick Barnard, late president of Columbia College, New York City, died April 27. He has long been known in educational and scientific circles, as a man of ripe thought and much experience.

—The Earl of Lonsdale, whose remarkable Arctic journey from Winnipeg to Bank's Land, and thence across Alaska, has attracted the attention of the whole civilized world, arrived in San Francisco the 23d ult.

—The principal streets in New York are being cleared of electric light, telegraph, and other overhead wires, and the poles are being cut down, by the order of Mayor Grant, who declares that all these obstructions must cease.

—The missing passengers of the Denmark have been heard from. They were rescued by gallant Captain Murrell, of the steamer Missouri, who towed the disabled Denmark until she began to sink, and then transferred her 669 cabin and steerage passengers, and sixty-nine officers and crew, to his own vessel, although he was compelled to throw overboard a large portion of his cargo to make room for them. He only had three days' provisions for the entire number, so he abandoned his course and ran to the Azores, where more than half the passengers were left, the remainder being brought to Philadelphia, which port was reached the 22d ult. Captain Murrell will be decorated by the king of Denmark in consideration of his praiseworthy services.

—Elijah M. Haynes, ex-Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, died the 25th ult. He had just completed a treatise on the Indian races and the dialects of America, to which he had given a quarter of a century of research.

—Because of its recent blunder in regard to the Parnell Commission, the London Times has to face an unexpected expenditure of £50,000 for law expenses, and another £50,000 for libels, or about $500,000 in all. This is paying rather dear for its whistle.

—The Brewers of Pennsylvania have already contributed $100,000, and propose to raise $1,000,000, to buy up the active political workers of the State to defeat the Prohibition Amendment, June 18. They are now trying to bribe men in the rural districts.

—There has been so much agitation of the proposition to abolish Sunday dress parades in the army that, before action is taken upon it by the President, it will be made a subject of discussion by the Cabinet. It is understood that army officers object almost unanimously.

—Dispatches from New York, dated the 24th ult., state that all the Vanderbilt roads will, on May 1, abandon a great proportion of their Sunday freight trains. This action is the result of the influence of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and has been determined upon for religious reasons, so Chauncey Depew has declared.

—At an anti-Jesuit meeting held in Montreal, April 25, the action of the Government and the Provincial Legislature was freely discussed. The general impression seemed to be that a crisis was near at hand, and that if the present state of affairs continued, the Church of Rome would soon be in possession of two-thirds of the estate of the province.

—A lady in Philadelphia recently died from the effects of egg-nog drank at an Easter party. The physician notified the coroner that her death was probably due to the bad eggs used in making the drink. If it had been the bad whisky, which doubtless did cut some figure in the matter, such an affair would not have been considered worthy of notice.

—Affairs are reported as being very quiet in Oklahoma. But little blood has been shed, and things are rapidly settling down on a business basis. Many claims bid fair to be contested, but most of the rival parties prefer the courts of law, rather than to resort to force of arms. Thousands who went expecting to get claims are returning disappointed, and some of them are forcibly settling on the Cherokee strip, which may cause future trouble, although, in some instances, the Indians appear glad to have the whites settle among them. This is especially noticeable in the Chickasaw, Creek, and Choctaw nations. The new territory has already several flourishing towns, and new and substantial houses are going up every day. Post-offices are being opened up, and banks are already doing a large business. It is estimated that from ten to fifteen thousand people, exclusive of those in the towns, have permanently located in the new Territory since it was opened to the public.

THE Upper Columbia Sabbath-school Association will hold its annual session during the camp-meeting, at Colfax, W. T., May 21 to 28, 1889. D. T. FERO, Pres.

THE Upper Columbia Health and Temperance Society will hold an annual session in connection with the camp-meeting, to be held at Colfax, W. T., May 21 to 28, 1889. D. T. FERO, Pres.

Obituary.

CARPENTER.—Died of typho's pneumonia, after an illness of six days, March 19, 1889, in Peace Dale, Rhode Island, Brother B. F. Carpenter, aged 61 years, 6 months, and 19 days. He embraced the Third Angel's Message about twenty-six years ago, and remained firm in the truth until death. He was a kind husband and father, and was highly respected by all who knew him. He was a member of the Curtis Corner church, of which he was leader at the time of his death. They lay him away in deep sorrow, to rest until Jesus comes to give a crown of life and immortality to his own. When informed that his recovery was doubtful, he calmly replied, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." He leaves a wife and one daughter. May God bless the afflicted family, and may they be prepared for a reunion in the kingdom of God. Remarks by the writer, from Rev. 14:13.

J. B. GOODRICH.