News and Notes | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 25, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 12.

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News and Notes.

RELIGIOUS.

—The city of Rome has twenty-two places of Protestant worship.

—The only colored Episcopal Church in New York, St. Phillip's, was dedicated Sunday, Feb. 24.

—A New England church is mentioned which spends $3,000 a year on its choir, and only $150 on missions.

—Stern's "Statistics of the World" gives the number of Catholics at 201,000,000 and Protestants at 106,000,000.

—A French missionary in Tunis says that the most shameless drunkenness reigns among all classes of Mussulman society there, notwithstanding the Koran prohibits the use of wine to the followers of Mohammed.

—March 15 information was received at Fort Smith, Ark., of the murder of Deputy United States Marshal W. A. Moody in Indian Territory by men whom he was trying to arrest. Moody is the sixteenth deputy killed in the Territory within a year.

—It is stated that missionaries stationed in every quarter of the Chinese Empire, and representing all the mission boards in the United States, have joined in a petition to President Harrison for the retention of Col. Charles Denby, of Indiana, as American Minister in China.

—The New York Tribune is authority for the statement that the Rev. Peyton G. Bowman, formerly a well-known Methodist minister, has modified his faith, and has published "numerous writings on the subject of Christ's pre-millennial coming and conditional immortality."

—At a meeting held not long since at Scandinavia, Wisconsin, the representatives of all but one of the Norwegian church bodies in America united upon a basis for organic union. A constitution was adopted, and a new general church body organized, to be known as "The United Norwegian Lutheran Church in America." The participants in this new movement are the Norwegian Conference, consisting of 100 pastors, 204 parochial school-teachers, 384 congregations, and 30,221 communicants; the so-called anti-Missourian of the Old Norwegian Synod, consisting of 110 pastors, 150 congregations, and 30,000 communicants; the Hange Synod, consisting of 60 pastors, 100 congregations, and 8,000 communicants; the Augustana Synod, consisting of 30 pastors, 100 congregations, and 3,500 communicants.

—According to the London Truth, there are in that city seven livings, having an aggregate annual income of $74,500, and an aggregate resident population of 2,724. The incumbents add, in some cases, considerably to their stipends by letting the residences which belong to them, and one of these, having been turned into offices, brings in $5,000 a year, and another $3,500. On the other hand, there are seven East-end livings, just outside the city boundaries, which have an aggregate annual income of $9,100, and an aggregate resident population of 85,131. The living of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, which is in the gift of the Merchant Tailors' Company, is worth no less than $12,500 a year, the population being 431; while St. Andrew's, Undershaft, held by the Bishop of London's assistant, has an income of $12,000, and a population of 327.

SECULAR.

—It is said that Blaine advocates an extra session of Congress.

—Paper is now used as a covering for lead pencils, instead of cedar.

—Constitutional prohibition has been defeated in New Hampshire.

—The actual value of the real estate in New York is said to be $18,000,000,000.

—Hon. John F. Swift, of San Francisco, has been appointed Minister to Japan.

—Twenty lives were lost in a colliery explosion at Wrexham, Wales, on the 13th inst.

—Owing to the civil war raging in that republic, flour now costs $20 per barrel in Hayti.

—Five men were instantly killed by a boiler explosion in Pittsburg, Pa., on the 14th inst.

—An epidemic of scarlet fever is raging in De Lapere township, Lincoln County, Dakota.

—Parnell has brought suit against the London Times for £100,000 for defamation of character.

—About 35,000 tons of twine are now used annually in the United States on self-binding harvesters.

—A boiler explosion in a St. Louis mill on the 10th inst. instantly killed two men and badly scalded another.

—Heavy rains in various parts of California caused floods, washouts, and landslides on the 12th and 13th insts.

—It is thought that the new navy yard which it is proposed to establish on this coast will be at Tacoma, Washington.

—The yield of corn in the United States in 1888 was 2,000,000,000 bushels, or thirty-two bushels to each inhabitant.

—There is in this country nearly 250,000 Indians, exclusive of Alaska. Some 5,000 of these live in the State of New York.

—It is claimed that New Hampshire will give 7,000 majority against the Prohibition Amendment soon to be voted on.

—The Government has decided to establish a quarantine station at Hospital Cove, Angel Island, in San Francisco Bay.

—Sir Edgar Vincent, in his report upon his tour of inspection in Upper Egypt, declares the Soudan to be in a state of famine.

—It is stated that illiteracy is increasing more rapidly among the white citizens of Louisiana than among the colored citizens.

—An attempt was recently made in Mexico to murder President Diaz by wrecking a railroad train on which he was traveling.

—Six thousand persons were present at a recent reception to Parnell, in London, given in honor of his triumph over the Times.

—President Cleveland vetoed 278 bills during his term, 157 more than all his predecessors from Washington up to the present time.

—Anti-slavery societies have been formed in many of the chief cities of France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Spain and Portugal.

—The Pennsylvania railroad system makes the creditable record of losing only three pieces of baggage, out of 5,000,000 pieces handled in 1888.

—Delphi, where once stood the famous Temple of Apollo, has been offered to the Americans for £16,000, for the purpose of carrying on excavations.

—It is stated that the Governor of the Province of West Prussia, in view of the scarcity of farm hands, has suggested the introduction of Chinese labor.

—Patrick Fochry, of Rochester, New York, celebrated his 107th birthday on the 16th inst. He was born in Kings County, Ireland, and is a very active man for his age.

—The Pennsylvania Railroad is arranging to connect New York and Philadelphia at the rate of a mile a minute. Distance, eighty-eight miles; present time, two hours.

—A number of dynamite cartridges, fulminating caps, and three bottles of nitro-glycerine, were found by the police at the Garfield Park gate-house at Chicago on the 13th inst.

—Lady physicians are permitted to practice in Russia, but it is stipulated that they shall only attend on adults of their own sex, but are permitted to attend children of either sex.

—March 14 Robert Sigel, son of Gen. Franz Sigel, charged with irregularities while a clerk in the Pension Agency at New York, pleaded guilty before the United States Commissioner.

—A soldier has been sentenced to death in Oran-Algeria, for throwing a quid of tobacco into the face of Colonel Thierry while Vertjoie was being tried by a court-martial for attempting to desert.

—England's "oldest" clergyman, Rev. Bartholomew Edwards, is dead. He lacked but a week or thereabouts of being a century old, and had been rector of one church for seventy-six years.

—Araba Pasha, who made so much trouble in Egypt some years ago, and who was transported to Ceylon, is allowed free liberty of the island, and the guard about his residence has been withdrawn.

—A gang of robbers recently visited several farmers in the vicinity of Uniontown, Pa., and by torture compelled them to give up all the money that they happened to have by them. Fire was the argument used.

—Four boys, aged about sixteen years, stole a quantity of blasting powder at Akron, Ohio, and started into the country to explode it. On the way the powder was ignited from matches in the pockets of one of the boys, and exploded, frightfully burning all four.

—John A. Kasson, of Iowa, William Walter Phelps of New Jersey, and George H. Bates, of Delaware, were appointed on the 14th inst. Commissioners to represent the United States at the Conference to be held in Berlin concerning affairs in the Samoan islands.

—The Russian Government has been pushing forward the new defenses at Vladivostok, in the Pacific, for some time, and now a sum exceeding 5,000,000 roubles is to be sent for the defense of that place. Several large guns and a quantity of ammunition will be shipped from Odessa next month.

—Charles Ashburner has submitted to the United States Geological Survey a statement showing that the total product of iron and coal of all kinds has increased from 129,975,557 short tons in 1887 to 145,363,744 tons in 1888. The value in 1887 was $182,556,837, which increased to $208,129,806 in 1888.

—A passenger train on the Trans-Caspian Railway, Russia, was, on the 10th inst., thrown from the track in a tunnel, owing to the removal of rails by train wreckers. The result of the derailment was frightful. The killed and injured numbered fifty. The band of robbers who tore up the track was captured.

—Several Chinamen have been arrested in Milwaukee charged with debauching young white girls. As a result of the charge the windows of nearly every laundry in the city were broken and several Chinamen narrowly escaped lynching. In some cases the personal effects of the fleeing laundrymen were destroyed and the United States Government will be asked to pay the damages.

—An Auckland dispatch of the 14th inst. states that everything is quiet in Samoa and that there was no basis for the sensational rumor of the engagement between the Nipsic and the German corvette Olga. The proclamation of martial law has been publicly withdrawn, and the Germans have abandoned all claim to the right of searching incoming vessels for contraband of war.