p. 766 | News Items

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 16, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 48.

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News Items

—Jefferson Davis died at New Orleans on the 6th inst., aged 81 years.

—Solomon Hirsch, of Oregon, has been appointed Minister to Turkey.

—The public debt was decreased $4,869,672 during the month of November.

—Kansas City recently added twenty-two square miles to its corporate limits.

—Los Angeles is to have a smelting establishment for gold and silver ores, to cost $100,000.

—President Harrison suggests that Congress provide a stronger and more satisfactory government for Alaska.

—Queen Victoria says she has long been opposed to the popular sport of stag hunting, and has decided to abolish it.

—At a recent fire in Franklin, Ky., three colored children were burned to death. They had been left at home alone.

—Important discoveries have been made of the details of the attempt to assassinate the Hungarian Prime Minister, Tisza.

—It is reported that the fugitive Frenchman, General Boulanger, has been engaged for a series of lectures in the United States.

—The Peking (China) Gazette claims to have been in existence 1,000 years, and asserts that 1,900 of its editors have been beheaded.

—The cashier of the House of Representatives of Congress is a defaulter for over $70,000, the missing funds being the salaries of Congressmen.

—A three-story brick building, corner Second and Huntington Streets, Philadelphia, was burned on the 2d inst., including six human lives in the loss.

—The President's message to Congress favors the proposal of Senator Blair to give money from the national treasury to educate the negroes of the South.

—An English syndicate has purchased for $2,000,000 all the coal mines, nine in number, on the line of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad in Macon Co., Mo.

—The confession of a Los Angeles burglar implicates the head of a detective firm, A. J. Lucas by name, as being also the head of a series of mysterious burglaries.

—A New York dispatch of the 2d inst. says: "An incoming bark reports that yesterday at the Delaware breakwater she passed three dead bodies floating in the water."

—A contract for thirty-six large guns, to cost 4,500,000 marks, has been concluded with Krupp by the Chinese Government. The guns are intended for the Northern forts.

—Of 1,549 marriages in Prussia last year between blood relations, 1,422 were between cousins, 110 between uncles and nieces, and 16 between aunts and nephews.—New York Sun.

—The Oakland Morning Times proposes a fund for the purpose of giving a turkey dinner to all the poor in the city. It claims that there were 500 hungry families in the city on Thanksgiving-day.

—Throughout most of the State of California, the rainfall the present season has been double that of last year up to the same date. In some localities it has been three times as much as last year.

—A discovery of gold on the banks of the river Imperial, in Chili, is reported. The governor of Nueva Imperial has taken, it is said, to Santiago a nugget weighing 22,860 ounces avoirdupois.

—The American bark Cheesbrough was destroyed in a gale in Japanese waters, October 30, and nineteen lives lost. There was terrible suffering during the disaster, and only four persons were saved.

—The President has appointed Justice David J. Brewer, of Kansas, to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The new appointee is a nephew of Justice Stephen J. Field.

—The superstition in regard to Friday being an unlucky day has such a hold on seamen that even an admiral of the U. S. navy would not start out on a cruise with a squadron of new vessels on that day.

—The proposed emigration of Mormons to the rich prairie lands of the Northwest Territory, is not receiving much favor in the Dominion of Canada. Sir John Macdonald recommends special legislation on the subject.

—The California State Board of Examiners have passed an appropriation of $50,000 for the purchase of a site for the home of feeble-minded children, at Glen Ellen, Sonoma County. The property is known as the Hill Ranch.

—The Supreme Court of California has decided that a street-car conductor has no right to eject a passenger who has nothing less than a five-dollar gold piece. The legal principle is that the amount tendered must be reasonable.

—The depredations of the seal pirates in Alaskan waters are becoming so serious that the Alaska Commercial Company will not renew its lease of the American seal islands unless the United States guarantees protection from the illicit hunter.

—The French steamship Bearn recently arrived at Argentine and Brazilian ports with 270 Turks on board. Neither government would allow these would-be emigrants to land, and the vessel consequently carried them back to Europe.

—There are at present the United States of America, the United States of Mexico, the United States of Venezuela, the United States of Colombia, and the United States of Brazil, to which will soon be added the United States of Central America.

—The product exhibition known as "California on Wheels" started on its second tour of the continent on the 3d inst., from San Francisco. The train consists of three cars. New exhibits will be forwarded to it every week by the State Board of Trade.

—A plan for a system of floating light-houses and relief stations at intervals across the Atlantic, has been laid before the International Marine Conference at Washington. The proposed stations would be about 170 miles apart, and the estimated cost, $2,500,000.

—Officers of whaling vessels report that the Indians along the shores of the Arctic Ocean have learned to distill spirits and make rum. Of course it is horrible stuff, but it intoxicates, and that is all they want. It is said to be killing them off at a rapid rate.

—There was an explosion in the Trefz Brewery, Newark, N. J., on the 2d inst., and "rivers of beer" ran in the streets, flooding a number of cellars. This is one of the breweries recently purchased by an English syndicate, and their loss by this disaster is $175,000.

—A Vienna dispatch of the 2d inst. says: "In Austria a great snow-storm has been raging for thirty-six hours, seriously impeding railway travel. Three thousand sweepers and twenty-four snowplows were unable to clear the tracks in the neighborhood of this city."

—Alton Bay, N. H., experienced two lively shocks of earthquake on the 3d inst. Large quantities of crockery and glassware were broken, clocks were stopped, the bell of a steamer on the bay was rung, and the people rushed out of their houses, thinking they were going to fall.

—A Berlin dispatch says: "Two hundred thousand miners, employed in the Treasury coal mines, in the Saar district, have petitioned the kaiser to intervene in their behalf. They complain that even unmarried men cannot live on the wages they now get, as all things are very dear."

—The Chinese steamer Gaelic arrived in San Francisco on the 1st inst. The revenue cutter Bear had gone out to intercept her, and search for smuggled opium; but the big steamer ran away from the government vessel, and came into port ahead. The captain will be prosecuted for refusing to heed the order of the government officer to halt.

—The restaurateur who furnished the luncheon for the Pan-American delegates, at the White House, has had experience with six Presidents. He says: "Mr. Harrison is quite liberal. There were four cases of champagne, besides sherry and Chateau Margaux, and three cases of champagne were drunk. There was no limit placed upon anything."

—In the German Reichstag, recently, in the presence of the emperor and Prince Bismarck, Herr Bebel, a Socialist deputy, uttered the following, among other pointed remarks: "The people desire peace, but the government is driving them towards war. During the past three years we have spent nearly a billion marks for preparation, and there seems to be no end to it."

—In deference to the petition of careful (?) mammas of Paris, that Sarah Bernhart would play in some role which they could safely take their daughters to witness, she has consented to appear in "Joan of Arc" during the Christmas holidays. Society is in a decidedly bad plight where there is such a desire to patronize an actress who cannot deign to be decent without a special petition. It will be little short of an accident if her attempt at decency under such pressure does not prove a failure.

—Emin Pasha, who had just been rescued from a perilous situation in the heart of Africa, by Henry M. Stanley, met with an accident which may prove fatal, just as he came to the borders of civilization. The company were resting in a village, where they were to take a steamer for Zanzibar, when the Pasha (who is a German) walked off a parapet of the hotel, and met with serious injuries. His near-sightedness was the cause of the accident. Since the death of General Gordon, he had been endeavoring to carry on the work of civilization, and was governor of some equatorial provinces, but his enemies cut off his communication with the coast, and he was in a precarious situation, until relieved and escorted out by Stanley.