p. 47 | News and Notes by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 20, 1893

News and Notes.

By Editor

FOR THE WEEK ENDING NOVEMBER 13.

RELIGIOUS.

—The annual Convention of Christians at Work in the United States and Canada is now in session at Atlanta, Ga.

—Ministers of several denominations have united with the Massachusetts Sunday Protective League in a protest against the Sunday papers of Boston.

—The Christian Endeavor movement is being introduced in the Chinese missions of California by all the denominations that uphold that movement.

—A Sunday-closing ordinance went into effect last week in Santa Barbara, Cal., which includes all business houses except drug stores, bakeries, and news stands.

—A murderer who a few weeks ago fatally shot two men in this city, and was himself seriously wounded, now professes penitence and has joined the Catholic Church.

—A Cleveland, Ohio, dispatch says that a conference of Liberal Presbyterian ministers has resulted in a decision to remain in the churches to which they belong until forced out.

—The decision in the case of the city of Redlands, Cal., against Captain Paine, of the Salvation Army, found guilty of disturbing the peace in violation of an ordinance forbidding the beating of drums on the streets, has been sustained by the Supreme Court, and the Salvation Army hereafter will be compelled to dispense with the drum in their street parades.

—Rev. Reams, who eloped from Fresno, Cal., some two or three months ago, with a young girl of his flock, and afterward escaped from custody in Victoria after his arrest, was recently recognized in Seattle, Wash., where he was engaged as a painter under an assumed name, and had become quite prominent in church work. He suddenly left when he learned that a man from Vancouver had recognized him.

—Dr. Martin, of Missouri, the noted revivalist of the Christian denomination, is holding meetings in Stockton, Cal., and has collided with the other evangelical ministers. In reply to some of his assertions, they united in publishing him as sailing a pirate craft, flying the Christian flag. They also denounced him as an Ishmael and a Judas. Martin retorts in kind, and tells how his accusers recently attended a "purity meeting" of one Mrs. Teats, at which "they themselves had made statements which no paper had had the temerity to publish." A press dispatch says, "The spicy altercation is making the ungodly smile."

—Governor Pennoyer, of Oregon, is so tenacious of his own prerogative in the State that he has issued a proclamation for a Thanksgiving day one week in advance of the time designated by the President. He hopes that the next Legislature will "designate Thanksgiving day by statute, thus obviating the necessity of any proclamation." Probably such a measure is not improbable, as the religio-political trend is all toward worship by legal compulsion. Such would be the natural result of the "Christian nation" theory. The Ministerial Association of Salem (the capital) and the faculty of the Willamette University have decided to observe the day appointed by the President.

—A late number of the Occident comments on the fact that a California city of 50,000 people has thirty-five organizations dispensing charity, many of which overlap each other, producing a great waste of time and means. People with the best of motives "impulsively start up some new enterprise with a high-sounding name, the object of which could be far more economically and satisfactorily accomplished through an organization already in existence." This evil is not only true of merely charitable organizations, in the ordinary sense of the term, but it is especially true in modern church work. The tendency is to multiply special organizations to do the work for which the church itself was organized, all of which the one organization could accomplish far more economically and harmoniously, and, therefore, more efficiently. Not only so, but this adding to the machinery is an insinuation that the church is not sufficient for its legitimate work, and that the Lord failed to foresee the necessities of his cause when he set the machinery in motion.

SECULAR.

—Three inches of snow fell in Omaha, Neb., on the 11th inst.

—The census shows that 140,000 men in Georgia cannot read their votes.

—A Constantinople dispatch of the 10th inst. reports a recurrence of the cholera, with fifty new cases.

—The new extradition treaty between the United States and Sweden and Norway will go into effect December 9.

—The heads of the Berlin Jewish community will send a petition to the emperor protesting against the anti-Semitic excesses.

—Another small rebellion in Cuba has been very promptly squelched, the participants having been defeated in the first engagement.

—At Fort Wayne, Ind., on the 12th inst., the World's Museum building and Aldine Hotel were destroyed by fire. Loss, $100,000.

—U. S. Senator Jones, of Nevada, an extensive owner of silver mines, is now investing heavily in North Carolina gold mines. So says a press dispatch.

—Colorado mining men are turning their attention to California. Quite a number are in the State now, quietly at work prospecting in the foothills of the Sierras.

—A press correspondent reports that the periodical revolution has again struck the government of Haiti, the rebels having declared in favor of General Manigat.

—The new U. S. cruiser Olympia, recently completed in San Francisco, has made her trial trip, with a record of 21.26 knots per hour, the fastest record of any vessel in the navy.

—A meeting of labor and trades unions in Philadelphia, last week, passed resolutions declaring in general terms that the Knights of Labor officers are corrupt and should not be reëlected at the approaching convention.

—Another battle between the British troops and the Matabeles in South Africa is reported. Fully a thousand Matabeles were killed, and they were completely routed. The British loss was only three killed and seven wounded.

—The Red Man, organ of the Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, Pa., speaks out squarely against the principle of "specializing" Indian education through either the church or the State. It says: "Massing tribes, massing races, Cahensleyizing, are un-American principles."

—At Breslitovsk, Germany, on the 10th inst., an explosion of chemicals wrecked a large building entirely and damaged several others. Twenty persons were killed, and a large number injured. The disaster is said to have been wholly the result of carelessness on the part of chemists.

—Judge Morrow, of the U. S. District Court, San Francisco, has decided that a personal letter containing obscenity, if securely sealed, sent through the mails, does not constitute an indictable offense. This is a new ruling, and District Attorney Garter will appeal the case involved to a higher court.

—The town of North Middleton, Ky., was terrorized on the 12th inst. by eight desperadoes riding into town and shooting promiscuously at citizens. It is supposed they were bent on robbery; but they were finally driven out, with three of their number badly wounded. One citizen, an old colored man, was fatally wounded.

—Disobedience of orders is accredited with another railroad collision, the time and place being the 9th inst., near Rising Sun, Ohio. The engineers of both trains, a fireman, and an express messenger were killed. Another collision at Seventy-first Street Station, Chicago, caused the death of four persons and the injury of thirty.

—A party of unemployed men numbering about 100 camped near Colton, Cal., on the 11th inst. They are said to have been officered and well organized. A committee of four went over to San Bernardino in quest of raw food to last them till they could get to Arizona. Their immediate wants were supplied by the city marshal.

—The New South Wales mineral exhibit at the World's Fair has been attached by the Sells Circus Co., on a suit for alleged damages while the show was in Australia last year. The N. S. W. Government appeals to the United States for protection, on the ground that the colony is the guest of this government for exhibition purposes.

—In Barcelona, Spain, on the 8th inst., while 4,000 people were assembled in an opera house, two dynamite bombs were thrown from a gallery to the lower floor. One of them exploded, causing the death of thirty people and the injury of eighty others. Several Anarchists were arrested, and one is said to have confessed his part in the crime.

—A late steamer arrival at Victoria, B. C., brings word from Alaska that there have been four earthquakes during the summer at St. Augustine Island (Chorna Borna), where the mountain is now emitting dense clouds of smoke, forewarning another eruption. The natives, remembering the devastation caused by the eruption twelve years ago, are deserting the island in haste, abandoning all their interests. The last eruption rendered useless all existing charts of the neighboring waters, causing five shipwrecks.

—In Elyria, Ohio, on the 6th inst., a man named Manning shot and killed his wife, who had commenced divorce proceedings against him. He then shot and seriously wounded her sister, after which he killed himself. On the same day, in Dallas, Texas, a wealthy young man named Martin shot to death a Miss Cole, and then committed suicide.

—The Brazilian Government is said to have an agent in Baltimore enlisting men for the army of that country. The news from the rebellion is quite conflicting, the latest being to the effect that the rebel navy was again shelling Rio Janeiro, in hopes of making their success decisive before the arrival of the new government squadron now being fitted up at New York.

—An express train was robbed at Mayfield Trestle, Kentucky, on the 11th inst., by five masked men. The men had previously boarded the train, and, covering the engineer with a gun, he was compelled to stop and go with them to the express car. To save the engineer's life the messenger gave out two bags of money, something over $7,000. The engineer was then ordered to move on.

—By way of Victoria, B. C., we have news of a series of massacres of traders in the New Hebrides Islands. The latest was a raid by bushmen on an American vessel's boat which lay on the beach of the island of Pentecost. The traders were exchanging merchandise for natives, to be hired out on other islands of the group. Three men were killed, and the others escaped to the ship.

—When the Pacific Mail Steamship Company's steamer Costa Rica, flying the U. S. flag, left the port of Amapala, Honduras, on the 6th inst., seven cannon shots were fired after her by order of the authorities. The reason was the refusal of the captain to surrender General Vasquez, the defeated revolution leader, who was a passenger on the steamer. The Honduran Government has since apologized for the act.

—The trouble with the Moors is demonstrating the weakness of Spain as a government. Although there are 20,000 troops at Melilla, Morocco, they are unable to break the siege thrown around them by the Moors, and the home efforts to reinforce the Melilla garrison are notably slow for such an emergency. Besides this, the government finds it necessary to take extra precautions to guard against Anarchism at home.

—Secretary of State Gresham has written a report disavowing on the part of the government all the acts of Minister Stevens and Captain Wiltse in connection with the dethroning of the Hawaiian queen and the establishment of the provisional government. The new Minister, Mr. Willis, has not yet been heard from, and the modus operandi of the new policy is not yet fully understood in this country; but it is a subject of much and varied speculation.

—A London dispatch of the 12th inst. says: "All the horrors of famine are now raging in the mining districts. The newspapers are filled daily with an appalling story of death, destitution, and mute endurance. The terrible record of the London dock strike of five years ago did not match the present truth about the English midlands. The newspapers of to-day, for instance, tell about one community of 200 families which existed two or three weeks on two meals a week of plain bread, supplied by charity. This pitiful ration has now been cut down to one meal a week."

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