News and Notes by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 6, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 39.

News and Notes.

By Editor

FOR THE WEEK ENDING JULY 30.

RELIGIOUS.

—The Catholic Episcopal residence at Milwaukee has been assessed for $403,150. Archbishop Katzer has protested, and will carry the matter into the courts.

—The latest addition to the long list of detractions from the church itself as a practical working power, is the organization of the Senior Society of Christian Endeavor.

—Protestant ministers oppose, and Catholic ministers favor, the proposition to open the Smithsonian Institute, the National Museum, the Washington Monument, and the Botanic Garden, at Washington City.

—It is said that the faculty of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., has forbidden the university managers of athletic games to arrange any game that will require Sunday traveling. The games and the gambling connected with them are, however, tolerated as usual.

—A movement is on foot among the ultra-orthodox Jews of San Francisco to establish a Hebrew free school, to be called Talmud Tora, where children will receive instruction in the Talmud and in general Hebrew lore in accordance with the tenets of the strictest Hebrew orthodoxy.

—The Anaheim (Cal.) Gazette gives a graphic account of a "Living Whist" performance for the benefit of St. Boniface Church. The entertainment was in the opera house, and consisted of a dance in which a game of whist was played with costumed gentlemen and ladies in lieu of cards.

—Protestants in America are considerably shocked by the reports of religious tyranny in Russia, where the children of Stundists, Baptists, and other dissenters, are forcibly taken and baptized into the Greek Church. Of course this is all wrong, but is it any worse to compel people to be baptized than to compel Sabbath keeping, or any other religious observance?

—The rector of St. Leo's Catholic Church of Tacoma, Wash., complains that "the influence of the A. P. A. is driving Catholics out of office" in that city, "and if it is continued it will ruin the city." A parish club has been organized for the purpose of interesting candidates for office in providing places for Catholics. Nothing so exasperates the Church of Rome as to lose political footing. Her citadel of power is political prestige.

—It has transpired that six members of a Christian Church at Elmwood, Neb., are responsible for having a licensed saloon in the town. But for these six signatures the applicant could not have secured the required number to obtain a license. And the pastor of the church apologizes by stating that these brethren thought it better to have a licensed saloon than to have a "hole in the wall" running without a license. Legalizing wrong is a rather novel antidote.

—The shallowness of the religion of State churches is illustrated in the fact that a princess of the royal family of Great Britain has gone over to the Greek Church in compliance with the demand of the czar as a condition of marriage with his son. Yet there are many professed Protestants in this country who, under the specious delusion of National Reform, would fain set up a State church here. They would enforce the "form of godliness" by the civil law, thus "denying the power" of godliness without government aid.

—A writer in the Catholic News of July 4, in a most scathing manner, shows up the duplicity of Rev. James M. King, D.D., "expounder and spokesman of the National League for the Protection of American Institutions." A speech of Mr. King in 1886 is freely quoted, where he took strong ground in favor of religious teaching in public schools at State expense. As representing the views of the Evangelical Alliance, this address was presented to Senator Blair's famous Committee on Education and Labor, in 1889, in advocacy of the proposed Educational Amendment to the Constitution. Amongst other strong statements is this: "Secularized education is a misnomer; it is no education at all; the verdict of mankind in every age, under every civilization, is against it." But Mr. King, voicing the sentiment of the National League, is now before the New York Constitutional Convention, demanding schools without any religion. In view of the many strong utterances while advocating his former position, the writer in the News demands an explanation of Mr. King's present demand. The probability is that he has not really changed his views. The situation is explainable by the fact that several Protestant denominations have been brought to see the error of State support to denominational schools through the discouraging showing that Rome was distancing them all combined in the race for State aid. Should it come about that the Methodists, or even all Protestants taken together, could outdo the Catholics in the matter of securing State spoils, Mr. King's former expressions would probably be resurrected. But such a time will never come; Rome has the upper hand, and will keep it. Protestantism, under whatever "league" or "alliance," never will win the victory in a political battle with the mistress of political religion. True Protestantism knows but one effective weapon,—"the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."

SECULAR.

—A strange disease, resembling blood poisoning, has caused three deaths at Minerva, Ohio.

—It is said that from 20,000 to 30,000 steerage passengers leave this country for Europe every month.

—A Chinese leper has been discovered working in a butcher's shop in San Francisco's "Chinatown."

—Fire destroyed 2,000 houses at Cottell, Bulgaria, on the 28th inst., resulting in great privation to many people.

—W. F. Morgan, a New York millionaire, is obliged to answer in a New Jersey court for docking the tails of his horses.

—The Anglo-American Telegraph Company, on the 28th inst., completed the laying of the largest Atlantic cable yet put down.

—The governor of Hongkong reports that 120,000 persons have died from the plague that has been prevalent in the Canton District.

—A quite large region of country in Finland is said to have been invaded by bears, and Russian troops have been sent to kill them.

—The U. S. steamer Newark, flagship of the South American squadron, has gone to Cape Town, South Africa, to be docked and cleaned.

—The Industrial Army, in camp at Roslyn, Va., opposite Washington, finding themselves in bad straits, have issued an appeal to the public for aid.

—At midnight of the 27th inst. at Mendota, Minn., a freight train was wrecked by strike sympathizers, who pounded the engineer and fireman.

—Reports of oppressive heat come to us from the East. On the 29th inst. there were eight cases of sunstroke at New York, and fourteen at Philadelphia.

—Hon. James H. Mulligan, of Kentucky, the newly appointed Consul General to Samoa, left San Francisco on the Australian steamer Monowai on the 30th inst.

—The San Francisco Examiner has put into circulation a petition asking Congress for a foreclosure of the government mortgage on the Central and Union Pacific Railroads.

—A heavy rain fell in Central Illinois, on the 28th inst., and it is said that crops of corn and other produce are thus saved from destruction by the prevailing heat and drought.

—Early in the morning of the 29th inst., at Chicago, a Burlington engine was shattered by dynamite, which had been placed on the track. A special officer and switchman were also injured.

—General Miles' report of strike matters in and about Chicago, says that from July 7-12 there were 33 persons killed, 784 cars and locomotives burned or wrecked, and 122 cars overturned and more or less damaged.

—A Denver dispatch of the 28th inst. says that travelers from the East report widespread destruction of crops by hot winds, in Kansas and Nebraska. The highways are thronged with disheartened settlers moving eastward.

—A late Providence, R. I., dispatch states that the city is fast becoming the Mecca for Chinamen desiring to marry white girls, and there is strong suspicion of the existence of a matrimonial bureau for supplying the demand.

—San Franciscans have decided to discard the big street-sweeping machines, and to have the work done by hand, thus giving employment to hundreds of men. They say it will cost but little more, and better work will make up the difference.

—Los Angeles and the region round about for a considerable distance were startled by an earthquake shock on the 28th inst. Several congregations of worshipers were somewhat hastily dispersed. The shock was felt from the sea as far east as Colton and Mohave.

—The Chilean Senate has passed an amnesty bill which permits the return of all Balmacedists and other exiles without distinction, and annuls the sentences recently passed upon the former Balmacedist ministers. No opposition is expected in the House of Deputies.

—The California Prohibitionist makes this significant comment on the strike: "If the good people who have been so earnest in protecting railroad interests and property the past two weeks, were one-half as zealous in organizing to protect humanity from the curse of the saloon, the occasion for strikes and strikers in a large sense would be ended."

—It is stated that the war is actually on between Japan and China in Corea, and that the Japs have seized and hold the Corean king as a hostage. A Chinese transport carrying 1,100 soldiers bound for Corea, was sunk by a Japanese war vessel, and the greater part of the soldiers drowned. The latest advices state that the British Government is anxious to bring about a settlement of the trouble, but that Russia now seems indifferent. Chinese agents are buying large quantities of arms in this country.

—Coxey at last advises his dupes, who have collected in the vicinity of Washington City to the number of about 1,500, to go into the city and allow themselves to be arrested as vagrants, while he returns to his home in Ohio to run for Congress. Perhaps some day the laboring classes will learn that the ambitious leaders of strikes and other foolish uprisings only design to use their victims as stepping-stones to personal notoriety—and perhaps they will not. The lesson has long been written on the board in very plain characters.

—"General" Kelly, who led an Industrial Army from this city to Washington City, has returned. He says that he left his army of 1,200 men encamped on a reservation opposite the Capitol, which is neutral ground, and not subject to either the District of Columbia or the State of Virginia. He expects to raise other companies and take them where they will in some way become a care on the general government instead of being a burden to the State. His reason for so doing is that "the government made these men paupers, and we want them to go to the power that pauperized them."

—The A. R. U. branch union of this city, after a stormy session on the night of the 28th inst., declared the strike off, by a vote of 187 to 147. A daily newspaper that has in many ways encouraged the strike, says: "The conservative friends of the strikers urged them to declare the strike off two weeks ago, but the leaders were determined to make a protracted fight, and their blind obstinacy has cost many a man a chance to earn bread for his family. Fully one hundred of the strikers, realizing that their chances of getting back their positions were very slim, have struck out in all directions looking out for other employment."

—Fred Funston, a government explorer who has been engaged in Northern Alaska for two years, wrote, under date of December 1, from Fort McPherson, McKenzie River, British Northwest Territory, that he had been informed by the natives that six whaling vessels from San Francisco were locked in the ice near Herschel Island, in the Arctic Ocean. Funston stated that he would return to the Rampart House, on the Porcupine River, and about March 1 start for Herschel Island to look up the whalers. His letter had to travel 2,000 miles on the Hudson Bay Company's dog sleds, to Quebec, and has just been received in San Francisco.

—Destructive fires are reported in the Northwest. On the 27th inst. the town of Phillips, in Price Co., Wis., was caught by gales of fire from a burning forest, and almost entirely consumed. Thirteen people were drowned in Elk Lake, while endeavoring to escape. Three thousand people are left homeless, and are appealing to other towns for help. Several railroad bridges have been burned, and at Ashland Junction a train of sixteen cars was burned, having broken through a bridge. Near Oshkosh, on the opposite side of the river, lumber and buildings to the value of $200,000 were destroyed. A Grand Rapids dispatch says forest fires are raging along the line of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul, and the Green Bay and Minnesota Railroads. At Chilton nine buildings were burned on the 28th inst. Fires are also said to be making destructive headway near Iron Mountain, Mich., doing great damage to standing pine. A heavy rain saved the city of Duluth from imminent destruction. At Brooklyn, Iowa, sixteen buildings, including the post office, the Chronicle office, and the Powsheik County Bank, were destroyed on the 28th inst.