News and Notes by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 24, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 46.

News and Notes.

By Editor

FOR THE WEEK ENDING SEPTEMBER 17.

RELIGIOUS.

—A season of self-denial, to provide funds for missions to the heathen, is said to be in progress throughout the Anglican Church in Australasia.

—Nine Methodist missionaries will arrive in San Francisco on the 2d inst., and will sail for China on the 25th. They will be accompanied by thirteen children.

—The Catholic News says that "Fathers Brady and Wyman, of the Paulist Order," left New York on the 8th inst. for California, where they will be engaged until Christmas or thereabouts in missionary work.

—General Booth, of London, who with his wife at one time constituted the entire Salvation Army, started for America on the 11th inst. He will make a tour of the principal Northern and Western cities, coming as far as the Pacific Coast.

—The British Consul at Angora, Asiatic Turkey, reports that in accordance with instructions of the Porte, 170 Armenians sentenced by the Yassgat Court have been released, and orders have been given to reopen the cases of seventeen who have been condemned to death.

—Schweinfurth, the noted false christ who has his "heaven" near Rockford, Ill., has converted his brother, who resides at Jackson, Mich., and is worth considerable property, which of course will go into George Jacob's general fund. A sister is also one of the dupes.

—A minister of this city, who is also a rancher, a lecturer for the State Grange, and a candidate for the Legislature, finding that he has more on hand than he can attend to, has decided to drop the ministry. The decision is no doubt a wise one, for had he been a faithful preacher of the gospel he could not have found place for all the other callings. Even the apostle Paul could find time for only "this one thing."

—The Kansas City (Mo.) Star says that a living petition of 600 men and women, representing thirty-five churches in that city, recently called upon the board of police commissioners to ask the enforcement of the law requiring saloons to be closed on Sunday. A petition on paper was also presented, said to contain 4,000 names. The visitors declared their intention to keep coming until the saloons are closed, front and rear, and then they will begin on Sunday baseball.

—A religious fight occurred at Homah City, Bombay, early in the morning of the 13th inst. A midnight Mohammedan meeting was in progress in the mosque, when a Hindu procession with music passed by. The Mohammedans raised the war cry and a fight followed, lasting three hours. It is said that 4,000 people were engaged, mostly Hindus. The mosque was sacked, and an attempt was made to burn it, which was prevented. Many people were injured in the fight.

—The religious newspapers are discussing the question of the "best one hundred books for a Sunday school library." The New York Evangelist secured lists from many Presbyterian Sunday schools, and these lists show some curious features. The favorite book, which appears upon 91 per cent of the lists, is General Wallace's "Ben Hur;" Mrs. Prentiss' "Stepping Heavenward" is second; Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" ranks third, and Edward Everett Hale's "In His Name" is fourth.

—Recent interviews between the Vatican and the Quirinal, and concessions on the part of the Italian Government to the Roman Church, are set forth as indications of a reconciliation between King Humbert and the pope. It is safe to say that there will be no such reconciliation without decided advantage to the Vatican. In a recent speech of Premier Crispi at Naples, Cardinal San Felice was on the platform and the premier went out of his way to compliment him and to summon the church and the State to join their forces against the common enemy.

—One of the speakers at an "evangelical" revival effort in progress in San Francisco sets forth that "the faithful" will be taken to heaven within the next two years. But his argument is decidedly speculative. The Examiner reports him as follows: "He said that Professor Totten, of Yale, and others have figured that the planets will be in such position in 1896 that the first letter of each planet's name, taken in the order of their appearance in the heavens, will spell the name 'Jehovah.'" The speaker dealt largely in cipher meanings of the Scriptures, claiming to read by a manner akin to the cryptogram. Where the Bible in places speaks of a given number of weeks, he held it meant weeks of years; and by such interpretation he also arrived at the conclusion that the elect would be called to heaven by 1896. Whoever undertakes to follow the Totten theology will have to do a great deal of cryptography and deciphering, and then reap delusion for his pains.

—The modern American idea of a few people signing petitions for the masses seems to be increasing in favor. The General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian Church has indorsed what is known as the W. C. T. U. world's petition in the name of a membership of 1,343,000. The idea of that mode of petitioning originated with the American Sabbath Union.

SECULAR.

—France is said to have succeeded in finding some trivial pretext for pressing poor Madagascar as she did Siam.

—Fire in the business portion of Scranton, Pa., on the 15th inst., destroyed property to the value of $300,000.

—The Retail Clerks' Association of Chicago are reviving the movement for closing stores evenings and on Sundays.

—A tornado swept over the vicinity of Westfield, Wis., on the 14th inst., doing great damage to farm buildings, crops, etc.

—A Dayton, Ohio, dispatch says that drought has left an epidemic of typhoid fever through all the upper Miami Valley.

—From the annual meeting of 1893 to that of 1894, the Grand Army of the Republic was reduced in numbers by deaths 28,189.

—Two editors of rival papers at Gatesville, Texas, fought a duel on the 15th inst.; both were killed, and a bystander was fatally wounded.

—A collision of railroad trains at Apilly, France, on the 9th inst., caused the death of a dozen persons, and a score or more of others were injured.

—Notwithstanding it has been a time of peace, the nations of Europe have, since 1885, increased their annual military and naval expenses by $90,000,000.

—The proposition of the government to return the Apache chief Geronimo and his band to Arizona is meeting with strong opposition by the people of that Territory.

—One day last week Merced, Cal., had fire alarms on an average of one to the hour all day. The fires were caused by some fiend throwing phosphorus into hay barns.

—In honor of Nicaraguan independence the president, on the 16th inst., pardoned all the prisoners, including some Americans, charged with aiding the late Mosquito rebellion.

—The old United States ship Swatara, which has been lying at Mare Island Navy Yard for some time out of service, is to be refitted as a school ship. The remodeling will cost $90,000.

—A storm on the southwest coast of Spain, on the 12th inst., flooded the towns of Gala and Javea, and it is reported that many lives were lost. A number of vessels in the Bay of Gala were wrecked.

—The Commissioners of Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, have decided to purchase the Midwinter Fair attraction known as the Japanese Village. It is to be turned into a permanent sea garden.

—The officers of the Chicago Health Department believe that horse meat is being sold as corned beef in that city. At best flesh eating is bad, but the uncertainty as to what kind or quality one eats is decidedly worse.

—France and Germany are said to be very anxious for a permanent peace with each other, but France is determined to recover Alsace and Lorraine, and Germany is equally determined not to surrender these trophies of her victory of 1870.

—Congressman Breckinridge, of the Ashland District, Kentucky, has been defeated in his party convention for renomination. It was a clear case of women in politics; the women simply arose and said that their good name was at stake.

—Ali Cherif, president of the Egyptian Legislative Council, and Hassan Wacey, a retired general of the army, have been convicted on charges of buying slave girls brought from Waday. Sharavi Pasha, charged with a like offense, left the country.

—A revised treaty between Great Britain and Japan has been ratified, but it does not go into effect until 1899. It comprehends the abolishing of foreign courts, and Great Britain wants Japan to improve her judiciary system before the treaty goes into effect.

—A secret league of seventy students at Tarnopol, Austrian Galicia, having for its object the establishment of a Polish kingdom, has lately been discovered through the church confessional, and a score of the leaguers have been arrested and charged with treason.

—Sir George Dibbs, the somewhat noted premier of New South Wales, Australia, has suddenly resigned, and Mr. G. H. Reid succeeds him in office. Judging from the utterances of the papers, the cause of his retirement is not fully known; but there is now a complete change of government policy, and the province launches forth on the line of free trade. It is also stated that there is a general move on foot for intercolonial free trade throughout Australasia.

—After all the trouble the Nicaraguan Government has had in quelling the Indian revolution in Bluefields, and banishing American and British citizens from the country, the Colombian Government steps in and claims the Bluefields region under an old Spanish title.

—Late dispatches from Oaxaca, Mexico, state that several villages along the Guatemalan border have been sacked by outlaws, and many murders and other outrages have been committed. It is said that the country on both sides of the border line is infested with brigands.

—A Vancouver, B. C., dispatch of the 11th inst. states that the town of Chilliwack was in the possession of highwaymen. The bank was robbed in the daytime, and at night people going out of town were robbed, and the next night a number of houses in the town were raided and robbed.

—A tornado struck the northern part of Memphis, Tenn., on the 12th inst., and carried everything with it. Many houses occupied by colored people were unroofed, and a small Baptist Church was thrown down. About 100 yards of a railroad bridge were carried away. A colored man was killed by a falling chimney, and two other persons were injured.

—The Alaskan boundary surveyors have found that Mount St. Elias is not on the territory of the United States, as heretofore supposed. They have also found that it is not the highest peak on the continent, there being three others further inland, also on British territory, higher than St. Elias; one of those, named Mount Logan, is 19,534 feet in height.

—News comes from Rio Janeiro that the ex-revolutionist Admiral Da Gama is endeavoring to set on foot a movement for the restoration of the Brazilian monarchy. There is general complaint of the tyranny of President Peixoto. It is said that he orders men put to death without even the formality of trial, and that his own guarantee of safety to returning refugees is not respected by himself.

—At Pineapple, Ala., a convention of colored people was held on the 15th inst. to discuss the problem of immigration to Liberia. It was decided to send a committee of ministers to Liberia to investigate the country, and if deemed advisable, to draw up a contract with the government on the basis of its offer to give each family going from America twenty acres of land and the implements necessary to cultivate it.

—It has been discovered at Victoria, B. C., that the "sealing schooner" South Bend, which left that port last April, and recently returned empty, was, in reality, engaged in smuggling opium to the Hawaiian Islands. Interest was first aroused by the fact that although the "sealers" returned without any skins, the crew seemed to have more money to spend than those who had made a fair catch. Finally one of the sailors, in a hilarious mood, let the secret out.

—The people of Andorra are said to be in great excitement. The bishop of Urgel has issued a pastoral letter claiming that he is the sole ruler, and will no longer admit the suzerainty of France. Andorra is a neutral country, with the name of a republic, situated on the south slope of the Pyrenees, between France and Spain. The government consists of twenty-four consuls elected by the people. The inhabitants are mostly shepherds, who speak the Catalan language.

—A colony of twenty-five persons is being organized at English, Ind., to go to Bastidas, Colombia, South America. The organizers promise the members 360 acres of land of the richest soil, or desirable city lots, as they choose, with all the improvements and implements necessary to ply their trade. They are eloquent in praise of the soil, climate, and production, and will no doubt raise a much larger colony than at first was expected. We had supposed that the history of such enterprises was sufficiently known to put people on their guard against them.

—The reports of the war between China and Japan are very conflicting; they vary according to the source from which they come. A missionary lately arrived from China is of opinion that if Japan wins she must do so by striking quickly; that China requires time to move her ponderous population, but if given time, will overwhelm the Japanese armies with the great weight of her numbers. Again, if the Japanese are slow in giving the Coreans all they expect of her, they may yield to the Chinese pressure and their allegiance revert to their old masters.

—At the County Fair held at Somerville, N. J., last week, U. S. Senator Hill delivered an address, in the course of which he uttered the following pertinent sentiment: "In recent years we seem to have lost sight of the good old doctrine that demanded equal rights for all, special privileges for none. Demagogism has been rampant in the land. This has been suggesting not only paternal government, but has been putting it into the heads of the people that all the evils existing in this world can be cured by law. Never was a greater mistake made. That government is the best which ordinarily governs the least, and the least legislation devoted to the interests of a mere class is the most desirable for the public welfare."