p. 14 | FOREIGN | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 3, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 48.

FOREIGN.

—The new bishop of London (Church of England, of course) is said to be an extreme ritualist, officiating in cope and mitre and all the vestments of the most ultra Roman character.

—Mail advices from China report destructive floods along the Yangtze and Han Rivers. At Hanchuan the water was in some streets ten feet deep, entirely submerging the smaller houses.

—The strike in the gas works at Bordeaux, which necessitated the calling in of the soldiers to assist in the works to save the city from being left in darkness, has ended in a compromise.

—A special despatch from Bombay says that 200 Sepoys looted the bazaar at Rawalpindi on the 23d inst. The police were powerless to control them, and two persons were killed, and several injured in the struggle.

—A despatch from Seoul says that a number of Korean officers have been plotting to seize the king and force him to return to the palace. Three Russian officers and eighty seamen, with a field gun, have entered Seoul.

—The Cuban insurgents are accredited with two successful battles against a large force of Spanish troops last week, in the mountains, within twenty-six miles of Havana. The Spanish wounded are said to number 1,700.

—Official notice is given of the formation of the Greater Republic of Central America, comprising the governments of Nicaragua, Salvador, and Honduras as states of the new union. It is expected that Costa Rica and Guatemala will also join the union.

—It is reported upon authority of British naval officers in Chilean waters, that Chile is on the verge of another revolution. The matter of dispute is said to be the enforcement of an obnoxious law in relation to import duties, which serves as a pretext by political malcontents for fomenting national discord.

—There is quite a wide tract of land producing gold dust in the island of Formosa, up the river Tamsui, where natives have been at work on a small scale. Recently a rich gold field was discovered in the mountains further up the river, and the fame of the hitherto unknown district has spread in all directions.

—The crop of apples in England has been almost a total failure this year. Besides, the unusual storms have greatly damaged the orchards, so that, owing to their condition, the apples will not keep, and must be put on the market at once. Yet the best picked Canadian apples at auction only bring from ten to twelve shillings per barrel.

—A London despatch says that United States Ambassador Bayard and wife were “commanded” by the queen to visit Windsor Castle on Thanksgiving day. They were also to sleep at the Castle that night. In consequence Mr. Bayard was obliged to cancel his engagement to preside at the Thanksgiving dinner of the American colony.

—The emperor of Austria conferred the Order of the Golden Fleece upon the Duc d’Orleans, only to discover that the creation of the Duc a knight of the order was invalid, as the statutes require that the ancestors of every knight must have been Roman Catholic for eight generations on both sides. The grandmother of the Duc was a Protestant.

—The North China Daily News announces that the new naval program of the emperor is to build, within five years, six large battle-ships, twelve first-class armored cruisers, twenty second and third class cruisers, and a flotilla of torpedo destroyers. It is further stated that English bankers have promised to advance the money in return for railroad concessions.

—The Hawaiian Government is somewhat independent in the matter of a submarine cable connecting the islands with the outside world. A short time ago almost any proposition would have been accepted, but now, that a franchise is among the desirable boons for which capitalists are seeking, the island republic is not so liberal, having declined to grant exclusive privilege to the Pacific Cable Company.

—The news from the Philippine Islands shows that the Spaniards are making slow progress, if any, in suppressing the insurrection. The reinforcements from Spain are simply new recruits. The Manila correspondent of the Hongkong Press, who was sent out expressly to note the progress of the war, says it will require a large force of the best troops to quell the revolt. This correspondent sends the first adequate account of Spanish torture of natives and half-castes that has been published. He draws a thrilling picture of the cruelties practiced by the Spaniards, and says they have actually revived the tortures of the Inquisition.

—Two torpedo boat destroyers have just been completed at Glasgow for the Spanish Government. They are larger than any vessels of their type heretofore constructed, being 220 feet in length and 22 feet beam, with a trial speed of 28 knots per hour. Their armament consists of two 14-pound Maxim guns, two 16-pounders, and two 37-milimeter automatic Maxims. There are also two 14-inch deck-pivoted torpedo tubes.

—A steamer arrived at St. Johns, N. F., on the 25th ult., from Liverpool, conveying a draft of 800 officers and men to relieve the British garrisons at Halifax, Bermuda, and Esquimalt. This route was adopted in order to test the possibility of despatching troops to Canada rapidly in time of war, and also to see how quickly a garrison could be landed in St. Johns should Great Britain’s necessities compel special efforts to retain the island.

—According to Mr. John Morley, there are throughout the British Empire 290,000,000 people who are professedly antichristian. If, then, the majority have a right to enforce their religion upon the minority, and non-Christians should insist upon their right, Christianity would have to hide its head in the British domain. But when professed Christianity undertakes a work of compulsion in any degree, it thereby shows that it is not Christian.

—At Barcelona, Spain, the attorney-general, who is personally conducting the prosecution of the prisoners under arrest for connection with the throwing of a bomb in a crowded street while a religious procession was passing on June 7 last, has announced that he will ask the court that twenty-eight of the prisoners be sentenced to death and fifty-six condemned to penal servitude for life. Great precautions will be taken against disorder when the sentences are published.

—The San Francisco Chronicle makes the following pertinent comment: “A despatch from Sydney, New South Wales, suggests that New Hebrides Island be placed under the protection of the British flag, in order that the practice of selling the natives into slavery be abated. It is possible that such an arbitrary procedure might result as intimated, but the fact that the British tolerate slavery in Zanzibar, where they have full control, suggests the idea that if it proved convenient to perpetuate the system of selling the natives of New Hebrides into slavery after England established a protectorate, the practice might go on indefinitely.”