p. 14 | FOREIGN | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 5, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 44.

FOREIGN.

—All the workmen at the government arsenal in Constantinople struck, on the 28th ult., because of non-payment of wages.

—Terrible storms are reported on the coast of Portugal. A fishing-boat was foundered on the 29th ult., and fourteen men were drowned.

—A Berlin despatch says Russian officials on the Prussian frontier have seized 100 thick walking-sticks, containing thousands of Nihilist proclamations.

—A strike of 4,000 cabmen in London, October 29, is said to "add another chapter to the long and worrisome dispute between cabmen and railroad authorities."

—A Lima, Peru, despatch of the 27th ult. says that five persons were killed on the French steamer Madeleine by an explosion of gas. The damage to the vessel amounted to about $30,000.

—Great destitution in Labrador is reported by Dr. Greenfelt, superintendent of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, who comes from England yearly, with two assistants, to do medical service on the coast.

—A telegram from St. Paul de Loanda, Portuguese West Africa, says the Portuguese expedition has just punished the rebellious Bendo natives, burning twenty-four of their villages and killing 100 rebels.

—An Athens despatch says that at Taxis a band of Macedonian insurgents recently defeated a detachment of Turkish troops after a long engagement, in which ninety of the Turks were killed and eight were captured.

—One hundred and eighty-eight members of a Cuban secret association, including the editor of La Discussion, have been exiled to the island of Fernando, off the coast of Africa, one of the penal settlements of Spain.

—A caravan from Tomsk, west Siberia, arrived at St. Petersburg on the 29th ult., bringing 7,200 pounds of gold. Another caravan is expected in January. These consignments are independent of those in east Siberia.

—A Rome despatch of October 28 says: "A grand review of troops was held here to-day in honor of the marriage of the crown prince of Italy to Princess Helene of Montenegro. Twenty thousand troops were under arms."

—Advices from Hayti state that a conspiracy to overthrow the government has been discovered at Au-Cayes. Many of the exiles who were recently allowed to return to the island are implicated, as also several government officials.

—A London paper says that "many lines of business are said to have collapsed in Turkey, owing to the terrible scenes that have been enacted there, and the coming winter promises to bring intense suffering to all classes of poor people."

—A cyclone swept over the city and province of Seville, Spain, on the 28th ult., wrecking a great many houses and killing and injuring a number of inhabitants. Telegraph wires were prostrated, greatly delaying appeals for assistance.

—It is now stated, and the German Government does not deny it, that, notwithstanding the triple alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy, there was a secret understanding between Germany and Russia during the last six years of Bismarck's administration.

—Late Bombay advices say that the drought in India continues, and the crop situation is daily becoming more serious. This, together with a shortage in the wheat crop in Russia and Argentina, it is expected, will cause a permanent rise in the price of wheat.

—A number of Cuban prisoners who were landed at Cadiz, Spain, October 26, were followed from the harbor to the jail by a mob. The Cubans were hissed, and stones were thrown at them, the mob finally growing so excited that it was with the greatest difficulty the police landed the prisoners safely in jail.

—A despatch of the 28th ult. reports serious election riots at Tyrnau, Hungary. A detachment of hussars, while attempting to restore order, was stoned by a mob, and one trooper was killed. The hussars thereupon charged with drawn swords, wounding several rioters.

—The dread famine in India is made more dreadful to contemplate from the fact that a great drought there is seldom confined to one season. They generally run three or four years, and sometimes more. In such cases, even the great irrigation improvements are of little or no avail.

—It is officially reported that the Philippine Islands insurrection against Spanish rule has extended to the Sooloo Archipelago. Eight soldiers are reported to have been killed in an attempt to suppress the uprising. In another quarter, however, the Spanish forces have gained a battle, killing seventy-seven insurgents and losing only two soldiers wounded.

—The commander of the British-Egyptian forces calls for an extra appropriation of $320,000 for the purpose of raising the Egyptian army to 15,000 men and continuing the conquest of the Soudan. There has been already expended more than the amount permitted by the international convention, and it is said that Russia and France will protest against the further proposed expedition to Berber and Khartoum.

—Ex-Pope Tolstoi, of the Russian Church, who was recently deposed from the priest's functions because he had refused to clear himself of an accusation that he had been converted to Catholicism, has been arrested at Moscow, and taken to Nijni, where he was condemned by a church tribunal to seven years' banishment from St. Petersburg and Moscow, and was forbidden to hold any state office for twenty years.

—Great festivities attended the opening day of the Coöperative Glass Factory, which has been put up by the former strikers of the Carmaux Glass Works. The strike, which grew out of the discharge of a member of the Glassworkers' Trade Union last year, was transformed into a lockout when the men notified the management of their willingness to return to work. Great excitement was caused by the incident throughout France, and efforts were made to induce the French minister to intervene in the dispute, and secure justice for the working men. The Paris Municipal Council voted large sums of money to support the strikers, and many other municipalities all over the country followed suit. It is stated that all of the profits of the glass works are to be used for a Socialistic propaganda, and in this connection the Socialist press affirm that it is a critical moment for the working men of France.

—The Paris Journal des Débats, commenting on the recent visit of the Russian czar, says: "If, but a little while ago, any one had ventured to predict that the chief of the most powerful and most absolute autocracy in the universe would visit republican and democratic France, and be acclaimed by a tempest of enthusiasm; that the Catholic clergy would chant a Te Deum in honor of the chief of a schismatic church; that the revolutionary town council would offer him a fête eclipsing the most splendid monarchical pageants, he would have been set down as a visionary. And yet those anticipations fall short of the reality." All this is easily accounted for by the Babylonian condition of the world in these last days. The churches are in a medley of confusion, the nations are in a most bewildering perplexity, and France itself is only separated from blooming autocracy by a very thin tissue of nominal republicanism.