SECULAR NEWS | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Nov 7, 1878

SECULAR NEWS.

-Seven million deaths are reported from the famine in China.

-Over 55,000 immigrants have sought homes in America so far this year.

-The quarantine in southern cities having been raised, the Louisville and Great Southern railroad has commenced running double daily trains to Little Rock, Memphis, New Orleans, and all southern and southeastern points. Hundreds of refugees are returning to their homes.

-The Japanese government has agreed to grant a loan of $1,500,000 for the purpose of working some of the coal fields which spread over an immense area in the island of Yezo. Recent surveys by geologists warrant the estimate that there is workable coal enough in that island alone to produce a yearly yield for a thousand years equal to that of all Great Britain.

-The Danish government has published a small book of statistics. The total population of the kingdom exceeds 2,000,000, of whom 1,950,000 live in Denmark proper, 72,000 in Iceland, 9,800 in Greenland and 37,500 in the West India colonies. The population of Copenhagen and its suburbs is about 250,000. The average duration of life in Denmark is 50 years, while in England it is 45, in France 32, and in Italy only 30.

-Not a few of the Turkish officers taken prisoners during the late war have accepted service in the armies of their conquerors. The terms offered them were liberal, and they felt no scruple about accepting them. Most of them are to be sent to the Caucasus. Nothing, however, could induce the Turkish privates to follow the example of their chiefs. The inferiority of the Turkish officer to the Turkish private soldier in soldierly qualities has always been insisted upon.

-The Italian newspapers call attention to the prevalence of pellegra, a malady which, beginning with the skin, impairs the digestion and nervous system, and becomes fatal. In Lombardy, in 1830, there were 20,000 peasants attacked by it; in 1856 there were 38,000; and, though no statistics have since been published, there are believed to be now 40,000. The disease is produced by the habitual consumption of the flower of damaged maize, but also by overwork, uncleanliness, and unhealthy dwellings.

-Correcting Behm and Wagner's tables of 1878, for the changes just made in Turkey, the population of the several states of Europe is now as follows, the total being in round numbers 312,400,000: Germany, 1875, 42,727,360; Austro-Hungary, 1876, 37,350,000; Liechtenstein, 1876, 8,664; Switzerland, 1876, 2,759,854; Netherlands, 1876, 3,865,456; Luxembourg, 1875, 205,158; European Russia, 1872, 72,392,770; Finland, 1875, 1,912,647; Sweden, 1876, 4,429,713; Norway, 1875, 1,807,555; Denmark, 1876, 1,903,000; Belgium, 1876, 5,336,185; France, 1876, 36,905,788; Great Britain, 1873, 34,242,966; Faroes, 1876, 10,600; Iceland, 1876, 71,300; Spain (without Canaries), 1871, 16,526,511; Andorra, 12,000; Gibraltar, 1873, 25,143; Portugal (with Azores) 1875, 4,319,284; Italy, 1876, 27,769,475, European Turkey, 8,459,000; Roumania, 1878, 5,149,000; Servia, 1878, 1,642,000, Montenegro, 210,000; Greece, 1878, 2,200,000; Malta, 1878, 145,000. It is stated the cession of Bosnia to Austria increases the population of the Austro-Hungarian empire something over 1,000,000. If Turkey is further reduced by the populations of the practically independent principalities of Bulgaria (1,773,000 inhabitants) and Eastern Roumelia (746,000), there will remain to that empire considerably less than 5,000,000—2,500,000 being Mohammedans.

-In pleading for the protection and perpetuation of forests, the Lumberman's Gazette gives some interesting particulars of the amount of timber consumed every year in this country. "We have now," it says, "about 90,000 miles of railroad; the annual consumption for ties or sleepers alone is 40,000,000, or thirty years' growth of 75,000 acres. To fence these roads would require at least 130,000 miles of fence, which would cost $45,000,000 to build, and take at least $15,000,000 annually to keep in repair. We have 75,000 miles of wire, which requires in its putting up 800,000 trees, while the annual repairs must take 300,000 more. The little lucifer match consumes annually in its manufacture 300,000 cubic feet of the finest pine. The bricks that are annually baked require 2,000,000 cords of wood, which would sweep the timber clean from 50,000 acres. The packing boxes made in the United States in 1874 amounted to $12,000,000, while the timber manufactured into agricultural implements, wagons, etc., is now more than $100,000,000. Our consumption of timber is not only daily on the increase, but our exportation of timber is also rapidly increasing. Our staves go by the million to France annually, walnut, oak, maple and pine to England, and spars and docking timber to China and Japan."