ITEMS OF NEWS by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 3, 1881

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 7, No. 5.

Read the full edition

ITEMS OF NEWS.

By Editor

Great damage by floods is reported in Spain.

A ladies anti-polygamy society has been formed in New York.

San Francisco is again excited over a female walking match.

The Chinese New Year, the seventh of Quong See, was celebrated Jan. 29 and 30.

Mrs. Hayes has accepted the presidency of the Woman's Home Missionary Society.

The President has nominated Stanley Matthews for Justice of the Supreme Court.

Increased mining activity is noticeable in nearly all the mining counties of the State.

Twenty-nine young women have just graduated at the New York Training School for Nurses.

The man who recently robbed the Walnut Creek stage has been sent to the insane asylum.

There are forty-two night schools in Philadelphia with a registered attendance of 3,200 pupils.

The Russian army has 25,000 officers, which just equals the whole army of the United States.

General Ord has been placed on the retired list of the army with the rank of Major-General.

The rain-fall in Oakland for January was 16.38 inches; for the season, it has been 23.35 inches.

Portugal proposes to mediate between England and the Dutch Boers of Transvaal, South Africa.

The trial of Rev. I. M. Kalloch, for the murder of Chas. De Young, is progressing in San Francisco.

The new census gives 103,000 Chinese in the United States, of whom 99,000 are on the Pacific coast.

Rev. John Westrup, Baptist missionary to Mexico, was recently murdered by twenty Indians near Monterey.

Eight Chinese wood-choppers were buried by a land-slide in the Santa Cruz mountains, during the recent rain-storm.

King Kalakaua, of the Hawaiian Islands, arrived in San Francisco Jan. 29, on a tour of the principal points of the world.

Prodigality and speculation on the part of two tellers has caused a defalcation in the Detroit Savings Bank of about $30,000.

The consolidation of the great telegraph lines of the country has stirred up an active move in Chicago for a new competing line.

There are 1247 persons employed in the Census Bureau at Washington. There were 31,265 persons employed in the enumeration.

The bill permanently remitting 1,400,000 marks from the annual taxation by the State has been adopted by the Prussian Diet—343 to 106.

A move is on foot among prominent Italian and Swiss merchants for colonizing some of California's rich foot-hill land and planting vineyards on a large scale.

In the Greek church the sixth of January is celebrated as Christmas day. Imposing services were accordingly held in the Russian chapels in this country on that day.

Two hundred and twenty-six street lamps at Providence, R. I., which extend over a distance of nine miles, are now extinguished by electricity in fifteen seconds by one man.

There are at present only two Hebrew colleges in this country—one in New York and one in Philadelphia. A third, however, is to be established permanently in Cincinnati.

The census of the city and county of San Francisco shows a total population of 233,006, of whom 20,840 are Chinese, leaving in San Francisco a population, other than Chinese, of 212,165.

The San Francisco Post wants to know if the Moody and Sankey meetings have done all that the regular clergy of that city expected of them; and if so, are they prepared to adopt the methods of the evangelists.

A new feature in some of the leading schools of New Jersey is placing daily and local newspapers in the highest department for the use of the pupils. The students are required to give an occasional abstract of the news of the day as gleaned from their columns.

On the 26th inst., the wife of Dr. H. St. George Hopkins, of Oakland, was accidentally shot while removing her husband's pistol from beneath his pillow, where he was in the habit of keeping it. She died the next morning.

It is reported that President Hayes has arranged to visit England in May next, and intends to prolong his European tour into the Autumn, so as to be present at the Methodist Ecumenical Congress to be held in London in September.

In the largest library in the world, in Paris, may be found a Chinese chart of the heavens, made about 600 years before Christ. In this chart 1460 stars are found correctly inserted, as corroborated by the scientists of the present day.

The station agent at San Gabriel, Los Angeles county, says that already 1,000,000 grape-cuttings have been shipped northward from that point this season. Also that 1,000 acres of new vineyard have been planted in that county.

A thousand persons, mostly women, are employed in engraving and printing Government money and bank notes at Washington. They are so strictly watched during work hours that they look upon themselves as prisoners.

The Harvard College library contains 500,000 books and pamphlets, and has a fund of $175,000 to buy new books. Charles Sumner gave it 1,300 volumes, 250 maps, and nearly 20,000 pamphlets. It is said to be the largest and best library in America.

It is authoritatively stated that about 60,000 women in and about New York City earn their own living as seamstresses, saleswomen, teachers, copyists and the like. Their average income is from $4 to $4.50 per week, and out of this they support themselves and dependents.

Twenty-seven Chinese gamblers were fined $20 each in the San Francisco Police Court Jan. 29, and the two keepers of the den in which they were caught were fined double that amount each. On the night of the 30th the Oakland police arrested a gang of twelve and broke up their den.

Victorious Chile proposes the following conditions of peace: Cession of Asto Agoste to Chile; surrender of allied fleet, and payment of an indemnity of $30,000,000, whereof Peru shall assume $20,000,000 and Bolivia $10,000,000, Chile to occupy Callao and work the Grand copper and saltpetre mines until payment of the indemnity is made.

A Yankton, Dakota, dispatch of Jan. 30 says: "There has been 60 cases of small-pox in Union county, 50 miles east of here, half of which proved fatal. Both Houses of the Legislature suspended all other business and passed an act authorizing rigid quarantine. A private letter says there are 100 cases near Elk Point, and guards are placed at all entrances of the town. No trains stop at Jefferson, and mails have been discontinued."

Late African news gives the following account of the recent engagement between the Boers and British troops: "General Colley's advance guard attacked the Boers' position. The attack was at first partially successful, but subsequently the Boers were reinforced, and repulsed the British troops with heavy loss, the Boers suffering severely. Both sides maintain their former positions. As to the reinforcements which General Colley must now await, the infantry portion arrived at Durban last Thursday, and are now on the way to Pietermaritzburg by railroad, but thence they have 200 miles to march before they can join General Colley, and the horses to mount the Hussars who arrived at that town are still on the way from Cape Town."

Here is an item for American misses: "France has agricultural schools for girls. One of the chief is near Rouen, which has been begun with a capital of 1 franc by a sister of charity and two little discharged prison girls, and to be now worth $160,000. The establishment has now 300 girls from 6 to 18. The farm, entirely cultivated by them, is over 400 acres in extent. Twenty-five sisters form the staff of teachers. More than one medal of the French Agricultural Society has been awarded to this establishment at Darnetal, and the pupils are in great demand all over Normandy on account of their skill. They go out as stewards, gardeners, farm managers, dairy women, and laundresses. Each girl has, on leaving, an outfit and a small sum of money, earned in spare hours. If they want a home, they can always return to Darnetal, which they are taught to regard as their home."

The Russians under General Skobeloff captured Geoktepe on the 24th, inflicting enormous loss upon the Turcomans. In consequence of the large number of corpses of Tekke Turcomans, more or less decomposed, lying before and behind the Russian positions, and in view of the impossibility of burying them without incurring fresh losses, Skobeloff proposed to the Tekkes that they should remove their dead, hostilities to be suspended one hour, and in order to avoid any misunderstanding it was proposed to the Tekkes that they should afterwards reoccupy their positions and should be the first to reopen fire. This was done, after due warning given to the rest of the Russians, the Tekkes taking care not to fire until the Russians, who had temporarily left their trenches, had returned into them. The conduct of the Tekke Turcomans was altogether honorable. Fighting was afterwards renewed with the former fury.