p. 143 | ITEMS OF NEWS

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 24, 1881

ITEMS OF NEWS.

—The apricot crop has been injured by frost in Alameda county, Cal.

—A $300,000 fire occurred at Newburyport, Mass., on the night of March 18.

—It is stated that the Ambassadors have accepted the frontier line offered in the Turkish note of October, including Crete.

—The Governor of California has signed the bill appropriating $50,000 for the erection of a Normal School at Los Angeles.

—In Scotland, during the last five years, more new Baptist chapels have been built and more debts paid off than in the previous forty years.

—Cannon, the Mormon delegate to Congress, expresses his conviction that Campbell, the rival delegate, will retain his seat against all efforts to unseat him.

—A dispatch from Augusta, Georgia, March 18, says: “The Savannah River is higher than since 1865. It rose 24 feet in twelve hours. A portion of Augusta is flooded.”

—Gen. Upton, of the regular army, commanding the military post at the Presidio, San Francisco, committed suicide by shooting on the morning of March 16. No cause is known.

—Great satisfaction is felt at the tenor of the circular of the Russian Foreign Office. It is said to be strictly in conformity with the autograph letter of the Czar to the Emperor.

—The rice crop of China and the East Indies is annually 250,000,000,000 pounds. The crop of the United States last year was 150,000,000 pounds. The American article is the best.

—The Freeman’s Journal regards the appointment of the Papal Nuncio at the Court of St. James as one of the most dangerous intrigues ever attempted by England against the nation and faith of Catholic Ireland.

—The Nihilists seem to have grown more bold by the success of their attack on the Czar. They say: “Had the first shell missed the Emperor, three others would have been thrown before he reached the palace.”

—Rev. Lord John Thynne, D. D., sub-Dean of Westminster Abbey, is dead. He became Canon at Westminster in 1831, and assisted at two coronations—those of William IV. and Queen Victoria. He was 82 years old.

—Two locomotives and twenty cars were destroyed by the collision of two freight trains on a side track at Parsons, Kansas, March 18, and a brakeman and engineer were killed. The carelessness of a conductor was the cause.

—Thousands of cattle are reported killed by the recent severe winter on the plains, and over five hundred dead cattle were recently counted in sight of the railway from Ogallala to Big Springs, Neb., a distance of nineteen miles.

—The first overland train by the Southern route left San Francisco March 19, at 8:30, without any public demonstration being made over the opening of the line to the Eastern States. Through fares will be the same as by the Central route.

—A German man-of-war destroyed the habitations of the tribes on the coast of Liberia, who plundered the German merchant ship. One native was killed, and nine hostages were taken. Liberia agrees to pay $1000 as compensation for the plundering.

—On the 17th, the towns of Ineboli on the Black Sea, and Velden in Austria, were nearly destroyed by fire. In the former town, three hundred and fifteen houses, including the Custom House and Foreign Consulates, were burned. The houseless inhabitants are destitute.

—In a recent sermon in the temple, Mayor Kalloch said: “I see nothing in the present state of affairs to prevent me from preaching, nor my son, for that matter, and he probably will deliver a sermon here before long.” The last remark was greeted with loud and prolonged applause.

—It is said that Mrs. Senator Logan has never tasted wine. At a dinner given to Prince Arthur some years since she declined it, and at the recent lunch of a cabinet lady she was the only one of twenty-five who abstained. She has brought up her children to share her feelings on the abstinence question.

—On the 19th, a boy in attempting to jump off the front platform of an East Oakland street car, fell beneath the forward wheels, and received injuries from which he died the next day. In spite of this warning, boys will doubtless still continue to jump off from moving cars. Such recklessness should be restrained by a law vigorously enforced.

—From the warlike preparations of the Utes in Colorado, an outbreak is expected early in the spring. Their camp is located near White River, about twenty-five miles from the military post. A dispatch from that place says that they are “procuring all the guns and ammunition possible, for which they exchange horses, or anything else.”

—A firm of machinists at Springfield, Massachusetts, finding it difficult to get thoroughly qualified workmen, are making an effort to restore a good system of apprenticeship. Many trades are being left without good workmen, owing to failure to serve an apprenticeship. An “industrial school” is about to be opened in that city with a view to perfecting artizans in their trades.

—Recent investigations conducted in the laboratory of Harvard University, have led to the discovery of the fact that intense cold can deprive magnetized steel bars of nearly all the magnetism that may have been imparted to them. Doubtless, many of the supposed changes in the magnetic condition of the earth, as observed in the northern regions, can be traced to this fact.

—One of the bombs which would have been thrown at the Czar had the first one missed him, was found in the possession of Roussakoff, the assassin. “It was made in a zinc case containing glass tubes, two of which were filled with vitriol, and two with bartholdy salts, india-rubber tubes, with fulminating mercury, and a box holding nitro-glycerine and pyroxiline, the whole weighing six pounds and three quarters.”

—Gladstone's strength is said to be giving way. He looks like a wreck of his former self. While speaking in the House of Commons he constantly rubs his hand slowly across his forehead as if suffering from pain, or trying to collect his thoughts. Obstructions seem to have made the House a bear garden, and it is nightly torture to him to conduct its so-called deliberations. The troubles which face him in India, Ireland, and the Transvaal, weigh heavily upon his unstrung nerves.

—The New York Herald says editorially: If the President will follow up the programme he has marked out on the threshold of his Administration, in reference to polygamy, he will have the support of all men, irrespective of party, whose support and good-will are worth having. We have been fooling and playing with this Mormon leprosy too long. It is idle to expect it can be destroyed by the civilizing forces of railroad, telegraph and newspapers, which, a few years ago, were counted upon so strongly for its extinction. It must be taken hold of by the strong arm of the law, and the sooner it is done the better.

—Another snow blockade is reported in the East. Chicago, March 19, midnight, the telegraph says: “Affairs in the streets have gone on from bad to worse on account of the storm, but at present the snow, which has been falling rapidly since 5:30 this morning, is beginning to come less heavily and will probably stop falling entirely soon. The result of to-day’s storm is from six to eight inches of exceedingly compact snow, which is so solid that pedestrians can walk on top of it without perceptibly reducing its height. The thermometer has been very near and but a trifle above freezing point all day, and is now slowly rising. The morning trains arrived very closely on time, but to-night there are serious delays on all lines. All freight trains are abandoned. The Northwestern road sent out only one train to Milwaukee, and no others except to the suburbs. The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy trains are blocked. The Alton train arrived an hour late. Illinois Central trains are slow, but running with some regularity. The Michigan Central is far behind, and sent out only one train to-night. The Michigan Southern trains were delayed by a bad wreck fifty miles from the city, and incoming trains were six hours late.”