ITEMS OF NEWS by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 3, 1880

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 21.

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ITEMS OF NEWS.

By Editor

—Troops are being ordered with all dispatch to the Indian country.

—The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad failed, and a panic in railroad securities resulted in London.

—California has been visited with severe north winds, and considerable damage to wheat is reported.

—The 15th of June has been fixed as the date for the meeting of the Supplementary Conference in Berlin.

—The coasting steamer Monterey which left San Francisco May 24th for Mendocino, was wrecked and sunk near Fort Ross. Passengers saved.

—There are no indications of the German Diet and the Pope coming to an understanding. There is a fire ready to be kindled at the first opportunity.

—Mono county, Cal., has an alkali lake. A traveler says, "for bitterness and promiscuous meanness the waters of Mono lake surpass those of the Dead Sea."

—Judge Tourgee, the author of "A Fool's Errand," is living in Denver, Col. He is said to be engaged on a new story, "Making Brick without Straw," a story of the Negro Exodus.

—Fourteen cases of sunstroke, twelve of which were fatal occurred in Brooklyn, N. Y. on Friday, May 29. The weather in the East is hotter than has ever been known before at this season.

—The Senate Commerce Committee have agreed to insert in the River and Harbor Bill an authorization for special surveys for the solving of the debris question. This is one of the most important questions to California now before the country.

—Proceedings in the Kalloch impeachment case have been quashed, on a purely "Pickwickian" ruling. His offence was clearly impeachable, but it was not clear to the court that it was committed by Kalloch as Mayor, or by Kalloch as a private citizen!

—Kearney has been released from prison after forty days' confinement. A great demonstration was made at the sand lots when he reiterated his old cry, "The Chinese must go," and said that he was going to be "bitterer than ever." How he can do this no one can imagine.

—The M. E. General Conference adjourned May 28. Bishop Scott is superannuated. An Episcopal residence was fixed at San Francisco. Missions were authorized in Utah, Dakota, and Montana. Resolutions favoring prohibition were adopted; also instructing stewards to procure unfermented juice of the grape for communion.

—A terrible cyclone visited Savoy, on the Texas Pacific Railroad, destroying the town, killing nine persons and wounding sixty, some of them fatally. Nineteen business houses, the R. R. depot, and twenty other buildings, were destroyed. Only five houses in the place were not damaged. May 29 a cyclone also passed a few miles north of Evansville, Ind., blowing down a number of buildings.

—Iceland even has five newspapers, whose editors read English, German, and French; and these languages are understood by the educated classes generally. No country, it is said, reads so many books in proportion to its population. A number of Russian scholars are at work on a series of histories of the world's literature, to appear in St. Petersburg the present year.

—The Methodist General Conference elected four Bishops, as follows: Dr. Henry W. Warren, of Philadelphia; Cyrus D. Foss, President of Wesleyan University; John F. Hurst, President of Drew Theological Seminary; and Chancellor Erastus O. Haven, of Syracuse University. Dr. Haven was formerly Chancellor of Michigan State University. He is cousin to the late Bishop Gilbert Haven. All of these are men of large culture and ability.

—The Christian Union says: "The Presbyterians are discussing the cause of their denominational decline. It is certainly significant that New York has now exactly the number of Presbyterian churches that it had thirty years ago, when its population was less than half a million, while Chicago has lost nine Presbyterian churches in ten years. The Chicago Interior thinks this decline is due to the spread of rationalism, while the Christian at Work ascribes it to a growing religious indifference resulting from the demoralization of the late war. If it is due to either of these causes why is there not a corresponding falling off in other denominations?"

—From Brackett, Texas, May 28, comes the following report: At 1:30 this morning the heaviest and most disastrous rain storm set in that has ever been known here. It is still pouring in torrents. All Brackett, except portions on two hills, is inundated. In the main street the water is from five feet to eight feet deep, and rushing down the street with almost incredible rapidity. The floor of every business house is from one to five feet under water. Several men at the mercy of the waters went down, and all efforts to save them were of no avail. Great anxiety is felt for the safety of families along Los Moras Creek. More than twenty people have been drowned and a dozen houses washed away. Many houses were washed from their foundations. All residences in the lower part of the town are being vacated as fast as possible. The greatest excitement prevails.