p. 299 | ITEMS OF NEWS

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 30, 1881

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 7, No. 25.

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ITEMS OF NEWS.

There are 887 Episcopal churches in London.

There was 80 per cent. more tobacco produced in 1880 than in 1870.

A Washington telegraph company is laying its wires in the sewers.

The Italian Government is making preparations for specie payment.

The French have fixed the number of troops to occupy Tunis at 10,000.

Chili and the Argentine Confederation have agreed upon the draft of a treaty.

All the gambling houses in St. Louis have been closed under the new law.

Minnesota mills will grind 35,000,000 bushels of wheat during the fiscal year.

Twenty-three hundred and fifty-one immigrants arrived in New York June 22.

The Mayor of Cincinnati has prohibited picnics on Sunday within the city limits.

Belgium has adopted the postal savings bank system, with stamps for small deposits.

Mrs. Lincoln, widow of President Lincoln, is dangerously ill, and is not expected to live.

The Irish census shows a population of 5,159,849, being a decrease of 252,538 since 1871.

Hartmann, the Nihilist is intending to come to the United States. He is not needed here.

It is estimated that Connecticut raised tobacco enough last year to make 900,000,000 cigars.

Last year California sent $1,000,000 worth of fresh fruit to the States east of the Rocky Mountains.

The foreign commerce of Boston during the month of May amounted to nearly fourteen millions of dollars.

It is reported that at Cornell university nearly all the students have signed a pledge of abstinence from tobacco.

The editors of the New York Police Gazette have been indicted by the Grand Jury for publishing lottery advertisements.

On Friday night June 24, the residence of Mr. W. Collins on Webster street, Oakland, was burned to the ground. Loss $12,000.

Of 49,550 families in Georgia, who were visited by the colporteurs of the American Bible Society, 18,000 were without the Scriptures.

The earnings of the Union Pacific Railway Company for the first eight days in June, 1881, increased $175,034 over the same time last year.

A dispatch from Dartmund, Prussia, says that an explosion occurred June 24, at the Liefban colliery. Seventeen persons were killed and five injured.

Tucson, A. T., was seriously damaged on the 27th by the explosion of a quantity of Tonite powder. Nearly every building in town was shattered.

The Methodist Episcopal church has in this country forty-five colleges and theological seminaries, besides ninety other high grade institutions of learning.

Several thousand workmen are on a strike in Stockholm, and riots are feared. Numbers of fires in Sweden recently are believed to be of an incendiary origin.

The revised New Testament has been adopted for all services in the theological seminary at Andover. President Porter has also introduced it in the Yale chapel.

In the afternoon of June 22, a fire destroyed a large portion of the city of Tombstone, A. T. The total loss is estimated at a quarter of a million. The fire originated in a saloon.

A whole train on the Morlos railroad in Mexico fell into the San Antonio river, June 25, on account of the falling of a stone bridge. Two hundred are reported dead, and many injured.

The proposed amendment to the Constitution of Pennsylvania, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor, has been defeated in the Senate by a vote of sixteen to twenty-four.

It is stated that of the sixty-eight cities that made weekly death reports to the national Board of Health, in 1880, Vallejo, Cal., is the healthiest city reported, and Norfolk, Va., the most unhealthy.

The Wisconsin Legislature has appropriated to the State University and experimental farm of that State, four thousand dollars for the purpose of conducting experiments in the production of sugar from amber cane.

Thomas Garfield, an uncle of the President, was killed by a locomotive as he was crossing the railroad track near Cleveland, June 21. Mrs. Arnold, the President's sister, was injured, it is feared fatally.

The ship Franconia, from New York, went ashore on the Farallones Friday morning, June 24, in a dense fog. All the crew were saved, but the ship with the cargo, valued at about $300,000, was a total loss.

Calcutta advices say: "A report has reached here from Central Asia that large bodies of Russian troops are assembling on the borders of Kashgar, and a conflict with Chinese troops cannot long be avoided."

Philadelphia has been making a great effort to have the remains of William Penn removed from England to that city; but the trustees of the cemetery where he was buried, refused to grant the request.

The largest elevator in the country has just been completed in Brooklyn, N. Y. It has cost nearly $2,000,000, and has a storage capacity of 2,500,000 bushels. Half a dozen vessels can load from it at the same time.

A dispatch from Ottawa states that Sitting Bull has commenced selling horses to keep his band from starving, and cannot hold out much longer. The Canadian Indians refuse to have anything to do with him.

Mayor King of Philadelphia has prohibited the sale as well as the use of fire-crackers for the fourth of July. It would be well if all cities could invent some other than a Chinese method of celebrating our national holiday.

Kansas was visited, on the 25th, by one of the severest storms of wind, rain, and hail ever known there. Five inches of water fell during the night. Orchards were stripped of their fruit, and thousands of acres of grain were cut down.

The 9th of June was the centennial anniversary of the birth of George Stephenson, the originator of the railway locomotive. It was celebrated with great enthusiasm in England. Fifty years ago the English Parliment called him a lunatic.

On the morning of the 20th the store of Dr. Timothy Conkling, at Centerville, Shasta county, was blown up with giant powder. The building was entirely demolished, and the Dr. was very seriously injured. The perpetrator of the deed is unknown.

The relations of the Porte with the French Embassy at Constantinople are represented as very strained in consequence of the Tunis affair. The French Ambassador was unable to obtain an audience with the Sultan to present the usual complimentary message.

The Utes are again on the war path. Several murders of settlers have been committed by them. A company of settlers that organized to resist them was overpowered and several killed. Troops have been dispatched to the seat of war, in San Juan county, Utah, and fighting is reported.

The comet, which was discovered on Wednesday morning, June 22, has created a decided sensation, the more so as it was entirely unexpected, and was not first seen by the astronomers. From the change in its position during the night, many supposed there were two, but this has been disproved.

June 22 a fire broke out in wheat-fields near the railroad, about eight miles from Merced, and in spite of the efforts of three or four hundred men, burned for several hours. The area burned over is estimated at two and a half miles in width, and four and a half in length. Standing grain, grain in sacks, machinery, and houses were destroyed.

Serious complications are liable to grow out of the affair between France and Tunis. At Marseilles there have been furious encounters between the French and Italians. Quite a number of persons have been killed, and many wounded. Two factories which employed Italians have been burned, and many manufacturers have dismissed their Italian workmen. Large bodies of troops are required to keep the peace. A dispatch says: "There are signs of disorder at Lyons, where many Italians are likely to repeat the scenes of Marseilles. The fact that Italy is utterly unable to cope with France is the only thing which prevents her from listening to the voice of the people and declaring war." Bismarck, it is said, views with complacency the fact of a possible war between France and Italy. Meanwhile, France is planning an advance upon Tripoli.