Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1900 — FOREIGN. [ARTICLE]

FOREIGN.

Prof. James Martineau, the famous Unitarian preacher, died at his home in London. He was in his ninety-fifth year. Consul Skinner at Marseilles reports to the State Department that the olive crop in Italy, France and Spain is practically a failure. In a collision at Cometo, Italy, Mrs. Alexander Herininger, an American, who was a passenger on the Calais express train, was injured. Gen. Methuen is reported to have been thrown from his horse after being wounded at Modder river and to have sustained severe spinal injuries. The British casualties in the recent battle at Ladysmith are estimated at over 800 killed and wounded, while the Boer loss is reported at 2,000. The new United States cruiser Albany completed her endurance trial at Newcastle, England, with the following result: Average speed per hour, 10.54 knots; revolutions, 149; horse power, 5,624; coal consumed, 144 tons per twenty-four hours. • According to a cablegram from London,

Sir Benjamin West’s famous ptetore, “The Raising of Lazarus,” which for over a century has hung in Winchester Cathedral, has been sold for $7,500, for the new Protestant Episcopal cathedral in New York. Advices by the steamship Empress of Japan tell of a fierce storm on the Japanese coast by which thirty-five junks were lost while being towed from Osaka to Kobe, and 171 persons perished. A tidal wave accompanied the storm and 411 lives in all were lost. The Brussels Boir. says a detachment of Congo Free State troops, under Baron Dhanis, the Belgian commander, had two battles with the rebellious Batatolas in the neighborhood of Baraka early in October last, in which ninety of the Batatolas were killed, while the Congo Free State troops suffered no casualties. A story of shipwreck is received from Hong Kong by steamer China. The lost vessel is the British steamer St. Helena. On the voyage from Hong Kong to Singapore during heavy weather the St. Helena struck Bombay rock about 420 miles from Cape St. James. The crew remained on board eight days, when the captain, seeing the vessel was about to sink, put' all the water and provisions he could collect into boats and the crew left the wreck. Fifteen days of terrible suffering from hunger, thirst and heat were experienced and then the boats arrived at Cape St. James. Before the completion of the Siberian Railroad it has become necessary to reconstruct the work already done, and this will cost not less than $25,000,000. The information is supplied to the State Department at Washiugton by Commercial Agent Greener, at Vladivostock. His reportii compiled from Russian sources, shows a curious condition of affairs on the road. In the haste of construction and the anxiety to get everything cheap the road was laid with a 12-pound rail instead of a 24-pound rail. The bridges were built of wood and crossings were made far apart. Consequently more than twenty miles an hour cannot be made on the level with safety. Only one passenger and two freight trains a day are run.