800 members; the Norwegian Lutherans have 19 missionaries and 288 members; and the Friends have 100 congregations. Primary schools are taught at all the stations, and are freely attended by pupils of all ages. Higher schools are also connected with the older stations, and most of the missions have normal and training schools for teachers, and theological schools for the education of native preachers. The statistics of those schools of which regular reports are given show that the attendance of scholars generally exceeds the number of members in the churches. Fourah Bay College, of the Church Missionary Society, on the West Coast of Africa, is affiliated with the University of Durham, whence some of its students have received degrees, and provides a full course of collegiate instruction, with comparative philology, theology, and the Hebrew and Arabic languages. The institution of the Free Church of Scotland, at Lovedale, Caffraria, has elementary, literary, and theological classes, of three years each, and is attended by natives and English, most of the native races of South Africa and the stations of all the denominational missions being represented among its pupils. It has furnished trained teachers for the Free Church and other missions, has developed a branch institution at Blythewood in the Transkei, and has contributed to the establishment of the new mission at Livingstonia, on Lake Nyassa. The mission schools of Madagascar have been extensively developed and systematically organized, and have promoted the establishment of a national system of education. Grammars and dictionaries of the languages of the numerous tribes have been prepared by the missionaries, school and religious books have been published in them, and a varied literature has been produced in the Caffre dialects. This literary work gives employment to some respectable printing Western Powers on Turkey, in consequence of the extravagant measures adopted by the Khedive. Several changes of ministry followed, until finally Riaz Pasha, who had been exiled by Ismail and recalled by Tevfik, was appointed President of the Council. The relations of Egypt and Abyssinia were in an unsettled condition. In the latter part of the year Colonel Gordon was sent to Abyssinia to arrange a definite treaty of peace. (See ABYSSINIA, and EGYPT.) The British had another native war on their hands in South Africa in 1879, and one which eclipsed all of the preceding wars in importance. This year it was the nation of the Zooloo Caffres, under their king Cetywayo, with whom the British came into conflict. The causes that led to it were said by the colonists to be the general insecurity of their frontiers, and the utter disregard which Cetywayo exhibited toward the demands of the governments of Natal and the Cape. On the other hand, the natives who were from time to time captured, as well as Cety wayo himself, stated that at no time had the Zooloo king been anxious for war, and that he had done everything in his power to satisfy his white neighbors. In England, the war was regarded as unnecessary. The British, at first, met with defeat, but on July 4th they gained a complete victory over the Zooloos, which was followed on August 28th by the capture of Cety wayo. The Zooloo land was then subdivided into thirteen districts, and a chief appointed for each, while a British resident at the krall of each chief is to watch over British interests. The question of a South African confederation was again prominently brought forward by Sir M. Hicks-Beach, but received little encouragement from the colonies. (See CAPE COLONY, and ZooLoos.) In Algeria, a complete change of government took place. The supreme civil and military powers, which had been united up to this time in one person, were separated, and a new governor-general and commander-in-chief were appointed. In June an insurrection of Kabyles broke out simultaneously in Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco. A boundary commission which was to settle the disputed boundary between the British colony of Sierra Leone and the Republic of Liberia adjourned sine die on April 24th, without settling any one point in the dispute. Agreement between the English and Liberian members was found to be impossible, and the former flatly refused to refer the matter to Commander Shufeldt of the United States Navy, who had been selected as arbitrator. The Portuguese Government in March sent a man-of-war to Whydaly to blockade the coast of Dahomey, on account of the capture and imprisonment of a Portuguese merchant. The King of Dahomey, on the other hand, ordered all roads leading from the interior to the coast to be blockaded, so that the entire commerce of the country was prostrated. The French Government in 1879 seized the island of Matagong. The French claimed it from the fact that, being situated between the mouths of the Rio Congo and the Mellacoree, and near a coast undoubtedly French, it ought logically to be French also. In a map, however, of Senegambia, drawn up in 1864 by order of General Faidherbe, then Governor of Senegal, it is depicted as English, as well as the Los Archipelago, more to the north; but this might arise from its being then the private property of a British subject, and the Paris merchant who represents the present proprietors has produced a declaration of 1855 by Sir George Grey, Colonial Secretary, refusing to aid Mr. Isaacs on the ground that Matagong was not British territory. AGRICULTURE. (See UNITED STATES and the STATES respectively.) ALABAMA. The regular session of the Alabama Legislature commenced on November 12, 1878, and terminated on February 8, 1879. In the Senate W. G. Little was chosen President; and in the House David Clopton was chosen Speaker. One of the earliest measures of the session was a joint convention of the two Houses to count the votes for State officers. As there was only one ticket, the results were announced as follows: Total vote for Rufus W. Cobb for Governor, 89,571; total vote for W. W. Screws for Secretary of State, 87,673; total vote for Willis Brewer for Auditor, 87,315; total vote for I. H. Vincent for Treasurer, 88,231; total vote for H. C. Tompkins for Attorney-General, 88,204. The vote for members of Congress, which was canvassed too late for insertion in the "Annual Cyclopædia" of 1878, was as follows: 6,577 A joint resolution was adopted which declares that the act of Congress imposing a tax of ten per centum on the issues of State banks creates in the national banks an unjust and odious monopoly, and is an unwarrantable abridgment of the power and authority of the State, by appropriate acts of incorporation, to provide its citizens with a lawful currency, suitable to their needs; and the Senators and Representatives of Alabama in Congress were requested to use their untiring efforts to have the same repealed. A memorial requesting Congress to establish a system for a national quarantine against yellow fever and other infectious diseases was also adopted. A bill to limit or prohibit the sale of seedcotton was extensively discussed in relation to its constitutionality. Seed-cotton is the name given to the article as it is in the field. If it is stolen and sold, the owner can not distinguish his property from that of others. The extent of the stealing is such as to be considered a great evil. One member in his remarks said: There are many roads which lead from the rich farming lands into the city of Montgomery, but to illustrate it I will only refer to one, say the Lime Creek road. During the busy picking season, a gentleman of my acquaintance concluded that he would make some observations; so he posted himself upon the road between midnight and daylight, and not less than thirty vehicles of all descriptions, from a four-horse wagon down to the diminutive cart with the diminutive steer or calf, passed him, and, from the movements of the parties ton, there is but little doubt that two thirds of all the having the cotton-seed and the purchasers of the cotcotton on these vehicles, besides that of the innumerable foot-passengers loaded with sacks of all sorts and sizes, were stolen; for all these parties with the cotton so graduate their movements that they reach the city at or before sunrise; and, as soon as the first rays of the golden sunshine touch the dome of this Capitol, the doors of the innumerable shops which before sunrise were closed, and the premises as silent as death, fly 6,505 open as if by magic. The cotton-sack is hurried upon 6,199 the scales, hurriedly and many times, perhaps, falsely 676 weighed, then hurriedly spirited away to the back 8,514 rooms, where at leisure it is carried and sold to the 6.545 pickeries. Pass over any of the roads leading to the 2,734 city between the hours of midnight and day, and about the suburbs, and you will find them filled, as I said before, with vehicles of every description, meet hordes of tramps with sacks and baskets, all watching for the first rays of the sun to dispose of their ill-gotten gains. I say ill-gotten, for, if not so, why this unseemly time to bring their wares to maket? Why this haste? For this army of wagons, of carts, of tramps with sacks, is soon, like the snow, dissolved by the rising sun; and the 9 or 10 o'clock passer-by has no idea of what had occurred only a few hours before. 2,941 8,364 6,537 7,642 8,201 2,658 8,279 10,324 Of the members of Congress seven were Democrats and one opposition. The Legislature was divided as follows: Democrats PARTY. Independent Democrats... Nationals.. Total.. House. Senate. 81 91 On December 10th the Legislature took a recess until January 15, 1879. An act was passed requiring the execution of criminals to be in an inclosure which is hidden from public view. |