GENERAL NOTES.
AFRICA.
—A dispatch from Cairo announces the death of Mgr. Comboni, Apostolic Vicar of Central Africa.
—The colonies of Natal, discontented with their form of government, demand the institution of a parliamentary rule upon the model of that which has been granted the colony of the Cape.
—The Queen of Madagascar has named for the first time the ministers and secretaries of state, and at the same time given a law relative to their functions.
—A steamer with two helixes has been ordered by an English house for the civilizing station of the Portuguese which is to be established upon the Congo.
—A society is formed in Liberia, under the title of Liberia Interior Association, with a view of developing commerce with the interior, of seeking means of transportation and the employ of beasts in some parts of the country, and of bestowing attention upon the commercial, agricultural and political interests of the colony in the interior.
—The College of Liberia will be transferred into the country, where to classical studies will be joined instruction in manual labor, to teach the natives the use and practice of the instruments of European industry.
—P. Autunes, Professor at Braga, set out the 15th of October, with two assistants and three workmen, to establish at Hailla, near Humpata, where the Boers are, schools for the children of the colonists, the Boers and natives, under the direction of chosen teachers. He will also establish an industrial and professional school of arts and trades necessary for African life. The Portuguese government has granted lands to him, reserving to itself the approval of the rules which will regulate these different establishments.
Mr. A. E. Jackson, of the Mendi Mission, in appealing for supplies, says: “There are persons here who desire to unite in matrimony. They are just emerging from paganism, and any favor shown them by the Mission adds so much to its influence for good. They ought to have plain white dresses, white gloves, shoes or slippers, and a little underwear; and for encouragement, some bedding—sheets, pillow-cases, and such like. We have a young couple with us who were married this year, and Mrs. Jackson is now preparing clothing for another couple who will marry in about two weeks.”
THE INDIANS.
—The American Baptist Home Missionary Society reports 90 churches, with nearly 6,000 church members, among the Indians in the Indian Territory.
—Santiago Reino, an Indian from the Taos Pueblo, was recently baptized and received into the church at Cenecero, Colorado. So far as known, he is the first from that Pueblo to receive Christian baptism.
—Rev. Mr. Hicks, of McAllister, Indian Territory, has selected a site for a church, and reorganized a Sunday-school with 40 scholars. He hopes soon to reorganize a church with 20 members. Four infants have already received the rite of baptism.
—The presence of fifteen civilized Indians at the Presbytery of Idaho—one of them an ordained minister, four ruling elders, two licentiates, three applying for licensure, and all of them church members—speaking and singing the praises of God, was a grand testimony to the power and influence of the Christian religion.