p. 63 | SECULAR | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 24, 1884

SECULAR.

—Sixty buildings were wrecked at Compton, Quebec, last week by a storm.

—Thirty persons were injured by the wrecking of a train near Wexford, Texas, on the 15th inst.

—An aged polygamist at Salt Lake, on reading the Governor's late message, went out in the woodshed and hanged himself.

—It is now asserted that twenty-five lives were lost by the burning of Belleville (Ill.) Convent, on the night of the 5th inst.

—A colony of 500 Germans is on the way to Los Angeles County, this State. They are said to all be strong temperance people.

—Delegates claiming to represent 150,000 workingmen have made a demand upon the French Chamber of Deputies for employment.

—Of forty-five homicides in New York last year, thirty were caused through intoxication, and seven were committed by policemen.

—Carl Schurz has been sued for $300,000 damages by a Washington lawyer whom he disbarred while Secretary of the Interior.

—It is said the reason that so many iron mills are shutting down is because iron is not being used by the railroads for rails. Steel is cheaper on account of its durability.

—President Gonzales was pelted with nickel coin in the City of Mexico, on the 16th inst. It was the last day for paying taxes, and only twenty cents on each amount would be received in nickels, and a great uproar was raised.

—North Carolina has 40,000 square miles of forest, which is deemed of more value than all other species of property in the State combined. There are nineteen varieties of oak.

—The several railroad companies centered at Portland, Oregon, have given notice to labor contractors that after Feb. 1, wages of Chinese laborers will be reduced to 80 cents per day.

—The Chicago Tribune sums up the human lives lost in 1883, by earthquakes, tornadoes, shipwrecks, fires, mine disasters, and other accidents, and estimates the number at 125,000.

—A night school has been established among the prisoners at Sing Sing penitentiary. The teacher was once an accomplished pedagogue in Massachusetts, and was imprisoned for bigamy.

—It is said of a certain military man, that “in case of another war he would greatly distinguish himself.” It is too bad to have genius lying dormant just for want of a war to develop it.

—A great Cotton Centennial Exhibition is to be held in New Orleans, commencing in December, 1884, the centennial anniversary of the first shipment of cotton to England from America.

—President Angell, of the University of Michigan, expresses great satisfaction at the results of thirteen years' experience in the admittance of women to all the privileges of instruction.

—On the 15th inst., in the Pennsylvania oil region, a passenger train on the Bradford Railroad was fired by the burning of waste oil on the track, and fifteen persons were burned to death or injured.

—Immense tidal waves are reported on the southeast coast of South America, especially high at Montevideo. They were supposed to be caused by volcanic action. Each was preceded by a black cloud.

—A commercial traveler, writing to the Pacific, says: “California gets very little El Paso [Texas] trade, while it should have a great deal. Nearly all goods of Pacific Coast production are bought in St. Louis or Chicago.”

—A lady in New Orleans applied for license as master of a steamboat. The District Inspector found her competent, but refused her license on account of her sex. The case is referred to the Solicitor of the Treasury.

—Jay Gould considers the Northern Pacific Railroad a good property, and says the cause of the collapse was ignorance on the part of those who carried on the project. They had had no experience in large undertakings, and did not understand the business, and therefore it cost too much.

—A new commercial treaty between the United States and Spain will go into effect March 1. A reduction of 10 per cent. ad valorem duty will be made on all goods imported from Cuba or Porto Rico under the Spanish flag into the United States, with equivalent considerations in return.

—Mr. Robert Harris, long connected with the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy road, has been chosen President of the Northern Pacific, vice Henry Villard, resigned. It is said the real terminus of the road will be at Tacoma, W. T., whence a new line of steamers will connect with Japan.

—A company with $2,500,000 capital is preparing to drain 1,000,000 acres of land in Cameron, Calcasieu, and Vermillion, in the southeast corner of Louisiana, and to make a Gulf front of one hundred miles of agricultural lands between Lake Charles and Sabine Pass. Steam plows for the work have arrived from England, capable of plowing fifty acres a day.

—The leading politicians are looking anxiously for a new issue in the next Presidential campaign. It was fondly anticipated by some that the tariff question would furnish the desired bone of contention; but it is transpiring that the representative men of the two prominent parties are about equally interested in the great enterprises that are demanding “protection.”

—The State Controller has refused to draw his warrant for any further interest money, guaranteed for twenty-five years by the State of California on $1,500,000 of Central Pacific Railroad bonds. Five years of the time has yet to be fulfilled, but the Controller claims the conditions of the guarantee have been for a long time violated by the company. The interest amounts to $105,000 yearly.

—Fires: A large hotel at Suwannee Springs, Fla., was burned on the 17th inst.; loss, $160,000. The Grand Montezuma Hotel, at Las Vegas, N. M., was burned on the same day; loss, $300,000. This hotel was owned by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Co. Also, a $150,000 fire occurred in the Court Exchange, New York; and another at Syracuse damaged property valued at $70,000.