p. 574 | SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 16, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 36.

SECULAR.

—Cholera is raging throughout Corea. At Seoul the deaths average over one hundred per day.

—The feeling of hostility toward France is increasing in Germany, and both nations seem to be preparing for war.

—The total number of paupers in London relieved during the first week of August was 86,549, of whom 51,768 were indoor and 34,781 outdoor paupers.

—Excepting Harvard, William and Mary, in Virginia, founded in 1693, is the oldest college in America. It can boast of not a single student, and the last dollar of its endowment will soon have been spent.

—September 10, the Universe (Paris) publishes a telegram from the Bishop of Tonquin saying that 700 Christians have been massacred, and forty villages burned in the province of Manhoa, and that 9,000 Christians are perishing of hunger.

—It is said that the State of New York has acquired title to 800,000 acres of land in the Adirondack region and 50,000 acres in the Catskill region, to be kept forever in forests. The object is to prevent the further diminution of important streams.

—It is stated that notwithstanding the release of Cutting, Secretary Bayard will insist upon the abrogation of the article of the Mexican Penal Code which confers upon Mexican courts jurisdiction over foreigners for certain offenses committed outside of Mexican territory.

—Nine hundred persons died of small-pox in Santiago, Chili, in July.

—Germany has abandoned her right to establish a naval station at the Caroline Islands.

—Vesuvius is again in a state of eruption and people are fleeing from Naples and Bari.

—It is said that the late forest fires in Wisconsin destroyed $200,000 worth of cranberry marshes.

—A death from yellow fever has occurred in New York. The disease was probably contracted in a West Indian port.

—The United States is said to consume one-fourth of all the pig-iron and one-third of all the steel that the world produces.

—Mexican bandits, or as these are sometimes called, revolutionists, are still making considerable trouble in Northern Mexico.

—At Port Costa, Cal., September 7, an engine and one car ran off the ferry-boat, Solano, and plunged into Carquinez Strait. One life was lost.

—The collapse of an old building that was being razed at Indianapolis, Ind., a few days since, seriously, if not fatally, injured several of the workmen.

—Snake bites caused the death of 103,000 persons in India between 1875 and 1880. During the same period 1,073,546 poisonous reptiles were killed for the Government reward.

—The officers at West Point Military Academy are trying to break up the barbarous practice of hazing, and a few days since thirty-four senior cadets were placed under arrest for violation of the order.

—It is said that the present condition of the shipping trade at Glasgow is the worst on record. Thirty-four steamers and twenty-three sailing vessels are rotting at their docks, having been idle some two years.

—A late report from Northeastern India says that a number of Indian princes are exhorting the people to throw off the "hated English yoke." The Journal des Débats says that great events are imminent in Central Asia.

—Five out of fifty Mormons who were detained at Castle Garden, New York, are to be returned to the place whence they came. The others were released on the 6th inst. and permitted to resume their journey to Salt Lake.

—Notwithstanding the announcement by the Christian Statesman some weeks since, that the great Pennsylvania Company would henceforth run no more trains on Sunday, except stock trains, traffic is carried on as usual upon that day.

—A boy of fifteen was arrested a few days since at St. Louis for setting fire to a large pork-packing establishment. After his arrest he confessed that himself and two companions had set some half dozen mysterious fires in the past few months. They did it "just for fun."

—The September Century argues editorially in favor of securing an amendment to the Constitution, giving to Congress the power to regulate marriage and divorce by general laws throughout the Union, and to the federal courts the power to punish for violation of such laws.

—An Eastern paper states that the object glass of the Lick Telescope is now substantially finished, and the few astronomers who as yet have had the privilege of looking through it speak of it in the highest terms. Its defining power is such that it most easily splits the most difficult double stars.

—An eight-page paper has been started in Atlanta, Ga., the sole mission of which is to show that prohibition is destroying the business of the city. It has always been claimed by everybody except liquor men that prohibition has a very depressing effect upon some kinds of business; i. e., the business of making drunkards and prostitutes.

—Several slight shocks of earthquake have been felt at Charleston and vicinity within the past week, but no additional damage has been done. There have been, however, heavy rains, owing to which some shattered walls have fallen, and of course considerable suffering has been caused to those who were not provided with adequate shelter.

—Sunday, September 5, John H. Cannon, son of George Q., was cut off from the Mormon Church on his self-confessed guilt of adultery!! It is thought that this is not the real reason. Very likely not. And now we would like to have some one tell us what constitutes adultery in Mormondom. How polygamists can condemn one of their members for adultery, and not condemn the whole lot, is more than we can understand.

—An attempt was made at Chicago, September 10, to blow up the signal tower of the Lake Shore Railroad Company. The plan of the perpetrators evidently was to wreck a passenger train which was due shortly after the explosion took place. Another and more successful attempt at train wrecking was made the same night, and fifteen cars were derailed.

—The drought stricken district in Texas comprises about 600 square miles and includes thirty-five counties. This region has some of the richest farming land in the State and until the present dry season never lacked sufficient rain. Copious rains have at last fallen but it will be months before crops can be raised and many of the farmers are without seed.

—Dr. T. McLagan, physician to Prince Christian, and in ordinary to the royal family of England, now in San Francisco, was one of the physicians selected by the English Government to report upon Pasteur’s method for the prevention of hydrophobia. He says: “In Europe, we all believe that Pasteur has solved the problem of the prevention of rabies, and that in a few years the disease will be extinct, not only in man, but in the dog.”