SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 1, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 17.

SECULAR.

—Ripe cherries were in the Sacramento market on the 22d ult. —It is reported that a Buddhist temple is to be erected in Paris. —The president of the Effingham, Ill., Bank has absconded with $40,000. —The exodus from Quebec and vicinity is said to be alarming the officials. —For the week ending April 19, there were landed in San Francisco, 990 immigrants. —Reports from all parts of California are favorable for large grain and fruit crops. —The Cuban authorities are arming laborers on the public roads against filibusters. —Late news from the far East report fresh massacres of Christians in Laos, Southern Asia. —Another flood is reported in Arkansas, owing to heavy rains, and much property was destroyed. —Prime Minister Ferry says the time has come for a moderate revision of the French Constitution. —It is stated that Indians of British Columbia have declared that no more steamers shall ascend the Nass River. —The wife of a Jew peddler has been accused at Nashville, Tenn., of the murder of her husband to obtain his life insurance.

—High water in Lake Champlain, last week, caused heavy washouts on the Delaware and Hudson railway tracks, stopping all trains. —From April 19 to 22, it is reported that 10,000 immigrants arrived at New York on sixteen vessels, with twelve more vessels on the way. —Congressman Henley of California has introduced a bill providing for free postage on newspapers and periodicals. It ought to become a law. —Northwestern Kansas experienced the heaviest snow-storm of the year on the 21st ult. Stock suffered severely, and railroad trains were blocked. —By the falling of Central Pacific snowsheds near the summit of the Sierra Nevada, a few days ago, six Chinamen were killed and as many more wounded. —A Boston dispatch says a leper named Charles Wilson has escaped from the Tewksbury almshouse, and the State is being overhauled by the authorities. —The American Oak Leather Tannery, Cincinnati, the largest tannery in the world, was burned April 24, one department only being saved. The loss is estimated at $400,000. —The Iowa State Register says that murder is one of the safest crimes to commit in that State. Over 200 murders have been committed in twenty years, and not one murderer hanged. —While excavating in the City Park, New Orleans, recently, workmen exhumed a large brass cannon, bearing date of 1788. It is probably a relic of the old Spanish dominion in Louisiana. —Captain Eads has returned from England, where he has succeeded in interesting capitalists in his Tehuantepec ship railway scheme. He is now confident of completing the track in five years. —The “Curfew Ordinance” of this city has been revived by Mayor Henry’s orders, and all boys out after the sounding of the nine o’clock bell, without permission of their parents, will be locked up. —The most severe rain-storm in the memory of any inhabitant prevailed in the vicinity of Macon, Miss., April 19. Great damage was done to crops; stock was drowned, and killed by lightning. —Sir Edward Watkin, M. P., offers £1,000 toward the rescue of General Gordon. He asks the London papers to open a fund for this purpose, where, he says, £200,000 would be collected in a few hours. —Stanley, the African explorer, proposes an expedition to travel from the Congo through the Soudan and Nubia to Egypt. This was a task contemplated by Gen. Gordon before he undertook the expedition to Khartoum. —The news from Soudan represents a most tragical situation. Over 2,000 people at Shendy, many of them refugees from Khartoum, have been massacred by the rebels. General Gordon, it is said, considers himself abandoned by the English Government, and there is no surmising what the end will be.