Secular News | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 23, 1878

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 4, No. 20.

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Secular News.

—England pays $30,000,000 annually for imported fruits.

—An earthquake has occurred in Venezuela, by which 600 persons were killed.

—Most of the fruit has been destroyed by frost in the valleys of Pennsylvania.

—Queen Victoria has donated £50,000 to the temperance cause in London.

—An oil tank, at Bradford, Penn., recently burst, causing a loss of 22,000 barrels of oil.

—The London Times estimates that the war with Turkey has cost Russia about five hundred million dollars.

—Two million acres of cultivated land hardly suffice to produce the grain consumed in New York breweries yearly.

—During the performance in a theater at Ahmednuggur, India, the building caught fire and forty persons were burned to death.

—A Chicago paper states that at least twenty-five per cent of the male, and thirty of the female Chicagoans are victims of a confirmed opium habit.

—The annual yield of potatoes in the United States, according to the returns of the last census, was nearly 150,000,000 bushels.

—Letters from Mogadore state that Morocco suffers from a long drought, and that a famine exists in several districts. Wheat has risen to six times the price of last year.

—The largest college library in the United States is that of Harvard, containing 160,000 volumes. Of the 356 American colleges only 16 have libraries of 25,000 volumes.

—The Permanent Exhibition at Philadelphia, which has been closed for some time past to allow of thorough renovation, was reopened to the public on the 10th inst., with appropriate ceremonies. Senators Blaine, Bayard and Wallace were present, and Blaine made an eloquent address.

—There are in Colorado over fifty peaks that rise more that 14,000 feet above the sea level. Blanca Peak, in that State, the elevation of which was determined last year by Hayden’s survey, is probably the highest point within the limits of the United States, being 14,464 feet above the level of the sea.

—The horrors of the Chinese famine continue. In one village nearly half the people are dead. In one family only two remain out of sixteen; the rest are dead, or have been sold, or have fled. In another family there remain three out of eight, while in a third, out of four none remain.

—It has been proved that our people expend annually about fifty million dollars in Europe to pay the expenses of travel. About fifty million dollars are also paid on railroad and other bonds held abroad (about one-half of our debt being in foreign hands), which makes the total amount paid there a hundred millions.

—The number of vessels belonging to, or bound to, or from ports in the United States reported totally lost and missing during the past month is 30, of which 2 were steamers, 3 ships, 10 barks, 1 brig and 14 schooners, and their total value, exclusive of cargoes, is estimated at $710,000. The list shows 13 wrecked, 3 abandoned, 3 burned, 1 sunk by collision, 3 foundered and 1 missing.

—The sale of drink to minors has engaged the attention of the active Christians of Chicago, and a society to prevent such sale has been formed. On Monday, March 25th, the subject was most earnestly discussed by the Methodist Ministers’ meeting of that city. Dr. Reynolds, the temperance lecturer, during his stay in Chicago, has given much attention to this illicit business, with good effect.

—From the volume of statistics of Great Britain for the year 1877, it appears that the pauperism of the Kingdom is, if possible, more formidable than ever. The persons receiving parochial relief in England and Wales average about 800,000. To these may be added about 100,000 for Scotland and 250,000 for Ireland, giving for the United Kingdom a total of 1,150,000. The average is generally put at about 1,000,000.