SECULAR

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 29, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 29.

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—A fire in St. Louis, July 18, destroyed 25,000,000 feet of lumber.

—Glass is now largely used for flooring in Paris business houses.

—Maximilian Wolfgang Duncker, the German historian, is dead.

—Cholera is said to be decreasing in Italy but is spreading into Austria.

—July 19 a large part of the town of Madera, Cal., was destroyed by fire.

—July 20 the explosion of a locomotive boiler near Columbia, Tenn., killed several persons.

—This Government has been officially informed that cholera is epidemic at Kanagawa, Japan.

—Gladstone has resigned the premiership and the Marquis of Salisbury will form a new ministry.

—At Barstow, San Bernardino County, Cal., July 16, the thermometer for two hours registered 125° in the shade.

—Jack rabbits (hares) are so numerous along the Humboldt River, Nev., that they do a great deal of damage to crops.

—A cyclone recently visited a mining camp in Arizona doing considerable damage to property. No lives were lost.

—The London correspondent of the American Register asserts that twenty-eight persons died of hydrophobia in that city last year.

—A circular has recently been issued at Portland, Maine, calling upon those interested in the fisheries to unite in boycotting Canadian products.

—A Mojave Indian medicine-man in Arizona was recently clubbed to death and then cremated for allowing too many of his patients to die.

—The railroads of the United States give employment to 650,000 people, and transport 400,000,000 tons of freight annually, one-half of which is food and fuel.

—It is stated that the losses by fire in the United States and Canada amount to about $100,000,000 annually, exclusive of cases in which the loss is less than $10,000.

—At Warsaw, Poland, June 20, a secret Nihilist meeting was surprised by the police. In the scrimmage which ensued two detectives were killed. Many arrests were made.

—It is stated that out of the twenty-six Russian peasants inoculated by Pasteur, eight have already died of hydrophobia. Five died in Paris and three succumbed on their return home.

—July 19 twenty-five Icelanders arrived at New York bound for Salt Lake City. They are recent converts to the Mormon faith and are the first Mormon proselytes ever made in Iceland.

—Associate Justice Boreman, of the Second District, in Utah, says: "Polygamy is filling Southern Utah with outlaws. The sons of polygamists will give our courts trouble for years to come."

—The governor of Algeria has discovered a use for standing armies in times of peace. The greater part of the grain crop, he reports, has just been saved by turning the military loose on the locusts and crickets.

—An unprecedentedly heavy rain storm at Virginia, Nev., July 17, did a large amount of damage. There were numerous wash-outs on the Virginia and Truckee Railroad. One near the Julia Mine carried away several hundred feet of track.

—At an early hour on the morning of July 18 Benz Ramage, a merchant at the Union Coal Works, eleven miles from Wheeling, W. Va., down the river on the Ohio side, was killed and his store blown to atoms by dynamite deposited beneath it.

—A recent London dispatch states that Sevastopol and other Black Sea ports are now protected by electric apparatus placed in the sea, to destroy hostile torpedo boats. The construction of the apparatus, which is the work of American engineers, has been kept secret.

—Judge Bone, of the United States Court, has issued an order enjoining the Richmond Typographical Union and the editor of the Labor Herald from publishing in that paper or elsewhere the names of persons who patronize a boycotted firm in that city. The order is the most far-reaching ever issued in the direction of preventing boycotting.

—Six men are in jail at Wyandotte, Kan., charged with having wrecked the Missouri Pacific freight train between Wyandotte and Kansas City, April 26 last, during the great Southwestern Railway strike. The alleged wreckers are members of the Executive Board of the local lodge of Knights of Labor at Wyandotte and Hamilton; the man who is represented as the ringleader in the crime, is Chairman of the Board.

—Recent advices from Mexico state that the revolution in the Montezuma district of Sonora, is gaining strength daily and the trouble has extended into Chihuahua, adjoining Montezuma. No State or national troops are in the field, and the revolutionists have their way. Hostilities are being carried on vigorously. The condition of affairs is such that Americans are claiming to be British subjects in order that they may be secure from violence.

—A dispatch from Ottawa, dated July 23, says: "Over 500 families are starving in Northern Newfoundland, while in Labrador 1,000 families are in the first state of destitution. One hundred and twenty persons have died so far. The thermometer on the 1st of July stood at zero. From Cape Bauld, N. F., to Cape Mugford on the Labrador coast, there is a solid barrier of ice, and no fishing has been possible. Large numbers of starving fishermen from Indian Harbor and Sandwich Bay have just arrived to implore food from the Government. No crops can be grown. It is probable that 1,000 people will die within another month if help is not afforded them."

—An evidence of the high state of civilization prevailing in Arizona, may be found in the fact that the scalp of an Apache, recently killed in that Territory, is to be sent to Mrs. Cleveland.

—Friday afternoon, July 23, a man jumped from Brooklyn Bridge into East River, a distance of 135 feet. He was but slightly injured, but was promptly arrested and charged with an attempt at suicide.

—The case of the American editor now confined in a Mexican prison, is thus stated by the San Francisco Chronicle: "Mr. Cutting, the editor of a paper published in the American town of Paso del Norte, printed some strictures on the Mexican officials in the Mexican town of Paso del Norte, just opposite. Having occasion to cross the river shortly afterward, he was arrested, thrust into a filthy dungeon and refused bail. His case was brought before the Government at Washington and Mr. Bayard promptly demanded his immediate release. The Federal Government of Mexico at once acceded to the demand and ordered that Cutting be set at liberty. But the authorities of Paso del Norte refuse to obey the order, on the ground that it is a State matter." The Mexican Government has sent several companies of soldiers to Paso del Norte to resist any effort which may be made to release Cutting by force.