p. 167 | SECULAR NEWS

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 24, 1877

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 3, No. 21.

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SECULAR NEWS.

—The river Rhone threatens inundation.

—The entire imperial revenue of China last year was $70,000,000.

—The Mont Cenis Tunnel is eight miles long, the Hoosac Tunnel nearly five.

—The public debt statement for the month of April shows a reduction of $4,315,509.

—By the recent earthquake along the coast of Peru, seventeen ships were totally lost and forty damaged.

—Boston last week enjoyed a telephone concert delivered at Providence, R. I., forty-three miles away.

—The population of Russia is 86,586,000; of Turkey, 28,500,000; and of Austro-Hungary, 35,804,435.

—A fund of about $1,500 has been raised to aid the families of those who were killed at the Rockford disaster.

—There are nine hundred and ninety-one lighthouse keepers employed in the United States, at a cost of $594,500 a year.

—A Greek ironclad captured a vessel which clandestinely left the Pireens. The crew were pirates and criminals from Asia.

—A recent destructive flood in Bagdad overwhelmed the banks of the Tigris and swept away two hundred houses in Kiamiazee.

—During the two terms of President Grant’s administration, the public debt is reported as having been reduced $436,682,116.

—Of the 250,000 Germans in New York city, 80,000 are Protestants, 60,000 Roman Catholics, 60,000 Jews, and 50,000 are unclassified.

—Two men were killed, and 60 injured (20 mortally) by the bursting of the boiler of the French frigate La Ravanches, anchored off Villefranche.

—The accumulation of gold in the United States during the current year will probably be greater than during any previous year of its history. It is estimated at $50,000,000.

—Mrs. Sarah Hale, who has edited Godey’s Lady’s Book for forty years, is now over eighty years old, still vigorous in body and sound in mind. Besides her editorial work she has written and compiled about thirty volumes.

—The collections of internal revenue for the fiscal year to date, amount to $103,600,098. Commissioner Raum entertains the opinion that the aggregate returns for the fiscal year will be fully up to the estimate—$120,000,000.

—At Newton, New Hampshire, recently, a mad dog, being wounded, took refuge in a barn, where some of the hay became soaked with his blood. This was afterward fed to a horse, which became furious, biting and tearing at everything within his reach.

—The Pacific Mail steamship which arrived in San Francisco from Hongkong and Yokohama, May 13, brought 1100 Chinamen in the steerage, and all the next day express wagons, in which the coolies were packed like sardines, were seen discharging their human freight in the Chinese quarter.

—In London, a Thieves’ Honest Labor Society has been established, in which all the men employed have forsaken a criminal life and are now struggling hard to obtain an honest livelihood. A home is connected with the society, that those employed may be kept from associating with their old companions.

—An Eastern paper says: “An effort is being made to put a stop to the traffic in postage stamps by fourth-class postmasters as a means of increasing their salaries, which are based on the number of stamps sold, and which by the inflation of salaries thus accomplished, is made to cost the government about $2,000,000 annually.”

—The managers of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, Missouri, Kansas and Texas, and Texas Central railroads, have effected a fast freight combination of their roads, which will go into operation June 1st, and they will regularly run 200 cars and seven sleepers daily through from Chicago to Houston and Galveston, Texas, from that date.

—In London, the policemen average only seven arrests apiece, and only one person in fifty-three is arrested; while the policemen of New York average thirty-six arrests apiece, and one person in eleven is arrested. It must be remembered that a very large proportion of the men who ought to have been arrested in London, Paris, Vienna, and other large foreign towns, have been sent to New York to be taken care of, and the authorities there are trying to do it.

—Two Chinese companies own a large amount of hydraulicking ground in the Humbug District, Placer county, which is being worked by sixty Mongolians, and according to the short hours they work, and the extravagant manner in which they live, it is self-evident that they are doing well. The large specimen that was found by Chinamen some time since, and reported worth $30,000, was taken from one of these mines, and its value, as near as can be ascertained by outsiders, was $12,000.

—The colored people of Virginia have inaugurated a movement for the establishment of an industrial institution in order to educate and instruct colored children in the mechanical arts. They have purchased property in Richmond, the price paid being $5,500. A little over $3,000 has already been raised, and a vigorous effort is being made to raise the funds still needed. It is proposed to start in these buildings first a printing office, afterwards shoemaking, tailoring, cabinet-making, and such other trades as will give promise of being self-sustaining.

—According to the late explorations of the English, German, and United States governments, it has been proved that the average ocean depths in the southern hemisphere are less than those of the northern hemisphere. The greatest recorded depth in the Southern ocean is 17,000 feet, while in the northern oceans 27,000 and 23,500 were found respectively in the Pacific and Atlantic. The greater range of water surface in the southern hemisphere is, therefore, in a measure, compensated for by its shallowness.

—The State prison for men in Massachusetts, accommodating 800 inmates, cost $1,000,000. The prison for women, with a capacity for 500, cost only $300,000. The difference is explained by the fact that women had the handling of the money in the latter case. Certainly the small economies which women are every day compelled to practice should have some influence on their general character, and tend to make them more economical in great things, to say nothing of their ignorance of the system of “division,” so largely practiced by men in the handling of public money.