SECULAR NEWS | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 4, 1877

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 3, No. 38.

Read the full edition

SECULAR NEWS.

—Dr. R. T. Trall, the famous water-cure physician and lecturer, is dead.

—Two-thirds of the population of Austria-Hungary are engaged in agriculture.

—Palace Hotel, San Francisco, has been mortgaged to the Hibernia Bank for $1,000,000.

—A slight shock of earthquake was felt along the eastern coast of British America, September 19.

—It is estimated that the twenty Probate Courts of Utah have granted 5,000 divorces within the past three years.

—The petrified figure of a man seven feet, five inches in height is said to have been exhumed near Pueblo, Colorado.

—Rome has increased 100,000 in population since it became the capital of Italy, and has now over 285,000 souls.

—September 30, two freight trains on the Toledo, Wabash and Western railroad collided. Two engines and fifteen cars were burned. The loss is estimated at $150,000.

—Peru has so far advanced toward civilization that its Government has decided to issue $20,000,000 in paper money.

—Victor Emanuel collected heavy duties on all the presents to the Pope. The German pilgrims had to pay $12,000 and the Spanish $8000.

—The village of Putnam, in Eastern Connecticut, was nearly destroyed by fire on the morning of September 30. The loss is estimated to be about $200,000.

—Saturday, July 7, was the seventh day of the week, the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of the seventh decade, and the decade of the seventh century.

—A new and terrible cattle plague, very infectious, has made its appearance at Cleveland, Ohio. It is pronounced to be a species of Texas fever, and numbers of cattle are dying daily.

—The wheat crop of the United States in 1873 was 281,254,700 bushels; in 1874, 309,102,700; in 1875, 282,136,000; in 1876, 256,000,000; and this year the figure is placed at 325,000,000 bushels.

—The State tax levy for the fiscal year 1877–78 has been fixed at 63 cents on the $100, against 73½ cents last year. This, with the city and county tax, makes a total tax for San Francisco, this year, of $1.83 on the $100.

—An eastern paper states that it is proposed to have another Centennial International Exhibition in 1887, the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Constitution, and to have it in New York city, where the new Government was inaugurated.

—There are now only 17 cargoes of California wheat and flour en route to Europe, of which seven belongs to the crop of 1876. From this time on, the departures hence will exceed the arrivals out, and the fleet afloat will therefore steadily increase for the next six months.

—It is estimated that the total worth of the furs collected by the Hudson Bay Company since its organization represents a money value of $100,000,000 in gold. Still, strange to say, owing to the careful preservation of game by the Company, the average yearly catch is not sensibly decreasing.

—A fire broke out in the borax factory, across the street from the Market street depot, in this city, at half past 4 P. M., September 26. The factory, a house and a barn were completely destroyed, but the fire department was promptly on hand and saved adjoining property. Loss estimated to be about $4,600.

—The official statistics show that in the forty-seven years from 1820 to 1876, inclusive, the population of this country was increased 10,481,940 by immigration. The highest point of this tide was reached in 1871, when the arrivals numbered 498,823. In the seven years 1870-'76, the immigration amounted to 2,633,761. During the latter period the increase of the population by births was 5,700,000.

—The coal areas of the world aggregate 270,200 square miles, of which the United States has 192,000; Great Britain, 11,900; Russia, 11,000, and Nova Scotia, 18,000. The production in 1874 was 274,262,000 tons; of which England took the lead with 125,070,000, while the United States mined 50,000,000; Germany, with only 1800 square miles of coal area, 46,658,000; Russia produced only 1,292,000 tons, and Nova Scotia, 1,052,000. Belgium, with an area of only 900 square miles to draw from, produced 14,670 tons.

—There is no country in the world where a little money appropriated in reclaiming valuable land will do so much as in China. Mr. Unthank thinks that an outlay of $1,000,000, in draining the lake caused by the Grand canal at Yellow river, would reclaim rice lands to the value of $50,000,000. The Chinese do not dredge their canal, but build the banks higher as the sediment in the bottom raises the water, and the consequence is the surface of the water is in many places 15 or 20 feet above the land on either side. The canal is 800 miles long, and from 75 to 100 feet wide. The depth, according to Mr. Unthank’s measurements, varies from 7 to 20 feet.