SECULAR NEWS | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jan 11, 1877

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

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SECULAR NEWS.

—In Ireland 110 persons hold one-fifth of the soil.

—There were four hundred and seventy-nine deaths in Oakland last year.

—The Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum and Home was dedicated Jan. 1, 1877.

—Dom Pedro's account of his whirl through the United States appears in four languages.

—Snow-storms throughout the Eastern States are reported to be the heaviest that have occurred for several years.

—It is alleged that during the gales of the past few days on the coasts of Scotland and England about one hundred and fifty lives have been lost.

The extradition treaty between Spain and the United States has been signed. It applies to all criminal offenses except those of a political nature. The Cortes has been prorogued and no date assigned for its re-assembling.

—The Chinese population amounting to at least one-sixth of the whole population of the State, pays less than one four-hundredth part of the revenue required to support the State Government.

—Word comes from Copenhagen, Jan. 3, that the first railroad accident in Denmark, involving loss of life, occurred near Horseno. A train containing one hundred laborers ran off the track. Nine persons were killed and thirty severely injured.

—A telegram from Albany, N. Y., states that Boss Tweed is utterly broken down at last and ready to make any terms to bring his troubles to an end. It may safely be predicted that he will surrender all the property still within his control and make a clean breast of the whole ring business to some prudent trustworthy representative of the prosecution.

—The first Russian newspaper dates from 1703. Peter the Great took part personally, not in its editorial composition, but in correcting the proofs, as appears from sheets still in existence, on which are marks and alterations in his majesty's hand-writing. Only two copies of the first year's edition have been preserved. They are in the Imperial Library of Stockholm.

—Reliable private intelligence has been received at Washington that the Chinese Government has finally commissioned two Joint Ministers to the United States, Spain and Peru, and that they have started for the United States via Madrid. They will devote their attention for two or three weeks to matters connected with Chinese immigration to Cuba, and then proceed direct to Washington, which will be their permanent headquarters, arriving probably in March. Chin, Senior Minister, is a Mandarin of high rank. Wing, his assistant or associate, was educated at Yale College, and speaks English fluently.

—The Coroner of San Francisco attended to 370 cases during the last year. Of those, 72 were suicides, 25 murders and two justifiable homicides. The remainder were violent deaths of various kinds. Of the 72 suicides 25 shot themselves, 7 jumped overboard into the bay, 2 threw themselves from elevated windows, 2 hung themselves, 1 cut the arteries of his arm and bled to death, 1 threw himself beneath the wheels of a locomotive, 4 cut their throats, and the remaining 31 swallowed poison. Of those who took poison, 11 preferred morphine, 10 strychnine, 4 laudanum, 1 sulphuric ether, 1 oxalic acid, 1 opium, 1 chloroform, 1 cyanide of potassium, and but one chose the deadliest of drugs, prussic acid. Of the 26 murders 11 have been unavenged, nor have any arrests been made for them. In two cases the murderers shot themselves and saved the trouble and time of a trial.