p. 151 | SECULAR NEWS

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Apr 20, 1876

SECULAR NEWS.

—Locusts have invaded the southern provinces of Spain, and are doing great damage.

—Over five hundred deaths by yellow fever have occurred in the past fifteen days in Rio Janeiro.

—The Supreme Court at Washington refuses to recognize female attorneys, although cases in charge of women attorneys have been sent up from the inferior courts.

—Fighting is daily expected at Matamoras, between the partisans of Diaz and the Government troops. Public sentiment appears to favor Diaz, who, it is supposed, can easily capture the city.

—A great sensation was created in St. Louis on the 31st, by the indictment and arrest of fifteen members of the City Council, and other city officers, for bribery, perjury, and subornation of perjury. Rich developments are expected.

—Boston has 476 public schools, 63 banks, 163 hotels, 196 churches and religious associations, 14 courts, 138 constables, between 900 and 1,000 lawyers, and 189 newspapers and periodicals.

—The idea of making small steam engines in iron frames, so that they may be screwed to an upright wall, like a picture or clock, is being carried out. By this device they are placed in a secure and convenient position, are easy of access, and economical of floor space.

—Education is making progress in Russia. It appears from official documents that in 1866 only one conscript out of each hundred was able to read and write, while in 1870 the average had risen to eleven in each hundred, and this average has been still further increased of late years.

—In the time of Mehemet Ali, the number of children educated at the expense of the State in Egypt was only 3,000. In 1863 the number had increased to 60,000, and now it is about 90,000. Thus every fourth boy in Egypt receives what is called public instruction. Partly from the inferiority of the position of women in the East, and partly from the harem system, the girls do not receive the same educational advantages.

THE MERCHANT PRINCE.—

Alexander T. Stewart died at his residence in New York City, April 10th, after a week’s illness. Born near Belfast in 1795, he came to New York in 1819, and found employment as a school-teacher. In 1822, he embarked in the business from which he has reared the greatest house of the kind in the world, and amassed the most colossal fortune ever enjoyed by a citizen from legitimate trade. His beneficence was limited. He hoarded rather than distributed his charities; and as he had no heir there could have been but little satisfaction in the disposition of his immense fortune, estimated at $50,000,000.

—The monument to Horace Greeley in New York is under way. The model is by Chas. Cavaly, and when the memorial proper is finished it will be erected over the dead journalist’s grave in Greenwood. The plinth will be of Quincy granite; the die and cap of Westerly granite, which is of lighter color; on the face of the plinth will be in raised letters, “Greeley,” and on the face of the die a copper representation of Horace Greeley as a youth setting type. The following inscription, from the “Busy Life,” will occupy a place on the die: “If there is ever an inscription put upon my tomb, let it be ‘Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune.’” Crowning all will be a copper bust of the dead giant. The entire height of the monument will be fourteen feet. The subscriptions from the various Typographical Unions and others have already paid for the monument.

THE NEW ATLANTIC CABLE.—

The company was organized and the undertaking carried through with the avowed intention of securing for the public the full benefits of competition; and when the line was opened on the 15th of September last the fruits of competition were made apparent in the greatly reduced rates. The month of September had not expired when the traffic by the new line was interrupted. The line was repaired, and traffic was resumed on November 5th. The repairing vessel, Faraday, had scarcely arrived in England when the line was again broken on December 10th. On January 10th, 1876, the repairs were completed and the line was in good working order. For the third time, the line was broken, on January 23rd. It was again repaired, and opened for business on the 1st of March, since which time it has been in perfect condition, both electrically and mechanically. The evidence of the truthfulness of the story that the cable, in every instance, was willfully and maliciously cut, is almost unquestionable. Sir William Thornton and Mr. F. J. Bramwell, the two men in Great Britain best qualified to give an opinion, have both testified, after a careful examination of the broken ends of the cable, that the fractures in the first and second instances were “caused by violence applied by an instrument, and not by decay, not by any abrasion or rubbing, or any influence of that kind.” And since the above report was made, the directors have learned that the two ends of the fracture of January, 1876, had been recovered, and that the evidence is conclusive that “the cable must have been brought up intact and then chopped through by an ax or hatchet.”

The query at once arises, Who can be guilty of these astounding charges? Certainly it must have been done to advance certain interests, and by some humanly guided instrument or instruments.