SECULAR NEWS | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Feb 22, 1877

SECULAR NEWS.

—President Lerdo, of Mexico, is now in New York.

—There are about fifty cases of small-pox in Los Angeles.

—The Salt Lake grand jury stands four Gentiles and eleven Mormons.

—Strawberries of the finest quality are in the Los Angeles market, selling at 25 cents per pound.

—Brigham Young is assessed in Salt Lake county for $100,000, while it is well known his property would sell readily for $3,000,000.

—There were only 28 deaths in San Francisco last week from diphtheria, against 32 the previous week, and 4 from small-pox against 18 the previous week.

—The President's message, urging speedy resumption of specie payments has been sent to Congress. No time is specified, that being left to the direction of Congress.

—Three tons of clothing have thus far been sent to the field by the London Servian Relief Committee. There are more than 250,000 refugees in a state of nearly complete destitution—the result of the brief war between Turkey and Servia.

—Mr. Remington, who has published the Daily Witness and the Christian at Work for several years, has just sold the latter paper for ten thousand dollars. The Independent says: “It is understood that he has sunk not far from fifty thousand dollars on each of these papers.”

—The natural increase of population in British India for fifty years, ending with 1876, was at the rate of nearly 2,000,000 each year, rising from 125,000,000 to 217,000,000. This is due to the sanitary measures introduced by the English, the abolition of the sacrifices of widows and children and of tribal wars.

—News of a terrible massacre comes to us from Cali, in the State of Cauca, Colombia. A small band of Conservatives had captured the town and were in quiet possession, when, on December 24, an army of the Liberals sacked the place, murdering the men, women, and children to the number of 300 or more, and destroying a vast amount of property.

TELEGRAPHING MUSIC.—A telegram from Chicago, of Feb. 13, says: “At the telegraphers' ball held here last night music was transmitted over the wires, by means of Elisha Gray's telephone, from Milwaukee, with great success. The wires were run into several newspaper offices, and caused great delight to those to whom it was a novelty and wonder.”

—The famine in Southern India seems to be assuming grave proportions. It is stated that it extends from sea to sea, right across the Deccan; that a million of persons are employed on the relief works; that 13,000 destitute persons have crowded into Madras itself; that the cattle are perishing, and that no improvement can be hoped for for six months.

—The Pacific squadron of the Imperial Russian Navy has been ordered to rendezvous at San Francisco, instead of, as usual, in a Chinese or Japanese harbor. There are at present, either in this port or at Mare Island, seven men-of-war. Two or three more vessels are expected to arrive within the next few weeks. What effect the Russo-Turkish imbroglio may have had in directing this westerly movement must be left to the solution of politico-economists.

—So greatly has the manufacture of paper in this country been improved of late years that it can be produced here and sold in London at moderate prices. And yet years ago all our paper was imported, and American manufactured paper, whenever offered here, was frowned upon. Now it is acknowledged to be equal in quality to any manufactured in England. The French writing paper is a specialty with that country that is not yet made here, but in course of time it certainly will be. Some forty manufacturers of paper have combined to direct their efforts to open up an export trade. Success to them.

—A leading New York paper has the following interesting item: “Lockport was one of the pioneers in the introduction of gas for street illumination, and she is about to lead off in an experiment for the introduction of heat on a kindred principle from a general source of supply. Mr. A. H. Holly, the projector of the plan, has earned a wide reputation for professional services as a civil engineer. He estimates that one set of boilers in the middle of a tract half a mile square will furnish steam through service-pipes sufficient to warm all the buildings in the district at a cost far below that at present incurred for private supplies of fuel. The chief difficulty to be overcome is the condensation of the steam in transit, but this occurs at a known rate and allowances can be accurately made.”

—The New York Assembly, acting under the recommendation of the Governor, has put the Normal Schools of the State “under the exhausted receiver” by voting no appropriations for the normal work. The Christian Union, in speaking of this action of the Assembly and of the necessity of a Normal Department to any effective system of education, makes the following pointed remarks: “In England even the diploma of Oxford or Cambridge is regarded by the best school authorities as inadequate evidence of fitness to teach, and in the recent Teachers’ Conference in London Dr. Playfair urged the adoption of an inflexible rule requiring as a condition preliminary to appointment a diploma from a Normal College. And now the Empire State proposes to abolish the whole Normal system and trust to such teachers as it can borrow from other States or pick up by chance within the borders of its own. We perhaps have no right to say that this action is prompted by the Romish hierarchy; but certainly if they desired to send their shaft into the very heart of our public school system they could have taken no more unerring aim.”