SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 2, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 14.

SECULAR.

—Coal has been discovered at Gila Bend, Arizona. —Prince Bismarck was seventy years old last Sunday. —Maine catches about 15,000,000 pounds of lobsters a year. —There was no Indian outbreak in the United States in 1884. —The Canadian Parliament has passed a Chinese Restriction Bill. —During February 11,019 immigrants arrived in the United States. —Ex-President Arthur is going to spend the coming summer in Europe. —March 25 a theater and a Catholic church were burned at Buffalo, N. Y. —Ex-President Hayes lately gave $6,000 to a church in Fremont, Ohio. —The estimated wool-clip the coming season in Oregon is 8,000,000 pounds. —Two men were killed by the explosion of gas in a mine near Tucson, A. T., March 26. —1,300 new buildings, worth about $4,000,000, were erected in Washington City last year. —Revolutions are frequent in Panama. That State now has the fourth president since Jan. 1. —The U. S. Supreme Court has sustained the constitutionality of the Edmunds Act, against polygamy. —The steamer Mark Twain exploded her boilers near Memphis, Tenn., March 27, killing five men and wounding three others. —The Northern Pacific Railroad Company is going to bore a tunnel 9,000 feet long, through the Cascade Mountains towards Puget Sound. —Two army corps of 25,000 men each, with a reserve of 10,000, have been gathered in India to watch the British frontier in Afghanistan. —The Windsor Hotel, at Randolph, Mass., was badly damaged by dynamite last Friday morning. Striking shoemakers, it is supposed, did the work. —There is a rebellion of half-breeds and Indians at Prince Albert, British Columbia. Fifteen of the mounted police were killed in an engagement, March 24. —It is stated that, according to a recent census, the number of houses in Corea is 2,355,499; the number of male inhabitants, 5,322,633, and of females, 5,196,300. —Dynamite was placed under the skating rink at Girardsville, Penn., Saturday night, March 28, and its explosion tore out one side of the building. No one was hurt. —Prince John, of Lichtenstein, Germany, returned the last quarter's rent to his tenants, who had suffered greatly from their poor crops. This generous act cost him about $500,000. —In the Soudan, a battle was fought, March 22, in which, of the British forces, six officers and ninety-four men were killed, six officers and 136 men were wounded, and one officer and seventy men were reported missing. —W. W. Corcoran, of Washington, has given for public purposes not less than $3,000,000, besides $1,000,000 devoted to charities, and he has left at least $10,000,000, as he is the largest real estate owner in Washington. —In New York City, from Jan. 1 to March 15, there were 1,152 deaths from pneumonia, and in Boston, 279. In Washington there were 64 during the month of February. It is still prevalent in most Eastern cities. —The N. Y. Independent mentions a town that placed the liquor license at $100,000; and says that that town has no saloon, and so far has had no application. Why can't more towns do that way, at least till prohibition can be obtained? —President Cleveland has appointed the following foreign ministers: To England, E. J. Phelps, of Vermont; to Germany, G. H. Pendleton, of Ohio; to France, R. M. McLane, of Maryland; to Mexico, H. R. Jackson, of Georgia; to Turkey, S. S. Cox, of New York. —March 26 the queen sent a message to the House of Commons, calling out the army reserves and the militia. Accordingly the War Office issued a call for 53,000 reserves and 140,000 militia. This increases the army to 585,200 men. An order has also been issued for the immediate supply of 5,000,000 cartridges.

—Russia is about to erect a monster bridge between Cronstadt and the mainland toward St. Petersburg. It is to be five miles long, resting on granite piers. —The distress in West Virginia for want of food is terrible. The unprecedented drought left nothing to eat in some counties, for either man or beast, and the help afforded has not yet been sufficient to give much relief. —The rumors of war between Russia and England assume ugly proportions. From the most reliable reports there does not seem to be much ground between them for war, but England is doubtless making large preparations. —The latest official census of Japan gives a total population of 37,442,966, of whom 18,492,807 are females, being but 457,352 less than the males. The number of houses in the empire is stated at 7,674,224, being an average of five persons to a dwelling. —The French are not having it all pleasant in China. They have met with reverses, and their prospects at present are not bright. Their force is altogether insufficient to cope with the legions of men massed against them. In France much complaint is made of the ministry. —Dr. Knapp, professor of ophthalmology in the University of New York, in a recent lecture in San Francisco, speaking of the anæsthetic properties of cocaine said that "in a recent operation for a patient suffering acute neuralgic pains in the eye, cocaine was applied, a delicate spear-head knife was plunged into the eye-ball and withdrawn; a suction-cup was applied over the wound thus made and some pus withdrawn from a sac in the eye which the knife had punctured, and all the while the patient, mentally fully conscious, chatted pleasantly with the operator, as insensible of the operation as though it were being performed on his hat-band."