p. 94 | SECULAR | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 7, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 6.

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SECULAR.

—The public debt was reduced $11,800,000 during January.

—There are now over 14,000 men employed on the Panama ship canal.

—Late Austrian advices state that socialism has become formidable in Vienna.

—The electric lights at Los Angeles can be seen at San Clemente Island, eighty miles distant.

—Six persons were killed, and one injured by a railroad accident at Broad Ripple, Ind., Jan. 31.

—At Hamilton, Ont., Jan. 31, four dwelling-houses fell on account of the weight of snow on their roofs.

—It is claimed that the petroleum belt in Wyoming Territory is twice as wide as that of Pennsylvania.

—The Boston Training School for Nurses has graduated fifteen students the past year, making 108 in all.

—The Merchants Telegraph and Cable Co. has been incorporated in New York, with a capital of $13,000,000.

—It is announced that a priest of Concordia, State of Vera Cruz, Mexico, has discovered a key to the Aztec writings.

—An attempt to poison the Czar has been discovered and frustrated. Another official was assassinated on the 26th inst.

—Forty prospectors, some of whom were from California, have been found murdered on the way from Chihuahua, Mexico, to the Dolores Mining District.

—Both houses of Congress have passed the bill appropriating $3,750,000 for the rebate of the tax on tobacco; and $100,000 was appropriated for the maintenance of destitute Indians.

—Russia has made a formal demand that Turkey immediately pay the £250,000 still owing as indemnity exacted after the Turco-Russian war.

—The Territorial Auditor of Utah, a Mormon in high standing, has been called upon to explain charges of crookedness in his official duties.

—A portion of the travel from New York to the Pacific Coast is being turned southward, via Atlanta, Montgomery, New Orleans, and the Southern Pacific.

—Business failures and defalcations are still rife, but the largest yet reported is that of the London stock-brokers, H. W. Thomas, Sons & Co., for over $4,000,000.

—A gasoline explosion at Alliance, Ohio, on the 1st inst., caused the destruction of three buildings, the loss of seven lives, and the wounding of several other persons.

—On the 27th ult., fifty-five Apache children left San Carlos Agency, A. T., for the Indian Training School at Carlisle, Pa. This is supposed to be a pledge of peace.

—Secretary of the Treasury Folger has decided that, if Mrs. Miller of New Orleans is otherwise qualified as a steamboat master, she must not be denied a license on account of sex.

—A national convention of the "Prohibition Home-Protection Party" is to be held at Pittsburg, Pa., May 21, to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States.

—The branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad, running south from San Francisco and terminating at Soledad, Monterey County, is to be extended to the main line at some point in Kern County.

—Last week, 124,080 letters were returned to China from San Francisco. They were accumulations of letters seized on steamers, and short of postage payment. The Department at Washington ordered their return.

—An illicit cigar factory has been discovered in the Arizona Territorial penitentiary. Seven thousand cigars were found by the U. S. Revenue officer hid away under the bed of the only female convict in the prison.

—The Gen. Fitz John Porter relief bill has passed the lower House of Congress. He was court-martialed and dismissed from the service during the rebellion for alleged disobedience of orders. This bill provides for the restoration of his rank and pay.

—A knowing Chinaman has informed the Virginia, Nev., Enterprise that one effect of the Restriction Act has been to raise the price of Chinese women in this country. A woman that wouldn't sell for $250 dollars last year, now commands $600.

—Congress has begun in earnest on unearned railroad land grants. The bill declaring the Texas Pacific grant forfeited passed the House by a vote of 259 to 1. A bill forfeiting grants in Mississippi and Alabama also passed, and the grant of the Oregon Central is expected to go next.

—A small cyclone passed near Hueneume, Ventura County, Cal., on the 31st ult. A dwelling-house was completely carried away, the cooking-stove going up about fifty feet. No person was seriously injured. Scientists have been telling us that the Pacific Coast was topographically proof against cyclones.

—At a recent wedding party in Elgin, Idaho, a little ten-year-old brother of the bride found a pistol somewhere in the house, and, running into the room where the guests were sitting, pointed it at his new brother-in-law, "just for fun." The weapon was discharged, and the bridegroom instantly fell dead, shot in the brain.

—The Federal District Court of San Francisco, since the Chinese Restriction Law came in force, has been almost exclusively occupied with habeas corpus cases of Chinese immigrants; and such business seems likely to claim the entire attention of the Court as long as the law exists. There is a call for a special commission to hear and decide such cases.

—A San Francisco daily objects to the move in Honolulu to prohibit the sale of flash newspapers and obscene pictures, on the ground that other improprieties are permitted in that city. This objection is certainly not logical. If that city is ever to be reformed it must make a beginning somewhere, and when the twin evils spoken of have been eradicated, a main prop of others will be taken away.

—What was known as the "iron-clad oath" has been abolished in the House of Representatives of Congress, by a vote of 185 to 11. Under this oath, one affirmed that he never had voluntarily borne arms against the United States Government, nor given aid or encouragement to those who had done so; that he had held no office under a Government hostile to the United States, and that he never would.