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International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 23, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 17.

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SECULAR.

By Editor

-France imported 50,000 tons of oranges in 1884.
-Ohio has more colleges than any other State in the Union.
-Last year England paid $54,000,000 for the service of her navy.
-The New York street-cars killed 21, and injured 108 persons last year.
-John B. Gough has delivered more than 8,500 addresses in forty-five years.
-The preliminaries are being arranged looking to peace between France and China.
-April 2, S. I. Prime, D. D., completed his forty-fifth year as editor of the N. Y. Observer.
-Edwards Pierrepont, Secretary of the American Legation at Rome, died in that city April 16.
-The gross public debt of Canada, as stated in the House of Commons the other day, is $227,110,336.
-A fine new flouring mill at Roseville, Cal., was burned April 15. Loss, $45,000, insured for $24,000.
-Heavy floods and great damage are reported from Ontario, on account of the breaking up of the ice.
-The value of produce exports, at the port of New York, for the week ending March 24, was $5,907,000.
-A hotel and seven other buildings were burned at Victoria, B. C., the night of April 16, and two persons perished in the flames.
-There was a serious riot in Cork, Ireland, the night of April 15, after the arrival there of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
-Governor Hoadly, of Ohio, says he cannot afford to be a candidate for re-election. He had to pay $10,000 for his election two years ago.
-Quite a severe frost visited California the night of April 17, doing considerable damage to the grape crop, and in some parts damaging all kinds of fruit.
-Now that Barrios is dead, peace has been signed between Guatemala and Salvador, and the trouble in Central America is over, at least for the present.
-The Christian at Work declares that there is one thing, and only one, that travels faster than thought, and that is—a lie. We are not disposed to dispute it.
-The Asiatic cholera is raging on the eastern coast of Spain, mostly in the province of Valencia, where the earthquakes were so destructive last fall and winter.
-There is unprecedented business depression in Italy, and it is expected that there will be an enormous emigration from that country to the United States, the coming summer.
-The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has passed, by the emphatic vote of 131 to 39, the Senate bill providing for scientific temperance instruction in the public schools.
-An old woman and her two grandchildren, aged eight and ten years respectively, starved to death near Point Pleasant, W. Va., during the cold weather in the early part of April.
-For the year ending Sept. 30, 1884, the New York elevated railroads carried 96,702,620 passengers. In five years the number has been more than doubled without any extension of the lines.
-April 13, at Oscoda, Mich., while seven men were clearing some brick out of a large smoke-stack, it fell and five of them were instantly buried beneath 50,000 brick. One man was severely injured and one escaped unhurt.
-It is reported that the Czar of Russia is to assume the title of Emperor of Central Asia, and to be crowned at Samarcand, in Turkestan. This is probably intended to be an offset to Queen Victoria's title of Empress of India.
-A serious complaint has been entered at the war department against the management of the garrison at Fort Walla Walla, W. T. Neglect, exposure, and oppression of the soldiers, by the officers, are the principal charges.
-At a fire in Huisers' Piano Factory, New York City, April 14, the second floor gave way and nine firemen were thrown to the cellar with a number of pianos, which fell on them. All the men were more or less injured, two of them it is thought fatally.
-A Stradivarius bass-viol was recently injured while being transported over the New York Central Railroad, and a suit for damages resulted in the large verdict of $3,025. The instrument was pronounced by experts the only one of that make they had ever seen.
-Recently high pontifical mass was celebrated in Copenhagen for the first time since the days of the Reformation, such a service having heretofore been forbidden by law. The Catholics in Denmark now number about 3,000 souls, with 26 priests, of whom 7 are Danes.
-The Sixty-fifth Montreal Volunteers, when ordered to proceed against Riel, the leader in the Canadian rebellion, refused. Their excuse was that they needed equipment, but it is believed that they sympathize with the malcontents, and are unwilling to go against them.
-A barn 100x120 feet in size, on Senator Stanford's ranch at Vina, Cal., was burned at 2:30 in the morning of April 16, in which seventy-five mules and thirty-four horses were burned to death. Loss, $30,000, with no insurance. Two mules escaped. The fire is supposed to have been the work of an incendiary.
-In the Canadian House of Commons, April 14, a message from the governor-general was read asking Parliament to grant immediately $700,000 toward defraying the expenses of putting down the Northwest rebellion. That rebellion is about the most serious difficulty with which Canada has ever had to deal.
-Wheeling, W. Va., is profoundly stirred by the report of the grand jury, returning 125 indictments. Sixty of these are for gambling, among which are found an ex-Governor, a candidate for the U. S. Senate, and a large number of "prominent merchants, manufacturers, society young men, attorneys, and other professional men."
-A new invention is suggested by the Scientific American by which to detect burglars. Instead of the "alarm" ringing a warning when the safe is approached, an ingenious device is to instantly turn on a full glare of electric light, and at the same time expose a plate in a camera, all ready to take an instantaneous picture. The sleeping inmates of the dwelling will be awakened in the process, who can secure the negative, and perhaps the burglar.