p. 734 | SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 3, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 46.

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SECULAR.

—Since 1866, nine thousand divorces have been granted in Italy.

—Venezuela is building a breakwater at Laguayra which is to cost $40,000,000.

—Large numbers of hogs near Bergen, N. J., are dying of a disease resembling cholera.

—About forty thousand lives have been sacrificed in the mines of Great Britain during the last thirty years.

—A political crisis in Denmark seems imminent. The press and the telegraph are under strict censorship.

—Mayor Smith of Philadelphia has dismissed two police captains for not reporting gambling-houses in their districts.

—From September 5 to October 30, there were 104 cases of cholera in Yokohama, Japan, of which 69 proved fatal.

—The British steamer Aurora foundered near Hartlepool, England, November 26. Three of the crew were drowned.

—Vice-president Hendricks died very suddenly, of paralysis of the brain, at his home in Indianapolis, Ind., on the evening of November 25.

—In Russia, ninety thousand liquor-shops will be closed the 1st of January, as the Government has decided to allow the retailing of liquor only in hotels and eating-houses.

—On the 24th of November, a severe storm raged along the Atlantic Coast. Considerable property was destroyed. Several wrecks are reported, with some loss of life.

—Turkey is making war preparations on a grand scale, and is confident of being able to repel an attack by either Greece or Servia, or, a combined attack by both powers.

—The gradual-emancipation law of Brazil contemplates the freeing of all slaves in that empire in thirteen years; but it is believed that slavery will be extinct within nine years.

—The British forces in Burmah have reached Mandalay. Four deputy commissioners and as many assistants have been appointed. This is regarded as equivalent to annexation.

—At the close of the first week in November, 2,641 persons had died of small-pox in Montreal, of whom only 97 were Protestants. The unfortunate city is now suffering from typhoid fever and diphtheria.

—In Mexico vast swarms of grasshoppers are devouring everything in their reach. In several States the cereal crops have been entirely destroyed, and there will be severe suffering among the poorer classes.

—Nearly all the vessels in the whaling fleet in the Pacific have now arrived in San Francisco, or have sent in their cargoes. The catch for the season amounts to over 25,000 barrels of oil, 510,000 pounds of bone, and 5,000 pounds of ivory.

—Two more trans-continental railroads have been completed. The last spike was driven on the Canadian Pacific Road November 8, nearly six years ahead of its contract; and the California Southern, of which San Diego is the terminus, was completed November 9.

—Alfonso XII., king of Spain, died at El Pardo, November 24. His reign of ten years has been, on the whole, peaceful and prosperous, and his death is believed to be a misfortune to the country. His five-year-old daughter, the Princess Mercedes, is the heir to the throne, and her mother, Queen Christina, has been declared regent. It is reported that a Carlist uprising is imminent in Navarre.

—The Gentiles of Salt Lake City claim to have evidence that the authorities of the Mormon Church have been hiring disreputable women to entrap Federal officers and other prominent men. Several arrests have been made. Circumstances have come to light which show that several assignation houses in Salt Lake City are subsidized by the church, and managed under its direction. However, the Mormons have been foiled in their designs by a decision of Judge Zane.

—Fighting in the Balkans has been suspended, an armistice having been effected November 28. The suspension of hostilities was brought about by the efforts of the Austrian Minister at Belgrade. The Bulgarians have invaded Servia. They have captured Pirot, after severe fighting. King Milan was with his army at Pirot, and had under his command eighty thousand men. The Constantinople conference on the Balkan affairs has decided that neither Bulgaria nor Servia shall have any increase of territory.

—The storm in California, which set in again the 24th, has been such as no one remembers to have seen in the State before in the month of November, and such as there is no parallel for since the record of the rainfall has been kept. A railroad bridge in Santa Cruz County was washed away, precipitating a train of cars into the stream; no lives were lost. Below Colusa, the levees have given way, and thousands of acres are under water. In other places, houses and barns have been destroyed and bridges carried away. In some parts of the State the wheat-fields have been damaged.