SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 30, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 13.

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SECULAR.

—A recent fire at Myngyan, Upper Burmah, destroyed 2,500 buildings.

—It is said that an English syndicate is negotiating for the purchase of the Gatling gun patents.

—A vast amount of damage has resulted recently in Hungary, Austria, and Russia from floods.

—For the first time in the history of that country, a Socialist has been elected to the Holland Parliament.

—High water in the Delaware River stopped all the mills in South Easton, Pa., for several days last week.

—A railroad accident near Oswego, Or., on the 22d inst. injured twelve persons, one of them fatally, it is thought.

—Two freight trains collided in a snow-shed on the Central Pacific near Colfax, March 19. Four men were killed.

—Sailors are so scarce on the Pacific Coast that ship captains find it very difficult to secure crews to man their vessels.

—Three mining prospectors were wantonly murdered recently by a band of Kootenai Indians in Washington Territory.

—The English Government will, it is stated, ask Parliament for £5,000,000 (nearly $25,000,000) under the Ashbourne Act.

—The Kentucky State treasurer has absconded after robbing the commonwealth of about $250,000. A reward of $5,000 is offered for his arrest.

—The Carson, Nevada, Mint will not be closed as had been decided. The increase of business is such as to warrant the department in keeping it open.

—A solid vein of black lead ore, said to be the largest deposit of the kind found east of the Rocky Mountains, has been discovered near Gainesville, Ga.

—High water on the Upper Missouri River, in Montana, has been doing considerable damage sweeping away bridges and carrying off cattle, hay, and wood.

—Commodore Robert B. Hitchcock, of the United States Navy, died at New York on the 24th inst.

—Extensive preparations are now being made at San Francisco for the reception and entertainment of those who attend the National Educational Convention.

—March 23 a collision wrecked two passenger trains on Erie Railroad forty miles from Pittsburgh, Pa. Only one man was killed and but nine seriously injured.

—The secretary of the interior has instructed the attorney-general to institute suit against the Northern Pacific Railway Company for cutting timber on public lands in Washington Territory.

—Chief Justice Waite, of the United States Supreme Court, died suddenly on the 23d inst. at his home in Washington City. Judge Waite was appointed chief justice by President Grant, January 20, 1874.

—Reports from Spain state that there has been great suffering among the people in the rural districts owing to the severe weather. Many of the peasants perished in the snow, and cattle and sheep were lost in drifts.

—Two quite wealthy men, citizens of Durango, Col., were arrested a few days since and taken to Kansas, charged with a murder committed in that State twelve years ago. The evidence against them is said to be very strong.

—Mying Yan, an important military post in Upper Burmah, was destroyed by fire a few days since. Fifteen thousand people were rendered homeless, and an immense quantity of grain, hides, and other property was destroyed.

—The surplus in the Texas State Treasury will soon amount to $3,000,000, and the Governor has announced his intention to call an extra session of the Legislature for the purpose of making some disposition of the money.

—Nevada County, Cal., has recently been the scene of a series of dynamite and incendiary outrages, which were perpetrated by miners who had no other grievance than that the mine owners refused to discharge certain non-union miners.

—On the 21st inst., a very severe storm swept over several of the Southern States. In parts of Tennessee, Georgia, and West Virginia the storm assumed the character of a cyclone; considerable damage was done to property, and several lives were lost.

—A dispatch dated Berlin, March 18, states that the whole northern and eastern portion of Germany has been visited by a severe snow-storm. There is so much ice that communication with Sweden has been suspended for ten days and with Denmark for six days.

—Disastrous floods are reported throughout Hungary. Thirty villages have been ruined, and the town of Szathmar-Nemeth partly destroyed. The towns of Bekes and Csaba are menaced, and the inhabitants are struggling for their lives against the overflow of the river Koros. Many houses have fallen.

—March 21, the dome of the National Capitol was struck by lightning. The entire building was shaken to its foundations, and a great many people in the rotunda and galleries were very much frightened for a few moments. A great deal of telegraphic apparatus was destroyed by the strength of the current, but no other damage was done.

—Later advices fully confirm the worst reports of destructive floods in Hungary. The Szamos River has destroyed Fehargyarmot and thirty-nine villages. The Raab has inundated six villages in Oedenburg, near Pesth. A famine prevails in the Schult district. At Pressburg, 2,000 persons are being relieved by the Government.

—March 20 and 21 the Northwest was again visited by a very severe snow-storm. The cold was intense and in some sections the snow drifted badly. Railroads were generally blockaded throughout the storm-swept territory, and it is stated that on the 22d not a wheel was moving in the Upper Michigan peninsula except those propelling snow-plows.

—On the 20th inst., the Raquet Theater, in Oporto Portugal, was burned. The house was crowded and over one hundred lives were lost. A number of men in the second gallery acted like demons, using “their fists, shoes, and knives to cuff, kick, and slash their way to the front. Young girls, children, and women were literally butchered when they stood in the way of these brutes.”

—Maria Mitchell, the celebrated professor of astronomy at Vassar College, is seventy years old. She is the discoverer of eight comets, the discovery of one of which gained her a gold medal from the king of Denmark, and it is said that when she was a girl of eleven she made an accurate record of a lunar eclipse. She has received the degree of LL.D from three different institutions.