p. 14 | SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 15, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 48.

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SECULAR.

—Prince Chung, the father of the Emperor of China, is dead.

—A Washington restaurant-keeper has been fined $100 for refusing to serve a colored lawyer.

—Recent advice from Orkney Islands reports the loss of twenty fishing smacks in a hurricane.

—Herr Most, the anarchist, has been sentenced to one year's imprisonment in the penitentiary.

—In his recent message to Congress the President has committed himself unreservedly to free trade.

—A Chicago firm has recently been detected in sending giant powder caps through the mail as samples.

—The fiftieth Congress met at the Capitol, on Monday, December 5. Carlisle was re-elected Speaker of the House.

—Two men were killed and several cars demolished by a rear-end collision a few days since near Percival, Iowa.

—It is stated that the Fisheries Commission cannot agree on any terms of settlement of the difficulties between this country and Canada.

—Property to the amount of $250,000 was destroyed by fire at Montgomery, Ala., on the 8th inst. This is the largest fire in the history of that city.

—A statement of the claims for damage of nine British sealers seized in Behring Sea, amounting to about $300,000, has been forwarded to Washington.

—The Republican National Committee has decided upon Chicago as the place of holding the next National Republican Convention, and June 19 is the time fixed.

—The mayor of Lebanon, Pa., has instructed the chief of police and members of his force to arrest every person heard using profane language in public or within the hearing of passers-by on the street. He says he is determined to enforce the once obsolete law on this subject.

—Pittsburg, Pa., is suffering from an epidemic of typhoid fever. Bad water is said to be the cause.

—Arensdorf, the supposed murderer of Rev. George Haddock, has been acquitted. There are a great many people who will find it very difficult to believe that the jury in this case brought in an honest verdict.

—Late advices from Baracoa, Cuba, state that during the recent heavy gale there the sea invaded a portion of the city, destroying about 100 houses. The telegram also reports the loss of the steamer Gurnwig, and an American schooner.

—It is announced that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company will have its first passenger train equipped with steam-heating apparatus ready for travel in a few weeks. The Lehigh Valley Company is also preparing to heat its cars the same way.

—December 10, M. Jules Ferry, the noted French statesman, was shot, but not fatally, by a man who declared himself to be one of the twenty persons who are sworn to kill a number of prominent Frenchmen and bring about a revolution.

—I. S. Kalloch, ex-mayor of San Francisco, and formerly a Baptist minister in that city, died on the 9th inst. at his home in New Whatcom, W. T. At the time of his death Kalloch was superintendent of the Bellingham Bay and British Columbia Railroad Company.

—A malignant type of diphtheria is causing numerous deaths in several counties in Arkansas. Three deaths occurred in one family inside of twelve hours. It is said that the local physicians acknowledge themselves unable to control the disease, and have advised that physicians from abroad be called upon.

—One day last week a ten-year-old boy in the juvenile dormitory at St. Joseph's Home, Jersey City, N. J., took a companion aged four to the kitchen, gagged him with a handkerchief, removed the child's pants, and deliberately placed him on the red-hot range. The child cannot live. His tormentor shows no signs of remorse.

—The Franz Brewing Company and the Selzer Brewery, of Sioux City, Iowa, closed their doors on the 7th inst. The proprietors say that they are through with manufacturing beer in Iowa. The Federal questions involved in the prohibition law having been decided against the brewers they withdraw from any further contest.

—Three police officers were shot, two of them fatally, at Holyoke, Mass., on the 4th inst., while attempting forcibly to enter a room where they were not wanted. The man who did the shooting claims that he was justified, as the police had no warrant. The police claim that the law gave them the necessary authority, it being Sunday.

—It is said that in New Jersey there are some fifty-two hundred acres under cranberry culture. The leading cranberry-growing States are Massachusetts, New Jersey, Wisconsin, and Connecticut. The entire crop in the United States last year, from cultivated plants, was about 600,000 bushels. Some growers claim to have raised a barrel of cranberries to the square rod.

—Two cases of leprosy of the most loathsome type, being that known to medical men as elephantiasis mutelans, have been discovered near Rothsay, Minn. Both patients are Norwegians and heads of families. None of the members of their families have the disease. Before leaving Norway both men were fishermen, and lived almost exclusively on fish diet, and it is to this fact that they attribute their affliction.

—On the 8th inst. three men were discovered in an attempt to blow up the fortifications at Halifax. The men escaped. It is believed that their plan was to bore an auger-hole through the cover of the gun-cotton tank and attach a fuse. If this had been accomplished, not only George's Island, with its magnificent fortifications, but all the ships in the harbor and two-thirds of Halifax harbor must have been destroyed.

—A mysterious disease has for some time been baffling the physicians in Ottawa, Canada, but investigation showed that the water supply of the city was pumped from a river in the immediate vicinity of a stagnant creek, which received the refuse of a slaughter-house, and this is undoubtedly the cause of the epidemic. "This," remarks a leading daily, "is only a specimen of the criminal carelessness so often exhibited by supervisors or aldermen of cities."

—A bill has been introduced into the Reichstag providing for another increase in the German army. This will, of course, impose additional burdens upon an already overtaxed people. Prince Bismarck is known to have greatly hurt the chances for the immediate passage of this bill, which the military press estimates will add 500,000 men to the effective force in the event of mobilization. It would not be at all strange if "his holiness," the Pope of Rome, is called upon to use his influence for the passage of this bill, as he did for the septennate a year ago.

—December 4 there were several shocks of earthquake throughout the Province of Calabria, Italy. The railway station at Mongrassano was destroyed, and the town of Bogliano-Gravina suffered greatly. The first shock at Bisignano was felt at 5 o'clock in the morning. The people at once fled from their houses, and this prevented an awful calamity. The second shock, which was much more violent, occurred at 7 o'clock. Bisignano was entirely destroyed. Four thousand persons were rendered homeless. Twenty-five are known to have been killed.

—The somewhat famous prohibition cases before the United States Supreme Court from Kansas, have at last been decided by that tribunal. The decision in each of these cases is to the effect that a State has the right to prohibit the liquor traffic within its borders. These cases were taken before the Supreme Court on the plea that State prohibition is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides that no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.