SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 3, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 9.

Read the full edition

SECULAR.

—A slight earthquake was felt in South Carolina, February 26.

—The Russians have assembled a large squadron in Japanese waters.

—Ten thousand men are daily at work on a navy dock-yard in Japan.

—A new Congress hall is to be built in Buenos Ayres, costing $10,000,000.

—Three hundred divorces were recently granted in one day in the city of Paris.

—Cholera has appeared in Eszek, Salvonia, Austria. The deaths averaged eight daily.

—According to a recent decision of the District Court, the last distillery in Iowa is to be closed.

—Nearly one hundred lives were lost by the sinking of a Chinese man-of-war by the steamship Nepalu.

—The Supreme Court of Washington Territory has decided that the bill granting suffrage to women is unconstitutional.

—Some of the French papers think that the result of the election in Germany is an indication that Germans wish for peace.

—There are at present throughout France some 40,000 bureaux de tabac, or licensed dealers in tobacco.

—There are 4,008,907 farms in the United States, Illinois having the largest number, 255,741, and Rhode Island the smallest, 6,216.

—Reports about cattle in Victoria, Australia, continue unfavorable. It is thought that fully 40,000 will perish before the spring feed comes.

—Authorities have permitted boating on Sunday on all waters of the London parks. Another Sunday observance controversy is imminent.

—The Academy of Music and adjacent property in Adelaide, Australia, were burned not long since. Loss, £60,000. There was some loss of life.

—The Military Committee of the House at Washington have agreed upon the bill appropriating $5,000,000 for the construction of gun factories.

—A Turkish imperial decree is in preparation, calling out, for military service, the entire male population of the empire between the ages of 17 and 40.

—French and German Government agents are visiting all the horse-fairs in the north of England, making large purchases of horses suitable for military purposes.

—Reports received by the Colorado Cattlegrowers' Association at Denver indicate that cattle have wintered well on the ranges from Southern Montana to the Gulf of Mexico.

—The London Socialists have taken to visiting the churches, where they disturb the services by hissing whenever the name of the queen is mentioned, either in the litany or in the prayers.

—An extensive plot has been discovered in Odessa for a Polish rising in the event of a Russo-Austrian or Russo-German war. Twenty arrests have been made, and many imperial officials are implicated.

—Last month the floods in Queensland, Australia, were more severe than was at first realized. The damage to the crops is enormous; large numbers of live stock and sixty human beings have perished.

—At Marchiennes-au-Pont, Belgium, on the 23d ult. two immense fly-wheels in a flouring mill flew into fragments, totally wrecking the works, and injuring thirty-five workmen, three of whom have since died.

—Another extraordinary manner in which Queen Victoria celebrates her jubilee, is by using some $60,000 from a public charitable fund, to build in Windsor Park, an equestrian statue of her long-dead husband.

—The colonists of Topolobampo (Mexico) are leaving both by land and sea, they report seven deaths and sixty cases of small-pox in the colony. They also say that the water is impure, and the land worthless.

—February 21, a schooner was struck by a whirlwind on the St. John's River near Jacksonville, Fla., and, after being almost wholly lifted out of the water, was capsized and all on board, five men and several women and children were drowned.

—Though the results of the German election show in favor of the Government, the great vote given the Socialist candidates shows that Liberalism in its most progressive forms is swept aside and that Socialism is becoming popular in its most revolutionary forms.

—News is coming in of the damage done by the late snow-storm in Colorado and Nebraska. It is very great. Droves of cattle were seen by trainmen buried up to their heads in snow, and as hardly an animal was seen elsewhere, it is evident that many are entirely buried.

—An action is to be brought by the Old Dominion Steamship Company against the Master Workman and four of the Executive Committee of the Ocean Association, to recover damages alleged to have been sustained by the plaintiff through the unlawful action of defendants in the recent strike of longshoremen, and in their attempt to boycott the plaintiff in its business as common carriers. The five men have been arrested and each held in $5,000 bail.

—On February 24 the whole of Southern Europe was visited by a very severe earthquake. The most startling news comes from the Genoese Riviera, Italy, where over 1,500 persons perished. In the province of Porto Maurizio not one of the 160 communes escaped uninjured. The villages built on the hill-side terrace were almost all destroyed; in some cases nearly every house levelled. At Nice and other French pleasure resorts, the earthquake caused the greatest terror, fugitives fleeing in every direction; twenty thousand persons have already left Nice for Paris and other places, and the remainder are camping out in and about the city. Altogether 2,000 persons have been killed by the falling buildings. Monte Carlo, the celebrated gambling hell, escaped uninjured; the scientists say the reason of this is because it is built on a rock.

—Not long since a family in Wayne Co, Ill., ate some raw ham. Within a day or two they were all taken sick, and two young women died in great agony. A post-mortem examination of one of them, showed the body full of trichinæ and her stomach had the appearance of a honey-comb.

—To illustrate the rapidity of the telegraph service the following may be given: A message was sent from San Francisco to Yokohama, Japan, and in twenty-four hours the reply was received. The message of course went to New York, thence to London and by the Suez cable to China and then on to Japan, returning by the same route.

—Particulars in regard to the eruption of Mauna Loa, on the island of Hawaii, have been received. The eruption started on the morning of January 17, and continued till the 29th. During the first day 314 distinct shocks of earthquake were felt; these continued till midnight of the same day, only fewer in number. The eruption itself is said to have been grand and awful. At the start, a column of bright red smoke and steam shot up hundreds of feet, but no lava could at first be seen emerging from the crater, although the reflection showed that a small plain in the vicinity was being rapidly filled with it. Later on this plain overflowed and the lava rushed down the mountain in three large main streams, carrying destruction with them, until they reached the sea, into which they plunged, causing a dense volume of white steam, over a mile in width and three or four hundred feet high. On the morning of the 18th the red smoke gave way to huge masses of molten matter that was vomited out, giving the volcano the appearance of a fiery fountain, rising and falling incessantly. Fortunately the flow of lava was mostly over barren land, and no lives were lost, though many were scared, for during most of the time the earth was trembling and the sky blazing, and mysterious subterranean thunderings were heard. Kilauea, another crater on the same island, showed five lava lakes, but none of them active.