SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 17, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 48.

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SECULAR.

—Senator Sherman has been elected president of the Senate.

—The elections in England have closed, and the Liberals find themselves in the minority.

—Wm. H. Vanderbilt died in New York December 8. His estate is estimated at $200,000,000.

—The guano deposits of the islands off Lower California are turning out to be very abundant.

—The German Bundesrath has unanimously approved a bill to connect the Baltic with the North Sea.

—The Remington works at Ilion, N. Y., have received an order from the Turkish Government for 200,000 rifles.

—The steamer City of Bayou Sara was burned December 6, at New Madrid, Mo. The passengers escaped safely, but lost everything.

—The Central Pacific is now using one hundred and forty barrels of petroleum daily on its steamers and in its shops.

—In view of the increasing Japanese emigration to the Sandwich Islands, Japan is about to enter into an agreement with the Hawaiian Government for a postal service.

—The constitutionality of the act authorizing the securing of 3,600 acres of land above the Harlem River for the new parks of New York City, has been affirmed by the Court of Appeals.

—The limited express train of the New York Central makes the run of 980 miles between New York and Chicago in twenty-six hours. This is believed to be the fastest long-distance train in America.

—Sixteen vessels were lost in the storm on the coast off Aspinwall, reported last week. It is not yet known how many lives have been lost; but all on board one vessel perished, and only two were saved from another.

—M. Pasteur, the Frenchman who claims to have discovered a remedy for hydrophobia, has seventy-three cases under treatment, and all his patients are doing well. Several children from Newark, N. J., have been recently sent to him for treatment.

—Florida is to have an extensive Scotch colony. The first division, of fifty families, has sailed from Glasgow; not less than a thousand families, in all, are expected. These immigrants own the land on which they are to settle, and are well supplied with money.

—An Arizona prospector owes his life to the sagacity of his horse. He was taken sick, and lay in camp three days perfectly helpless, until finally the horse went to another camp several miles distant, and by his actions induced some one to bring assistance to his sick master.

—Senator Edmunds proposes a bill to put the Mormons in chancery. It provides for the repeal of the act of the Legislature incorporating the church, and declares the property of the church forfeited to the United States, to be sold, and the proceeds used for the benefit of the public schools.

—The steamer Conto was wrecked on Lake Michigan recently. The passengers and crew were all rescued, and were provided with food and other things necessary to their comfort; but a party of seven who attempted to reach the mainland have not been heard from since they left their companions.

—Europe and British India consume about 150,000 gallons of handkerchief perfumes yearly. There is one great perfume distillery at Cannes, in France, which uses yearly 100,000 pounds of acacia flowers, 140,000 pounds of rare flower leaves, 32,000 pounds of Jassamine blossoms, 20,000 pounds of tuberose blossoms, and an immense quantity of other material.

—Lieutenant Zalinski, aided by Captain Candy, has invented a dynamite gun which promises to prove very destructive. The cartridge carries one hundred pounds of dynamite. Whenever it strikes after its discharge, the shock jars the battery, the platinum wire becomes incandescent in the midst of the dynamite, and an enemy's man-of-war is destroyed instantly.

—A Berlin journal has recently made an estimate of the size and cost of the armies of Europe. In the seventeen States of that continent, the armies, even on a peace footing, number 2,529,522 men. The total cost for these millions is estimated to be more than $950,000,000 per year. The total population of Europe is said to be a little more than 315,000,000. This would make the armies, in peace times, average three dollars per year to each person, young and old.

—The powers of Europe have agreed to recognize the union of the Bulgarias, and a Demarcation Commission has been appointed to fix a line between the Bulgarian and Servian armies, beyond which neither shall pass, pending negotiations. It is believed that this arrangement insures an armistice of a month, and can hardly fail to result in securing terms of peace. But the announcement had hardly flashed across the wires, when there followed the news of a "long and bloody engagement" in which the Servians were victorious, having gained possession of the town of Veniki Isoor.

—Cholera has become epidemic in Brittany, a province of France, and the mortality is fearful.

—The recent storm along the northeastern coast of the Atlantic, was the most severe that has been known in the vicinity of New York in many years, and was accompanied by a phenomenally high tide. From all along the coast there come accounts of vessels wrecked and of the cruel sufferings of the seamen who escaped a watery grave. On land, houses were demolished, and miles of railroad track torn up and blown away. The iron piers and the bulkheads at Long Branch and Coney Island were badly injured; and it will require months of time and a large expenditure of money to repair the damage that was done in a few hours by this furious November gale.