SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 1, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 46.

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SECULAR.

—China, it is said, has 500,000 blind people.

—Des Moines, Iowa, had a $250,000 fire on the 25th inst.

—In France there is one liquor-shop to every thirty-three men.

—Thirteen lives were lost one day last week in a wreck off Cape Finisterre.

—A new undertaking in the fruit line is the shipment of Florida oranges to Europe.

—Ex-Senator Jones, of Florida, is said to be practically a beggar in the streets of Detroit.

—Owing to the protracted drought, extensive forest fires are raging in Kentucky and doing immense damage.

—Of the 150,000 electric light carbons used daily in the United States 100,000 are manufactured in Cleveland, Ohio.

—Recent heavy rains in Arizona have done considerable damage to the railroads, and travel has been somewhat impeded.

—The death-rate of the world is about 67 per minute, or 97,700 per day; while the birth-rate is 79 per minute,—100,500 per day.

—The American ship E. F. Sawyer, from San Francisco, was sunk by a British steamer near Folkestone, England, November 22. No lives were lost.

—France seems to be almost on the verge of another revolution. President Grevy has resigned, and Mr. Ferry will probably be elected to the presidency.

—The Russian steamers Sineus and Vesta came into collision off the Crimean coast on the 23d inst. The Vesta was sunk and fifteen of her crew drowned.

—It is said that there is a movement on foot among the Tories to adopt the policy of the protection of English manufacturers by taxing foreign imports.

—A fire at the Bunker Hill mine, near Amador City, Cal., on the 25th inst., destroyed property to the amount of $40,000, and threw 80 men out of employment.

—Heat holidays are an established feature in the German schools. When the thermometer reaches a certain point study must cease, in private as well as in public schools.

—Ready-made houses are being shipped to Southern California from Chicago. The demand for houses is so great there that lumber cannot be procured fast enough to build them.

—The total immigration to the United States from all countries except Canada and Mexico, during the first nine months of this year, was 411,000 against 294,596 in the same period in 1886.

—November 21 the Austrian imperial yacht, with the empress on board, was in a collision with an Italian vessel on the Austrian coast. The Italian vessel was sunk, with the loss of only one life, however.

—The Federated Trades Unions, the central anarchist organization of New York, has sent a long letter to Mayor Hewitt, in which he is told that the class to which he belongs is doomed.

—November 25 a collision between two freight trains on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, fifteen miles from Pittsburg, Pa., wrecked both trains and injured eight men, five of them fatally.

—It is said that the English Government is negotiating for 200 acres of land near Esquimalt for the purpose of establishing a vast arsenal. This is a step, presumably, in the interests of universal peace (?).

—Bedford, Pa., was the scene of a free fight between miners on the 24th inst., in which two men were shot and about fifteen injured in other ways. Pistols, knives, and stones were the weapons used.

—Bismarck, one of the suspected Haddock murderers, has turned State's evidence and testifies positively that Arensdorff is the man who did the killing. His evidence was not shaken by cross-examination.

—It is stated that in a single cotton factory in Cohoes, New York, there are employed over 2,000 children under sixteen years of age. As might be expected, they are densely illiterate, many of them being unable to read or write.

—News has recently been received at San Francisco of the loss, last month, of three vessels in the Orient; namely, the Monarch, a vessel of 1,127 tons, the Jesusa, a Spanish schooner, and the steamer Hong Kong. Only three lives were lost.

—An opium-crazed Chinaman fatally stabbed a passenger in a crowded emigrant car on the Denver and Rio Grande Road one day last week. The Chinaman declared his intention to kill everybody in the car and was promptly shot by a brakeman.

—A freight train ran into a work train on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad six miles this side of Williams, Arizona, on the 25th inst. Fifteen men on the work train were more or less injured. The brakeman on the freight was badly hurt and is expected to die.

—A rather novel insurance company has been formed in New York. The new company proposes to guarantee and indemnify merchants, manufacturers, traders, and those engaged in business and giving credit from losses and damage by reason of giving and extending credit to their customers.

—The Dutch steamer W. A. Scholten, which left Rotterdam, November 19, for New York, was sunk by a collision with the steamer Rosa Mary of Hartlepool, at 11 o'clock that night, ten miles off Dover. The Scholten carried a complement of 230 passengers and crew. One hundred and thirty-two lives were lost.

—Two thousand crofters,—tenants on small holdings,—on the Isle of Lewes have commenced a campaign to exterminate the deer in the forests. They allege that 6,000 crofters are starving who ought to be living on the land now given up to deer, and that in adopting their present course they are actuated by sheer necessity.

—One day last week Barnum's big menagerie was destroyed in winter quarters at Bridgeport, Conn. Many of the animals perished in the flames, while quite a number of the larger and stronger animals escaped. A great deal of valuable tent and other property was also burned. The total loss is estimated at not less than $200,000, with but $80,000 insurance.

—A Quebec dispatch of the 26th inst. says: "Probably the most disgraceful riot which ever took place, in the ancient city of Quebec occurred last night, when, for upwards of two hours, the city was thrown into a disgraceful state of uproar by an attempted counter demonstration against the Salvation Army on the part of an organized band of roughs, largely composed of Naval University French-Canadian students."

—Jesse Pomeroy, the Massachusetts boy-murderer, who at the tender age of eight years was guilty of torturing children to death in order that he might enjoy their sufferings, is still, though now a man grown, giving the prison authorities a great deal of trouble owing to his desperate attempts to escape. His character is abnormal and such as entitles him only to the consideration and treatment accorded to wild beasts.

—The imperial family of Germany are not to be envied by any means. The old emperor cannot hope to live much longer, on account of his extreme age; the empress is suffering from paralysis of the lower jaw, with the probability that it may become general; the Crown Prince has cancer of the throat, and his son, Prince William, is afflicted with an incurable disease of the middle ear. It is not at all likely that this prince will ever be emperor of Germany. His disease is making rapid progress and seems likely to result very shortly in insanity, which in turn would be followed in a few months by death.