SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 5, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 30.

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SECULAR.

—Liszt the great composer and pianist is dead.

—The stories of destitution and death in Newfoundland and Labrador are denied.

—There was heavy frost in some parts of New Hampshire on the night of July 13.

—A storm of wind and rain did great damage in the vicinity of Pittsburg, Pa., July 26.

—July 30, seven persons were drowned off Sandy Hook, N. J., by the capsizing of a yacht.

—An unusually large amount of grain has been destroyed by fires this season in California.

—Mr. Gladstone advises Parnell not to pursue an obstruction policy in the next Parliament.

—The Mexican revolutionists, or rather bandits, are still causing trouble in Northern Mexico.

—There are in Paris 42,646 persons who call themselves artists. Of this number 20,000 are women.

—Wassif Bey, who has arrived at Cairo from Soudan, reports that Khartoum has been razed by the rebels.

—Modoc County, Cal., has paid rabbit bounty claims during the last three months on 30,000 scalps, about $900.

—The great rolling-mill strike at Philadelphia, Pa., involving 1,500 men has been settled favorably to the employés.

—A steamship captain who recently arrived at New York says that he saw thirty-eight icebergs outside and two inside of the Straits of Belle Isle.

—Turkey is making large additions to her armament. Herr Krupp has received a large order from the Government, and a Turkish officer has gone to his works at Essen to oversee the manufacture of guns. It is proposed to purchase 400,000 American rifles.

—In the Anarchist trial at Chicago, July 28, Spies was positively identified as the man who threw the bomb that killed and wounded so many policemen.

—A Baptist church at Pottsville, Pa., was blown up with dynamite, at 3 o'clock A. M., July 31. The act was in revenge for the enforcement of the liquor law.

—The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company has prohibited the sale of intoxicating liquors at any depot or restaurant on its line.

—The Welsh are demanding home rule, and the Welsh members of Parliament propose to form a national party on the same line as the Parnellite party.

—The total number of members in the English House of Commons is 670, divided as follows: Tories, 317; Unionists (Anti-Gladstone), 76; Gladstone Liberals, 191; Parnellites, 86.

—A sixteen-year-old boy on trial at Erie, Kan., for the murder of his father, mother, brother, and sister, was found guilty, July 27, of murder in the first degree. The boy was a novel reader.

—At Chicago, July 25, a large steam-tight tank in an oleomargarine factory exploded, sending its boiling contents over four men, while two others thirty yards distant were injured by the flying debris.

—Twenty-eight Senators have agreed that no portion of the money appropriated to the inauguration of the Bartholdi statue shall be expended for “spirituous liquors, or tobacco, or stimulants, or narcotics in any form.”

—The first public meeting of Chicago Anarchists, since the bomb-throwing, was held July 26. Resolutions were passed expressing sympathy for the eight men now on trial for the murder of the policemen killed in the Haymarket riot.

—A hail-storm of unexampled fury was experienced in the vicinity of Grafton, Dakota, July 24. The track of the storm was five miles wide by thirty miles long. Many of the hail-stones were as large as hen’s eggs. The damage to crops is estimated at $500,000. Several persons were severely injured and one boy is missing.

—The price of ostrich feathers at Cape Town, South Africa, has declined from $250 to $50 per pound. The growers have become discouraged, and are returning to wool farming, which during the ostrich craze had been neglected. Over-production, changes of fashion, and the general depression are assigned as the chief causes.

—At the recent English election, two East Indians were candidates for Parliament. They were Gladstonians and were both defeated. A secular paper remarks: “The British Philistine, in spite of Matthew Arnold, has not been educated up to the point of voting for a man of color, even though he is a gentleman and a scholar.”

—Recent floods along the Saltee River, South Carolina, have done immense damage to the rice crop, which is in most cases totally destroyed. The condition of the colored laborers is pitiful in the extreme. Their gardens have been destroyed and they are without food, and there is no probability that they can get work before next spring.

—A daily paper states that “An ancient river with the current flowing steadily to the west has been found eighty feet below the surface near Helena, M. T.” The account does not state just how “ancient” the newly discovered stream is, and in the absence of definite information we must suppose that it is about the same age of other streams in the same region.

—July 26, Senator Blair, chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, submitted a majority report in favor of a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting the manufacture, sale, or importation of intoxicating liquors after the year 1900, except for medicinal, mechanical, chemical, and scientific purposes.

—Cutting, the American citizen, is still illegally confined in a Mexican prison; and only a few days since another citizen of Texas was arrested by Mexicans, and summarily executed without even the form of a trial. Governor Ireland has telegraphed the Secretary of State as follows: “I demand, in the name of the State and its people, proper reparation, or this State and her people must depend upon themselves for protection. The necessary redress can and will be obtained.”

—The attempt on the part of the authorities at Amsterdam to prohibit popular games on Sunday, July 25, led to a conflict with the police. The rioters erected barricades and the troops fired into the crowd. The rioting continued several days, during which time twenty-five persons were killed and ninety wounded. Several of the wounded have since died. A large number of arrests was made.

—A dispatch from Ottawa, Canada, under date of July 27, says: “A French Canadian died Saturday, and last evening several friends of the family gathered at Goderrian’s cottage to sympathize with them in their bereavement. After a while the mourners began to make merry, and a wild scene of hilarity ensued. A terrific thunder-storm arose, but none of the revelers noticed it. Finally a bolt came down the chimney. The coffin, which had been placed close to the fire-place, was ripped up; the body was reduced almost to a cinder, while two men who were standing near, were instantly killed. The rest of the party—some six or seven in all—were rendered insensible by the shock.”

—July 26, Prince Don Augusto, of Brazil, in company with the Brazilian Consul-General Salvador D. Mendonca, and a number of midshipmen of the Brazilian frigate Almarante Barroso, went to Coney Island at the invitation of the managers of the Sea Beach Railroad. On their return trip an attempt was made to blow up the boat with all on board (about 200 persons). The bomb which was to do the work was discovered, however, and thrown overboard in time to prevent an explosion. Some are of the opinion that the bomb (which was a long, black bottle) was not charged, and that the whole thing was simply a practical joke; but such jokes are becoming a little too common, and are entirely too destructive of human life.