SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jun 24, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 24.

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SECULAR.

—A farmer in Ventura County, Cal., has 150 acres of bird seed.

—Emperor William, of Germany, is said to be in very feeble health.

—Cholera in Venice, it is reported, kills twenty-two persons daily.

—Nova Scotia wants to withdraw from the Dominion Confederation.

—At Sligo, Ireland, June 13, a mob burned the houses of the leading Orangemen.

—The Apaches, under Geronimo, are still committing numerous depredations in Arizona.

—The Canadian authorities have decided to allow vessels owned in this country to buy bait in Canadian ports.

—A mattress factory in Chicago was burned on the 14th inst., and five girls, who jumped from a window to escape the flames, were fatally injured.

—June 16, Denton County, Texas, was visited by a cyclone which did much damage to property. Several persons were injured but only one fatality is reported.

—Richard A. Proctor, the English astronomer, arrived in New York a few days since and declares it his intention to take up his residence in the United States.

—The coming election in England will be hotly contested; the sole issue being the question of home rule for Ireland. Gladstone has already issued his manifesto to the electors of Midlothian.

—A few days since, a train of tea and oranges ran off the track near Promontory, U. T., and several cars were demolished. Quantities of the freight were scattered over the ground for a long distance.

—Vancouver, British Columbia, a town of about 3,000 inhabitants, was totally destroyed by fire June 13. Several lives were lost. The fire caught from the burning forest and swept the whole city; not a single house was left standing.

—Reports from Colusa, Cal., under date of the 13th inst., state that a heavy north wind, which had then been blowing there for three days, had damaged the wheat crops in that vicinity to the amount of at least $2,000,000.

—Three thousand acres of grain was destroyed by fire near Merced, Cal., a few days since. And a day or two later an equal number of acres of wheat was burned near Modesto. The total loss from the two fires cannot be far from $100,000.

—Sabine Pass, Texas, suffered severely, June 13 and 14, from a severe storm. Several residences, a number of warehouses, and all the wharves at Sabine City were washed away by the waves, which rose seven feet above high tide. The country was submerged for miles.

—An attempt was made on the 15th inst. to assassinate M. M. Secor, an ex-mayor of Racine, Wis., by placing a dynamite bomb in the drive-way to his yard. The only person injured by the explosion was the man who is supposed to have placed the bomb. No motive for the deed is known.

—King Ludwig, who was recently deposed from the Bavarian throne, committed suicide at 6 o'clock P. M., June 13, at Munich. He had gone for a promenade in the park of Berg Castle, accompanied by Dr. Gudden, his physician. The king suddenly threw himself into Sternberg Lake and was drowned. The physician was also drowned, in attempting, it is supposed, to rescue the king.

—On the 13th inst. a conference of 500 Socialist delegates at Brussels, Belgium, resolved to continue the agitation in favor of universal suffrage, and to commence a general strike when the workmen have gained sufficient strength. It was also decided to hold a monster demonstration on August 15th, the date of the national fetes. If the Government prohibits this demonstration a general strike will be declared on the following day. The meeting adopted a resolution expressing sympathy with the Socialists of Decazeville, The Hague, Ghent, London, Germany, and Chicago.

—June 18, the Senate by a two-thirds vote passed the joint resolution, introduced by Senator Ingalls, providing for a constitutional amendment extending the periods of the President's term and the session of the Fiftieth Congress until the 30th of April, 1889, and substituting the 30th of April for the 4th of March as the commencement, for the future, of the Presidential and Congressional terms. The measure now goes to the House of Representatives for concurrence; and will, if it passes that body, be submitted to the State legislatures, three-fourths of which must ratify it before it becomes a part of the Constitution.

—A firm of shipbuilders in Glasgow, Scotland, are about to construct what will be known as the Destroyer, a most terrible engine of naval warfare. The vessel will be built of Vickers steel, and is to have a speed of twenty-two knots (twenty-four and three-fourths miles) per hour. It will be armed with Maxim guns, throwing ten six-inch improved shot per minute. Or a shell capable of destroying any iron-clad afloat may be hurled 1,500 yards. When completed, the navies of the world will be at the mercy of this craft. A fit companion to the Destroyer has recently been completed at London for the Austrian Government. It is a torpedo-boat having a speed of twenty-seven and one-half miles per hour. A similar one is to be built for the English Government.

—June 15 an Orange mob fifteen miles south of Belfast “made a most wanton attack on the house of a respectable Catholic named James Jennings. They began by throwing stones at the windows, and did not leave a whole pane in the building. They entered the house, subjected the occupants to savage treatment, maliciously destroyed whatever they could lay hands on, carried away a number of ‘grapes’ and forks, which they brandished menacingly along the road until they came to the house occupied by a Catholic named McGuire. They wrecked this man’s dwelling and also knocked down and stabbed with a ‘grape’ an old woman whom they met on the road. When the news of the occurrence reached the local police they promptly proceeded to the scene, and were met by the police from Downpatrick, but the miscreants had fled.”