p. 110 | SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Feb 18, 1886

SECULAR.

—Ex-Governor Seymour, of New York, died February 12.

—General Hancock died very suddenly at his residence on Governor's Island, New York, on the afternoon of February 5.

—A telegram from Philadelphia reports the wreck, on the 11th inst., of an Austrian bark on the shoals off Barnegat, N. J. Eleven men were drowned.

—The Bulgarian Government has notified Russia that on the 25th of April it will be prepared to pay an installment of $225,000 toward the expenses incurred by Russia in occupying Bulgaria with her troops in 1877 and 1878.

—The distress in Southern Russia is very great. The provincial authorities have been empowered to borrow $12,000 to be distributed in small loans for the purchase of seed grain. The Government has been requested to build a railroad in order to furnish the destitute people with work.

—Senator Stanford, in his speech in the Senate on the San Francisco post-office bill, stated that while the Post-office Department was conducted last year at a loss to the Government of $8,000,000, the annual net revenue from the San Francisco post-office is between $400,000 and $500,000.

—A very disastrous railroad accident occurred near Wilmington Junction, fifteen miles from Boston, February 12. Owing to a failure in the signals, a passenger train ran into an accommodation train, badly wrecking both trains. One person was killed, and thirty or forty were injured, some of them seriously.

—Governor Murray must be a severe trial to the Mormons. He has just sent in his fourth veto to the Utah Legislature. This time it is a bill to grant convicts the right of bail on their own appeal, except in the most flagrant crimes. The Governor thinks the proposed bill would hinder the execution of the laws against polygamy, and would discriminate unfairly between the rich and the poor.

—American politicians are not noted for temperance, as the following from the San Francisco Chronicle more than hints: "It will be interesting to know whether the Commission to investigate the alcoholic liquor traffic will do any sampling. If the members are drawn from political life, it is a foregone conclusion that they will be excellent judges of whisky, whatever they may know of the economic effects of the liquor traffic."

—On the 8th inst., three hundred of the striking coke-workers in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, Pa., attacked a few men who were at work near Bradford. Shots were exchanged between the rioters and the workmen, and one man was wounded. After severely beating the foreman of the coke works, and burning one building, the strikers went to Sterling, where another riot occurred. It is feared that the trouble is just commencing.

—Dr. G. L. Fitch, who for five years had charge of the Kakaako Leper Hospital in Honolulu, H. I., says that leprosy is not decreasing in the Sandwich Islands. "The natives," he says, "are dying off faster than ever. In 1882, the law prohibiting the selling of liquor to them was repealed, and since the passage of that act the drunkenness is something awful. I attribute to this vice the frequent deaths that occur in Honolulu. Both men and women are addicted to drink."

—In Seattle, W. T., the anti-Chinese sentiment culminated in an attempt to drive out the Chinese by force. Riotous demonstrations began on Sunday, the 7th inst., and continued to the 10th, when eight companies of United States soldiers appeared on the scene, and quiet was restored. On the 8th, the mob made an attempt to wrest the guns from the militia who were guarding the Chinese, when the order to fire was given, and five men were wounded. One man has since died of his wounds, and another is seriously, if not fatally, injured.

—It is estimated that 150,000 unemployed working-men and socialists were engaged in a series of riots that occurred in London, commencing February 8. The men, hungry and desperate, were unmanageable by the police force. They want employment, and think the Government should find it for them. There has been rioting at Leicester also, among the striking operatives of the hosiery factories there. Many policemen were injured in encounters with the strikers, and it was found

necessary to increase the force by swearing in citizens to do police duty.

—London has 10,000 policemen,—one to every 307 of her population.

—February 11 and 12, portions of the Eastern and Middle States were visited by such a flood as had not been experienced before since 1857. Some of the streets of Hoboken, N. J., were submerged, and the people were obliged to use boats or wade waist-deep through the water in order to reach high ground. The ice in the Delaware River broke, submerging Yardleyville, Pa., and portions of Trenton, N. J. In Maine and New Hampshire the rain turned into ice, doing much damage to shade trees, telegraph lines and poles, etc.

—Jacob Sharp wanted a street railway through Broadway, New York City. Of course the measure was unpopular, and Mr. Sharp took a novel method of overcoming the scruples of the Aldermen against voting in its favor. He opened a saloon near the City Hall, and the men in charge would say to an Alderman, "I will bet you $20,000 against a new hat that you don't dare to vote for the Broadway-railroad franchise." The vote was cast, and the ingenuous Alderman pocketed the money. An investigating committee has been appointed; but it is believed that the matter has been so carefully managed that nothing will be revealed. This is not the only public measure that has been carried by "ways that are dark."