SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 24, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 12.

SECULAR.

—San Jose, Cal., is to have an electric street-car line.

—A village near Prague, Austria, was destroyed by an earthquake, March 12.

—In Tonquin the country is being ravaged by the rebels, and there is fear of famine.

—A plot has been discovered to blow up the czar of Russia; all classes of society are implicated.

—Dr. H. D. Cogswell has given $1,000,000 to the public for the establishment of a polytechnical institute in San Francisco.

—A disastrous explosion of dynamite occurred March 16 at Levositz, Bohemia. All the men at work in the quarry at the time were blown to pieces.

—The Maharajah Dhuleep Sing has issued proclamations saying that he is now an enemy of Great Britain and a claimant of the throne of his ancestors.

—Destructive floods prevail in Montana and Dakota. Great damage has been done to the towns and farms. At Bismarck, the Missouri River is more than six miles broad.

—The Canadian War Office authorities have made arrangements for the transportation from Canada to London, during the coming season, of 3,000 horses for artillery trains.

—A new explosive called "carbonetsa glycerine" has been invented, possessing ten times more destructive power than nitro-glycerine, while it may be handled with more safety.

—Near Parkersburg, W. Va., on the 16th inst. an engine fell off a trestle into a chasm ninety feet below. The engineer and fireman were instantly killed; three men were so severely injured and scalded that their recovery is very doubtful.

—It is said that in Russia there is room for only 10,000 lunatics in the asylums and they are brutally treated. About 90,000 others roam at large without any care, and are met with on all the country roads, where they revenge ill-usage by maiming little children.

—There is great and widespread consternation in Georgia over the prevalence of rabies. It is said that there is scarcely a community in that State that has not been visited by mad dogs. In Cherokee County not less than fifty are at large. Many deaths from hydrophobia have occurred. The strange disease seems to affect the cattle as well as the dogs.

—The Sultan of Morocco has prohibited the sale or purchase of intoxicants of all kinds, and has abolished the State tobacco monopoly. Many shops have been closed and quantities of tobacco burned, and several Moors have been stripped and flogged through the streets for smoking in defiance of the Sultan's order. The people of Morocco are very angry at this interference with their habits.

—A railroad accident occurred March 14 at what is known as Bussey Park Bridge, between Roslindale and Forestville, Mass. A heavily-loaded passenger train consisting of seven passenger coaches and a baggage car broke the bridge and five cars fell through onto the road beneath, a distance of thirty feet. The police report twenty-three persons killed outright, and as many more will die. The train was crowded with working people, and the most intense excitement prevails.

—On March 13 an incendiary fire occurred in Howell, Mich., in the hardware store of Mr. Monroe, chairman of the Prohibition party committee. The fire spread and burnt down several blocks. A few months before the fire Mr. Monroe received the following letter: "SIR: We wish to inform you that you must stop your work in the prohibition cause or we will burn you out, root and branch. You may prepare for the worst, as we are on your track."

"MANY SALOON-KEEPERS."

—The Zeitung, of Berlin, publishes a letter from Strasburg, stating that it is proposed to divide Alsace-Lorraine between Prussia and Baden, Alsace to be incorporated with Baden and Prussia to absorb Lorraine.

—Further news has arrived in regard to the plot to murder Premier Baker at Tonga; it is attributed to the intrigues of the Wesleyan missionaries. Six natives arrested for complicity in the plot were shot by order of the king, and five more have been condemned to death.