SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 6, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 1.

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SECULAR.

—Silver has been discovered in Northern Arkansas.

—There were thirty-one murders in San Francisco during 1886.

—Switzerland has decided to increase her supply of war materials.

—A serious split in the order of the Knights of Labor seems probable.

—December 27, two lives were lost in a burning theater in Philadelphia.

—It is stated that an alliance has been formed between Russia and Germany.

—Russian agents are engaging gun makers at Prague, and in other parts of Bohemia.

—It is estimated that fully 200 people lost their lives in the recent fearful snow-storm in Germany.

—Ninety-nine applications for divorce were filed in the Philadelphia, Pa., court during December last.

—The explosion of a locomotive boiler near Toronto, Canada, a few days since, fatally injured four men.

—Prince Nicholas of Montenegro, has called out 35,000 troops which will be armed with repeating rifles.

—December 28, two steamers and four barges were destroyed by fire at Cairo, Ill. The loss is about $1,000,000.

—Ten miners were killed on the 31st ult. by the falling of a cage in a colliery in Houghton-le-Spring, Durham, England.

—It is said that a scheme is on foot in Europe for "the restoration of the old Kingdom of Poland as a barrier against Russia."

—England was visited by a very severe snow-storm on the 27th ult. Railways were blockaded and telegraph wires were broken.

—An old steamer used as a boarding-house was burned the other day eleven miles above Mobile, Ala., and several lives were lost.

—December 30, five persons were killed and a number of firemen injured at a fire which destroyed a large block of buildings in Lisbon, Portugal.

—December 31, a fire broke out in the reserved enclosure at the People's Park, at Madras, India, as the annual fair was being held. A panic ensued and 300 people were burned or crushed to death.

—An attempt was made in San Francisco a few days since to blow up a portion of one of the street railways with dynamite. The stuff failed to explode.

—On the 27th ult. the great object glasses of the Lick telescope reached Mt. Hamilton. They were at once unpacked, and were found in perfect condition.

—It is stated that the Russian War Council has adopted a scheme for the occupation of Central Asia as far as the Hindoo-Koosh Mountains, including Herat.

—The ladies of Tucson, Arizona, are agitating the question of inducing the City Council to pass an ordinance forbidding the opening of any places of business on Sunday.

—A few days since a man in Iowa protested against his son's (a youth of 18 years) attending a dance, when the boy became angered and brained him with a club.

—Measles continues to spread in New York and Brooklyn to an unprecedented extent. The deaths for December were 225, against 185 for the first nine months of the year.

—France now has a total debt of about $7,200,000,000, or twice as large as that of the United States at the close of the war, and six times as large as our present interest-bearing debt.

—A large number of men are out on a strike on the Reading, Pa., railroad. They demand that the company shall restore two discharged crews and discharge the General Dispatcher.

—The situation in Europe was well expressed recently by the German Minister of War. Said he: "We can scarcely resist the belief that we are living in a period when there is no well-founded prospect of peace being preserved."

—On the 1st inst., a sled load of young people on their way to a dance near Fort Wayne, Ind., was run down by an express train. Two of the party were instantly killed, and several others were seriously, perhaps fatally, injured.

—A child died in Oakland a few days since from eating a portion of a pie purchased at a neighboring bakery. The doctors decided that the fatal effects of the pastry were due either to its age or to the yeast powder used in its manufacture. They could not tell which.

—Judging from the daily papers, there has never been a time in the history of this country when crime was so prevalent as at the present. Murders, many of them of the most atrocious character, and for most trivial reasons, are frightfully common. And the cases of the miscarriage of justice are rapidly increasing.

—A late dispatch from Vienna states that the press of that city is becoming convinced that Russia is determined on war. Reports of increased Russian armament are continually coming to hand from various sources. The latest intelligence of this kind is to the effect that 300,000 Russian troops have been ordered to Massinkoff, and that the occupants of 10,000 houses have received official notification that soldiers will soon be billeted in them.