SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 22, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 49.

SECULAR.

—Copper has been discovered near Stamford, Vt. —Gold in paying quantities has been discovered in Wales. —War between Russia and Austria now seems not improbable. —A cyclone unroofed several buildings at Tucson, A. T., on the 12th inst. —Natural gas, in considerable quantities, has been struck at Santa Ana, Cal. —Twenty-two persons were drowned in the recent hurricane off the Orkney Islands. —Thirty counties in Missouri have, under the local option law, voted in favor of prohibition. —It is calculated that this year’s product of the Michigan iron mines will aggregate 4,700,000 tons. —The seed and oil mills at Duffield, England, were destroyed by fire a few days since. The loss is $750,000. —December 12, a large wholesale boot and shoe house in Chicago was burned, causing a loss of $250,000. —Governor Bodwell, of Maine, died suddenly on the morning of the 15th inst., of congestion of the lungs. —Harper, the wrecker of Fidelity Bank, Cincinnati, has been sentenced to ten years in the Ohio penitentiary. —At Winchester, Pa., December 16, five men were instantly killed by the explosion of a boiler, and three others were injured. —A law has been passed in Waldeck, Germany, forbidding the granting of a marriage license to a person addicted to the liquor habit. —The books of a single firm at Fresno, Cal., show that 4,000,000 pounds of dried fruit have been shipped from that place this season. —A farm-house near Wessington, Dakota, was burned on the night of the 10th inst. and seven out of a family of nine persons perished in the flames. —Another Kentucky feud culminated the other day in the killing of seven men, the wounding of several others, and the burning of a number of houses. —The California and Oregon Railway was completed on the 17th inst., and the entire trip from San Francisco, Cal., to Portland, Or., may now be made by rail. —Over 250 deaths from scarlet fever have occurred in Paterson, N. J., in little over one month. Gross negligence all around is alleged as the cause for the epidemic. —Fast trains on the Central and Union Pacific roads now make the run between Omaha and San Francisco in seventy hours—two days and twenty-two hours. —Joseph Houser (colored), recently appointed pension agent, was seized by a mob at Laforge, Mo., a few days since, and beaten until he was in a serious condition. —The contract for the new tunnel under Lake Michigan to be taken four miles out from shore for the new Chicago water works, has been let. The tunnel will cost a million dollars. —Under date of December 15, a general snow-storm, the heaviest in the memory of the oldest settlers, is reported throughout Western Texas. At Cisco and San Angelo the snow is six inches deep. —Owing largely to a disastrous fire which has closed the famous Hecla and Calumet copper mine, Lake Superior, for at least two years, there has been a large advance in the price of that metal. —Eight men were killed, and over forty were wounded in a riot that occurred during the recent election in Jamauive, in the State of Tamaulipas, Mexico. All of the ballot boxes were destroyed. —It is now known that the ship, Alfred Watts, which sailed from Philadelphia for Japan early in October, has been lost. The officers and crew numbered twenty-seven men, only two of whom escaped. —The Mexican Congress adjourned on the 15th inst. The most important measures passed were bills authorizing new loans of £10,500,000, and compulsory education in Federal districts and Territories. —A late London paper says: "Nearly 20,000 men will find employment for the next four years in the construction of the big canal that is immediately to be made for the passage of ocean ships between Liverpool and Manchester." —At Eufaula, Ala., the other day, two brothers, aged 18 and 20 years respectively, got drunk and murdered an older brother, aged 27. When the murderers found that their brother was dead, one whistled, and danced in his blood. —A mischievous boy in Portland, Or., lost his head in a cracker factory, a few days since, by putting it over the edge of an elevator in order to throw a cracker at someone below. When the elevator reached the second floor his head was cut off. —A bill has been introduced into the United States Senate to regulate immigration, and provide that any immigrant who shall come from a foreign port to any port within the United States, shall, before being permitted to land, exhibit a certificate from the United States Consul for the port of clearance of said vessel, stating that said immigrant is not a convict, pauper, idiot, or insane person, and that he is possessed of sufficient means to support himself for a period of six months. A bill has also been introduced authorizing the United States’ authorities to expel from the country any objectionable foreigner.