SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 10, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 10.

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SECULAR.

—The cholera is in Sicily.

—The Pope is said to approve of the Knights of Labor.

—A slight shock of earthquake was felt at Charleston, S. C., March 4.

—Father Beckx, general of the Order of Jesuits, died March 4, aged 92.

—A destructive fire occurred March 5 in New York. The estimated loss is $100,000.

—Slight earthquake shocks were felt in several villages on Long Island, March 2.

—Last week the snow-drifts were over the tops of the telegraph poles in parts of Minnesota.

—Cardinal Jacobini the Papal secretary, and the Pope’s confidential adviser, died February 28.

—The English Parliament has been asked to grant another £250,000 for the expenses of the navy.

—The natives of Zanzibar have risen, and have destroyed many trading-houses and British residences.

—The steamer W. H. Gardner plying between the Tombigbee River from Mobile, was burned March 1, and nineteen lives lost.

—An explosion of fire-damp occurred March 5 in a colliery at Quaregnon, four miles from Mons, Belgium; 120 men were killed.

—A severe shock of earthquake was felt March 2 at Reggio Dio Calabria, Italy. Two slight shocks were also felt at Diano Marino.

—A large Chinese junk was wrecked on the Soc-tang coast, China, January 13, and only six of the 600 persons on board were saved.

—A new torpedo-boat has been designed that is capable of firing torpedoes containing 200 pounds of dynamite or other high explosives.

—Six men were smothered in a snow-slide on the Canadian Pacific Railroad while operating with a snow-plow near Selkirk, Canada, February 27.

—Five British war vessels have been ordered to the North Pacific station, as the people are becoming alarmed at the unprotected position of that coast.

—Chief-Justice Morrison, of California, died March 2. The immediate cause of death was acute congestion of the liver, from which the deceased suffered only a few days.

—The Emperor William, in his speech at the opening of the Reichstag, said that he was very much gratified at the benevolent disposition the Pope has shown the empire.

—The Bulgarian rising at Rustchuk has been entirely suppressed. All the insurgent officers have been either captured and shot, or else killed or wounded in battle.

—At Cheapside, London, 296 square feet of land sold recently for $70,250; this is at the rate of $237.33 a foot, or $10,000,000 an acre. Not a very cheap side as land usually sells.

—Bradstreet’s reports that 99,300 men struck during January and February, 1887, against 57,800 in the same months in 1886. Of these 16,000 are still out, 23,523 were successful, and 50,777 failed.

—A new explosive, that possesses fifteen times greater destructive power than gunpowder, and that does not produce any smoke, has been invented under Government supervision in Russia.

—A monster meeting of London Socialists was held, February 28, at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and after marching through the streets with bands of music and red flags, etc., they quietly dispersed.

—The chief quarantine officer for Canada has just returned from England, where he has made arrangements to have all remounts for the British army bred in the Northwest Territory. This will cause a large influx of English capital into Canada.

—On March 4 an attempt was made to burn up a railway ferry-boat in New York with an infernal machine made out of a soda-water bottle. The fire was extinguished and no damage was done.

—The silly attempt of Miss Van Zandt to marry the Anarchist Spies, which happily has been frustrated, has led to a resolution in the Illinois Legislature forbidding anyone in a county jail to marry.

—Two lighters filled with cotton and the steamer Lone Star were burned in New York, February 28, together with a pier. The cause of the fire is unknown. Total loss, $320,000. One man is reported missing.

—M. Pasteur’s efforts towards curing hydrophobia undoubtedly made some difference in the Paris death-roll last year—only three deaths were recorded from rabies in 1886, against twenty-one during the previous year.

—On February 27 a passenger train run on a burning bridge at The Needles, Arizona. The bridge giving way, three cars and the engine fell into the abyss, where they were burned. Three men killed and several injured.

—China has ceded to Germany Chusan, one of a group of islands off the eastern coast of China, opposite the estuary of Tsien-Tang-Kiang. Numerous towns and villages are on the island, the capital being Ting-Hai, near the south coast.

—The Ameer of Afghanistan is making strenuous efforts to raise a new army; all boys between the ages of ten and eighteen years are being drilled for military service, and all who have reached the age of eighteen are enrolled in the army. The Ameer has issued a circular to all his subjects telling them to prepare for a holy war.

—The Government of Queensland, Australia, is taking vigorous measures to guard itself against a rabbit-plague. A rabbit-proof fence of wire-netting will be erected along the boundary line between Queensland and New South Wales, with an extension of a hundred miles northward along the boundary of South Australia. For this purpose, 2,550 miles of fencing wire and 450 miles of wire-netting have already been purchased in England.