SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 24, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 28.

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SECULAR.

—The cholera is still raging at Marseilles and Toulon, France.

—A hurricane did much damage near Deadwood, D. T., on the 6th inst.

—The entire business portion of Port Perry, Ont., was destroyed by fire, July 4.

—Ninety-one buildings have been erected in Oakland in the last three months.

—Three hundred people were rendered homeless by a fire at Lachine, near Montreal, July 4.

—It is said that sheep and cattle herds in western Texas are threatened with annihilation by drouth.

—The following sign is exhibited in a Parisian street. "Madame Zenobie C—, third story, lets out teeth for parties and balls."

—W. B. McGill, the railroad president who recently committed suicide at Cincinnati, it has been discovered had issued fraudulent paper to the value of $150,000.

—A heavy water-spout fell in Madison County, Ark., on the 7th inst., covering a radius of fifteen or twenty miles. Six persons were drowned, several houses were washed away, and crops were ruined.

—A young Japanese, on his way home from England, where he has been studying law and has been admitted to the English bar, told a San Francisco reporter that as civilization advanced in Japan litigation increased.

—The French Minister at Pekin has been instructed to demand from China a war indemnity of 250,000,000 francs. Admiral Courbet has been ordered to seize the Foo-Chow arsenal as guaranty of the payment of the indemnity.

—A very severe wind-storm swept over central Illinois on the morning of the 5th, doing great damage to property. At one place a train of loaded cars was lifted from the track. Macon and Sangamon Counties suffered the most severely.

—The officers of a vessel which arrived in New York, recently, report having encountered, off Hatteras, an immense school of sharks. It is said there were many thousands, extending thirty miles. The captain claims to have killed about two hundred with a Winchester rifle.

—In 1853 the total carrying capacity of all the city railroads of New York was 6,800,000 passengers per year. Last year they carried 268,000,500. This not only indicates a great increase of population, and of riding facilities, but a growing aversion to the exercise of walking.

—A Pesth, Hungary, dispatch says: "The trial of 420 peasants for complicity in the anti-Magyar escutcheon riots of September last resulted in the conviction of 296, the remainder being acquitted. Those convicted were sentenced to imprisonment for from three days to ten years."

—Orders have been issued from Washington, forbidding all land officers to allow any one to file an entry upon land that is in possession of Indians who are working it. This order is in consequence of attempts of white men to dispossess non-reservation Indians along the Columbia River of land that they have cultivated for years.

—The growing disinclination among the male population to undergo military training and service, is a serious menace to the military strength of Germany. There were 14,702 men sentenced during the past year for attempting to emigrate to avoid the required military service, and cases against 14,178 more offenders in this particular are still pending. Besides this, the number of men from whom service is due, and who during the past year have refused to report for duty, and to furnish required excuses for such failure, is 103,251. These facts have produced great anxiety in the German war department.

—The relief ship Thetis succeeded in rescuing the remnant of the Greely Arctic Expedition, near Cape Sabine, in Smith's Sound, June 22. Lieutenant Greely and five men were the only survivors, and they were on the point of starvation. Although the glory of having reached the farthest point north yet attained by explorers now belongs to a United States party, it cost eighteen lives and almost incalculable suffering to accomplish the otherwise valueless feat. True, the theories of some other scientists have been overthrown, but that is going on every day in all departments of science. We heartily indorse the sentiment of President Arthur: "This is the last of the Arctic expeditions, as far as I can prevent them. None of them have ever paid for the extreme suffering and loss of valuable lives they have occasioned."