SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 1, 1885

SECULAR.

—Two thousand buildings, worth $11,000,000, were erected in San Francisco the past year.

—The new aqueduct for the extension of the New York water works will cost $2,500,000.

—Late reports from South America show war to be imminent between Brazil and the Argentine Republic.

—The text of the Spanish treaty which was telegraphed from Madrid to the New York Times, cost that paper $6,416.

—The Steamer Vint Shinkle lodged in the ice near Columbus, Ky., Dec. 25, and catching fire, burned to the water's edge.

—Diphtheria in New York has become a terrible scourge. One week's report showed that sixty per cent. of all the cases proved fatal.

—Judge Zane has rendered the decision that a polygamous wife is not a wife in reality, and cannot therefore inherit her husband's property.

—A Canadian has just had his tongue amputated at the general hospital in Toronto, because of cancer, alleged to have been caused by cigar-smoking.

—A lot of so-called currant jelly has been seized in New York, the color of which had been improved by the use of aniline dyes with arsenic in them.

—Three anarchists who attempted a year ago to assassinate the Emperor of Germany were last week sentenced to death, and two others were condemned to ten years' servitude.

—Some enterprising men have chartered the Great Eastern for a year, for $25,000. They will take her to New Orleans to be used for a hotel during the great exhibition.

—The brig A. S. H., of St. Malo, France, was wrecked on the Nova Scotia coast, Dec. 20. Only one of the crew escaped. The others were either drowned or frozen to death.

—In the case of a wealthy man who committed suicide in Alameda, Cal., last week, the physician certified that he died of "failure of the heart." Very true, but not definite enough to suit the coroner.

—A dispatch from Shanghai to the Paris Nation says: "The French Minister has been ordered to inform China that any further negotiations are useless, and the dispute must be settled by the sword."

—The opera house at Walla Walla, W. T., fell down on the 25th ult., owing to the great weight of snow upon it. The accident occurred two hours before the time for the evening entertainment, and only one man was killed.

—On Dec. 20, an armed mob of 100 men attacked the Court House in the town of Wilmot, D. T., carrying off the safe and contents. On leaving the town the mob attacked the U. S. mail carrier, and plundered the mail-bag.

—The Catholic Orphan Asylum of Brooklyn, N. Y., was almost totally destroyed by fire, Dec. 18. There were 785 orphans in the building at the time. Twenty are known to have perished in the flames. Twenty more are missing.

—A tabulated statement in the Sacramento Bee shows California to be the largest wheat-producing State in the Union. The yield this year is 57,000,000 bushels, being worth alone more than double the total annual yield of its gold mines.

—A disastrous explosion occurred in Pratt's Astral Oil Works, in the eastern part of Brooklyn, N. Y., Dec. 21. All the buildings and tanks of the company, except one brick building, were destroyed. The loss will reach between $500,000 and $600,000.

—It is said that the socialists of Chicago have four regularly organized military companies, two of which are armed with breech-loading rifles. In view of their threats and demonstrations, it has been thought necessary to place a special guard to protect the military stores of the First Infantry.

—A gang of twenty-six half-intoxicated cowboys boarded a Southern Pacific train Dec. 23. Several hundred shots were fired by them, resulting in the destruction of all the car windows, and the lamps. The roofs of the cars were also riddled with bullets, and the passengers were thoroughly terrorized by the wild conduct of the "roughs."

—It is announced that Herbert Spencer will be present and address the next annual meeting of the "Concord School of Philosophy," upon the "Necessity of the Age in Transcendentalism." Just so. It is to be hoped that Herbert will not disappoint the "Concord School of Philosophy," for if in any accident the "ego" should be left out of their transcendental disquisitions, there would be nothing left.