SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 30, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 41.

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SECULAR.

—The orange crop of Florida will this year amount to 1,000,000 boxes.

—Stanley says that all the so-called free laborers in Africa are captured slaves.

—Twelve thousand pupils are enrolled in the evening schools of New York City.

—Some villains are making a business of poisoning cattle in Hamilton, Ontario.

—A fire in Brooklyn, N. Y., Oct. 19, destroyed over $200,000 worth of property.

—There is a boy eleven years of age in the Georgia penitentiary serving a term for murder.

—London has twenty-eight daily journals, 524 weeklies, and over 600 monthly magazines.

—It is stated that the Union Pacific has secured control of the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company.

—The land of Holland is cultivated by 145,694 persons, of whom sixty per cent. are owners of their own holdings.

—The Hill's Ferry (Cal.) stage was robbed by highwaymen near San Joaquin City, on the morning of the 23d.

—By the shutting down of the mills at Fall River, Mass., on the 20th inst., 10,000 people were left without employment.

—The Governor of Zacatecas, Mexico, has forbidden gambling in the State under pain of the severest penalties.

—Prof. Sayce has just deciphered an Assyrian tablet which describes a transit of Venus 1,600 years before the Christian era.

—The debt of New York City has steadily increased, until it is now $31.58 for every man, woman, and child in the city.

—At a festival given by the Zion A. M. E. Church at Washington, Pa., on the 19th inst., a disturbance arose, in which two men were shot.

—The New York Board of Health has discovered both arsenic and lead in raw coffee that had been put through a process to improve its color.

—On the 20th inst., the German theater and seventy-six shops in St. Petersburg were destroyed by fire. The loss is estimated at 3,000,000 roubles.

—The looms used in the State of New Jersey for the manufacture of home-made silk are almost facsimiles of those employed in China and India for the same purpose.

—The cloak department of Chapman's mammoth dry goods establishment, at Milwaukee, was destroyed by fire on the night of the 23d. The loss amounts to about $500,000.

—The Postmaster-General and Mexican Minister concluded a postal convention on the 20th, providing for an exchange of mail matter between the United States and Mexico at domestic rates of postage.

—The French press is absorbed in the discussion of protective duties. The Republique Francaise says that the economic crisis through which France is now passing can only be cured by the sovereign remedy of an increase of customs duties.

—The St. Petersburg police seized a secret printing press on the 19th inst. They discovered documents with the press, which showed that arrangements were being perfected to make an attempt on the Czar's life. Many arrests have been made.

—The farmers of Earl, Caernarvon, and Ephrata, (Pa.) townships are in a state of terror on account of the exploits of a gang of robbers that infest the mountains in the vicinity. Robberies are occurring every night, and in some instances in the day-time.

—Over a score of street-cars have been built in New York for use on a railway in Tokio, Japan. They were built and lettered on plans furnished by three Japanese capitalists, and are to run on a new railroad in Tokio, managed on the American plan.

—A Chinese girl, eighteen years of age, is among the students recently admitted to the University at Delaware, Ohio. She came to this country to obtain a thorough English education, then to study medicine and go back to work among the women of her own land.

—The two rough discs necessary for the large telescope for the Lick Observatory have been cast, and will soon be placed in the hands of the optician for finishing. When the work is accomplished and the telescope placed in position, this observatory will be the most perfect in the world, and its location in California the most favorable that could be

found.

—There are fifty-four political journals published in Athens, Greece.

—The village of Chlorydormi, a Canadian fishing village, was totally destroyed by fire on the night of the 20th. One family is reported missing, and the surviving ones must suffer, as their sole means of subsistence is fishing, and all their boats were destroyed.

—A desperado on a train near Memphis, Tenn., Oct. 21, insulted an inoffensive passenger, and then stabbed him and threw him from the train. He then promenaded through the cars, daring any one to touch him. No one dared interfere with him, and he escaped arrest.

—The city of Carthage, N. Y., was the scene of a most disastrous fire, on the 20th inst. Besides a great many factories, four churches, the town hall, and all the school buildings, one hundred and sixty dwellings were burned. Many people were badly burned, but none fatally.

—The Central Pacific Railroad Company is about to erect semaphore signals in Oakland, at a cost of $75,000, to warn persons of approaching trains. Where trains pass through the streets every fifteen minutes during the day, as they do in Oakland, such precautions are very necessary.

—Forest fires have been so extensive in Atlantic County, N. J., as to cause serious alarm to the inhabitants of the villages. At Weymouth, a town of fifty houses, although they worked diligently cutting down trees to turn the course of the flames, six houses and the M. E. church were burned to the ground on the 19th.

—A vigorous prosecution of dealers in oleomargarine and butterine has been inaugurated in New York City, under a recent act of the Legislature, making the sale of these articles a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not less than $100 or more than $500, or not less than six months or more than one year's imprisonment.

—The project of constructing a ship canal across Ireland has been revived. Plans for the work have been submitted by Captain Eads, the American engineer. It is proposed to have a canal 127 miles long and 200 feet wide, with terminal ends at Galway Bay and Kingstown. The estimated cost of the undertaking is from $40,000,000 to $100,000,000.

—The average annual production of canned goods in the United States is upwards of 500,000,000 cans, or about ten for every man, woman, and child. In view of the frequent reports of poisoning from canned fruit, meat, etc., the New York Mercantile Exchange has investigated the subject, and states that the danger has been greatly exaggerated. They request correspondence from any one who knows of such cases of poisoning.

—The average weekly income of working girls in Boston, including earnings, assistance, and income, from extra work, is $5.17. The average yearly expense for all needs is $261.30. There are a large number of girls, according to the figures of the report, who earn less than $3.50 a week; and out of the 1032 there were only twenty-eight who pay less than $2 a week for board and lodging. Two hundred and twenty-four pay between $2 and $4 a week for board and lodging.—Exchange.

—The International Meridian Conference, lately in session in Washington, D. C., adopted the following:— "Resolved, That the universal day is to be a mean solar day; is to begin for all the world at the moment of mean midnight of the initial meridian, coinciding with the beginning of the civil day and date at that meridian, and is to be counted from zero up to twenty-four hours. "Resolved, That this Conference express the hope that, as soon as may be practicable, astronomical and nautical days will be arranged everywhere to begin at mean midnight."

—The Clawson polygamy trial at Salt Lake has resulted in a disagreement of the jury, and Judge Zane has ordered a new trial. It is conceded on all hands that the amount of false swearing done by the Mormons is unparalleled in the history of trials. Although the ceremonies of the Endowment House, where all their "celestial" marriages and other abominations are performed, are the most solemn of Mormon religious observances, the President of the church declared that he remembered the names of none of those whose marriages he had sanctioned, and Cannon, that no records were ever kept. But it is not to be wondered at that a people, the foundation of whose religion is the violation of the seventh commandment, should have no scruples against disregarding the ninth.