SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 28, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 50.

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SECULAR.

—Civil war still rages in Hayti.

—Only four per cent. of the corn crop of the United States is exported.

—The excitement over the Panama Canal crisis has greatly abated in France.

—December 18 a severe snow-storm interrupted railroad travel in Nova Scotia.

—The bill for the admission of the Territories is to be called up in the House January 15.

—Another mysterious murder has been committed in the White Chapel District of London.

—The recent severe storm in Canada caused intense suffering in the Province of Quebec.

—A man who had been unmercifully beaten by White Caps, died near Kansas City on the 16th inst.

—Another Japanese steel gunboat will be launched next month. It is expected to steam twenty knots.

—Oliver Ditson, the musician, died at his home in Boston, on the 21st inst., aged seventy-seven years.

—It is stated that gambling is extensively carried on in the Pullman cars on some of the trans-continental lines.

—The French man-of-war Roland arrived at Colon on the night of the 17th inst., to look after French interests there.

—The Sultan of Zanzibar returned recently to his dominions and immediately began practicing horrible cruelties upon persons obnoxious to him. Accused persons were cruelly murdered in the streets by his order, without even the semblance of a trial.

—The friends of the Blair Sunday Bill express themselves as confident of its passage before the 4th of March, 1889.

—It is said to be certain that England will send no one to Washington to succeed Lord Sackville as long as Cleveland is President.

—Quite a severe shock of earthquake was experienced in Washington and Warren Counties, N. Y., on the morning of the 19th inst.

—A chair of temperance will be endowed by the Catholic Total Abstinence Societies in the Catholic University at Washington, D. C.

—The number of co-operative banks of one sort and another in our whole country is nearly 4,000. In 1876 there were scarcely 1,000.

—The schooner, August Flower, from Philadelphia, is believed to have been lost, with her crew of four men, in a recent gale on the Atlantic.

—Monsignor Kirby has telegraphed to Ireland a denial of the story that the Pope refused to bless the reliquaries sent to him by an Irish priest.

—Terrible storms, causing loss of life and property, are reported from the Department of Pyrenees-Orientales, France, under date of December 16.

—The corn crop of the United States for 1888 is estimated at 2,000,000,000 bushels. Corn is grown to some extent in every State and Territory except Alaska.

—The Rome correspondent of the New York Mail and Express makes the prediction that the next Pope will be an American, most probably Cardinal Gibbons.

—Recent news from Samoa, by way of Auckland, reports hard fighting between the forces of Mataafa and Tamases. The latter was defeated. About 100 were killed.

—During a trial in London on the 17th inst., a phonograph was introduced to reproduce a letter and other papers. The instrument was worked successfully.

—The Freeman's Journal (Catholic) says that "it is undoubtedly idle to waste time in attempting to have the present public-school system made acceptable to Catholics."

—An attempt was made on the 20th inst. to destroy the car works at Lichfield, Ill., by a dynamite bomb. Part of the building was wrecked, and two of the employees seriously injured.

—A railroad train was robbed on the 16th inst. near Duck Hill, La. One passenger, who left the train with a Winchester rifle, was fired upon and mortally wounded by the robbers.

—A dynamite magazine, three miles from Bradford, Pa., containing 800 pounds of dynamite, blew up on the 16th inst., doing great damage to surrounding property. No one was injured.

—The fire insurance losses in this country and Canada, during November, amounted to $9,058,700, a reduction of $7,000,000 as compared with last year, and of $1,000,000 as compared with 1886.

—Eleven men, employed in repairing a railroad bridge across the Merrimac, near Hookset, N. H., on the 19th inst., were thrown into the water by the moving of the ice, and three of them were drowned.

—The total loss by fire in the United States and Canada for eleven months of 1888, foots up $113,654,220, a reduction of five millions from last year, but an increase of eight millions over the record of 1886.

—The total production of anthracite of all the companies for the week ended on Saturday last was 780,615 tons, as compared with 770,845 tons for the corresponding week in 1887, an increase of 9,170 tons.

—A few days since Representative Breckinridge, of Kentucky, introduced the joint resolution reported during the last Congress by Representative Tucker from the Committee on Judiciary, proposing an amendment to the Constitution defining polygamy, and making it unlawful within the jurisdiction of the United States, or any State.

—Two Germans were recently discovered photographing French forts, and were unceremoniously hustled out of the country. The apparatus used for taking the pictures resembled a book. The incident is not likely to add anything to the good feeling between the two countries, nor will it contribute to the freedom of tourists who wish to visit French fortresses.

—An important experiment was successfully made on the 21st inst., at the Annapolis (Md.) proving grounds. A steel-pointed iron projectile weighing 250 pounds was fired from one of the new steel breech-loading rifled guns of the new cruiser Chicago, which penetrated a steel target ten inches thick and cut through the solid oak back.

—It is estimated that it will cost $2,000,000 to establish the boundary between Alaska and the British possessions.

—A dispatch from Calcutta, India, under date of December 19, states that the Chittagong Hill tribes have raided the lowlands, killing a number of people. An expedition, consisting of 1,200 men, has started out to punish them.

—For weeks past all sorts of rumors have been current concerning Stanley, the noted African explorer; now, however, it is positively asserted that a letter has been received from him, stating that he has joined Emin Pasha.

—Late advices from South Africa say that the king of Swaziland recently caused the massacre of his premier and six chiefs, and their people, who were supposed to be concerned in a plot to dethrone him in favor of his brother.

—A new dynamite gun is on exhibition in New York. It is claimed that it is capable of throwing shells a distance of five miles. The so-called gun is a rapidly revolving disk, from the periphery of which the projectiles are thrown.

—After the recent election in Servia, the peasants belonging to the radical party celebrated their victory by burning the houses of their opponents. It is said that the sky was lurid for three nights from the reflection of the flames of burning buildings.

—A bill has been introduced in the Senate providing that instead of the amounts now paid, the salaries of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States shall be $20,500 a year, and of each Associate Justice $20,000. The present salaries are: Chief Justice, $10,500; Associate Justices, each, $10,000.

—December 20 a combined force of British and Egyptians made an attack upon the rebel position at Suakin. They stormed the redoubts and the trenches, and, after an engagement lasting half an hour, drove the enemy into the bush. The rebels are reported to have lost 1,000 killed. The British loss was four.

—It is said that there is a movement on foot in New York for American capitalists to take up the Panama Canal and finish it. It is not at all likely, however, that anything will come of it. The original stockholders are not yet ready to give the canal up, and it now seems probable that they will furnish means to continue the work.

—Two attempts have been recently made to wreck an express train on the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad, in Missouri. In the second instance the train, which carried 200 people, was saved by an engine which passed over the road several minutes in advance. The engine was wrecked, and the track torn up for nearly a quarter of a mile. The fireman, though suffering from a broken ankle, crawled back more than a mile and flagged the train.

—Last July the Legislature of New York passed a law restricting the profitable labor of convicts to the manufacture of articles needed by the prisons or charitable institutions. The result has been to make 2,600 idle convicts in the three State prisons, and to greatly increase the sickness and misery of the prisoners. The deficit in the State prison accounts will amount to $400,000 a year, which the tax-payers will have to pay for keeping the convicts in idleness. A great deal of complaint is being made over the results of idleness of convicts.