SECULAR by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 27, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 45.

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SECULAR.

By Editor

—Freemasonry, the world over, embraces 14,160,543 members.

—A German firm has received an order from England for 150,000,000 postal cards.

—The cholera holds its own in Paris. There are daily from twenty to fifty deaths from it.

—Three hundred arrests have been made in connection with the latest attempt to murder the Czar.

—Six hundred employes of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, at Elizabeth, N. J., have been discharged.

—Petroleum has been struck within the corporate limits of Ukiah, Cal., at a depth of sixty feet. The oil is clear and burns readily.

—The king of the Belgians has been so prostrated by political excitement in his kingdom that his doctors fear he has become insane.

—The Poor authorities of Paris say that they will be compelled to give assistance to more than 400,000 people the coming year.

—The United States Supreme Court has decided that the underwriters are not liable for property in Richmond destroyed during the war.

—An advertisement in Paris for a bank clerk brought in no less than 6,000 applications, although the position was worth only $240 a year.

—The Chronicle states that there were only 387 deaths in the city of Los Angeles during the year ending October 31, 1884. Of these, 102 were consumptives, 92 of whom were recent arrivals in the city.

—Joseph Cook says: "France, Germany, and England are paying five million pounds sterling ($24,200,000) a week to enable them to be in readiness to cut their neighbors' throats."

—A sloop containing two white men, and nineteen Chinamen who were being smuggled into Washington Territory, was upset near Port Townsend Nov. 22 and the whole party were drowned.

—About 40,000 persons are employed in Switzerland in the watch and clock trade. The Canton of Neuchatel has 13,700 artisans, who turn out annually 1,000,000 watches, valued at 50,000,000 francs.

—Twenty-five leading business houses, including machine shops and printing office, were burned at Goldsboro, N. C., on the 16th. The loss was over $250,000. On the same day there was a $200,000 fire in Savannah, Ga.

—All decent people will rejoice to learn that Sullivan, the pugilist, has been indicted by the grand jury of New York for prize fighting. Coupled with this will be the fear that the prize ring will prove to be more powerful than the court.

—Japanese commercial houses say that the typhoon of September wrought great destruction to the Japanese rice crop. Large tracts were laid waste, and the standing grain was so tossed to and fro as to thresh out thousands of acres, and but little was left save straw.

—The S. F. Chronicle says: "It has been discovered that large purchases of whisky and tobacco, made for the patients in the Butte County Hospital, have never reached the patients at all, but have been regularly gobbled by the officials constituting the Court House ring." A good thing for the patients.

—A smokeless locomotive is on trial on the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. Although it burns the poorest quality of bituminous coal, it emits only a thin, white smoke from the smoke stack. The device is not only a convenience to the traveling public, but is economical, as it secures a considerable saving in fuel.

—The World says: The sugar trade is passing through one of those prolonged states of stagnation into which the market sometimes settles, and out of which it is so difficult to revive it. Prices are lower than they have been before in thirty or forty years, and while the members of the trade profess to believe in a revival of business, there are as yet few signs of improvement.

—It is reported that a species of cholera is making frightful ravages in the extreme southwestern counties of Virginia, and in the portion of Kentucky adjoining. The loss of life is variously estimated at from 400 to 800. From sixty to eighty per cent. of those attacked die. The epidemic is due to the use of mineral and stagnant water, rendered necessary by the intense drought.

—A company has been formed in Berlin, for the removal of trichinae from pork. The process is to pickle the pork in very hot brine, formed, in part, of muriatic acid. This, it is claimed, will kill any trichinae that may be in the meat. We should suppose that it would have the same effect on any who might eat the meat. At any rate, there is small choice, in our opinion, between worms pickled, or fried, or raw. We decline, with thanks.