SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 8, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 14.

SECULAR.

—Switzerland will fortify St. Gothard. —France has doubled the duty on rye and rye meal. —White Caps have begun operations in West Virginia. —A new plot against the life of the Czar has been discovered. —Emperor Francis Joseph will visit the Emperor William at Berlin soon. —Black knot is devastating the blue plum orchards in some parts of Ohio. —A fire at Ashton, Ill., destroyed twenty-one business houses on the 28th ult. —It is estimated that the Riverside orange crop this year will be worth $1,000,000. —The king of Holland is insane and has been declared incapable of doing business. —Yellow fever and small-pox are doing deadly work at Rio Janeiro, South America. —Within a year 12,000 patients have been treated free at the German Poliklinik, New York. —All work on the Panama Canal has ceased and the laborers have quietly left the isthmus. —President Harrison's proclamation declaring Behring Sea a closed sea was a surprise to Canada. —Emperor William has contributed $150 to the new city hospital which is being erected in Baltimore. —Street-cars will soon be running in the venerable city of Damascus, and the town will be lighted by gas. —A piece of redwood bark three feet thick was brought to Visalia, this State, recently from the Frazer mill. —The National Geographical Society puts down the population of Africa at about eighteen to the square mile. —A number of coal mines near Pittsburg, Pa., have been shut down, throwing thousands of men out of employment. —Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe is recovering her health, but her mind is shattered and mentally she is no more than a child. —The destruction of 3,000,000 pounds of tea, in Chicago, a few days since, has caused an advance in prices of the lower grades. —Another Cabinet crisis is imminent in France. The new Ministry, it is feared, will go to pieces over the discussion of the budget. —Last year Iowa raised, on 7,797,090 acres, 321,629,962 bushels of Indian corn, the commercial value of which is placed at $73,974,891. —Five Chinese were landed at New York on the 28th ult., for the purpose of crossing the continent on their way to China. They came from Cuba. —Col. Robert Lincoln has been appointed minister to Great Britain. The appointment gives general satisfaction both in this country and in England. —The news from Hayti shows that disorder and violence still reign on the island. It is reported that another town has been bombarded and much property and many lives destroyed. —March 26 the Spanish mail steamer Mindanio was sunk by a collision with the Spanish steamer Visavas. Thirty of the crew and passengers were drowned. —March 26 the steamer Ocotolan foundered on Lake Chapala, near Guadalajara, Mexico, with a large excursion party on board. Over fifty lives were lost. —An industrial training school is to be opened at Patterson, New Jersey, for young men who desire to become expert weavers, dyers, or finishers of silk fabrics. —It is announced that the French Government has decided to prosecute General Boulanger on a charge of conspiracy with the leaders of the Patriotic League to accomplish a revolution. —The Central Warehouse in Chicago was destroyed by fire on the 26th ult., with its contents, which consisted mostly of stores of teas, coffees, and merchandise. The loss was nearly $1,500,000. —According to the report of the statistician of the Agricultural Department there were produced in this country during 1888, 415,868,000 bushels of wheat, of which California raised 28,415,000 bushels. —Murat Halstead, editor of the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, nominated by the President for the position of minister to Germany, was, on the 30th ult., rejected by the Senate by a vote of 25 to 19. —One of the torpedo boats of the French navy was sunk recently, and fifty-three more vessels of the same pattern have been ordered to stay in port until they have been reconstructed and proved seaworthy. —After a careful investigation the New York Sun has come to the conclusion that 40,000 working-women of that city are receiving wages so low that they are compelled to accept charity, adopt lives of shame, or starve. —Advices from Lima, Peru, state that the Verru-gas bridge, the most famous of the bridges on the Oroya Railway, has been swept away by a flood. The bridge was 108 feet high, and the original cost was 400,000 soles. —The Canadian Parliament has decided by a vote of 175 to 13 to allow the act of the Quebec Legislature granting the Jesuits $160,000; Catholic Bishops, $100,000; Montreal University, $140,000 for property confiscated a century ago. —The British sealing schooners seized three years ago in Behring Sea by United States revenue cutters for violation of treaty obligations, were sold at public auction by United States Marshal at Port Townsend, Washington, on the 26th ult. —A late dispatch to the Cologne Gazette from Zanzibar says: "A party of 230 men landed from the German man-of-war Schwalbe and burned Kondutchi, after a conflict with the natives. Opposition to the Germans is everywhere decreasing." —Aluminum is coming into use as a material for dental plates, for which it is especially adapted by reason of its lightness, its freedom from odor or taste, and the fact that it is not affected by food or the secretions of the mouth. It costs about one-sixth as much as silver. —It is stated that the members of the Prussian imperial family have subscribed the cost of a present of several thousand American repeating rifles and a quantity of ammunition to the Prince of Montenegro. They are supposed to be intended for use against Servia and in favor of Prince Karageorgevics. —The alligator of the South, like the buffalo of the West, it is said, is likely soon to become extinct. The slaughter of the alligator for its hide, like the slaughter of the buffaloes for their hides, has been so great that it will be only a few years before the lonely lagoon of Florida will have lost its last survivor. —The cost of maintaining public schools in New York State last year was $14,980,841, an increase of $1,200,000 over 1887. This money was for the education of 1,772,058 children of school age, of whom 1,033,269 attended school. The number of teachers employed was 31,726, at an average annual salary of $419.75. —Mrs. Lucy Parsons recently delivered an address to some 2,500 persons in Chicago, in which she said: "We want a revolution, whether peaceful or bloody makes no difference. A revolution must come." "I have but one object in life," said Mrs. Parsons, "and that is to make you discontented—to make rebels of you all."

—John Bright, the English statesman, died in London on the 27th ult. He was born at Greenbank, November 16, 1811, and was consequently in his seventy-eighth year. His public life did not begin until 1839, when he joined the Anti-Corn Law League and became one of its most brilliant supporters. He was eulogized in the House of Lords on the 28th by the Marquis of Salisbury. —March 18 Chairman Britton, of the Inaugural Committee, handed to the commissioners of the district a check for $26,000, this being the amount received from the inauguration over and above all expenses. The fund is to be invested and the interest devoted to relieving the distress of the poor in the city. —A number of New York and Western capitalists have organized a corporation under the title of the American Meat Company, which proposes to engage in all the branches of the cattle and beef industry, from the raising of stock to the retailing of the product. The capital is fixed at $25,000,000, of which $15,000,000 have been already issued. —The Russian Government is considering a measure for increasing the number of vessels in the navy. The plans under consideration involve the expenditure of 120,000,000 roubles ($87,200,000). The plans include several additions to the Black Sea and Baltic defense fleets, as well as the strengthening of the cruising fleets. The work will probably be begun at an early day. —It is reported that the emperor of Austria, whose health has been affected very seriously by the shock of his son's death, will soon seek rest and distraction from anxiety in foreign travel under the strictest incognito. He is expected to visit the queen regent of Spain and the Prince of Wales, who was Rudolph's most intimate friend, but no official notice of his presence will be taken. —It is stated that a company has been formed in France, headed by a well-known Alsatian manufacturer, for the purpose of diverting the Guiers River to St. Christophe, where a fall of 200 meters would be thus obtained, representing a force of 4,000 horsepower, which would be utilized in developing electricity for the production of aluminum by a new process from the clay found in the district. It is asserted that by means of the process in question, aluminum, which is at present so costly, can be produced at a price that will very little exceed that of the cheapest metals. —Probably the most remarkable bank robbery that ever took place was that perpetrated at the First National Bank of Denver on the 29th inst. The robber secured a private interview with the president of the bank and then compelled him to fill out a check for $21,000; the cashier was then called in and the check cashed, after which the robber took his departure, and, though the alarm was immediately given, no trace of the scoundrel has been obtained. Neither the cashier nor one of the twenty-one clerks in the bank had the least suspicion that anything was wrong, the president not daring to give the least sign. —It is stated that the Canadian Government has decided to renew the issue of fishery licenses under the modus vivendi in connection with the fishery treaty negotiated at Washington last year. The Newfoundland Government recently sent word to Ottawa that it would co-operate with Canada in the matter, and licenses issued by either Government will be equally good in all British North American waters. The speech from the throne, read at the opening of Parliament, intimated that Canada would revert to the treaty of 1818, and what caused a change of policy is unknown, but it is rumored that it is the result of a desire to open negotiations for a settlement of the fisheries question.