SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 21, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 3.

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SECULAR.

—Russia has placed a flotilla of war vessels on the Vistula River.

—Anthracite coal has been found on the Cow Creek Indian Reservation, in Dakota.

—Thirty-six horses were burned in a barn at Madison, Neb., on the morning of the 7th inst.

—The prefecture of police at Leghorn was partly wrecked on the 8th inst. by an explosion of dynamite.

—The colored people of the United States publish two hundred and fifty journals, with colored editors and printers.

—Many vessels were wrecked in a storm on the Black Sea on the 7th inst. It is thought that 100 lives were lost.

—A recent Berlin dispatch states that a rupture is likely to occur between the United States and Germany over the Samoan difficulty.

—It seems that the scheme for the much-talked-of ocean cable from British Columbia to Australia has fallen through for want of the necessary capital.

—News has recently been received in this country of the almost total destruction, on November 21, by an earthquake, of the town of Guanare, Venezuela.

—Since the war the negroes of Georgia have amassed $8,000,000. The estimated wealth of the colored people of the United States is more than $2,000,000,000.

—It is confidently asserted by the friends of General Boulanger that he will erelong be president of the French republic. Indications certainly point in that direction.

—January 8 a land-slide occurred at Posilippo, Italy. A mass of rock and earth, 5,000 cubic yards in extent, fell upon the houses below, killing one man and several animals.

—The House Appropriation Committee have recommended that $30,000 be appropriated to provide vaults in the San Francisco Mint to store from $75,000,000 to $100,000,000.

—A dispatch of January 8 states that an epidemic of diphtheria is raging at Nago, Hungary. Some twenty children are dying daily. The schools are closed and a panic prevails.

—The United States has 57,376 post-offices, as against 18,688 in Germany, 17,587 in Great Britain, and 7,296 in France. Excluding Germany, the United States has about as many post-offices as all the countries of Europe combined, and is adding to the number at the rate of about 2,000 per annum.

—In the gross postal revenue, the United States stands first, with $52,695,176.79, while that of Germany is $45,104,567, of Great Britain $42,362,346, and of France $28,779,301.

—It is positively stated that great destitution exists among the settlers in Walsh County, D. T. Some of the recently arrived Scandinavians are in actual danger of starvation.

—Judge Jackson, of United States Circuit Court, has decided that the Inter-State Commerce Commission can only arbitrate differences, and has no right or power to enforce its decisions.

—Mayor Hewitt has signed the ordinance passed by the Board of Aldermen granting the New York and Harlem Railroad Company permission to use electric motors in Fourth Avenue.

—The December report of the Department of Agriculture makes the product of corn 1,937,790,000 bushels, valued on the farm at 34.1 cents per bushel, against 44.4 cents for the crop of 1887.

—Recent advices from Mandalay state that a battle has been fought between the British forces and the Karens, a wild tribe of the country. The British loss was 5 killed. The Karens lost 200.

—The University of Southern California proposes to have constructed a telescope with an object glass forty inches in diameter, which is four inches larger than the great Lick glass at Mount Hamilton.

—An attempt was made on the 8th inst. to blow up the Royal Palace at Madrid. The explosive used was dynamite. No one was injured, and the only damage done was the smashing of many windows.

—On the 8th inst. five ships were posted on the Marine Exchange at New York as lost since the storm of November 25 and 26. The number of lives lost is fifty-four. The value of the ships is $1,000,000.

—The National German-American Prohibition League was organized in Chicago on the 8th inst. Its object is to create a sentiment among German-Americans in favor of total abstinence and of legal prohibition.

—Recent advices from Hayti seem to indicate that the authority of Legitime, who claims to be the duly elected President of the Haytian republic, is in danger of being overturned by Hippolyte, the rival claimant to that office.

—During the first weeks of January more coupons upon Government and other bonds fell due, more dividends are declared, more interest is paid, and more profits generally accrue to investors, than at any other season of the year.

—In a case appealed from Iowa the Supreme Court of the United States has rendered a decision that the State has the right to pass a law compelling railways to fence their lines, and, failing to do so, to pay double value for stock run over and killed.

—On the 7th inst. the Senate passed, with but three dissenting votes, a resolution expressing the serious concern and disapproval of the United States for the connection of any European Government with the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Darien.

—A severe sleet-storm in parts of Northern New England and Southern Canada, on the 7th inst., did much damage to trees and telegraph wires. Huge trees were broken down. The ice on some telegraph poles weighed four tons. The storm also extended into Northern New York.

—The Sundry Civil Appropriation Bill, as completed on the 7th inst. by the House Committee on Appropriations, carries an aggregate appropriation of $22,852,996, being $6,721,451 less than regular and special estimates, and $3,769,008 less than the appropriation for the current fiscal year.

—At five o'clock on the morning of the 7th inst., a two-story house in Gilman, W. T., was blown up by dynamite. Two men were instantly killed, a little girl died in an hour, and the owner of the house and his wife were both fatally injured. The miscreant who did the deed was lynched.

—Prince Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, has most deservedly come to grief in the prosecution of Professor Geffeken for the publication of the diary of the late Emperor Frederick. The charge against the professor was high treason, but now the prosecution has been abandoned, on the ostensible ground that it would be impossible to prove that he was conscious of the treasonable character of his publication.

—The New York Supreme Court has sustained a decision sustaining the action of the trustees of St. Patrick's Cathedral, in declining to permit the body of John McGuire to be buried in Calvary Cemetery. McGuire died while attending one of Dr. McGlynn's anti-poverty meetings, and burial was refused him on the ground that he had not died in the faith. The Court decided that the matter is not one for judicial interference, but for appeal to the church authorities.

—A Chicago paper says that the tax levy for the State of Illinois for two years amounts to $7,830,000, while the levies for Chicago for general and water taxes and special assessments, in one year alone, amount to $10,000,000. One-fourth of all the assessed values of the entire State are in Cook County.

—In a recent interview at Pittsburg, Daniel Dougherty said: "The State of Pennsylvania is politically the most contemptible, corrupt, most diabolical, vile, and notoriously dirty piece of territory on the face of the earth." Yet that State is the hot-bed of National Reform, so called, and has the most rigid Sunday law in the Union.

—Civil war is still raging in Hayti, and altogether the affairs of the republic are in a most deplorable condition. In some quarters life and property are unsafe. Excesses of every kind are the rule. The horrible cannibalistic rites of voodooism are revived, and reports have reached Port-au-Prince of a meeting of several thousand people Christmas night near Jacmel, and the sacrifice of a young girl, and the greedy scramble for some portion of the half-cooked flesh. The dispatch says that these facts are well authenticated.

—The present rates of postage in this country are, everything considered, the lowest in the world. In the length of its mail routes the United States is far ahead of any other country, with 403,976 miles, while those of Germany aggregate only 85,885 miles, those of Great Britain 44,275 miles, and those of France 65,334 miles; and in the mileage of mail service annually performed the United States is immeasurably ahead of all other nations, the service of this country amounting to 287,251,045 miles, that of Germany to 132,011,695 miles, that of Great Britain to 52,669,584 miles, and that of France to 90,980,803 miles.

—On the night of the 10th inst. several of the Eastern States were swept by a most severe storm of wind, rain, and snow. In some parts of Pennsylvania the storm assumed the character of a tornado. Reading, in Eastern Pennsylvania, and Pittsburg, in the western part of the State, suffered the most severely. Not less than sixty persons were killed at the former place, while at the latter twelve were killed outright. The number of wounded at both places was large. The damage to property all over the storm-swept territory was immense. The roadway of one of the suspension bridges at Niagara Falls was carried away by the wind and dropped in the river. Considerable damage was done at Wheeling, W. Va., and along the New England coast. Lives were lost at several different places.

—The Export Society of Germany has decided to build the "Floating Exhibition Palace of Germany," having raised 5,000,000 marks for the purpose. It proposes to build a ship, to be called the Kaiser Wilhelm, which will be the work of German ship-yards. According to plans, the ship will be 564 feet long, 65½ feet wide, and 46 feet deep. It will have four engines, propelling as many screws. The material will be principally German steel. The cost of a two years' tour is estimated at 3,150,000 marks. The income from the rented space—1,000 to 1,200 marks for each booth—and from sales, will be, it is thought, at least 7,260,800 marks, leaving a balance of 4,110,800, or over 2,000,000 marks annually—a pretty sum on the pages of the ledger. Emperor William, it is said, has promised his aid to the enterprise, and it is hoped that the vessel will sail from Hamburg on her first voyage in the spring of 1890.—Scientific American.