SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 27, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 20.

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SECULAR.

—Three inches of snow fell at Dickinson, Dakota, the 14th inst.

—The Supreme Court of the United States has adjourned until October.

—There is a bare possibility of work being resumed on the Panama Canal.

—A sharp shock of earthquake passed over Central California the morning of the 19th inst.

—An immense landslide recently occurred near Berne, Switzerland, destroying villages, forests, and cattle.

—Recent cable dispatches intimate the possibility of the Prince of Wales becoming the Viceroy of Ireland.

—Samuel C. Wright, of Nevada, has been appointed superintendent of the United States Mint at Carson City.

—Six thousand people were rendered homeless on the 16th inst., by a disastrous fire in St. Sauveur, a suburb of Quebec.

—The first man-eating shark ever caught in San Diego harbor was taken in a net by a fisherman there on the 14th inst.

—Railroad rates are being cut on trans-Continental lines from San Francisco to New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and other Eastern points.

—Hippolyte has gained another decisive victory over Legitime in Hayti, and has captured the towns of Marchaud, Marmalade, and St. Michael.

—The Young Men's Democratic Club of New York will honor ex-President Cleveland by a grand reception and dinner at the Fifth Avenue Hotel the 27th inst.

—Heavy rain-storms in Kansas and Missouri are reported under date of May 17. Railroads were blockaded, bridges washed away, and considerable other damage done.

—William O'Brien, member of Parliament, has obtained a writ against Lord Salisbury, the British Premier, on the charge of libel. The trial will take place at Liverpool.

—An extensive conspiracy has been discovered among the military officials in Russia, and a large number of the conspirators have been arrested.

—Allen Thorndike Rice, recently appointed United States Minister to Russia, died at New York, May 16, of tonsilitis, after an illness of only five days.

—Suit has been brought in the name of the people of New York against the fraudulent Electric Sugar Company, to have the corporation dissolved and a receiver appointed.

—Two young men at Chicago drank a bucketful of raw whisky between them, May 14. One of them died two hours afterward and the other was not expected to recover at last advices.

—One hundred persons were poisoned by ice-cream at a festival held in South Glastonbury, Conn., the 16th inst. At last accounts thirty-four of the victims were not expected to recover.

—A terrific thunder-storm passed over Paris the 15th inst., exceeding in violence anything experienced there for years. Considerable damage was done to some of the exposition buildings.

—The President has designated two revenue cutters under the recent act of March 2, to seize all vessels and arrest all persons found violating the laws of the United States in Behring Sea.

—The most severe storm ever known on Puget Sound passed over Tacoma, W. T., May 13, demolishing several buildings. Of eight men who were buried in the ruins, six were taken out dead.

—The historic piece of property in Elberon, N. J., known as the "Garfield Cottage," in which the murdered President passed the last weeks of agony which preceded his death, was sold for $25,000 the 13th inst.

—A St. Petersburg dispatch of May 14 states that a high Russian official has been arrested for attempting to shoot the Czar. A pistol was used, and the bullet passed only a few inches from the emperor's head.

—Owing to the difficulty found by the French Senatorial Court in framing specific charges against Boulanger, it is now thought that the proceedings will fail and the prosecution by Rocheforte will be abandoned.

—Judging from the tone of certain South American journals, trouble is threatening between Bolivia and Paraguay. Everything indicates that war is imminent, and the Brazilian Government is powerless to prevent it.

—The first sentence under the new law of New York requiring the death penalty to be inflicted by electricity was passed at Buffalo, May 14, upon William Kemmler, convicted of murder. He will be executed next month.

—The famous Myra Clarke Gaines suit against the city of New Orleans was finally disposed of by the United States Supreme Court May 13. The court awards her heirs $567,000. The suit has been in the courts for more than fifty years.

—Hostilities have been resumed between the Dutch and Malays at Sumatra. As the result of a recent battle at Edi, the Dutch garrison lost twenty-seven, five killed and twenty-two wounded. The Malays left 150 dead on the field.

—The steamer Nanticoke, which arrived at Key West the 14th inst., ran out of coal when 185 miles from her nearest port, and was obliged to burn the cabin, roof, part of the sides of the vessel, and at last a portion of the cargo, in order to reach harbor.

—A notable murder case has been attracting much attention at Salt Lake recently. Herbert O. Spencer and George Stringham, both Mormons and well advanced in years, have been charged with the murder of Sergeant Pike, of the United States Army, in August, 1859.

—The Supreme Court of the United States has declared the Scott Exclusion Act valid in the Chae Chang Ping case. This settles the Chinese question for the present, and they will be denied the right of immigration to this country, under the provisions of the act referred to.

—The steamer Alaskan, of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company's line, went to the bottom during a storm off Cape Blanco, on the southern coast of Oregon, on the night of the 13th inst. No one but the crew was on board at the time, so that no large loss of life is reported. It is feared, however, that about twenty lives were lost.

—Rev. Edward C. Towne, of Washington, late of Cambridge, Mass., declares that Chauncey M. Depew is indebted to him in the sum of $1,500 for literary labor performed in compiling Depew's oration on the occasion of the recent Washington centennial celebration, and that he proposes to enter suit for that amount at once if the money is not immediately forthcoming.

—The latest news from the Samoan Conference at Berlin is to the effect that Germany has at last consented to the American plan of a tripartite government in Samoa. It is thought that the restoration of King Malietoa to power is assured. The work of the commission is practically over.

—The statement is denied that Miss Kate Drexel, daughter of the late millionaire Drexel, is to enter a convent and leave her immense property in the Catholic Church. She only desires to become more familiar with the interior religious life of the convent, and her retirement will only be temporary.

—The British ship Altmore, from Sydney, New South Wales, April 8, for San Francisco, has been wrecked at Neirai Island, in the South Pacific. The captain and a portion of the crew landed at Levuka. The first officer was drowned. A boat containing the remainder of the crew and passengers is missing.

—The Mexican Congress has granted valuable concessions in the way of manufacturing and colonization privileges to an American company with Caleb W. Mitchell at its head, and which proposes to organize large colonies or industrial establishments, to develop and utilize some of the many latent resources of Mexico.

—The new armored coast defense vessel, the contract for whose construction has recently been let to the Union Iron Works of San Francisco, will cost $1,628,950, and will carry the most formidable battery of big guns of any vessel of the United States Navy, of which one forty-six-ton gun and one of one hundred tons will be a part.

—The new cruiser just built in England for the Italian Government, carries engines of 11,500 horsepower, and makes nineteen and one-half knots per hour under natural draft. With forced draft she has made over twenty-one knots, and is considered a very remarkable vessel. The British Government has made strenuous but unsuccessful efforts to purchase her.

—Washington Irving Bishop, the mind-reader, died at New York, the 14th inst., under the strain produced by a very difficult test which he was performing. An autopsy of the brain showed that death was produced by hysteric catalepsy, followed by coma. Mrs. Bishop insists that he was only in a trance when the autopsy began, and doubts that he died from natural causes.

—General Miles has been calling the attention of the Senate Committee to the defenseless condition of the Pacific Coast in general, and San Francisco in particular. It has been shown that a hostile vessel carrying an eighty-ton gun could anchor outside of the harbor of the above-named city beyond range of her batteries, easily demolish them, and reduce the whole city to ruins in very short order. A thorough system of modern fortifications is called for. All of which shows that the world is very near the millennium of course!

—Investigations concerning the insane asylum at Chicago are in progress in the Cook County court. Some horrible developments are being made. The institution contains room for only 600 patients, but there are 1,000 inmates crowded into it. Some of the rooms containing four persons are only four and one-half by ten feet in dimensions. Insufficient food, and that of an inferior quality, is thrown in to the patients without being served, and the poor imbeciles scramble like hogs to get possession of it. Much other revolting testimony has been brought in.