p. 78 | SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 4, 1889

SECULAR.

—Small-pox is reported from Oberlin, Kansas.

—Work still continues on the Panama Canal.

—It is understood that a pig-iron trust is being formed to control the output of Southern furnaces.

—An earthquake accompanied by a violent gale, occurred at Athens, Megaria, and Arachova, on the 22d ult.

—Seven persons were killed on the 22d ult. by the fall of a rock in a tunnel of the Rhondda Railway at Abergwynfi, Wales.

—A new kind of gunpowder has been invented, that in exploding causes no smoke, and can be soaked in water without damage. The strength of this new powder is almost once again as great as that of ordinary powder.

—It is reported that a plot is on foot at Stamboul to depose the Sultan. The plot is supposed to be due to Russian intrigue.

—A Government messenger arrived at Suakim recently and reported that both Emin Bey and Stanley are prisoners up the Nile.

—The Lower House of the Maine Legislature has refused to pass an order to prevent the use of tobacco on the floor of the House.

—It is said that many people of Seward County, Kan., are on the verge of starvation. Appeals have been sent to various places.

—The Charleston News and Courier says the cotton crop this year will be the largest ever made, and will approximate 7,500,000 bales.

—The stock of apples estimated in Lockport, N. Y., is 65,000 to 70,000 barrels, and about the same amount in other hands in Niagara county.

—An English missionary, named Brooks, and sixteen followers, were murdered on the 19th ult., near Saadani, by coast tribes and natives of Zanzibar.

—Representative Oates, of Alabama, is endeavoring to secure a change in the naturalization laws of the country, to make them more strict and severe.

—On the night of the 22d ult., a family by the name of Rudolf, numbering six persons, was suffocated by gas from a defective stove, at Crossen, Saxony.

—Owen Brown, son of the famous anti-slavery John Brown, of Kansas, died recently in Pasadena, Cal. He was the last survivor of the Harper's Ferry raid.

—At Ogelthorpe, Ga., on the 25th ult., four small children, who were left in a house by Mary Porter (colored), while she went to work, were burned to death.

—Nearly 3,000 men were thrown out of work on the 26th ult., in the coal regions of Shenandoah, Pa., by the suspension of all the Lehigh Coal Company's and individual coal quarries.

—The Arabs have made the evacuation of the coast by the Germans the first condition to the release of the missionaries captured by them recently on the East coast of Africa.

—A Philadelphia dispatch of January 25, says that the Norwegian bark Alf, Captain Bain, from Demarara, October 27th, for this port, with sugar, is undoubtedly lost, with a crew of thirteen men.

—The production of oats in the United States shows a great increase. In the last eight years the average crop has been 549,000,000 bushels, against an average of 314,000,000 for the ten years preceding.

—The Miners' Progressive Union had a meeting in Scottsdale, Penn., January 25, and agreed to go out on a strike on February 1, if their demands were not agreed to by the coke operators. Between 9,000 and 10,000 men met.

—A dispatch from Rome under date of January 26, says: "The Pope's health is causing great alarm. The Pope had a serious fit of unconsciousness to-day, lasting over half an hour. The College of Cardinals is prepared for the worst."

—Advices from West Africa say that eleven native policemen, headed by a British officer, in a conflict with a party of war boys at Sulyman, recently killed 113 of the enemy with a Maxim gun, and that the rest of the party fled in dismay.

—January 25 there was a general tie-up of all the cars on the Atlantic Avenue line, in Brooklyn, N. Y. The following day a gang of Italians went to the depot to take out the cars, and were set on by the old hands and badly beaten and driven away.

—A joint meeting of the Knights of Labor organizations in the Connellsville coke regions on the 26th ult. resolved to strike soon unless operators grant an advance approximating 10 per cent. In case of a strike, which appears inevitable, upward of 13,000 men will go out.

—Sunday night, January 20, a gang of about twenty White Caps whipped two men at Kingston, Ontario. One victim was a milk peddler, who presumably watered his milk, and the other was the janitor of the City Hall, who had in some way or other given offense to the regulators.

—At the railway works at Crewe, England, on the 25th ult., an immense crane carrying a ladle containing seven tons of molten steel, collapsed, and the ladle fell. Masses of steel flew like bullets in every direction, and twenty workmen were severely injured. The roof of the building was torn off.

—The gas area of Indiana is 165 miles long and 65 miles wide, and contains 381 paying wells. The daily aggregate flow of gas is 600,000,000 feet, of which probably 100,000,000 feet are wasted. The average flow of gas is 1,500,000 feet per well. Seventy-nine manufactories have located in Indiana in the past two years on account of the discovery of gas.

—The latest "war" is that of Germany against Samoa. A religious exchange likens the affair to—"a Goliath fighting with a very small baby in the nursery, which has not even a sling and a stone." The truth probably is, that Germany wants to annex Samoa. It is not at all likely, however, that this country will submit to any such arrangements.

—Public Opinion says that last year the North invested in Southern industries $168,000,000. Nearly $30,000,000 of this was invested in Alabama, which leads in mining and manufacturing enterprises in that section. Kentucky got $28,000,000; Texas, $18,000,000, and Georgia, $14,000,000. The least amount invested was $2,000,000, which went to Mississippi.

—January 25, striking seamen and firemen boarded the steamer Kansas, loading at Liverpool for Boston, and dragged ashore eight men who refused to strike. The following day a thousand strikers lined the quay and prevented men from shipping, assaulting them and throwing their kits into the water. A crew was however shipped for the steamer African, under strong police guard.

—Sunday, January 27, General Boulanger was elected to the French Chamber of Deputies from Paris by a large majority over both the other candidates. As soon as the result was known, it was asserted that the ministry would resign. It is not known at this writing what the result will be. Everything seems to point to Boulanger as the next president of the French Republic.

—Notwithstanding the wide-spread impression that the additions to the railway system of the United States during 1888 would be comparatively insignificant, the evidence is that the railway mileage of the country was increased during the year by no less than 7,120 miles of main track. While this is much less than the phenomenal increase in the years 1887, 1886, 1882, and 1881, when the new mileage was respectively 13,000, 9,000, 11,500, and 9,796 miles, the record for the past year exceeds that of every other year in history with the exception of the year 1871, when 7,379 miles were added. New track was laid in all but two of the forty-seven States and Territories, the exceptions being Rhode Island and Nevada.

—Bellite, a new explosive of great power, has recently been tested in England with a view to determine both its power and the safety with which it may be handled. A mass of iron weighing half a ton was dropped from a height of twenty feet upon a package of bellite cartridges lying on a thick iron slab, without causing an explosion. A pound of gunpowder was fired inside a bundle of unprotected cartridges, without igniting them. When thrown upon a hot fire, the bellite cartridges melted away, with hardly any appearance of burning. When fired by a detonating cap, however, it develops tremendous energy. Three pounds of it, exploded under ground, threw earth to a height of a hundred feet, and excavated a pit eleven feet in diameter and nearly eleven feet deep.