p. 174 | SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 11.

SECULAR.

—Vienna is a city of 1,300,000 people. —Bloodshed is feared on the Isthmus of Panama. —The French Cabinet has rescinded the decree of exile against the Duc d'Aumale. —Ex-President Cleveland has quietly settled down to the practice of law in New York City. —March 8 the village of Wabash, in Cass County, Neb., was almost entirely destroyed by fire. —An advertisement in the Riverside, Cal., Press offers land "for sale cheap—only $725 an acre." —Louisville, Ky., suffered from a large fire on the 8th inst. The loss aggregates about half a million. —Benjamin Franklin's watch is owned by a gentleman of Lancaster, Penn., who says it still keeps good time. —Four hundred tons of honey were shipped last year from Los Gallos Creek, in the San Joaquin Valley, this State. —Recent advices from Africa state that Henry M. Stanley is safe, and that he has started on his journey to rejoin Emir Pasha. —Edison's incandescent light patents have been declared void in Canada for non-compliance with the Canadian patent laws. —King Milan, of Servia, has abdicated in favor of his son Prince Alexander, a youth of eleven years. A regency has been established. —A professorship of physical culture, with an endowment of $2,000, is to be established at Amherst, in memory of the late Henry Ward Beecher. —It is stated from Panama that it has been discovered that the juice of the maguey plant is a certain remedy for hydrophobia in men and dogs. —Exceedingly rich gold discoveries are reported from Lower California, and hundreds from the southern towns of this State are flocking to the new El Dorado. —March 7 the Minnesota House of Representatives refused by a vote of fifty-nine to thirty-nine to submit to the people an amendment in favor of prohibition. —General Legitime, of Hayti, has sent a telegram to European Governments announcing that the rebellion in Hayti has been crushed and demanding recognition of his Government. —The official returns of the late Presidential election show that the vote cast for the Prohibition party in Maine was one to 47½; in Iowa, one to 113½; in Kansas, one to 43½; in Connecticut, one to 36; in New York, one to 43½; in Indiana, one to 53½. The vote in the Northern States was 213,603; in the Southern States, 34,985; total, 248,588.

—A horse farm of 120,000 acres near Cheyenne, Wy. T., is said to be the largest in the world. It requires 200 miles of wire fencing, with 65 men to look after the horses, which number 5,000. —March 5 the Reading (Pa.) Iron Works, which operate blast furnaces, rolling, sheet, tube and pipe mills, forges, and machine shops, employing over 2,500 hands, failed for over $1,000,000. —Diphtheria of the most virulent type is said to be epidemic in Cranbery Township, Venango County, Pa. In nearly every case where the disease has been allowed to get a start, it has resulted fatally. —A recent Shanghi dispatch says that a marked increase in hostility to foreigners is noticeable throughout China. The native soldiery at Chefoo are suspected of plotting to attack the foreign settlement. —A dispatch from Zanzibar says that a fight took place between Arabs and Germans on March 3, and that the Germans re-occupied Bagamoyo without loss. Bushiri, the Arab leader, was wounded. —The annual report of the Imperial Patent Office shows that Germany performs her part in the present era of inventions. During the last three years 29,764 patents were applied for, and 11,813 actually registered. —Admiral Krantz, the French Minister of Marine, has ordered the immediate commencement of work on the port defenses of Toulon, Cherbourg, and Brest, for which an expenditure of $122,000,000 has been authorized by the French Chamber. —The English bark, Port Gordon, 122 days out from a port in Scotland, laden with fire brick and pig iron, for Tacoma, was totally wrecked on the 27th of February, on the North Pacific coast, forty miles below Cape Flattery, and four lives were lost. —Waterloo, Iowa, has elected a poor cobbler as mayor of that city. The candidacy was regarded as a joke until the Knights of Labor and the railroad-shop men began voting for him. When the votes were counted he was found to have over 100 majority. —Five thousand letters were seized recently in the office of the French Patriotic League. A cursory examination shows that a large number of letters are from subalterns and field officers in the army, and indicate the adherence of the writers to Boulangeism. —What looks like the beginning of an extensive exodus of colored people is reported from Raleigh, N. C. The railroad fare from that place to Kansas has been reduced to $11, and it is thought that thousands of the colored population will emigrate to that State at an early day. —It is stated that the Manitoba Railroad is to be extended to Puget Sound. Its terminus will be Steilacoom, on the sound, twelve miles southwest of Tacoma. The proposed route is almost an air line from Butte City to the sound and will be several hundred miles shorter than the Northern Pacific road. —The French Government has forbidden large deputations to visit General Boulanger's house, and ordered officers not to salute or recognize him in any manner in the Bois Boulogne. The opinion is quite general in this country that the French authorities could scarcely have done a more foolish thing than this. —Isaiah V. Williamson, the venerable millionaire philanthropist, died at Philadelphia on the 7th inst. A short time ago he set apart $12,000,000 of his fortune to establish an industrial school for boys. His entire fortune is upward of $20,000,000. He was never married, but was celebrated for his many charities. —It is stated that Professor Hastings, of the Sheffield Scientific School, after long experimenting, has succeeded in so combining two glasses, the composition of which is a secret, that chromatic aberration in a telescope has been corrected. This will make telescopes from 10 to 20 per cent more powerful, and all new telescopes will probably include Professor Hastings' principle. —The extent of the poverty which prevails in London may be appreciated from the fact that an appeal was recently published from a single society for aid in furnishing 50,000 meals "for poor little starving children" during the winter. The meals to be furnished are not expensive, since it is stated in the appeal that each pound contributed will pay for no less than 250 separate meals. —The Bremen Volks Zeitung, Berlin, has been seized for having published an attack upon Bismarck. The police profited by the occasion to make a general search of the offices of the paper. The directors protested against this action and appealed to the law. The court supported the police. The newspapers of various parties, including the Cologne Gazette, approve the protest of the Volks Zeitung.

—The London Times says that it is reported that the Czar intends to abolish the governor-generalships in the southern provinces of Russia. Since the murder of the late Czar, in 1881, these governors-general have been invested with absolute, dictatorial powers, and the proposed change, which would bring back the provinces to the old system of administration, would be a great relief to the population. —West Virginia has three claimants to the office of governor, namely, General Goff, Governor Wilson, and President Carr, of the State Senate. Goff claims the office by virtue of election; Wilson, being governor, claims that it is his duty to hold over till the Legislature, whose duty it is to declare his successor duly elected, while Carr claims to be governor ex officio in virtue of being president of the Senate. —A report has been published in Germany to the effect that the German corvette Olga bombarded Mataafa's camp. The captain of the American man-of-war protested, but seeing the protest disregarded he opened fire on the Olga. A shell burst between her decks, doing much damage. The Olga then directed a torpedo at the American ship, blowing her up, with all hands. The report is not credited in this country. —In the British Commons, on the 7th inst., Lord George Hamilton, First Lord of the Admiralty, stated that the Government proposed to build eight first-class men-of-war, of 14,000 tons each, and two of 9,000 tons, nine first-class cruisers, twenty-nine smaller cruisers, four of the Pandora type of cruisers, and seventeen sharp-shooter type of torpedo vessels. The total tonnage of all these vessels will be 318,000 and the total cost, £21,500,000. —John Ericsson, the inventor of the Monitor, died in New York on the 7th inst. Mr. Ericsson was born in Central Sweden in 1803. From an early age he betrayed the peculiar bent of his genius, and when 13 years old was put in charge of a section of a ship canal which was being surveyed by the corps of engineers in which he was a cadet. Later in life he became an officer in the Swedish army. In 1826 he went to England, where he remained till 1839, when he came to America. —Benjamin Harrison was inaugurated President of the United States on the 4th inst. The following day he sent to the Senate the names of the members of his cabinet, as follows: James G. Blaine, of Maine, Secretary of State; William Windom, of Minnesota, Secretary of the Treasury; Redfield Proctor, of Vermont, Secretary of War; Benjamin F. Tracy, of New York, Secretary of the Navy; John W. Noble, of Missouri, Secretary of the Interior; John Wanamaker, of Pennsylvania, Postmaster-General; W. H. H. Miller, of Indiana, Attorney-General; Jeremiah Rusk, of Wisconsin, Secretary of Agriculture. Vice-President Levi P. Morton also took the oath of office the same day.