SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 5, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 30.

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SECULAR.

—An issue of paper money has been sanctioned by the king of Siam.

—Continued drought in Austria and Southern Russia is causing great anxiety and alarm.

—The king of Greece visited the Paris exposition July 23. He was banqueted by President Carnot.

—The Great Salt Lake is shrinking at the rate of two inches a week. The temperature averages 82 degrees.

—Forest fires of appalling magnitude have recently destroyed millions of dollars' worth of fine timber in Montana.

—The Belgian Government has voted the sum of ten thousand pounds toward the construction of the Congo railway in Africa.

—The Austrian infantry forces have been increased by the addition of 9,000 men, raising that branch of the service to a war footing.

—Four men were killed by the wrecking of a passenger train on the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad near Brighton, Tenn., July 27.

—The Ohio Prohibitionists have nominated Rev. J. B. Helwing, of Springfield, for Governor, and have also put a complete ticket in the field.

—The steamer Lorenzo B. Baker, of Boston, has been burned at sea. The passengers and crew were saved with the exception of two of the latter.

—The contract for the new coast-defense vessel to be built at San Francisco, was signed by Secretary Tracy July 26. The contract price is $700,000.

—July 25 was the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Mr. Gladstone, of England. Several rulers sent congratulatory messages to him upon the occasion.

—A man and his wife named Sussmilch committed suicide at Rockford, Ill., July 19, by jumping into the river. They were each over seventy-five years of age.

—A project is on foot for holding a mammoth National exposition in New York City in 1892. The purpose is to make it the grandest event of modern times.

—Four hundred buildings were destroyed by fire in Paks, Hungary, July 21. Many children are reported missing and hundreds of people are homeless. Great distress prevails.

—The count of cash and securities in the United States Treasury has been completed. A shortage of twenty-three dollars has been found in the entire amount of $700,000,000.

—Owing to a reduction of their wages, six hundred female operatives in the silk mills at Paterson, N. J., recently went out on a strike. They are not members of any labor organization.

—Some time ago the United States Fish Commission placed a quantity of salmon fry in the Hudson River, and it is now reported that large numbers of these fish are to be found in the river.

—The steamer Eduardo, from Spain, went ashore near Cutler, Maine, during a fog recently, and is probably a total loss. The crew, consisting of forty men, were saved. The vessel cost $285,000.

—The emperor of China has issued an edict for the construction of the Tong Chow railroad. It is probable that railroad construction on a large scale will be the policy of the Government hereafter.

—Residents of Prince George County, Virginia, are much alarmed over a very mysterious sinking of the earth in that section. In one place it has settled from ten to sixty feet over an area of several acres.

—Recent fires in the Yosemite Valley, California, have destroyed thousands of the immense trees of that section. Two large hotels narrowly escaped destruction also. At last accounts the fire was under control.

—The Indians on the Colville Agency, Washington Territory, are burning the hay lands and threatening the lives of settlers there. A company of soldiers has been requested for the protection of property and life.

—The Yellow River in China has again burst its banks, inundating an immense section of country. The water is twelve feet deep throughout ten large Government districts. The loss of life and property is incalculable.

—The steamship Thetis, bound for Philadelphia, with sugar from the Philippine Islands, has been given up as lost. She passed Gibraltar, June 24, and has not been since heard from. The vessel and cargo are valued at $470,000.

—Recent advices from China state that terrible storms in Northeastern Kwang-tung have swept away seven villages, drowned six thousand people, and rendered ten thousand persons homeless. Two thousand bodies were found in the neighborhood of one village alone.

—An exceptionally heavy storm passed over Chicago on the night of the 27ult. Eleven persons were killed and several seriously injured. The rainfall was unprecedented in the history of the city, over four inches of water falling in two hours' time. Cellars and basements were flooded to the depth of three or four feet in many instances.

—The House of Commons has realized at last that something must be done to help Ireland commercially. It therefore proposes to grant the sum of $100,000 per year to build railroads in that country. Inasmuch as statistics show that it costs about $200,000 per mile to build railroads in the British Isles, this magnanimous offer is equal to building half a mile of road per year for the Irish people.

—An unusual movement of Russian troops between Russian towns and the Turkish frontier is reported from Erzeroum under date of July 21. It is estimated that eighty thousand men are already stationed at Tiflis, Alexandropol, and other points near the frontier, and other troops are coming.

—A party of explorers recently unearthed fifty skulls and two hundred headless skeletons in the chalk bluffs east of Yankton, Dakota. They had evidently been buried many years. It is not known whether the remains are those of immigrants or Indians. An investigation is being made.

—The San Francisco Examiner printing firm has ordered two mammoth presses, which are to be the largest west of the Mississippi River. They are exclusively for newspaper work, and print, paste, cut, and fold 24,000 sixteen-page papers per hour. There are only a few presses of this kind in existence.

—Kate Maxwell, the notorious "cattle queen" of Wyoming Territory, together with her partner, George Averill, postmaster at Sweetwater, Carbon County, were lynched near the latter place, July 21, by a band of indignant stockmen, whose cattle had been stolen and branded with Cattle Kate's mark.

—The German Government, through its minister Herr Von Bulow, has notified the Swiss Bundesrath that the settlement treaty between the two countries, terminating July 20, 1890, would not be renewed. The recent trouble in regard to certain civil questions is what has prompted Germany to take this step.

—The German Government has imposed heavy penalties upon the strikers arrested in connection with the recent trouble in that country at Breslau and vicinity. The sentence of Henkel, the ring-leader, is seven years' penal servitude, and a deprivation of civil rights for an equal length of time.

—A cablegram from Rome under the date of July 27, states that the Vatican and the Quirinal are doubly guarded, owing to the rumors of a plot to blow up both with dynamite. The Government secret police watch all the exits of the Vatican, and it is said that the departure of the Pope will be forcibly resisted if he makes the attempt.

—Wesley Elkins, an eleven-year-old boy of Clayton County, Iowa, had a little difficulty with his father recently, and as the result, procured a rifle and coolly murdered him. He then killed his stepmother with a club, and took his infant sister in a carriage and fled. A more liberal treatment of such cases with hemp in earlier years would obviate the necessity of its official application later on.

—The wholesale dry goods house of Lewis Brothers & Co., of Philadelphia, has made an assignment. The liabilities reach nearly $4,000,000. The firm is one of the largest in the country in its line of business, and has branch houses in several cities in the United States. It is said that one of the causes of failure was the Johnstown disaster. The firm had large interests there and lost heavily by the flood.

—Secretary Windom has decided that there is no law to exclude Chinese from the United States, provided they are destined for other countries and are simply passing through in transit. This may be a just decision, but owing to the well-known deceptiveness of the average Chinaman, it will afford a loophole whereby thousands will obtain access to this country for the purpose of remaining here permanently.

—Orth, the pseudo-messiah who is causing such excitement among the colored people of the South, has gotten some of them into trouble by his fanatical ideas in regard to human sacrifices. Two parents residing in a remote part of Liberty County, Georgia, recently sacrificed their child by cutting off its ears and then cutting its throat. The negroes of that section are said to be in a perfect frenzy on account of religious excitement.

—On account of a heavy storm in Hocking Valley, Ohio, July 20, a reservoir used to supply water for the Hocking Canal, gave way at Sugar Grove, carrying everything before it down the valley. The soil is literally washed off the surface for a distance of twenty miles. No lives were lost, as the houses are situated on bluffs on either side of the valley; the canal, however, is a wreck for miles, and thousands of feet of railroad track are washed away. Much live stock perished.

—Kemmler, the New York murderer who was to have been executed by electricity, has been respited because of there being doubts as to whether the electrical current could be made sufficiently strong to produce instantaneous death. A committee of experts to decide upon the feasibility of execution by electricity is investigating the question. Edison, the inventor, declares that a current of one hundred volts will kill any man, and inasmuch as the current to be used is fifteen hundred volts, it is thought there will be but little difficulty in making a decision.