SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 2, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 34.

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SECULAR.

—An unknown donor has sent a contribution of $50,000 to the Prince of Wales.

—There has been a sharp skirmish between the Turks and the Cretan insurgents.

—Eighteen persons were injured by a railroad accident at Lincoln, Nebraska, August 18.

—A bomb was exploded at a public concert in Rome, August 19, injuring eight persons.

—Helena will remain the capital of Montana until 1892, when another election will be held.

—The constitutional convention of Washington Territory completed its labors the 22d ult.

—Cattle are dying in large numbers of splenic, or Texas, fever in the vicinity of Greensburgh, Pa.

—A man in Richmond, Va., is reported to have written 36,764 words in shorthand on a postal card.

—The death sentence of Mrs. Maybrick, the London poisoner, has been commuted to imprisonment for life.

—Over one hundred persons were seriously poisoned by ice cream at a picnic near St. Paul, Minn., the 18th ult.

—British trade with Africa is said to amount to $125,000,000 annually, and the commerce of France to $100,000,000.

—The Republicans of Virginia nominated General Mahone for governor, at their recent State Convention in Norfolk.

—While a steamboat was making a trial trip at Shanghai, China, August 19, her boiler exploded, killing thirty men.

—Forty thousand dock laborers were on a strike in London, England, at last accounts, and the strike was still spreading.

—Two more British sealers have been seized by the United States revenue cutter Rush for poaching seals in Behring Sea.

—The war in Hayti is over at last, Legitime having completely surrendered to Hippolyte, and departed from the island.

—Severe hailstorms passed over portions of Austria, August 21, doing much damage to property. Several persons were killed.

—The J. H. Mahler Company of St. Paul, Minn., one of the largest carriage and wagon firms in the West, have failed for $500,000.

—There were mailed during the last fiscal year 3,578,000,000 letters, newspapers, and pieces of merchandise in the United States.

—A company has been organized in England to erect a tower for scientific purposes in London which shall have an altitude of 2,000 feet.

—Of the whole number of civil employees one-ninth are women, and fully one-third of those in Washington are of the gentler sex.

—Matthew Gibbs, supposed to be the oldest man in the State, died at his home near Centre, North Carolina, August 11, at the age of 108.

—Two women were struck by lightning and instantly killed at Piper City, Ill., recently, while a babe lying in the lap of one of them was uninjured.

—The yield of corn in the United States for 1888 was 2,000,000,000 bushels, or thirty-two bushels per head for each man, woman, and child in the country.

—The highest office building in the world, is soon to be erected in New York City. It will be sixteen stories high, contain 950 offices, and will cost $2,225,000.

—An offer has been made to the British Government of £20,000 per annum for the privilege of advertising on the backs of post cards and postage stamps.

—Alexander Sullivan, the Irish leader, has practically proved his innocence of any complicity in the Cronin case, and all rumors against him are being rapidly dispelled.

—Two steam yachts collided near Syracuse recently, and sank with all on board, numbering about twenty-five persons. All were rescued, however, with the exception of one young lady.

—A five-story tenement in New York City was destroyed by fire the 19th ult., and nine persons were burned to death. The fire was incendiary, and the perpetrator has been arrested.

—The City of Paris has beaten her own record, having recently made the trip to Queenstown, in five days, twenty-three hours and forty minutes, a gain of forty-nine minutes over any previous eastern trip.

—The corner-stone of the Indiana soldier's and sailor's monument was laid at Indianapolis the 22d ult., with imposing ceremonies. President Harrison made an effective address. The monument will cost $200,000.

—Special dispatches from London state that the earl of Fife refuses to allow his wife, the princess Louise of Wales, to accept any share of the grant recently made to the royal family by the British parliament.

—The newsboys of New York, several hundred in number, went out on a strike recently on account of the evening papers increasing the price which the boys were required to pay. The little strikers carried the day.

—The official trial of the new cruiser Charleston off the California coast has been completed, and is reported as being in every way satisfactory. The development of both speed and power was beyond the specifications of the contract.

—By the explosion of a gasoline still on the morning of August 21, the oil refinery of Miller and Son, at Allegheny City, Pa., was completely consumed at a reported loss of $225,000. The engineer is missing, and is thought to have perished in the flames.

—It is officially announced that the New Zealand and South Seas exhibition, designed to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the colony of New Zealand, will be held at the city of Dunedin, commencing November 26 and continuing until April, 1890.

—The remains of the wealthy and eccentric Dr. Henry Hillier, of Wilmington, Mass., who died last year, are enclosed in a $30,000 coffin; and now his widow proposes to erect to his memory a massive mausoleum of granite, marble, and bronze, which shall cost several times this amount.

—Reports from Hayti state that the harbor pilots and the officials of the San Domingo Government are in collision, and that American vessels landing in certain parts of Hayti are deliberately run ashore by the local pilots and plundered by the officials. The United States Government is investigating the matter.

—Three ladies who accompanied an excursion party to the top of Mt. Hood a short time ago, became separated from their companions and lost themselves in the gorges of the mountain, where they remained the greater part of the following night. When found, they were almost dead from exposure and fright.

—The Congressional committee on reclaiming arid lands are looking over various localities in Utah, Nevada, and other Western States with a view of finding locations where reservoirs for irrigation purposes can be built and maintained. They have already found tracts amounting to 70,000,000 acres which are capable of being brought into cultivation by this means.

—The largest sale of tobacco at auction ever made in one day in the United States, if not in the world, occurred at Louisville, Ky., the 21st ult., when about 1,500,000 pounds were disposed of, at a cost of $100,000 to the purchasers, with the additional accessories of bad breath, poor health, depraved habits, and no telling how much other meanness to the future consumers.

—A horrible wreck occurred on the Knoxville, Cumberland Gap and Louisville Railroad, twenty-two miles from Knoxville, Tenn., the morning of the 22d ult. The train was the first to go over the new road, and was filled with the business and professional men of Knoxville. Of the fifty-six persons on the train forty-one were more or less injured, three of the number being instantly killed.

—David G. Weems, an inventor of Baltimore, has succeeded in constructing an automatic electric motor which makes the remarkable speed of two miles per minute on a circular track three-fourths of a mile in diameter. This is equivalent to three miles a minute on a straight track. It is proposed to construct a line from New York to Chicago which will carry mail, parcels and all light kinds of freight at a speed of 200 miles per hour, and it is claimed that passenger transportation will speedily follow. The invention is covered by one hundred and fifty patents.