p. 638 | SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 21, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 40.

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SECULAR.

—North Dakota gives a majority of 1,100 in favor of prohibition.

—The chief of police of New Orleans has ordered the closing of all gambling-places.

—It is asserted that at least seven-eighths of all the opium sold in San Francisco is smuggled.

—Savannah, Ga., had a $400,000 fire on the 9th inst. The loss was principally on cotton, and cotton warehouses.

—A fifteen-year-old boy has been sentenced to the Oregon penitentiary for the murder of a boy six years of age.

—The newspaper El Mundo says that the monster pumps used in draining the City of Mexico bring up many arms and legs of children.

—Postmaster-General Wanamaker will recommend in his annual report that the free-delivery system be extended to cities of 8,000 inhabitants.

—A new printers' union has been organized in New York; this time it is a union of pressmen, independent of the typographical union. It starts out with 1,000 members.

—Two boys, aged 10 and 12 years, were recently killed at Elk Horn, Montana, while playing with some giant powder which they found where some miners had been at work.

—Mayor Grant, of New York City, declares in favor of shutting off electric illumination by overhead wires, on account of the extensive loss of life by means of electricity in that city.

—The commission appointed to inquire into the reports of Turkish atrocities on Christians in Macedonia found Moussa Bey guilty on five charges of murder and outrage. Sentence is deferred.

—A bill to authorize the issue of a loan of 249,000,000 marks has been submitted to the German Bundesrath by the government. A large proportion of this money is to be expended on account of the military.

—The English war office has created some sensation in Canada by a diligent inquiry as to the facilities for transporting troops through that country, and also regarding the stock of horses in various districts.

—It is said that the French residents of Montreal have extended an invitation to General Boulanger to take up his residence in that city until such time as he shall be recalled to France to preside over her destinies.

—Dispatches from Damaraland say that the paramount chief has ordered all Germans to quit the country, and has seized the German missionaries as hostages for the safety of native agents imprisoned by the Germans.

—The proposed prohibition amendment to the Connecticut Constitution has been defeated.

—The representatives of the Congress of American nations are being transported all over the country in a special train which runs on all roads without change of cars. This is said to be the first excursion train ever so privileged.

—The total coinage of standard silver dollars, amounting to over three hundred million, is all in circulation with the exception of about eight million. The amount remaining in the treasury was never so small as at present.

—Judge Day, of Auburn, N. Y., has decided that the law authorizing the execution of criminals by electricity is constitutional. The attorneys of Kemmler, who is under sentence to be electrically executed, will take an appeal.

—The czar of Russia and royal family left Copenhagen for Berlin on the 9th inst. The route to be traversed through the latter city was lined with troops. The emperors embraced and kissed each other in the most affectionate manner.

—At Oneida, N. Y., on the 9th inst., Rev. James Kelley, while celebrating mass, partook of wine which had been poisoned by arsenic. But a few minutes afterward he retired from the altar, and antidotes were promptly administered. He is reported as still seriously ill.

—Advices from El Paso, Texas, state that Yaqui Indians came upon two companies of Mexican soldiers while swimming, and slaughtered them all. The Mexican Government has sent out 1,000 soldiers to punish the assailants. The affair occurred in the State of Sonora.

—Mrs. Emily Pitt Stevens, the noted temperance advocate, has brought suit for $20,000 damages against fifteen members of the San Francisco W. C. T. U., because they protested against the action of the State Board in giving her credentials as a public representative of the Union.

—Preparations are being made for the construction of the great forty-inch telescope to be erected on Mount Wilson, California. The telescope will exceed the Lick instrument in diameter by four inches, making it the largest in the world. The observatory properly fitted up will cost at least $500,000.

—The governor of Kansas has indorsed the appeal from the people of Stevens County for aid, and urges that a hearty response be given to the call for food, fuel, and clothing. The farmers of this county have suffered four successive failures of crops, and they are without means of support for the approaching winter.

—The magnificent stone residence of Mr. Clem Studebaker, at South Bend, Ind., which cost $300,000, was destroyed by fire on the 9th inst. On account of its supposed security from fire, but $25,000 insurance was carried. Spontaneous combustion of some old oil rags left in a closet by painters is supposed to be the cause.

—The San Francisco Chronicle says: “The experience of the party that started out from San Diego to locate a rich mine in the desert in Lower California is a repetition of that of other seekers after real or fabulous lost mines. They had a hard time, wandering about on the desert for seventeen days, and narrowly escaped death from thirst.”

—It appears from the annual report of the Utah Commission that polygamy is still regarded as “a saving ordinance,” although plural marriages are only secretly contracted and practiced. The report expresses the opinion that were Utah to be admitted as a State, it would not be long before the Gentile element, with its advanced civilization, its trade and traffic, would be driven out.

—A Madrid dispatch of the 6th inst. says: “In the course of a crusade against gambling, a judge to-night entered the Casino, one of the most aristocratic clubs in the city. He found the rooms full of senators, deputies, generals, judges, and other distinguished persons, all of whom made a vigorous protest against his action. The result of their protestations was that only four persons were arrested.

—The Western Union Telegraphic Comp. are inaugurating a system of clocks throughout the State to be connected with the Lick observatory, and wound and regulated over the company’s wires by the observatory clock. No clock connected with the system will require any other attention from any person. The clocks will be rented like telephones, and the charge will be one dollar per month.

—The Secretary of the Interior has decided that a man and his wife cannot each prove up homestead entries to adjacent tracts of land. A young couple in Nebraska made homestead entries on adjacent tracts, erected a dwelling on the dividing lines, got married, and lived on their respective tracts, and then claimed a patent to both. The husband was granted a patent to his tract, but the wife was refused.

—Major Powell, of the United States Geological Survey, says that in the great West there are 100,000,000 acres of land, now arid and wholly valueless, which can be made productive by irrigation. This was said in response to questions put to him by the Arid Lands Committee of the Senate; and it is understood that the committee will report the advisability of congressional appropriations for surveys in arid districts.—S. F. Chronicle.

—In New York City, October 11, a lineman of the Western Union Telegraph Company was killed by electricity while working among the wires on a pole fifty feet high. There were a large number of telegraph, telephone, and electric light wires attached to the pole, among which the dead man hung, while “puffs of smoke flew from his nose and from his calcined wrists.” He had neglected the usual precaution of wearing rubber gloves.

—Bismarck asks Signor Crispi to modify, as far as possible, the struggle between the Italian Government and the Vatican, which is, although a matter of minor importance in international affairs, an irritating and extremely uncomfortable element in diplomatic intercourse. The chancellor prefers that the pope should look upon Germany as his friend, and desires to maintain the most amicable relations with the Vatican, as well as with King Humbert, and he has been discontented with the situation ever since the Italian Prime Minister declared open war with Leo XIII.