p. 14 | SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 3, 1890

SECULAR.

—The rainfall in this city for the season, up to the 17th ult., was thirty-five inches.

—Boulder Creek, Santa Cruz County, Cal., reports 103 inches of rain for the season, and the prospect seems good for more.

—It is reported that the through trains from San Francisco to Portland, Or., cannot be expected before the first of April.

—Owing to the storm blockade, 25,000 people in Rogue River Valley, Or., were without an outside mail for over a month.

—The government is preparing to build brick quarters at San Diego, Cal., for two companies of artillery, at a cost of $100,000.

—At Mulhausen, Saxony, February 19, there was a fight at a Socialist meeting, and troops were called out. Thirty persons were wounded.

—The Maryland State Temperance Alliance has declared against the movement now being made to enact a high license law for that State.

—General Butler is at the head of a land and railroad company incorporated recently in Boston to buy land and build a railroad through the Holy Land.

—A Paris dispatch of the 19th ult. reports an explosion in a colliery at Decize. It was not known how many were killed, but thirty-four dead bodies had been recovered.

—It is thought that England will order a large number of American dynamite guns for coast defense in several colonies. Fifty have already been conditionally ordered.

—Five of the conspirators implicated in a plot to kill Prince Ferdinand, of Bulgaria, have been shot. Ferdinand offers to abdicate, but this action is opposed by the ministry.

—A London dispatch of February 17 says: "Four hundred thousand miners in Great Britain have decided to adhere to their demand for an increase of 10 per cent. in wages."

—The President has issued a proclamation directing the removal of all cattle grazing upon the Cherokee outlet in the northern part of the Indian Territory, by the first of October.

—A German girl, aged twenty-four years, who had just arrived from the old country in search of friends in Newark, N. J., was lured into a building February 24, and robbed of a thousand dollars.

—C. P. Huntington, of the Southern Pacific Railroad, is said to be purchasing large tracts of coal land in the State of Washington, and will establish a line of steamers to develop the trade.

—The potato famine at Virginia, Nev., during the snow blockade, was raised by taking spuds from the Carson River ranches into the Sutro Tunnel and raising them through the mining-shafts.

—The recent elections in Germany show large Socialist gains. The emperor's show of interest in the laboring classes did not have the designed effect of breaking the force of the Socialist wave.

—The deserted wife of a sailor, destitute of means, and just out of the hospital with a babe, walked the streets of New York City till 5 o'clock A. M., February 13, when the child perished of the cold.

—Temperance crusaders recently wrecked a building at Spickardsville, Mo., and the owner has started in for legal revenge against sixteen of the participants in the affair, thirteen of whom are women.

—At the recent centenary of the U. S. Supreme Court, an appeal was made for the relief of the Court. It is claimed that it has more business than it can possibly attend to, and is fully three years behind.

—The recent purchase of $300,000 worth of land in Minneapolis turns out to be a scheme to build a dam below St. Anthony Falls, which will give 200,000 maximum horse-power in addition to the present power at the falls.

—Senator Blair recently presented petitions, signed by 36,000 members of the Grand Army of the Republic, in favor of pensions to army nurses. He also presented petitions signed by over 4,000,000 people, favoring his Educational bill.

—Emperor William's interest in the welfare of the workingmen has received a new illustration in his rescript to the Minister of Commerce, directing an extension of the application of the system of workingmen's insurance, and an inquiry into the laws affecting factory labor.

—On the 17th ult., several Deputy U. S. Marshals went to Sharon, Ga., and arrested seventeen prominent citizens, charged with conspiracy and intimidation against the newly-appointed postmaster, Duckworth. The warrants were based on the testimony of post-office inspectors.

—A "California on Wheels" car was broken into at Wichita, Kansas, on the night of February 18, by a gang of cow-boys, who proceeded to help themselves to canned fruit and wine. But before much damage was done, the press agent of the train called up the other attendants, and drove off the thieves.

—Russia has demanded that Bulgaria pay three million rubles due on account of the Russian occupation of 1878 and 1879, after the consolidation of Bulgaria and Eastern Roumania by the treaty of Berlin. Russia never pressed the debt before, and now, apparently, does so under a sense of irritation.

—A new storm of rain and snow, quite general throughout the northern part of California, set in on the 15th ult., and new difficulties arose in the Sierras, along the Central Pacific Railroad line. Trains were considerably delayed, and only continual battling with the drifting snow could keep the track at all passable.

—After nearly six weeks of resistance the dead-lock in the Lower House of the Iowa Legislature was dissolved on the 19th of February, and organization for business immediately followed. The Democrats have the speaker and one clerk, while the Republicans secured the other offices and most of the important committees.

—Near Colfax, on the Central Pacific line, on the 21st ult., a snow-plow with five engines was engaged in clearing the track when four of the engines jumped the track and rolled into the canyon below, scalding to death a fireman and injuring two other persons. No effort was made to recover the engines, on account of the great depth of snow.

—In the Senate, on the 17th ult., Mr. Dawes presented over 240 petitions from Massachusetts stating that more than 800,000 gallons of intoxicating liquors were annually exported to Africa, which is detrimental to all legitimate commerce with the natives, and praying Congress to put a stop to the traffic, which it can do under the constitutional provision authorizing Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations.

—A dispatch from Aurora, Texas, of the 21st inst., says: "A fatal epidemic is raging here. The disease is pronounced spinal meningitis, or spotted fever, and several persons have died of it within the last two days. The people are terror-stricken, and are fleeing from the place. An appeal was made to Fort Worth for physicians and nurses, which was at once responded to by the mayor."

—At a recent congress of trades unions in England, it was decided by an overwhelming majority that no legislation shortening the hours of labor would confer any practical benefit upon workingmen so long as the competitive system exists. The men who debated the question all seemed to grasp the fact that if the hours of labor were shortened the wages of the workingman would also be shortened, and they accordingly resolved against an eight-hour agitation.

—The National Educational Conference, in session at New York, passed a resolution, February 20, declaring the public school the chief source of civilization and the bulwark of civil and religious liberty, approving the placing of the American flag over school-houses, recommending the reading of the Declaration of Independence and other historical papers, so that pupils could meet hostile criticism and make the public schools become sources of the highest moral instruction without any sectarian bias.