SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 45.

Read the full edition

SECULAR.

—Six men were killed and two blinded while blasting rock near Butte, Mont., on the 14th inst.

—British ship builders are seriously embarrassed by an advance in the prices of iron and steel.

—The city authorities of Richmond, Va., have decided to discharge all colored men in the city’s employ.

—Postmaster-General Wanamaker proposes to extend the facilities for sending merchandise packages by mail.

—A Jersey City fire on the 17th inst. destroyed $100,000 worth of property and the lives of four persons.

—Some English capitalists are making extensive preparations for working the gold and silver mines in Honduras.

—A late report from Mexico says that President Diaz is ambitious to add Central America to the Mexican republic.

—Some theatrical performances in San Francisco are said to be so lewd that even the newspapers will not describe them.

—It is said that the volcano Cerro de Mono Pelada, in Tabasco, Mexico, is throwing out vast quantities of “water dyed red.”

—The emperor of China, who married against his will in obedience to his mother, now refuses to see either her or his wife.

—On the 10th inst., near Selma, Ala., the river bank caved in, burying three fishermen. All were dead when taken out.

—Owing to the severe snow-storms in Colorado, the Denver and Fort Worth trains were eleven days without a through trip.

—New Mexico has adopted a constitution, and will present it to Congress early in the session on application for admission as a State.

—The Prime Minister of Austria has offered the privileges of citizenship in any town he may choose to the old patriot exile, Martin Kossuth.

—The Union Pacific Railroad Company’s agent is said to have selected Redondo Beach, Los Angeles County, as a Pacific Coast terminus of its Salt Lake line.

—Advices from South Africa report great distress in the Transvaal, resulting from drought. The Pretoria Government has abolished all tariffs on food articles.

—The Central American representatives now inspecting our country, are said to be in favor of an international railroad connecting all the isthmus republics.

—W. G. Arkill, proprietor of the Judge, has made a formal offer to the government of $100,000 a year for the privilege of advertising on the backs of postage stamps.

—The President has been bothered with hundreds of letters inquiring if he is a Mason, all of which he has answered in the negative. He belongs to no secret society.

—Citizens of Sacramento are subscribing money to buy the old Sutter’s Fort, and preserve it from the ravages of the march of improvement, as a memorial of the “early days.”

—The Farmers’ National Congress assembled at Montgomery, Ala., on the 13th inst., with delegates present from every State and Territory. A number of papers were discussed.

—A cable dispatch from Melbourne, Australia, says that the Germans in Samoa are withdrawing their support from Tamasese, and that all is quiet between him and Mataafa.

—Lady Forester, of London, is a practical philanthropist. Each week she sends to the factory girls of London upward of 2,000 bunches of flowers gathered by the servants on her estate.

—If “straws show which way the wind blows,” how near is the orthodox millennium at hand, judging from the general lionizing of the pugilistic fraternity by the public and the press?

—An Englishman and three native servants were recently killed and eaten by savages on the Solomon Islands. This is the climax of several attacks upon European traders within a few months.

—John Gilroy, son of the old pioneer, after whom the town of Gilroy was named, has been sentenced to forty years in San Quentin, for a felonous assault upon his foster-mother, while drunk.

—Bismarck is credited with establishing permanent accord between Russia and Austria, restoring Russia’s dominance in Bulgaria, and recognizing Austria’s possession of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

—The New York Herald is sending a party out from Zanzibar to meet Stanley and Emin Pasha. The party carries a stock of relief supplies for the almost destitute explorers and warriors.

—On the 12th inst., the Iowa delegation withdrew in a body from the W. C. T. U. convention at Chicago, declining to bind themselves to partisan politics, or to the support of the Prohibition party.

—Near Lockeford, San Joaquin County, Cal., on the night of the 11th inst., a book peddler and ex-preacher, named Orville A. Ross, murdered his wife and eight-year-old son, and then killed himself.

—Ex-President Hayes delivered an address before the National Prison Congress at Nashville, Tenn., on the 16th inst., and severely criticized the “inefficient jury system which prevails in most of the States.”

—There is promise of active measures on the silver question in the coming Congress. Silver is gaining favor, several of the staunchest single-gold-standard men evidently yielding toward a more liberal policy.

—The San Francisco Chronicle, and many leading citizens, are persistently demanding the reduction of cable-car fares from 5 to 3 cents. It is generally supposed that the companies realize enormous profits.

—The schooner Fidelity, while being towed into Eureka harbor, Humboldt Bay, on the 16th inst., was struck by a heavy sea and capsized. All on board, consisting of captain and seven seamen, were lost.

—A municipal ordinance of New York City banishes all the organ grinders; and these musicians propose to hold mass-meetings throughout the city, and will circulate petitions for a restoration of their privileges.

—The government of Mexico has decided to have a permanent exposition of Mexican products in either London or Paris, and has sent circulars to that effect to the different governors of the Mexican States.

—The London Post publishes the welcome news that the Russian Government has at last succumbed to public opinion and is going to abolish the banishment of criminals to Siberia. It seems too good to be true.

—The wife of Colonel Goodloe, internal revenue collector of the Seventh District of Kentucky, who was recently killed in a fight with another politician, will apply for the office made vacant by her husband’s death.

—Seventeen men were arrested in Stevens County, Kan., on the 13th inst. They are part of a gang of twenty-nine, who murdered Sheriff Cross and posse over a year ago, during a contest over the location of the county seat.

—Two women, one a correspondent of the New York World, and the other representing the Cosmopolitan magazine, left New York on the 14th inst., for a race around the world, one traveling east and the other west. The fastest time on record is eighty days.

—The Palace Hotel, San Francisco, made a complete change of waiters on the 9th inst., substituting white for colored men. Some of the old hands had been in the hotel since it was first opened, and the new proprietor says they thought they owned the house.

—There are about 8,000 Mormons in Arizona. Governor Shoup, of Idaho, reports a Mormon population of 25,000 in a total of 113,000. They are ready to trade with any party which will offer them protection, that is to say, which will wink at their violations of law.

—Third Auditor Hart, in his annual report, says the number of pensioners on the rolls July, 1889, was 490,000, and there will probably be added 35,000 more by June 30, 1890, thus giving for examination 2,100,000 vouchers, and requiring for payment at least $100,000,000.

—Owing to short crops in Spain, and the destruction in California by the October rains, the price of raisins has materially advanced. A Napa grower has expressed the opinion that those who saved half their crop will realize as much profit as they would ordinarily off a full crop.

—It is announced that the effort will be renewed in the next Congress to establish a penal colony in Alaska. This sounds rather retrogressive, just as the benevolent sentiment of the world has succeeded in inducing Russia to abolish her “blot upon civilization” in Siberia.

—In the past, it has been the California “fir trees” that have been “terribly shaken” in supplying railroad ties, but more recently railroad men are purchasing redwood ties. The Mendocino Beacon says that 45,000 were shipped to Central America last month in one cargo and thousands are being sent East.

—A sudden reversion in the government of Brazil is announced, the result being the inauguration of a republic in lieu of the empire. The revolution is a complete surprise in all parts of the world, as it was generally supposed that through the kindly disposition and popularity of the Emperor Dom Pedro, the empire was secure.

—A French countess, heir to a fortune, is working as a domestic in an Oakland hotel; she keeps her position in order to bring her mother to terms in regard to the settlement of her father’s estate. They are both dependent upon a will which provides that if they cannot agree in the settlement, the property shall all go to a French institution of learning.

—Several persons, including shipping agents, government and police officers, customs and railway officials, and immigration agents, are being tried in Vienna, on various charges in connection with inducing Austrian and Hungarian peasants to emigrate to America. It is charged that a regular slave trade has been carried on in Hamburg in connection with this class of emigrants.