SECULAR | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 10, 1890

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 16, No. 10.

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SECULAR.

—Chicago is to have a $3,000,000 Masonic temple.

—The influenza is said to be raging in Eastern Syria.

—Two thousand men on the North Docks, London, struck for higher wages February 27.

—A dispatch of February 24 reports the worst snow-storm of the winter prevailing all over Montana.

—Three tobacco factories in Richmond, Va., were destroyed by fire on the 23d ult., entailing a loss of $220,000.

—Dom Pedro, the deposed emperor of Brazil, is said to be desirous of returning to the new republic as a private citizen.

—The king of Corea is about to send another envoy to England, despite the vigorous protests of the Chinese Government.

—Grover Cleveland and Wayne MacVeagh are attorneys for the Louisiana Lottery Company in a case in which it is defendant.

—Great rainfall and consequent floods are reported along the Ohio River and in the Cumberland region, centering at Nashville, Tenn.

—The Duke of Cambridge, commander-in-chief of the British army, is to be retired, and succeeded by another member of the royal family.

—Rev. Henry Duncan, a white minister of the Free-will Baptist denomination, was hanged at Ozark, Ala., February 24, for poisoning his wife.

—The world’s fair in commemoration of the discovery of America, to be held in 1892, has been awarded to Chicago by a Congressional Committee.

—Twenty buildings were blown down in Gainesville, Texas, by the heavy storm which prevailed throughout the northern part of the State February 25.

—The Louisiana Lottery Company has renewed its seductive offer of large money considerations to North Dakota for the privileges of a lottery business in that State.

—In London, the corpses of fourteen infants were recently found under the floor of a house occupied by a midwife. The exposure was made by the burning of the building.

—The recent election in Germany gives the Socialists thirty-five instead of eleven members in the Reichstag. This growing element promises eventually to give the country a more liberal government.

—The Foreign Office has reports from Siam that the king has discriminated against the English by granting important concessions in mines, banking, and other enterprises to citizens of the United States.

—A hard tale of the eviction of tenants from the land of a bankrupt iron company at Pittsburg, Pa., comes by telegraph. It is said that women and children, with their effects, were turned out in a drenching rain.

—The Mexican Government is also petitioning the State Department at Washington against the proposed removal of the captive Apaches to Fort Sill, where it will be possible for them to regain their old raiding grounds.

—The Secretary of War has asked Congress for an appropriation of $55,573 for the erection of monuments or tablets for the proper marking of each of the commands of the regular army engaged in the battle of Gettysburg.

—The San Francisco Chronicle remarks that “nothing is more marked than the tendency of both Japanese and Chinese to discard foreign engineers and other skilled experts, the moment the natives are able to do the work.”

—Strikes in Russia are dealt with by the police. One recently occurring was put down by the authorities, and fifty of the leading spirits secretly hurried off to the mines of Cracow, where they were starved and ill-used till they all committed suicide.

—“Sister Gertrude,” the English girl who has just set apart her life to the service of the lepers on Molokai Island, H. I., left San Francisco on the steamer which sailed March 1. She was the recipient of marked attention and many flowers.

—The mayor and council of Kansas City were routed from a regular session, February 24, by the irate populace, to prevent the granting of an obnoxious monopoly to the Consolidated Electric Light Company. They narrowly escaped a ducking in the river.

—A scheme has been suggested in the Pan-American Congress, and is said to meet the approbation of the government, to construct an international railroad line connecting the railroad system of North America with that of the Argentine Republic, in South America.

—There are great distress and discontent reported in Italy. The government is strained for money, and the Radicals complain bitterly of the large army maintained, as they allege, to propitiate Bismarck. Failing to negotiate loans in Europe, the government proposes to try capitalists in the United States.

—Forty disappointed and disgusted German victims of a New York labor bureau recently returned to that city from Rio Janeiro. Others are anxious to return if they can ever raise the money. They were promised land, cattle, and employment at $30 per month. They found vacant land, but that was all.

—This significant dispatch, dated Forest, Miss., February 24, appears in the daily papers: “Miss Loftin was assassinated in Smith County by an unknown party. A young negro named Wise, suspected of the crime, has been arrested. He will be taken to the scene of the crime if he is not lost on the road.”

—The privilege of catching seals on the islands of St. Paul and St. George, in Behring Sea, for the next twenty years, has been let to the North American Commercial Company, of New York and San Francisco. The company pays the government $10.75 per skin for 100,000 skins per year, which is generally deemed too high for legitimate profit.

—Sierra City, Cal., has suffered much this winter from snow-storms, snow blockades, snow-slides, etc. But latest reports are favorable for better times. Plenty of flour can now be had at $3.00 per hundred, there is a liberal supply of cattle only ten miles away, and the snow is only eight to ten feet deep. The people are no longer fearful of a panic.

—Secretary Blaine has agreed to refer to arbitration the matter of damages to British sealers arrested by the U. S. revenue cutter in Behring Sea. It seems that the powers had not been officially notified of the line established between Russia and the United States, at the time of the Alaska purchase, and this fact is taken in consideration by the Secretary.

—The various American schooners recently seized by the Colombian authorities for contravention of the customs laws have been released. Colombia claims that she has the unquestioned right to close her coast ports to foreign trade that is simply running her own traders, who are compelled to pay duties that the direct American traders have hitherto evaded.

—Two immense dams in the vicinity of Walnut Grove, Arizona, which stored water for mining and irrigating purposes, broke on the 20th ult. The dams were five miles apart, and the Hassayampa Canyon above and below the lower dam was completely emptied of everything, even to the trees. At last accounts, it was supposed that about fifty lives were lost.

—Notwithstanding the fact that Emperor William’s manifestations of good-will toward the working classes did not have what was alleged to be his desired effect upon the elections in Germany, he is still “determined, with the wisest counsels,” to improve the condition of the poor. And it is reported that he has been assured of the hearty co-operation of the pope.

—It is estimated that in five years the trans-Siberian railroad will be completed, which will connect St. Petersburg, on the Baltic Sea, with Vladivostock, on the Pacific Ocean, by rail. This is an enterprise of the Russian Government, for the purpose of developing very rich mineral regions hitherto almost untouched, except by Chinese intruders who reside near the line.

—It is asserted that the European monarchies are endeavoring to throw obstacles in the way of the new republic of Brazil, and to provoke hostilities under pretense of protecting their subjects in that country. It is claimed that prominent Englishmen, engaged in business there, are hostile to the naturalization laws, and openly insult government officials for the purpose of inciting an eruption between the two governments.