p. 111 | SECULAR by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 19, 1892

SECULAR.

By Editor

—The czarowitz, eldest son of the czar of Russia, is to marry into the royal family of Austria.

—On the evening of the 6th inst. the office of the Philadelphia Ledger was damaged by fire to the extent of $150,000.

—A new line of fast steamers is shortly to be put on the route from San Francisco to New York, via the Isthmus of Panama.

—A tornado 300 yards wide passed through Paragould, Arkansas, on the 7th inst., wrecking twenty-six buildings and injuring several persons.

—At Salida, Colorado, on the 11th inst., the railroad roundhouse and machine shop, together with 17 engines, were destroyed by fire. Loss estimated at $400,000.

—On the 10th inst. 25 inmates of the Knox County, Tennessee, Workhouse overpowered the guard and escaped. A number of citizens were held up and robbed in the suburbs of Knoxville by the culprits.

—From Nacogdoches, Texas, comes the report of a great storm in that vicinity, on the 6th inst., leveling many houses, barns, and fences. Only one death was reported as far as heard from.

—Congressman Caruth, of Kentucky, has introduced a bill to prohibit the payment of pensions to persons on the salary roll of the United States Government and drawing an able-bodied man's pay.

—Six customs inspectors were dismissed from service at the San Francisco Custom House last week; and when Collector Phelps was asked by a reporter for the cause, he replied, "For the good of the service."

—America is not the only country where government contractors slight their work. It has just transpired that many of the guns made for the German army are defective, and a political sensation is the result.

—A section of a big California tree, 30 feet long and 23 feet in diameter, arrived at the Exposition grounds at Chicago on the 5th inst., designed for exhibition. It loaded eleven cars. The original tree was 300 feet high.

—The discovery of fine diamonds is reported in Idaho; but it is the wrong time of year for a rush to that country. It will take capital to get the diamonds, and men of means will reap the profits, if there are any in the business.

—St. Petersburg advices state that cholera has reappeared in a virulent form in a number of villages in the province of Poltava. The authorities continue to expect and prepare for a widespread crusade against the disease in the spring.

—The telegraph reports extensive snowstorms in Northern Kansas and Nebraska last week. In some places it was called a "blizzard." Several railroad lines were completely blocked. In Atchison, on the 7th inst., the street cars did not run at all.

—A Chicago dispatch notes the strike of 575 telegraph operators on the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, and 200 on the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern, because officials refused to recognize the Order of Railway Telegraphers.

—Consul Dougherty, at Callao, has notified the secretary of the treasury that the Peruvian consul has advanced the customs duties on all imports 8 per cent. Tobacco, cigars, and cigarettes are excluded from the general list and advanced 50 per cent.

—Robbers have lately been boldly operating in St. Louis, and of about forty arrests, thirty of the culprits have been recognized by Chicago policemen as members of the gang of daylight plunderers who have been holding up and robbing people in that city.

—The Knights of Labor, at their International Assembly in St. Louis, voted in favor of Sunday opening of the World's Fair. The Christian Statesman says "this is a flat contradiction of their petition in 1889 against Sunday trains." About the same time the editor of the Statesman counted the entire body as petitioners in favor of a national Sunday law because of the vote of a majority of a small body of delegates at one of their assemblies. Does he now admit that every member is in favor of Sunday opening of the Fair?

—There are to be twenty restaurants within the World's Fair grounds at Chicago, which accommodate 45,000 persons at one time. There will be two classes, one high-priced and one more moderate. The proprietors are to pay 25 per cent. of the gross receipts for the privileges.

—Large quantities of choice and selected fruit are already being received for the World's Fair at Chicago and placed in the cold storage warehouses of that place until the opening of the show. The Canadians are among the first foreigners to send in fruit, and intend to make a fine display of apples.

—According to European weather reports, intense cold and heavy snowfalls are reported from North and Central Spain. The whole of Central and Southern Russia was visited for three days last week by an exceptionally severe blizzard. Such severity has been unknown in Moscow for eight years.

—Another priest and three Sisters, of the lot who were captured ten years ago at Khartoum, Soudan, by the famous Mahdi, have lately escaped, through the assistance of friendly Arabs. They report a terrible experience during their captivity. A party of half a dozen or more escaped some two years ago.

—The government has prepared to issue in January a complete new set of postage stamps commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America. They will be called the "Columbus issue," and will be the finest ever made by any government. They will be on sale at the various post offices only during the year 1893, and then will be withdrawn from general use.

—It is said that Paris is to have a new daily newspaper in the interest of professional beggars. It will give its readers a complete list of baptisms, weddings, and funerals to take place the same day, which may be assumed to afford good pointers for the use of begging letter writers. There is to be a special department giving the arrivals and departures of persons of known charitable tendencies.

—The San Francisco Examiner’s Washington correspondent says of Congress: "The admission of Arizona and New Mexico may be reached, but before the Senate does anything else it will have to deal with the question of opening the World's Fair on Sunday, and the Anti-option law. Possibly the Sunday closing matter is of less importance to the country, but it may have to take precedence."

—On the morning of the 7th inst. twenty women appeared before a New York police court charged with drunkenness. The judge said: "I remember when a drunken woman was seldom seen. I am afraid I have been treating these unfortunate women too leniently. I am going to fine every woman charged with drunkenness hereafter and see if I cannot check this alarming increase of intemperance among women." And every one of the twenty was fined accordingly.

—Jacob Gerber, of Omaha, Nebraska, returned to his home last week after an absence of about three years in Russia. He went there to attend to business, and was sent to Siberia without any kind of trial, for having dared to leave Russia in the first place without the czar’s consent. He suffered terribly from exposure and the cruelty of guards. He was marched on foot and in chains 2,000 miles. His sentence was for 15 years, but he succeeded in escaping after three unsuccessful attempts.

—The color line is very closely drawn in St. Louis, where experts are called to determine whether a possible vein of negro blood can be traced in an applicant for admission to the white public schools, although the applicant's complexion may not discover any such traces. A leading daily paper says that "the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution has been a little out of fashion for some time, and will no doubt be entirely knocked out one of these days." The same may be said of the First Amendment, which has been ignored in principle by both Congress and the Supreme Court.