SECULAR | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 16, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 11.

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SECULAR.

—Typhus fever is said to be epidemic in New York City.

—The California Legislature indorses the Nicaragua Canal project.

—A fire in Denver, Colorado, on the 5th inst., destroyed property to the value of nearly $300,000.

—The Omaha (Nebraska) Printing Company's establishment was damaged $100,000 by fire last week.

—Intense cold is reported in Russia. Four soldiers were frozen to death near Cronstadt, December 31.

—Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, had a disastrous fire on the 5th inst. Loss estimated over a quarter million dollars.

—A fire in Memphis, Tennessee, on the night of the 3d inst., destroyed property to the extent of $150,000.

—A disastrous blockade is reported on the Canadian Pacific Railroad, owing to snowslides in the Rocky Mountains.

—Two passenger trains collided at Kaniza, Austria, on the 4th inst., and eight persons were killed, while five were fatally and ten seriously injured.

—At a fire in the large printing house of Donahue & Henneberry, Chicago, on the 4th inst., a dozen firemen were injured by gas explosions, two fatally.

—A Warsaw, Poland, dispatch says that a man named Weirzinski, while out riding recently, was attacked by wolves and both himself and horse were devoured.

—Trials of the aristocratic French criminals connected with the Panama Canal scandal, have begun, and will be the center of Parisian interest for several weeks.

—There is a continued rush to the new gold fields of San Juan County, Utah. Advices to the 4th inst. estimated 7,000 miners in that region and 600 new arrivals daily.

—A London dispatch of the 4th inst. says: "Severe frosts prevail to-day, and the Thames is full of floating ice. The cold is causing much suffering among the poor."

—Scores of women work in the brickyards in Springwell, Mich., digging in the pits and carrying bricks, and some of them carry their babies on their backs while at work.

—Participants in the Russian cholera riots of last fall are still being dealt with by the government. Twenty more have been sentenced to death, and twenty-two to hard labor.

—Rev. J. M. Rollins, a Southern Methodist missionary stationed at Kobe, Japan, has been sent home in disgrace, charged with assault upon a brother missionary's wife.

—At Cincinnati, on the night of the 8th inst., an ice gorge broke, and forty-five loaded coal barges, sixty empty ones, and a towboat were completely destroyed. Loss over $300,000.

—A recent dispatch from Vienna, Austria, says that many parents have reported to the police the loss of daughters eight to twelve years of age, and a criminal conspiracy is suspected.

—The famine in North Finland is increasing. Many villages are snowbound, and it is feared that whole communities have perished, as nothing has been heard from them for a number of days.

—In Puttlingen, Russia, last week, a mob of 200 striking miners raided the houses of men who would not join them, dragging out and beating several victims, and smashing the windows of their houses.

—A Japanese war steamer, the Kon-go, was in San Francisco last week. Her officers took a great interest in the trial trip of the new U. S. coast defense ship Monterey, just completed at a San Francisco shipyard.

—There is said to be extreme depression in the English shipping industry. Report enumerates 479 steamers laid up in English and Scotch ports, and 100 in colonial ports. This means hundreds of thousands of idle men.

—Europe is said to be experiencing cold weather. On the 3d inst. violent snowstorms prevailed throughout Austria and Hungaria, and it is further stated that all the lakes in Germany, France, and Austria were frozen over.

—The Australian labor unions are agitating for a law prohibiting the importation of contract labor, more particularly that of Polynesians, Asiatics, Russians, Poles, and Hebrews. West Australia is now more Asiatic than Caucasian.

—N. H. Young, the Deputy United States Marshal, who has had an office in Santa Barbara, Cal., for the last four months, for the purpose of registering the Chinese under the new law, has returned to San Francisco, not one Chinaman having registered during the whole time.

—The chief of police of New Orleans was recently directed by the district attorney to arrest the proprietor of a saloon for keeping his place of business open on Sunday. The chief declined to make the arrest, and was tried for misdemeanor. The jury disagreed, and the accused officer was discharged.

—The cause of the recent burning of the station at Brighton, Sacramento County, Cal., and the death of Miss Ayres, telegraph operator, in the flames, is still a mystery, and many stories are abroad. A railroad engineer is charged with the deed, and there is also a suspicion that it was the result of suicide.

—Egyptian advices state that the Dervishees who recently attacked Gemai were overtaken on the 2d inst. by Egyptian cavalry and a fierce battle ensued. The Dervishees were defeated with heavy loss, but an English captain and forty-five Egyptian soldiers were killed, and many others wounded. The Dervishees greatly outnumbered the Egyptians, and made several furious onslaughts.

—During the late cold spell in Europe a train was stalled in the snow near Fiume, Austria, for eighteen hours, and the passengers were famishing and half frozen when released. A cottage at Hertzogemburg, occupied by eight persons, was buried under a mass of snow, and they were without fire for three days. When found by rescuers, two were dead and the others so prostrated that some were not expected to recover.

—It is said that the Italian Government views with some alarm the proposed American restrictions of emigration. In the first place, the traffic of going and returning emigrants adds appreciably to the needed revenues of the government; but the chief point is that many Italians, having become wealthy, return to the old country enlightened and better citizens and enter profitable business, which yields large revenues to the government.

—The Legislature of California convened on the 3d inst. The Senate is Republican and the Assembly is Democratic. On a strict party vote on joint ballot, eight Populist members hold the balance of power. An effort was made to abolish "The Well," a notorious eating and drinking house in the basement of the capitol, but, notwithstanding the fact that liquors (under cover of "cold tea") are sold in violation of law, the resolution failed to pass.

—President Harrison has issued a proclamation granting immunity from prosecution to all Mormons who were liable to the penalties of the law prohibiting the practice of polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation, prior to November 1, 1890. This amnesty is conditioned on their continuing to abstain from such practice, and is based on the assertion of the church authorities that such practice has been abandoned, and upon petition.

—The most disastrous lynching affair on record occurred at Bakersfield, N. C., on the night of the 3d inst. A mob of 400 men attacked the jail, which was defended by the sheriff and a posse of seventy-five. Ten of the sheriff's men and twenty of the mob were killed before the prisoner (a murderer named Snipes) was secured. He was then taken out and hanged. Friends of the posse then raised another force, and the mob army was increased, when another battle resulted in twenty-five more deaths.

—At Indianapolis, on the 6th inst., the general agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad called twenty of the union freight handlers into his office, and in the plainest terms told them they could not be loyal to both, and it was for them to say whether they were ready to give allegiance to the company which paid them their wages or to the union. Fifteen stepped to the company's side, and the five who stood by the union were paid off and discharged on the spot. The union men say this movement by the Pennsylvania company is the opening of united action by all the roads of the country in anticipation of trouble during the World's Fair.