SECULAR | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 6, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 14.

SECULAR.

—An explosion of fire damp in a mine at Dux, Bohemia, on the 24th inst., caused the death of 130 men.

—The rainstorm which prevailed in California for several days last week was quite general throughout the State.

—Prof. Martin Kellogg, for the past two years acting president of the University of California, has been elected president.

—Justice L. Q. C. Lamar, of the U. S. Supreme Court, died at Macon, Georgia, on the 23d inst., aged 67 years and 4 months.

—The Alabama Assembly has refused, by a vote of 17 to 15, to grant a pension of $500 a year to the widow of Jefferson Davis.

—It is announced that the crown prince of Japan, the mikado's eldest son, will represent that empire at the Chicago World's Fair.

—The steamer Flintshire arrived in Victoria, B. C., from Yokohama, on the 27th inst., flying the yellow flag. There was one case of smallpox aboard.

—Wisconsin has elected Col. John I. Mitchell (Democrat) to the U. S. Senate. Kansas has also chosen a Democratic senator in the person of Judge Martin.

—Yellow fever has broken out in Guayaquil, Ecuador. All ships from Guayaquil for Panama have been quarantined, and have not been allowed to unload their mails or cargo.

—It has recently been discovered that $50,000 in coupons is missing from the State treasury of Arkansas. When and by whom the funds have been abstracted is as yet a mystery.

—A Berne dispatch of the 25th inst. reports that heavy snows had interrupted railway traffic throughout Switzerland, and that the St. Gothard Tunnel had been blocked by an avalanche.

—Hon. James G. Blaine, after a lingering illness, which he survived much longer than was expected, died at Washington, D. C., on the 27th inst. Had he lived four days more, he would have been 63 years old.

—A passenger train on the railway between Wilna and Minsk, Russia, on the 25th inst., ran into a freight train which had been stalled in a snow bank, and the result was fifteen persons killed and thirty seriously wounded.

—Bishop Phillips Brooks, the noted Boston minister, died on the 23d inst. He had been sick only a week, his malady being diphtheria. After a sudden fit of coughing, his heart ceased to beat. He was not quite 58 years old.

—Eight of the leaders of the Mexican marauders along the Rio Grande have been captured by a Texas sheriff and his deputies. The Mexican Government asks that one of them, Gonzales, be extradited to that country for trial.

—The great strike of cotton mill operatives in Lancashire is still unsettled. It is stated that representatives of the employes and proprietors held extensive conferences, but failed to come to an agreement, as neither party will yield.

—A resolution has been introduced in the U. S. Senate requiring the Secretary of the Treasury to secure a bond from the World's Columbian Exposition Corporation before delivering the souvenir coins provided for by act of Congress.

—Extensive drifts of snow on the large World's Fair buildings at Chicago have necessitated the employment of large gangs of men to shovel off the snow. The chief constructor was fearful that the great extra weight would cause collapse.

—Captains of half a dozen steam schooners held an important meeting on the wharf at San Francisco recently and unanimously decided not to ship any more union sailors. This will throw quite a number of union men out of employment, and trouble is expected.

—A recent dispatch from Anaconda, Montana, says the labor organizations in that State have inaugurated a system of boycotting against employing or patronizing Chinamen, and it is being so well seconded by the people as to greatly reduce the Chinese population.

—An extensive fire is reported in the famous Conception Silver Mine in San Luis Potosi. The fire broke out in the main shaft, causing heavy loss of life. On the 25th inst. thirteen dead bodies had been recovered. The financial loss will not be less than $1,000,000.

—An explosion occurred in a coal mine at Tokod, Hungary, on the 27th inst., and at latest reports fire was raging, with the prospect that all of the 150 workmen in the mine were dead. Nineteen dead bodies were picked up at the bottom of the main shaft, and the rescuers could go no further.

—The khedive of Egypt made some changes in his cabinet council without asking permission of England, and the latter has shown her hold upon Egyptian affairs by promptly objecting, whereupon the newly appointed premier was asked to resign. The French Government intimates that England is assuming too much in Egypt, and a diplomatic discussion is the result. A French paper declares that “Europe will not allow the khedive to become a blind vassal of England.”

—There is considerable excitement in Gilroy, Cal., over the discovery of fourteen cases alleged to be a serious form of cholera, one of which proved fatal. Dr. H. R. Chesboro attended all the sufferers, but refused to say definitely what the disease was, although he acknowledged its resemblance to cholera.

—A Washington dispatch of the 24th inst. says: “The House Committee on the World's Columbian Exposition wrestled for two hours this morning with the Sunday-opening proposition, and when it adjourned for a week neither the Sunday openers nor the Sunday closers had secured a decided advantage.”

—A druggist of this city has been acquitted by the police court of selling liquors without a license. The verdict virtually permits druggists to dispense liquors according to their own discretion. Another feature is that the closing of saloons on election day does not affect the liquor department of the druggists' business.

—The captain of the steamer Alsatia, which arrived in New York last week, reports having passed the Norwegian bark Star of India, dismantled, with no signs of life on board. She had evidently passed through a hurricane, and must have been wrecked early in December. She had a crew of thirty-seven men, and all are supposed to have been lost.

—A Parkersburg, West Virginia, dispatch of the 28th inst. says: “The bodies of John Michaels, wife, and three little children were discovered frozen to death last night in a hovel in Putnam County, near the Lincoln County line. The fourth child, an infant, heavily wrapped, was found to be alive. The family lived a gypsy life, and have been in the habit of going South every winter. They failed to get away in time this year.”

—A few weeks ago we mentioned the fact that several squatters on land claimed by the commune at Caltavutaro, Sicily, had been killed while resisting the soldiers who were sent to displace them. Later advices state that the affair was a military massacre, as the soldiers, after charging the crowd with bayonets, were ordered by the military authorities not to stop firing until their supply of cartridges was exhausted. As a result twelve civilians were killed, and fifteen seriously wounded, while many sustained slight injuries. Several children were victims of this indiscriminate slaughter, one of whom was wounded several times by bayonet thrusts.

—The queen and ministry of the Hawaiian Islands have been deposed, and a provisional government substituted pending an appeal to the United States for annexation. The complaint of the revolutionists is that the queen has for some time endeavored to bring about such a change in the Constitution as would greatly concentrate the powers of government in her own hands, to the detriment of the property interests, and especially hostile to the interests of the white population. The culmination of opposition, however, came when she signed a bill authorizing the establishment of a lottery scheme, on condition of the payment of $50,000 a year. A deputation representing the new government arrived in San Francisco last week, en route to Washington, to present the matter of annexation.