p. 527 | SECULAR | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 26, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 33.

SECULAR.

—President Cleveland is to act as arbitrator in a territorial dispute between Brazil and Argentine.

—In the Senate of Paraguay there is said to be a determined opposition to the president’s proposal to nominate his successor.

—The upsetting of a coal oil lamp caused a fire in the Chinese department of Salinas, Cal., on the 13th inst., which destroyed about forty houses.

—An organization of women has been formed in Philadelphia to secure the cleaning up of the city in anticipation of a possible outbreak of cholera.

—Late advices from Japan report a destructive earthquake and eruption in the interior, in which many lives were lost and much property destroyed.

—A repetition of earthquakes is reported from various parts of Greece. Serious damage has been reported at Thebes, in Bœtia, where the houses are in ruins and the inhabitants are camping out in tents.

—A certain class of people have a weakness for denominating themselves and their adherents "the best citizens of the country," but they have no authority for the claim beyond their own assertions.

—By the carelessness of a watchman, some dynamite was exploded in West Hoboken, N. J., on the 15th inst. Three houses were wrecked, and several stores and dwellings damaged. Six persons were injured, one fatally.

—The Society for the Suppression of Vice in San Francisco has begun a vigorous war on the sale of indecent and suggestive books, periodicals, and photographs, of which there is an ever-increasing abundance in the market.

—A disastrous rain and wind storm passed over the southern part of Georgia on the 15th inst. It is said at Valdosta and Thomasville many houses were blown down, and the melon and pear crops were badly damaged.

—The refusal of a barber in Cambridge, Mass., to serve a student in the University because of his color, has been speedily followed by an Act of the Massachusetts Legislature making it a punishable offense to draw such distinctions.

—A London dispatch of the 18th inst. says: "Cholera reports from the south of France are distinctly bad. During the last week the disease spread more than during the eight weeks since it first found lodgment in those squalid towns."

—The anti-cigarette law passed by the last Legislature of Washington is to be tested in the United States Supreme Court. It is claimed that the small bundle of cigarettes is an "original package," and its sale cannot be abridged by a State law.

—According to reports received from Berlin it appears that the British East Africa Company has evacuated Uganda, and that Sir Gerald Porter, the special commissioner, has raised the British flag and proclaimed a protectorate over the region.

—In his lectures at Stanford University, California, ex-President Harrison proposes to outline an international code of law to govern the leading nations of the world, with the purpose of rendering resorts to arms to settle international differences unnecessary.

—The United States is not the only country with a "Chinese Question." The East Indian possessions of all European powers are overrun by the citizens of the Celestial Empire, and the natives of Java, one of the most important Dutch colonies, are demonstrating against them.

—The Prohibitionist of San Jose, this State, says that in that city last week a saloon keeper was on trial for assaulting a Salvation Army captain, and that nearly an entire venire of twenty-five reliable citizens were excused from duty because they were opposed to the use of liquor.

—The last steamer from China to San Francisco brings news that the Chinese Government’s first act of retaliation against the United States over the Geary act is the prohibition of the use and sale of American kerosene, or coal oil. The official declares that if the act is carried out other and much more severe retaliatory measures will follow.

—Governor West, of Utah, recently went on a trip to the East, leaving Secretary Richards as acting governor. Mr. Richards is a Mormon, the son of an apostle, and is the first Mormon to occupy the gubernatorial chair since Brigham Young was deposed in 1857 by President Buchanan.

—The latest victims reported in the torrent of bank failures now sweeping the country are the First National, of Arkansas City, Kansas; the Farmers and Merchants’ State Bank, of Fairmount, Indiana; S. Bonham, of Fairfield, Illinois, and the Exchange Banking Company, of Weston, Ohio.

—France’s aristocratic prisoners, five in number, under sentence for complicity in the Panama Canal swindles, have all been liberated by the highest court of the nation, on the ground that the statute of limitations covered the charges, the indictments not being found until after the lapse of three years.

—The Illinois Legislature has passed a kindergarten bill, which provides for the establishment and maintenance of kindergartens in common with the common schools wherever ordered by the Board of Education. Children between the ages of four and seven years are to be admitted to the kindergarten, just as other children are admitted to the common schools.

—A large meeting in favor of universal suffrage was held in Weissenberge, Austria, on the 18th inst. The police attempted to disperse the assemblage, when an officer was killed and five policemen critically injured, and twenty-six workingmen were wounded. Another meeting held in Prague led to a similar encounter, when thirteen policemen and fourteen workingmen were wounded, one fatally.

—The New York Sun says that we cannot compel or even request of Russia to grant the rights of human beings to its Jewish subjects; but if we can bully little Chile into granting extraordinary privileges of asylum to local political offenders not American citizens, then certainly we ought to be able to enforce treaty rights for citizens of the United States who cannot travel in Russia because they are Jews.

—German colonists in Russia are heartily tired of the continual persecution. They have for some time past negotiating with the Roumanian Government, which is only too glad to receive them. This government has signed a treaty with the representatives of the German Russians, which secures to them freedom of language, creed, and customs. In consequence of this they are now emigrating en masse into Roumania.

—The trial of Armenians accused of or concerned in the rioting at Cesarea and Marsovan last spring has just been concluded at Angora. Seventeen of the prisoners, including Professor Thoumaian and Professor Kayayan, were condemned to death; six, including the Protestant pastor at Gimeric, were sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment; eighteen were sentenced to imprisonment for terms ranging from seven to ten years, and fifteen were acquitted.

—Reports are received of disastrous forest fires in Minnesota and Wisconsin. In the former the mining towns of Virginia, Biwabik, and Mountain Iron, are said to be almost entirely destroyed, the property loss being at least $1,000,000. Fires are said to be raging all through Northern Wisconsin, and thousands of people were taken to Ashland on the 18th inst., many of whom were badly injured. The town of Iron River, 2,000 population, which was entirely destroyed one year ago, is again in ashes.

—An armed guard of Wells, Fargo’s Express was shot and killed while riding on a stage with the driver between Ione and Jackson, this State, on the 15th inst. The assassin was concealed by the roadside. The team of six horses became frightened and ran, when two of the horses were wounded by subsequent shots, but no attempt was made to rob the stage. It was supposed that the culprit was an ex-convict bent on revenge, as Tovey, the murdered man, was an old guard and had incurred the enmity of several criminals by causing their conviction.

—O. H. Simons, United States Consul at Hongkong, China, has informed the State Department that he believes, as a result of investigations made, that from 500 to 1,000 fraudulent notarial certificates have been distributed to intending Chinese immigrants each month for the past three or four months. Consul Simons refused to certify two certificates, as the persons presenting them, while ostensibly having been in the United States, as their certificates showed, could not give any account of the country, and, in fact, declared that “sedan chairs were the only means of traveling in America.”

THE TALENTS. By M. C. Wilcox. A brief essay on "The Parable of the Talents," showing that the talents represent the various gifts of the Spirit which God bestows as he will upon those who are consecrated to him, with the duties and blessed privileges involved therein. Bible Students’ Library, No. 77; 16 pp., price 2 cents.

NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION. Political and scriptural reasons why the popular claim that this is "a Christian nation" is utterly unfounded and impossible. 8 pp.; $1.00 per hundred. Pacific Press Pub. Co., Oakland, Cal.