SECULAR | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 3, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 22.

SECULAR.

—The city of Rome is kept well stirred up by bomb throwers. Anarchists are accredited with the work.

—The strike of railroad switchmen at Springfield, Ohio, reported last week, has been declared ended, unconditionally.

—The Chinese Government has sent 15,000 repeating rifles to the troops on the western frontier, in the vicinity of Pamirs.

—A great storm of snow, sleet, and rain broke over the two Dakotas and Minnesota on the 23d inst., lasting about eighteen hours.

—The attorney general of New Jersey has declared the appropriation of public funds for the support of Catholic schools to be unconstitutional.

—Extensive prairie fires were reported near Guthrie, Oklahoma, last week, and several farms were swept clean of everything that could be burned.

—A Chicago dispatch says, with reference to the construction work at the World's Fair grounds, that "night and Sunday work has commenced in earnest."

—Influenza, with heavy mortality, is reported in Southern Russia. Heavy floods and extensive damage to property are also said to be prevalent throughout the same region.

—It is reported that an Ulster (Ireland) firm ordered 100,000 Martini rifles of an English manufactory, but the government would not allow the order to be executed.

—Even the astronomers have not found out all about the creation. A professor at Keil, Germany, reports the discovery of another planet, said to be the fifteenth this year.

—A fire occurred in a fashionable boarding house in Cleveland, Ohio, on the 23d inst., which resulted in the death of four women and one child, besides a considerable property damage.

—Indianapolis, Vincennes, Brazil, Alexandria, Evansville, McCordsville, Loogootee, and some other localities in Indiana, all report serious damage to property by a cyclonic storm on the 23d inst.

—Rival factions of a negro church near Nacogdoches, Texas, went out on Sunday, the 19th inst., and had a pitched battle with knives, pistols, clubs, and stones. Several members were severely wounded.

—The five hundred Chinese who were landed two weeks ago at Victoria, B. C., are causing the health authorities in the province of Quebec a great deal of anxiety. It is reported that smallpox has broken out among them.

—There is great alarm felt among the people living in the Tonola district, of the State of Chiapas, Mexico, over the eruption of the San Martin volcano, which has been belching forth flame, lava, and ashes for over two weeks.

—At St. Joseph, Missouri, last week, five dead bodies (four men and one woman), nailed up in a dry goods box, were found floating in the river. The victims had evidently been murdered, but were decomposed past recognition.

—On the 22d inst. 175 natives of the island of Java were landed at San Francisco, en route to Chicago. These curious people in their native dress are to be a part of the great Exposition. Twenty of them are women, and twelve are dancing girls.

—A colored man, convicted of vagrancy, was sold at auction in Mexico, Missouri, on the 21st inst., for $19. There was a crowd of 2,000 people gathered in front of the court house to witness the sale, most of whom are opposed to the selling of vagrants.

—It is reported that an organized band of Americans is engaged in smuggling Chinese into the United States through Mexico. A party of forty, hailing from Cuba and the Isthmus, passed through Monterey toward the Rio Grande on the 25th inst.

—The New Hebrides Islands and New Caledonia recently experienced a three days' hurricane with an enormous rainfall. It is said that half of New Caledonia was flooded, nearly all the settlers were financially ruined, and many lives were lost among the natives.

—Colonel Elliott F. Shepard, proprietor of the New York Mail and Express, and noted for his religious eccentricity, died suddenly on the 25th inst., while in the hands of surgeons, who had administered ether for the purpose of performing some delicate surgical operation. Colonel Shepard was president of the American Sabbath Union.

—A cyclone in Mississippi on the 23d inst. is reported to have destroyed the towns of Cleveland and Tunica. On the same day the towns of Tupelo, Mississippi, and Kelly, Tennessee, were destroyed by a storm. Nashville, Tennessee, Bowling Green, Murray, Stanford, and Rollings, Kentucky, were also damaged extensively. Deaths are reported in Mississippi and Tennessee.

—Heavy rainstorms are reported in Kansas and Missouri, but the crops are said to be greatly benefited. The storm, according to press dispatches, extended to Oklahoma, and in Oklahoma City a number of buildings were blown down and others burned by lightning.

—Eleven well-known farmers are under indictment for murder in Crawford County, Indiana. The murder was committed six years ago, when the "Whitecaps" terrorized that region. One of the members has confessed and given information concerning the others.

—King Humbert, of Italy, narrowly escaped being hit by a stone that was thrown at him as he passed along a street of the capital city, on the 25th inst. The assailant was immediately arrested, and claimed that he wanted to insult the king because he declined to become reconciled to the pope. It is said that the culprit is a religious fanatic, who had before served a term of imprisonment for murder.

—The rains and melting mountain snows have caused disastrous floods in the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys of this State. Much farm property has been destroyed, and for a day or more most of the going about in the city of Stockton was done in boats. All the basements have to be pumped out. Advices from San Diego, in the extreme South, also tell of much damage by sudden overflows of streams.

—A Polish boy, named Antone Wood, only 11 years old, was convicted of murder in the second degree by a Denver, Colo., jury on the 24th inst. He had murdered a hunter to secure his watch and gun. His parents were ignorant people, and the boy had been brought up in a way to make him vicious. He is said to have been used to eating five meals a day, with three or four eggs and as many cups of coffee at each meal. The verdict was reduced to second degree on account of the boy's youth. He admitted the murder, and seemed to have no regrets for the deed, only for the consequences to himself.

—A sailor, named Louis A. Paradyce, arrived in San Francisco last week on the regular mail steamer from China. He tells a harrowing tale of himself and one companion being left ashore on Saghalian Island in Russian waters by a whaling vessel, and subsequently being arrested as spies by Russian police. They were sent to Siberia, where they remained several months, without even a trial, until rescued through the demands of the officers of the United States warship Marion. The story, as published in the San Francisco Examiner of the 24th inst., tells of almost incredible deeds of cruelty practiced upon Siberian prisoners, many of whom are women and girls innocent of any crime. Both men and women are sometimes whipped to death on the slightest pretext, and the suffering of nearly all is indescribable.