p. 543 | SECULAR by Editor

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

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 34.

SECULAR.

By Editor

—At Whatcom, Washington, the First National Bank, the oldest bank in the city, closed its doors on the 22d inst.

—The new German Reichstag will be convened July 4, when the government's strength will again be tested in the Army Bill contest.

—At Queretaro, Mexico, last week, thieves broke into the great cathedral and stole sacred vessels and golden ornaments valued at $10,000.

—Of 121 candidates for West Point cadetships who reported for examination last week, only fifty-five passed both the mental and physical tests.

—From the 13th to the 20th of this month 830 deaths from cholera were reported at Mecca. The malady is said to be rapidly decreasing in Russia.

—The Northern Pacific Railroad Company has reduced first-class passenger fares to $33.60 from Chicago to Portland, Oregon, and $25 from St. Paul to Portland.

—The viceroy of China is reported to have said that a new treaty with the United States will be necessary in view of the present condition of the immigration question.

—Michigan has now a law giving to women who are able to read the English language a right to vote for all school, village, or city officers, and on any question pertaining to such regulations.

—Typhoid fever, which has developed to a considerable extent in this city, has been traced in several cases to the dairies patronized by the victims. Impure milk is a prolific source of typhoid.

—The city of Berne, Switzerland, is reported to be in a state of "petty siege" in order that recent Socialists and Anarchist disturbances may not be repeated. All parades and public meetings are forbidden.

—San Jose, this State, has now an ordinance prohibiting the holding of religious meetings of any sort within certain bounds, including the central part of the city. The ordinance is especially aimed at the Salvation Army.

—Senator Stanford, who was also an ex-governor of California, and one of the original projectors and one-fourth owner of the Southern and Central Pacific Railroad systems, died at his home at Palo Alto, this State, at midnight of the 20th inst.

—A destructive cyclone passed south of St. Joseph, Missouri, on the 21st inst. Several houses were destroyed and crops greatly damaged. Fearful storms are also reported in Polk, Nodaway, and Atchison Counties of that State, on the same day.

—Rev. Rodney Edwards, until recently superintendent of the Crocker Home for Old People in San Francisco, has been indicted for embezzling money belonging to a lady member of the Trinity Church, of which he was formerly assistant pastor.

—There were extraordinary runs on the banks of Los Angeles and San Diego, Cal., last week, and six were temporarily closed—four at the former and two at the latter city. The Bank of Anaheim was also closed. It is claimed, however, that all the concerns are solvent.

—The entire board of trustees of the Whittier Reform School, this State, recently resigned and the following gentlemen were appointed instead: Dr. W. G. Cochran, Dr. Francis L. Haynes, and Andrew Mullen. Internal trouble is said to have been the cause of the change.

—The secret of the smuggling of Chinese laborers and opium into the United States from Victoria is out at last. It has been carried on with the connivance of customs officials at Puget Sound ports. One has been dismissed, and others, together with prominent citizens, are said to be implicated.

—The Southern Pacific Company has offered to pay one-tenth of the entire expense of the proposed midwinter display in San Francisco of the commercial part of the Chicago Fair. In addition to this, the company will run low-rate excursion trains during the continuance of the Exposition.

—A leading South Carolina paper says that those States, districts, and counties in the South where there has been the most lynchings, are the ones where the most serious crimes are most frequently committed. And it gives this fact as a good reason why we may discredit the efficacy of lynching as a prevention of crime.

—Now that Lizzie Borden, of Fall River, Mass., has been acquitted of the charge of killing her father and stepmother, the tide of popular sentiment has been turned in her favor. A few months ago she had but few friends, now she is overwhelmed with congratulations, and even offers of marriage. Yet no one knows any more about her guilt or innocence than they did before her acquittal. So much for the depth and stability of popular opinion. Generally speaking when one is down professed friends desert him; when he is up, all do him homage.

—The Secretary of the British Embassy at Constantinople has presented to the Porte a formal request for a detailed report of the proceedings and the evidence given at the trial at Angora of the Armenians charged with seditious rioting, which resulted in the sentencing to death of seventeen of the accused persons.

—A cyclone swept a portion of the country adjacent to Williamstown, Kansas, on the 22d inst. Its path was half a mile wide and six miles long. In its wake fifteen dead bodies were found, and nearly everyone was injured, three fatally. Thirty houses were blown down, including the famous stone house of "Old John Brown."

—On the 21st inst., at Borisoglebak, Russia, while a large church was packed with pilgrim worshippers, a false alarm of fire, given it is supposed by thieves, caused a panic. In the rush 136 people were trampled to death. Besides this, several other persons were killed and twenty fatally injured by jumping from windows thirty feet from the ground.

—An epidemic of suicide has broken out in Buda-Pesth and other Hungarian towns. Seven cases of suicide were reported at Buda-Pesth in one day. Cases of insanity are increasing and the lunatic asylums are full. This is attributed to the drinking of the poisonous concoctions substituted for wine, which has become scarce through the ravages of the phylloxera.

—The general uneasiness in financial matters struck San Francisco last week, and the Pacific Bank, the oldest chartered bank in the State, was forced to close its doors, also the People's Home Savings Bank, a younger house allied to the Pacific Bank. The telegraph brings daily announcements of bank failures all over the country. On the 23d inst. seven national banks and as many State banks closed their doors.

—The leaders of the striking coal miners about Pittsburg, Kansas, have determined to shut down all the mines in that State, Missouri, Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Colorado. A conference between them and a committee of employers failed to reach any agreement. So far there are no hostile demonstrations, but the strikers fear the introduction of colored miners from the South, which if carried out will probably cause trouble.

—On the 23d inst. the British battleship Victoria, flagship of the Mediterranean squadron, was run into by the Camperdown, of the same squadron, and sunk. Over four hundred men went down with the vessel, among them Admiral Tryon, commander of the fleet, and twenty-one other officers. There were 718 men, all told, on board. How frail are the greatest works of man! The Victoria was a twin-screw ship of 10,470 tons and 10,000 horse power, carrying fifteen guns, yet but a single crash of a sister ship sent her to the bottom of the sea.

—A large dynamite bomb was exploded near the residence of the Spanish ex-Premier Castillo, in Madrid, on the 21st inst., and many houses in the neighborhood were badly damaged. One of the men who placed the bomb was blown to pieces, and another was severely wounded, and was caught crawling away from the scene. The shock caused the explosion of other missiles which the men were carrying on their persons. Five other Anarchists in Madrid and seventeen in Barcelona have been arrested as accomplices in the conspiracy to destroy property. The explosion caused a panic in a circus, and two men were trampled to death.