SECULAR | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 25, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 46.

SECULAR.

—The attendance at the World's Fair last Sunday was 53,504.

—Fire destroyed twenty-six buildings in Spencer, Mass., on the 13th inst., causing a loss of over $300,000.

—Thirteen smuggled Chinese were captured at Oyster Bay, twenty miles from Olympia, Wash., on the 17th inst.

—A convent at Lockport, La., was demolished by a cyclone recently, when three sisters, a young lady pupil, and a servant were killed.

—As was expected, the British House of Lords, by a large majority, defeated the Irish Home Rule Bill recently passed by the Commons.

—The city treasurer of Seattle, Wash., has gone to British Columbia, and an examination of his accounts shows a shortage of $125,000.

—Canada has enacted a new law against lotteries, imposing heavy fines and imprisonment, which "laws apply to all games of chance except church fairs."

—Typhoid fever is reported to be epidemic at the Good Templars' Orphans' Home, near Vallejo, Cal. There are thirty little patients on the sick list, and trained nurses are needed.

—Of the 9,000 pilgrims who went to Mecca on May 4, 500 perished of cholera and other diseases. Of a body of 700 Turkish troops who were detailed to bury the dead, 500 also died.

—A Constantinople dispatch says that cholera has broken out there in the central prison and in the French and municipal hospitals at Pera. Several cases are reported in the Argentine Republic.

—Governor Northen, of Georgia, has issued an appeal to the people of the State to furnish money and provisions for the destitute and suffering of Brunswick, where the yellow fever continues its hold.

—Five negroes, one a woman, suspected of burning a mill, were shot to death in the jail at Carrollton, Miss., on the night of the 14th inst., by a mob of masked men who forced their way into the prison.

—The great strike of coal miners in England has brought on a state of suffering, which, under existing circumstances, must continue to increase. The strike fund is exhausted, and thousands are being fed by charity.

—A Rome dispatch says that on the 12th inst. a mob of Italians attacked the Hungarian peasants at Delayses and tried to burn the town hall. The riot was quelled by troops after twenty-five persons had been killed.

—Late official advices from Tien-Tsin report disastrous floods in North China. Large tracts of country are laid waste, crops are destroyed, and houses swept away. As famine already exists, great suffering must result.

—While the country at large was about to become agitated over the naming of the new baby girl which lately graced the Presidential family, Mr. Cleveland cut the matter short by naming her Esther, ignoring all suggestions.

—A London dispatch says that another war with South African natives seems inevitable. The powerful Matabele tribe has become so aggressive that it will be necessary to subdue them, and the task is not deemed an easy one.

—It is seldom that a judge is actually prosecuted on a criminal charge, but the probate judge at Prescott, A. T., has been held to answer before the grand jury on three charges,—forgery, embezzlement, and presenting a fraudulent warrant for payment.

—There is a passenger rate war between the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe companies, which, if not patched up, will result in material reductions of fare from California to the East. These little spats always show what the railroad companies can do when they want to.

—A Pittsburg, Pa., dispatch says a pension attorney, whose name is withheld, has been writing letters to persons whose pensions have been suspended, advising them to assassinate the President and the Secretary of the Interior. Copies of the letters have been forwarded to Washington.

—A band of robbers is supposed to be hidden in the brush which grows very thickly along the Mormon Channel in the vicinity of Stockton, this State. Several persons have been robbed of late within a few miles of the city—one case being that of a lady teacher on her way to a district schoolhouse.

—The Austrian authorities have suspended the constitutional provisions guaranteeing trial by jury, the freedom of the press, and the right to hold public meetings within the city of Prague and the districts of Weinberge, Karolinenthal, and Smichow, owing to the agitation in favor of home rule for Bohemia.

—The jail in Fresno, Cal., has now more than 100 tramps and thugs in it. It has been discovered that a large number of thugs are in Fresno waiting to rob grape pickers who come into the city with their wages. Several of these robberies have already occurred, and the police are making a general round-up of all suspicious persons, and the jail is overrunning.

—The extremely hot weather in the Southwest on the 13th inst. was hard on the people who are racing and striving for land entries in the Cherokee Strip. At Arkansas City, Kan., over fifty were overcome by the heat, six of whom died. At Orlando thirty-two were sunstruck and two died. At Hennessey eighteen were stricken down, one case proving fatal.

—A sensation was created at the Philadelphia mint last week by the discovery that thirty bars of gold bullion, worth $134,000, were missing. An old and trusted employe has confessed to the theft. He had been drawing on a vault containing $16,000,000 worth of bullion, which has not been investigated since 1887. The greater part of the missing treasure has been recovered.

—The province of Toledo, Spain, was swept by violent storms last week, causing extensive floods and great destruction of property. At Villa Canas the peasants sought refuge in caves on the hillside for the night, when a sudden rise of the water deluged the caves, drowning many of the occupants. Eighty corpses had been recovered. In another village over fifty people were drowned.

—The Cherokee Strip was opened to the thousands of would-be settlers on the 16th inst., and during the day it is said that 200,000 people entered the new territory, and the scramble for homes was terrific. Many were injured and several killed in the mad rush. Four new town sites have 5,000 inhabitants each, while several others have from 1,000 to 3,000. The lack of water and high prices of provisions threaten an era of suffering among the eager land seekers.

—Very extensive and destructive forest and prairie fires are said to be raging in Northern Wisconsin. Whole settlements and some small villages have been utterly destroyed, and several towns and cities are reported to be in imminent danger. In some places the people saved their lives by dropping into wells and caves, or covering themselves with wet blankets. Nearly the whole northern part of the State at latest accounts was covered with a dense cloud of smoke. The financial loss will be enormous.

—Concerning the naval rebellion in Brazil, U. S. Minister Thompson telegraphs to Washington, under date of the 14th inst., as follows: "At 11 o'clock this morning the revolutionary forces bombarded the forts commanding the entrance of the harbor and also the arsenal on a wharf in the center of the city. A few shells were fired into the city. A woman was killed in her residence. Commercial telegrams have been again forbidden. The Charleston [U. S. war ship] has not yet arrived." A later dispatch says that the revolutionists had taken several ports around the harbor, and that the president had left Rio Janeiro.

—On the night of the 11th inst. a daring train robbery was committed by twenty masked men near Kendallville, Ind., on the Lake Shore Railroad. The train was signaled by a false light, and when brought to a stand the engineer's inquiry as to what was the matter was answered by a rifle shot which seriously wounded him. The fireman was kept under cover of a revolver, while the express car was blown open with dynamite and a large sum of money taken. One of the noted Dalton brothers was supposed to have been the leader of the gang, as he was seen in Chicago the day previous, and cannot be found since. The robbers all escaped.

—On the 13th inst. ten Chinamen were arrested at Riverside under the Exclusion Act. Other arrests were made at San Bernardino, and five were arrested at Fresno. These arrests are stirring up the Chinese population more than all the riotous attacks upon them. But the latest phase of the question is that the U. S. Marshal is in a quandary in regard to prisoners under sentence of deportation. Judge McKenna will not admit them to bail, and the Attorney General has instructed the Marshal not to deport them until the Supreme Court has passed upon certain points in the Exclusion Act. It is now understood that the administration is determined to annul the Act, and a bill is before Congress having that end in view.