SECULAR | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 11, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 44.

SECULAR.

—Late news from South America is to the effect that Ecuador is preparing for war with Peru.

—The Thornton Worsted Mill in Johnstown, R. I., was burned on the night of the 2d inst. Loss, $225,000.

—The Irish Home Rule Bill has finally passed the House of Commons, and now goes to the hostile House of Lords.

—The strike of longshoremen in New York City is at an end. They have given up the struggle without gaining anything.

—The Nicaragua Canal Company has come to a point where it cannot meet its obligations, and a receiver has been appointed.

—The Carnegie Steel Works at Homestead, Pa., have resumed work in all departments, giving employment to 2,000 idle men.

—A fire in Marseilles, France, on the 30th ult., destroyed property to the value of 2,000,000 francs, and left 200 people homeless.

—The Wells-Fargo Express Co. has made a general cut of ten to twenty per cent. in wages of employes, besides largely curtailing the force.

—Of the score of banks closed during the recent panic in Denver, Colo., all but three have resumed, and it is expected that these will resume in a few weeks.

—The World's Fair is drawing to a close, and the time has come for the usual charges of bribery, fraud, etc., in connection with the matter of awarding prizes.

—A cloudburst in the vicinity of Guyton, Ga., occurred on the 2d inst., and people outdoors had to flee for their lives. The water in the streets of Guyton was four feet deep.

—The last steamer from the Orient brings tidings of two great fires in Japan,—one at Hachioji, which destroyed 1,000 houses, and one at Niigata, in which 400 houses were burned.

—A Panama dispatch says the town of Barranquilla, Colombia, has been declared in a state of siege, and it is thought this action on the part of the government will hasten a revolution.

—The Javanese village, said to be one of the most attractive shows at the World's Fair, has been compelled to close, owing to inability to meet the requirement of 25 per cent. of the receipts.

—The Government of South Australia is said to be strictly enforcing the provisions of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and a bill is pending which provides for applying the law to all colored Asiatics.

—Near Chester, Mass., on the 31st ult., an express train broke through a bridge and fifteen persons were killed, while several others were seriously injured, several of whom are expected to die.

—The Oliver Iron and Steel Company, of Pittsburg, employing 6,000 men, has decided to run as a nonunion concern. The action of the company has created great excitement among union men.

—The San Francisco Examiner says that 2,000 men and women in that city are known to the police as victims of the cocaine habit, and there are many others who keep their weakness to themselves.

—The Southern Pacific Railroad Company is curtailing expenses in every possible way, and has taken off a half dozen or more local trains running from San Francisco to various points in the interior.

—Last week a large number of workingmen notified the Chinese of Redlands, in Southern California, to leave the town. At last accounts the militia and a number of citizens were in readiness to defend the Chinese residents.

—The Central American State of Costa Rica has established quarantines as follows: One against New York on account of cholera, one against Honduras and Nicaragua on account of smallpox, and a third against Cocas del Toro on account of yellow fever.

—Floods are said to be causing great damage in the province of Bahar, in Bengal. Hundreds of square miles, including the towns of Mosaffar, Pur Darbhang, and Paddy are submerged. The rice crops are ruined and thousands of people are homeless. Other parts of Eastern Bengal are also suffering from the floods. Famine is feared.

—Late dispatches from Bangkok, Siam, state that the special envoy of France endeavored to extort from the Siamese Government an agreement quite different from the ultimatum which formed the basis of the recent peace settlement. The government stolidly refused, and the French representative receded from his extraordinary demands.

—Late advices via London state that on the 28th ult. a hurricane in the Azores Islands did considerable damage. Three ships were destroyed, and two others are since missing. At Fayal thirteen houses were wrecked, and on the island of Terceira twenty-seven houses were swept away and five persons killed. Most of the crops are said to be ruined.

—At the German Army maneuvers, which began at Metz on the 3d inst., the emperor was accompanied by the crown prince of Italy. This is deemed a circumstance of great significance in France, on whose border the fortress of Metz is situated. A counter occurrence of equal significance is the appearance of a Russian fleet at the French port of Toulon, and a great ovation to its officers by the French authorities.

—Judge Ross, of the U. S. Court in Los Angeles, Cal., has decided that Chinese who are in this country in violation of the Exclusion Act may be proceeded against by warrant on the complaint of any citizen. The court has nothing to do with the question of Congressional appropriations for the expense of sending the culprits away. The executive officers must see to that. On the strength of this decision there will be numerous complaints against Chinese in this State.

—Dr. T. Thatcher Graves, who was tried two years ago and convicted of the murder of a Mrs. Barnaby, a wealthy woman of Providence, R. I., then visiting at Denver, Colo., and was soon to have a second trial, has cut the matter short by committing suicide. The case has been one of unusual notoriety, as Dr. Graves at the time of the murder resided in Providence, and it was charged that he sent the poison to Mrs. Barnaby at Denver in a bottle of extra whisky. He had been her physician and confidential adviser for several years.

—The Venezuelan Government has recently discovered a plot on the part of adherents of the lately overthrown dictator, De Rojas, to inaugurate a revolution against the government of President Crespo.

—Cholera is spreading throughout Europe, even getting a hold in England, Grimsby having become so affected that the traffic between it and other British ports has been prohibited. Our own country has also been invaded, several deaths having occurred in Jersey City, N. J. Vigorous measures are being taken to arrest the progress of the scourge.

—The Shanghai Mercury's Hankow correspondent is authority for the statement that an anti-foreign riot took place at Yen Kia-wen, in Meinyang, July 25. Two native converts were killed and the French priest of the district was barbarously beaten. The chapel was burned, and the mission property destroyed, the inmates being obliged to fly for their lives.

—An anti-Chinese riot occurred at Selma, Fresno County, Cal., on the night of the 2d inst. The Chinese had previously been ordered to leave the town, but had not obeyed the order. About forty men employed on a neighboring vineyard attacked the Chinese quarters, broke down the doors of the houses, robbed them of considerable money, and started them all off toward Fresno under a guard. Officers and citizens came to the rescue, arrested eleven of the rioters, and returned the Chinamen to their looted houses.

—Over 60,000 of the 100,000 coal miners of South Wales, who were on a strike for 20 per cent. advance in wages, have returned to work, breaking the strike there and greatly discouraging the remaining 300,000 strikers in England. Reports from the strike districts indicate great distress among the families of the strikers. The miners of East Lothian and Midlothian have resolved to strike unless wages are advanced 20 per cent. In Chesterfield, on the 31st ult., 1,000 strikers gathered at the gates of the Balsaver collieries, and, the police being unable to cope with them, they invaded the works and did much damage, and then dispersed before reinforcements for the police arrived.

—The worst cyclone yet reported struck the South Atlantic Coast States on the 29th inst. Its path was forty to fifty miles wide along the eastern coast of Florida, and at Mayport, Jacksonville, and St. Augustine great damage was done to shipping and other property. In the vicinity of Savannah, Ga., the loss by storm and tidal wave is said to be forty to fifty lives and $10,000,000 in property. On the Sea Islands, along the coast of North and South Carolina, 500 persons are reported to have been drowned by tidal wave. In the city of Charleston the water was from two to six feet deep, the streets were filled with debris, and many houses were unroofed and otherwise damaged. In Port Royal and immediate vicinity over 100 lives were lost, mostly negroes, and hardly a house escaped more or less damage. Twenty persons were drowned on Paris Island. In Beaufort every house suffered damage. The damage to shipping all along the coast is beyond computation at present, and the loss of life among sailors as yet unknown. The damage to cotton and rice crops, it is thought, will reach $3,000,000. The storm continued northward, doing considerable damage at various points in Virginia, also at Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and even in New York.